In this thread, we tell Ford how to make the Home Screen perfect

[Mirak]

Max Defrost to turn on.

Click the Fan next to the heated steering wheel, then turn off with the dial.

That’s currently the best available shortcut. But it would be far better if a second tap on max defrost would just turn it off. Ford makes such bizarre decisions sometimes. This is right there with the car reverting to guest profile every time I remote start. It makes no damned sense.

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[Kamuelaflyer]

I’m guessing they didn’t want to alienate folks who like tapping the + and

Probably. I’m one of those. I find a triple tap faster than a single tap then using the dial and less likely to overshoot. YMMV

There’s room for two functions there if you just move the current button up or down a bit (like on the left side).

I’m of two minds about this. On the one hand I find that area already too crowded. I prefer minimalist — clean it up and leave empty space there. On the other hand, it looks lopsided and unbalanced, put another icon there. Maybe the Frunk release for job 1 cars.

 

[JohnFoxeSheets]

Yes, I get that, it Used to have an (X) so that when I put it back in (D), it knew I wasn't reversing anymore and even in delay mode, it allowed me to clear the reverse camera (X).


It no longer does this. So the one area where I have to hit R/D/R/D because of clearance. I have to wait then get the front cam, then (R), then, (D) then wait some more.

/aggravating to say the least...

I fully agree and deal with this issue regularly. The X to turn off the camera was definitely helpful. I "solved" the problem today by shifting into Park and then into Drive and then hit the camera button. Far from elegant, but at least it worked... Still, there should be a way to turn off (or reverse) the camera when no longer in Drive.

 

[AliRafiee]

I like most of the changes Ford has done, but would love to have one more thing-
During the cold weather I usually don’t use the heat, to save battery, and given how warm the seat and steering wheel are. However, the windows constantly fog up, and I need to put on the defroster, for like 20 seconds, and then turn it off to save battery- over and over again. Would be great if there was an on/of defroster button on the top of the screen, maybe next to the camera button?

How far is your drive each day?
Do you not have a charger at home?

 

[NewGuy]

Next, you've got a CarPlay icon in the top ribbon, but also a CarPlay tile in the #2 tile strip. Why both? And why do they operate differently? The CarPlay icon in the top ribbon takes you to what you were last using, whereas the CarPlay tile... doesn't. Weird. This needs to get sorted out.

You still have a CarPlay tile? I only have the button up top. My CarPlay tile disappeared in the 4.1.2 update. Hmpf. I’d love to get that tile back. I only have one item on my tile bar so it looks silly; and I think the tile is more functional.

 

[Addos]

I can't really agree with this statement more. If this thread accomplishes anything, this should be priority number one.

In my opinion, if an interface is ugly, it doesn't matter much how smooth the usability is. Customers, reviewers, etc.. will get stuck at this first impression. It's the first thing I noticed on the update and had a hard time to see past it to the cool stuff that they added.

I bought the Mach-e because it's a cool, unique car. The car icon embodied this: It was cool, memorable, modern. These new icons are dated, boring and enterprise-y.

Side Rant:

Ford really needs to become more of a software company in order to gain more traction with a growing tech savvy crowd. I think it did a good job with the Mach-e. It's cool, interesting and turns heads.

However, they need to keep pushing this forward.

It's kind of sad that we have to resort to complaints and bickering between users on a user-run forum and hope that the feedback is heard. Imagine if Ford opened up a more direct access to software developer feedback via it's own official forum, issue tracker, etc... Or the pipe dream: Open source this software / platform, and open it up to contributions. It could be just awesome!

If there are Ford engineers reading this: I feel for you, because I have a feeling you'd probably want to work for a company more like this as well and shed the closed down, enterprise feeling.

I've been saying this forever. Even the responses from others on here from some mysterious anonymous "Ford engineer" are frustrating, because who the hell even knows who these engineers are. None of them appear to go on record as employees of Ford with factual information about issues that customers are seeing. There needs to be a more direct way to get info from Ford and provide feedback on things that need to be improved. And it needs to be coming directly from someone with authority at Ford to provide information to customers, and not relayed through a game of telephone with some middle man intermediary who we have no way of validating the trustworthiness of.

Also, if this current UI went through some kind of focus group, they must have been blind as a bat. Who would have used this UI and said they actually like the way it looks in contrast to the way it was previously?

 

[Addos]

Isn't that basically what you have when in radio operation? Radios station/controls on top, preset radio stations in the middle, HVAC on bottom?

I personally find it frustrating that the knob can't be used to change the radio stations as well. Like WTF.

 

[Addos]

You’re right. For some odd reason, after you turn the max defrost on, tapping again (or pressing the physical button) switches it to Auto’s medium setting. And leaves the Rear window defrost on. That’s… kinda weird. But I think this could simply be fixed while keeping the button where it is. I’m gonna add this weird issue to the top post.

I swear, I really wonder how much dog fooding Ford does with their cars? How could anyone use these functions in the car and say, that works intuitively, and exactly the way it is supposed to.

 

[Addos]

I would like an e-heat button on the home screen also - i dont really know why they dont have that there. Also there should be an easier way to turn the whole climate system off from the home screen an well.

Id also like a trunk and frunk button on the top ribbon. It makes no sense hidden in settings.

Finally something is weird about the temperature numbers on either sides of the display. They just look like a bigger font than everything else.

I also agree on the icons - make them more modern.

Other than the above, I like most of the changes on the new UI

Apparently it doesn't get cold up in deerborn michigan... oh wait

 

[Mirak]

I swear, I really wonder how much dog fooding Ford does with their cars? How could anyone use these functions in the car and say, that works intuitively, and exactly the way it is supposed to.

This is the first I ever heard of the term dog fooding. I had to Google it. I thought you were literally talking about transporting those heavy bags of dog food, hence the need for a trunk button on the home screen.

But yeah, stuff like the way tapping max defrost operates, or the way the car reverts to guest profile upon every remote start, or the inability to deactivate interior alarm motion sensors, or nesting trunk access inside "settings," or any number of other annoying things speaks to software engineers who don't spend nearly enough time actually using these interfaces in the real world.

 

[Lord Polymath]

Never heard of the term dogfooding either, but I totally agree. Some of these design ideas have made me think that none of the software engineers actually drive a Mach-E.

Oh and some are hard to discern between a feature and a bug... The remote start turning on the guest profile has got to be a bug, amirite? I mean surely, surely when I remote start the car from MY phone the car should know to load my profile. Or maybe it thinks I'm starting the car for a guest to drive lol

 

[Mirak]

Never heard of the term dogfooding either, but I totally agree. Some of these design ideas have made me think that none of the software engineers actually drive a Mach-E.

Oh and some are hard to discern between a feature and a bug... The remote start turning on the guest profile has got to be a bug, amirite? I mean surely, surely when I remote start the car from MY phone the car should know to load my profile. Or maybe it thinks I'm starting the car for a guest to drive lol

You’d think it has to be a bug. But when it doesn’t get fixed after two years, one starts to wonder if this is intentional or neglect.

 

[Lord Polymath]

I should also say that despite its flaws, 4.1.2 has been fantastic in terms of connectivity with my phone and automatically starting carplay. *knock on wood*

 

[Addos]

It isn't even like this requires being a UI engineer or anything like that. It just takes someone giving a sh*t about how usable the features of the car are, and who knows, maybe just maybe caring enough about what the user experience is like to make it work more intuitively for customers that drive it regularly?

 

[1969Mach1Mike]

3. This Empty Space in the Climate Controls

This one is a minor nit, but it has always seemed to me that there is some wasted space here. Whereas to the left of the knob there are two different icons, to the right of the knob there is only one. I’m not saying we should clutter up every square centimeter of screen - clean is good - and I'm not saying we should tuck an icon close to the knob (fat fingers) - but it seems like there is room here for maybe one more icon if you shift the current icon a bit higher or lower. The most frequently requested other home screen function seems to be circulation mode.




Yeah.....that space is empty becuase your fingers used to activate anything over there when turning the knob. Leave it empty. They fixed a horrible annoyance by clearing that area out.

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