If You Can Read This, Buy One
In a nod to the aging population, Ford will make the font thicker and bolder in the interiors of its Ford Edge and Ford Explorer with the 2012 model year. “The company has plans to expand (literally) this effort into other models in the coming years,” reports the Wall Street Journal.
“Today, aging consumers are of great interest to companies including Ford. For the first time, people age 65 and over will outnumber children under the age of 5. It’s a transformation that’s changing the world, along with all kinds of products in it,” Ford writes in a statement.
Therefore, the blue oval wants to make it “easier for people of all ages, particularly aging baby boomers, to read display fonts.”
Now, let’s see what they do to the fine print.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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Auto manufacturer's are adding throwaway technology that is for the most part useless/unusable to give the impression of greater content in the vehicle. Most of it is obsolete before the owner learns how to use it all. I don't think its a sign of old age that people are fed up with having to peck through software menus wherever they turn to accomplish what would otherwise be mundane tasks. My 92 year old mother gets around pretty well in her 2008 Cobalt, but the radio is absurd, not because its hard to see or complicated but that it makes the operation LESS intuitive, which is what I thought graphic interfaces were for.
This all goes back to what I said yesterday: That all of the "problems" with MyFordTouch aren't really problems at all but just the foibles of people who can't handle simple technology. Complaining about MyFordTouch is the equivalent of buying a stick shift, not knowing how to work a clutch, and then complaining bitterly that the manufacturer screwed you because the ïnterface"(the clutch) was too hard to use.
@PintoFan It may be simple technology, but if the execution sucks... then it sucks, regardless of the intelligence of the people trying to operate it. Case in point, I have a Creative Zen MP3 player that tries to mimic the Apple iPod Touch. It does so... horribly. It's a hastily designed touch technology overlayed on an interface not designed for touch interfaces. I have not tried MyFordTouch but I get the sense that Ford rushed it into service in order to stay ahead of the pack. They know they have a good cash cow in the form of Sync and they want to keep milking it.
More SmartGauge, less MyTouch.