Tech design flaws hit Mercedes, BMW, and Audi in J. D. Power’s 2006 study - German carmakers. Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi–widely respected as titans of engineering and pioneers in car tech–all suffered a considerable drop in the nameplate rankings, with BMW slipping from 3rd to 28th and Mercedes falling by a similar margin, from 6th to 26th. Audi skidded from 8th place last year to 19th in 2006.
So what was behind this sudden slump? It turns out that this year’s IQS factored in a whole new set of data on design flaws, which included the usability of each car’s cabin technology.

(Via CNET)

Somewhere between counting the firings of neurons and calculating profit and loss statements is a useful set of boundaries that define what to consider in a design process, and it’s not just making things easy to use. Usability does not equate to user experience. The specific boundaries vary with each product, audience and situation. I have found the following to be a decent working guideline: The user experience consists of all of the factors that influence the relationship between the end user and an organization, especially when a product mediates that relationship. The key part of this definition, for me, is the relationship of the organization to the product. To me, the user experience is incomplete without a consideration of the organization that created the experience. The end result is the intersection of an organization’s goals and that organization’s understanding of users’ goals, and it’s the designer and researcher’s role to mediate a compromise between these. This means, more simply, that you must look inward and understand why you’re making something at the same time you look outward to understand what people want from it.

From Mike Kuniavsky