Crash Auto-Call - Great in real life, not in testing...

Some of the higher-end cars out there have systems which automatically call emergency services if the car crashes. This is a wonderful, life-saving design; it gets medical attention to the scene as quickly as possible, without having to rely on passers-by to call. However, you've gotta make sure these smart cars don't outsmart you (right?) - especially if you're the one who's making and testing the cars. To that end, Engadget reports that engineers in Germany failed to disable this feature before crash-testing a bunch of cars - which caused emergency teams to flock to the facility, believing it to be a massive pileup! Yeah, it's a funny one - but as products become increasingly complex and automated, designers, users, and especially non-conventional users (like testers) need to keep on top of all the roles they play and functions they perform. Otherwise, they just might, you know, take over the planet...

2 comments:

Pete Kazanjy said...

It is a personal pet peeve of mine when products, especially cars, are "too smart for their own good" and proceed to do stupid things.

I think it's especially frustrating in cars, because their success as products is becoming more and more based on the software that runs them, and interfaces between the user and the vehicle, and it seems to me from my interactions that the people spec'ing and implementing just seem a little "too new" at this to get it right.

Case in point? My mom's Subaru Tribeca. It has weight sensors in the front seats. Why? One, so it can turn on/off the air bags contingent on "if weight >= some number, then "human=exists", thus airbag=fire."

Well, that's all well and good, but then someone decided to get cute, and say "if weight >= some number, then "human=exists." "If human= exists, and seatbeltlatched=NO, then fire "annoying seatbelt noise."

This would be fine, except when you put a heavy laptop bag, or some such other thing, on the front passenger seat.

You then have some choices. A. drive around town with the thing beeping at you. B. Put your laptop bag in the bag seat, which what a pain in the ass, or C. Put the seatbelt on over the laptop bag. I do C.

I'm sure that these product managers and engineers will get better at thinking through all the possible decision trees and use cases their products find themselves in going forward, but right now, phew, i'm constantly thinking "Thank god my car is looking at for me so much...otherwise, i might gets something done!"

Dave Gustafson said...

Very true, Pete, that seat-sensor/airbag/alarm thing is definitely a case of cars being "too smart for their own good" - and of the engineers and designers not thinking through all the real-life usage scenarios! Hopefully future designers can be persuaded to investigate those kinds of scenarios more thoroughly, rather than blindly following the intended-use cases...