Some lectures and workshops brought me to Europe the whole month of May. I also “had” to go to France and Mallorca. While I usually use the train or the plane for longer distances, this time I also had a rental car three times. Twice a Nissan Qashquai SUV, once a luxurious Renault Talisman. Not that I had deliberately chosen those, those were the vehicles offered by the rental company.

There was certainly nothing wrong with either type of vehicle quality-wise, the Renault even gave the feel of a luxury car. What I struggled with, however, was the digital quality of the vehicles. Both had their own versions of the TomTom navigation system installed, and neither was easy to use. Several times during the rental period, I tried to enter addresses or points of interest into the complex input screens to no avail. Either the system did not find the address, or listed the sight – because mistakenly entered as a cathedral and not a basilica – in another country 200 kilometers away.

At the end of each attempt, wasting five minutes or more, I pulled out Google Maps on my iPhone, and with five to six button touches, had the address and was off.

From the feeling of being considered stupid in front of the device

These experiences led to a bitter aftertaste. A vehicle, or generally a device intended for end users, whose operation is so difficult that it makes the user feel stupid, fails in its task. Especially when there are examples that have been doing it much better for years. For 14 years, Google Maps has existed with a single input field, with very simple controls, and for 14 years, navigation system manufacturers and car makers fail to create a navigation system that is just as easy to use? Especially in a car, this control input should be particularly simple, after all, you don’t want to have to deal with different input screens while driving and endanger yourself and others.

Tesla shows that it can be done differently. There, the user interface for the navigation system is just one field. And this is where the dissonance in the understanding of traditional manufacturers of what is important and what customers perceive as important comes in. What good is the most beautiful stitching in the leather upholstery or the insane build quality of the vehicle if I feel like I’m in the Stone Age digitally? The fact that TomTom and other navigation manufacturers find routes three minutes faster, according to studies in the automotive industry, fades when I still haven’t found the address in the system and started navigation after five minutes of input.

If I have the feeling that I feel stupid because I can’t operate the device intended for end customers without studying an extensive manual, then I know by now that it’s not me who’s stupid, but the engineers and designers who have failed massively. And at that moment I get so angry that I don’t want to have anything more to do with the thing and start looking for alternatives. Personally, that now seems like a personal affront by the company that puts me through such a thing.

When physical quality alone is no longer enough

You retreat to what you can do – namely physical quality – and emphasize this as important, and find all the arguments why what you can’t do – namely digital quality – is not really important. Others have believed that, too, and have gone down spectacularly.

Kodak emphasized how high quality film had been, forgetting that once people no longer had to wait for the film roll to be developed in the lab, they no longer had to pay extra for each photo, but could immediately see pixelated, but with digital, images and email them to friends and family. This need trumped the desire for the quality of the photo paper for the average consumer

At the same time we know that the arguments of manufacturers of existing against new technologies, very soon will no longer be true. Initially, new technology is mostly inferior, offers less functionality, does not come close to meeting the needs of most customers. But they also satisfy new needs that are so urgent for some customers that they overlook the (initial) shortcomings. Over time, however, new disruptive technologies overcome these shortcomings and then offer a new understanding of how technology can be used more efficiently, conveniently, and productively, that the old technology is doomed, or merely ekes out a niche existence.

We are in the midst of an upheaval between the physical and digital worlds, and while the importance of physical quality is not diminishing, the expectations of digital quality have now risen to the point where it trumps the importance of physical quality.

Example of digital quality expectations

I saw one example at Interalpin 2019 in Innsbruck in May. This trade fair for manufacturers of ropeways, snow groomers and snow guns showed the change quite clearly. Whereas two years ago the “pithy” audience was interested in snow throughput and pump pressure, or horsepower for the machines, this time all questions revolved around digital management of the machines and digital dashboards and evaluations. Those who didn’t have answers to these questions or didn’t offer any services were no longer able to convince anyone of their machines, despite the best physical key data.

The differentiators are no longer the gap dimensions, the horsepower, the build quality of the leather seats, but how well the product can be used digitally. Want an example? The iPace, the first electric car from the former British luxury brand Jaguar, is not only losing out in a comparison with the comparable Tesla Model Y, but also – much to the displeasure and incomprehension of the first owners – has to go to the workshop for a recall instead of getting this software update, which is supposed to fix a brake problem, automatically installed on the car via the Internet. And that, mind you, seven years after Tesla introduced over-the-air updates.

Our problem with that is that we like to retreat to what we’re good at. And that’s the only thing we pay attention to. But that doesn’t count anymore, as the arguments at Kodak after film quality was unsurpassed fell on deaf ears with consumers because they now had and could share pixelated digital images instantly.

Quintessence

The most beautiful physical processing of an actually digital end device – and this now includes cars, for example, as well as smartphones and computers – becomes secondary if the device gives me the feeling,

• I am stupid,
• and have to take more or unnecessary steps to be able to operate it.

As much as I like to pull out an old Polaroid camera as a curiosity (as one was recently available in a hotel room in Switzerland) or flip through old bound photo albums from yesteryear, in daily use I use my smartphone. And I don’t want to go back. Because the digital quality, function, and convenience have now far surpassed the physical features of its predecessors.