Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Usability Cookie - Did Hamilton lose the F1 Championship because of bad user interaction?
There are rumors out there saying that Lewis Hamilton lose the F1 Championship, last weekend in Sao Paulo, because he pressed the "wrong" button (the Start button) that "restarted the system".
I prefer to believe that is just a Hamilton's perception, maybe he pressed the button while another error was taking place in the background...
I can't believe such a terrible user interaction design in a F1 car! Why would someone want to restart the system during a F1 race? In any case, it should be a very-very-very-difficult-to-press button, something you should press very hard during 30 seconds with both hands and your head, not a yellow one in the steering wheel.
What is sure, is that all the F1 fanatics are talking about this yellow button all around the globe. So, we should take this lesson: good interaction has no publicity, bad interaction does, and you should avoid it.
Apparently, the team is now denying this information and assigns the episode to an hydraulic fault. Anyway, do you believe are they going to admit such a design error? Who knows?
Labels: F1, Technology, Usability cookie
