Compensating for ideal design
Posted: July 3rd, 2009 | 2 Comments »Fascinating development around electric cars, devices that are so silent they become dangerous for pedestrians used to the noise of our good old explosion engines. Why not also add a fume spitting vapor at the back of the car?
Japan’s near-silent hybrid cars have been called dangerous by the vision-impaired and some users, prompting a government review on whether to add a noise-making device [...]
“Blind people depend on sounds when they walk, but there are no engine sounds from hybrid vehicles when running at low speed” and on the electric motor, he said.
Hi Laurent,
… Which reminds me of the way ‘click’ sounds were added to digital cameras … first as a(n optional) feedback mechanism to enhance the user experience (i.e. knowing when a picture was taken), later an enforced requirement in some countries for cellphone cameras so that people could actually hear when you took a picture of them. Yes, upskirt cellphone pictures on Japanese subways had something to do with that ;-)
As for the cars, indeed some refer to them being silent as “It’s a bug, not a feature”.
Best,
Nik
What happens when our kids hear that shutter sound? Do they know what it refers to? Probably not… So what do they think?