"Many cars have an AUTO option now, but would you trust it to choose the right thing? I didn’t, being unsure if it properly accounted for daylight rain driving."
While it doesn't negate the iconography discussion throughout the rest of the article, the AUTO option is the intended default, because it turns on low beams in every case where they're needed, including daylight rain driving, which is based on the use of windshield wipers. I'm always a bit baffled at the modern cars driving around without their lights on. The car does it for you these days.
The ability to select low beams vs daylight running lights (DRLs) is mostly for convenience for one-off odd circumstances where you would want to override AUTO for whatever reason.
I think the problem is that AUTO behaves differently across cars. Some turn on the headlights when the wipers are running, others seem to rely mostly on ambient light
I have the same light control on my car. Here's how it gets turned off: when I'm parking with the engine off, waiting for someone, the lights stay on unless I turn them off manually. If I don't turn them off, my use of the stereo and other accessories ends sooner than necessary when the car shuts them off to preserve enough charge to restart the engine.
Then, when I leave, I forget to turn the lights back to AUTO. Now I have no lights at all except for the front DRLs. (Even then, though, the low beams still come on automatically when the wipers are turned on for more than a couple of cycles.)
Really, the OFF position should work only when the car is parked. Otherwise, it should be equivalent to AUTO.
My understanding is that the OFF position is for special cases, such as on ferries (the drive-on kind, obviously) where cars are densely packed and they can shine into the staff.
Is that digital car dashboard cluster near the end of the article from a real car? It’s blissfully simple compared to every new car I’ve driven recently. The best I’ve seen are simply skeuomorphic, most are instead filled with decorative clutter.
Great article, which I strongly agree with. Another reason I've personally seen for over-reliance on icons instead of text is it's an easier, cheaper way to satisfy localization requirements.
Volkswagen have a great idea for rain driving, am option for having the headlights on automatically when the wipers are on. So even if it's bright and raining, the headlights will still be on.
Confidently wrong? The labeling the author has chosen, with "park"/"drive", would lead someone to select headlights because they're in drive, even during the day. I have never seen the symbol they label "parking" described as such.
> “parking,” which activates only front lights, at half brightness, and (for some reason) leaves the tail lights off.
I've also just double checked the manual for my car to be sure I'm not talking out of my ass here: the symbol he calls "parking" activates the tail lights. From the manual:
> “[double headlights, one left one right symbol]” position:
> Instrument panel illumination, parking lights, front side marker lights, rear side marker lights, tail lights and license plate lights are on.
(My manual does not ascribe a name to it.)
Now, I suppose this could be an unexpected thing that differs between cars, but it also shouldn't really matter that much. The intro example is in the rain; you should be using the symbol he calls "park" in the rain, you should be using the "low beams" setting, and then your tail lights are definitely on. Or … just let "Auto" handle it?
(I've always called this symbol "daytime running lights". Wikipedia says that's a different symbol (a single headlight with stippled lines emitting from it), one I've definitely never seen before & isn't in TFA; Wikipedia claims it to be the ISO symbol, however, I've found the relevant ISO standard¹, but it seems to lack the symbol Wikipedia calls "daytime running lights". The symbol I call DRL is called "position" or "side" lights, and the term DRL is not used by ISO AFAICT, despite what Wikipedia claims. What a mess.)
(from TFA:)
> Many cars have an AUTO option now, but would you trust it to choose the right thing?
… yes? Absolutely yes. The car can just do the right thing for me, without me having to remember. Sensing ambient light is not complicated.
> pull on the stalk for high beams (another mode), or rotate the stalk left or right for turn signals.
There is absolutely no way whatever car this is a photograph of is rotating the stalk for turn signals. Turn signals are pull up or down, universally.
¹ISO-2575:2021, though technically a draft since ISO standards are not open. But this symbol has been around since forever, so unless it's changed recently…
Yeah, I was wondering about it, the car example feels like from some kind of bizarro reality.
"Driving" or "Parking" lights make no sense conceptually. Over this side of the pond, we just call these symbols by what they actually represent - tail lights, short lights, anti-fog lights, etc.
Which I guess kind of is a problem happening in UX right now. It's my firm belief that the buttons for operating equipment should be labeled by what the button does, not when to use it. In domain of illumination, "headlights" and "tail lights" are real concepts; "parking" and "driving" are category errors.
> "Driving" or "Parking" lights make no sense conceptually
You're pulled into a parking spot and you want you're waiting with corner markers on for safety and illumination, bit you don't need or want your headlights blasting.
since daytime running lights have been proven to have a positive effect on accident rates, some cars just turn them on and just don't give the option of turning them off anymore. Mine does that and so does my wife's, for example. You can't run the car with zero lights
In Australia we use our hazard lights in times of poor visibility and this is taught through the road-rules test which forms part of acquiring a driving licence
You must live in a different Australia from me, I've never seen anyone driving with hazards on, even in torrential downpour. Pulled off on the side of the road, of course. Actually driving without something actively wrong with the car? Never.
What is the point of parking lights? If you’re parked at night in a safe place you can simply turn your lights off. If you’re not parked in a safe place, leaving your regular lights on and putting on the flashers is the safest thing to do. If there’s bad visibility during the day, turn your lights on. You don’t need parking lights on a sunny day.
Can anyone tell me what they’re supposed to be used for? Headlights are better in every scenario, the existence of parking lights only seems to force me to flash my brights at idiots that drive with parking lights at night. Removing the option would eliminate that.
In that Porsche example, you'd just leave the knob set to AUTO and it will always do the right thing. When the wipers come on (manually or otherwise) so will the low beams, given that this is a legal requirement in many places.
At least they had the sense not to try to invent an icon for 'AUTO', to give credit where it's due. English subtitles or (better) dashboard 'tooltips' would have been a good idea, and tooltips are in fact used in quite a few other contexts.
Don't parking/marker lights generally turn on your tail lights at the same brightness as when the headlights are on? Tail lights are mostly two filament bulbs. The dimmer one is the continuously-on light (goes on with the marker lights on every car I've checked) and the brighter one is for the brakes. Maybe it's different with LED-native lights? I personally use just the marker lights in the rain (and dusk) because unless I am benefiting from the headlight beams, it's just extra light pollution for oncoming cars.
"Many cars have an AUTO option now, but would you trust it to choose the right thing? I didn’t, being unsure if it properly accounted for daylight rain driving."
While it doesn't negate the iconography discussion throughout the rest of the article, the AUTO option is the intended default, because it turns on low beams in every case where they're needed, including daylight rain driving, which is based on the use of windshield wipers. I'm always a bit baffled at the modern cars driving around without their lights on. The car does it for you these days.
The ability to select low beams vs daylight running lights (DRLs) is mostly for convenience for one-off odd circumstances where you would want to override AUTO for whatever reason.
I think the problem is that AUTO behaves differently across cars. Some turn on the headlights when the wipers are running, others seem to rely mostly on ambient light
I have the same light control on my car. Here's how it gets turned off: when I'm parking with the engine off, waiting for someone, the lights stay on unless I turn them off manually. If I don't turn them off, my use of the stereo and other accessories ends sooner than necessary when the car shuts them off to preserve enough charge to restart the engine.
Then, when I leave, I forget to turn the lights back to AUTO. Now I have no lights at all except for the front DRLs. (Even then, though, the low beams still come on automatically when the wipers are turned on for more than a couple of cycles.)
Really, the OFF position should work only when the car is parked. Otherwise, it should be equivalent to AUTO.
My understanding is that the OFF position is for special cases, such as on ferries (the drive-on kind, obviously) where cars are densely packed and they can shine into the staff.
Wouldn’t your car be off when you’re on a ferry anyway?
[dead]
The parking lights vs low beam icon are quite standard, at least in the EU, and they tell you the difference when getting your licence.
Icons are still the same as they were 25 years ago AFAICT.
Is that digital car dashboard cluster near the end of the article from a real car? It’s blissfully simple compared to every new car I’ve driven recently. The best I’ve seen are simply skeuomorphic, most are instead filled with decorative clutter.
Great article, which I strongly agree with. Another reason I've personally seen for over-reliance on icons instead of text is it's an easier, cheaper way to satisfy localization requirements.
Disagree. It's very simple - you have zero (off), half (parking), and fully on. It's naturally in that order, and the icons are irrelevant.
Volkswagen have a great idea for rain driving, am option for having the headlights on automatically when the wipers are on. So even if it's bright and raining, the headlights will still be on.
Not even sure why we need a parking mode for the lights now. Sounds like a legacy thing
Confidently wrong? The labeling the author has chosen, with "park"/"drive", would lead someone to select headlights because they're in drive, even during the day. I have never seen the symbol they label "parking" described as such.
> “parking,” which activates only front lights, at half brightness, and (for some reason) leaves the tail lights off.
I've also just double checked the manual for my car to be sure I'm not talking out of my ass here: the symbol he calls "parking" activates the tail lights. From the manual:
> “[double headlights, one left one right symbol]” position:
> Instrument panel illumination, parking lights, front side marker lights, rear side marker lights, tail lights and license plate lights are on.
(My manual does not ascribe a name to it.)
Now, I suppose this could be an unexpected thing that differs between cars, but it also shouldn't really matter that much. The intro example is in the rain; you should be using the symbol he calls "park" in the rain, you should be using the "low beams" setting, and then your tail lights are definitely on. Or … just let "Auto" handle it?
(I've always called this symbol "daytime running lights". Wikipedia says that's a different symbol (a single headlight with stippled lines emitting from it), one I've definitely never seen before & isn't in TFA; Wikipedia claims it to be the ISO symbol, however, I've found the relevant ISO standard¹, but it seems to lack the symbol Wikipedia calls "daytime running lights". The symbol I call DRL is called "position" or "side" lights, and the term DRL is not used by ISO AFAICT, despite what Wikipedia claims. What a mess.)
(from TFA:)
> Many cars have an AUTO option now, but would you trust it to choose the right thing?
… yes? Absolutely yes. The car can just do the right thing for me, without me having to remember. Sensing ambient light is not complicated.
> pull on the stalk for high beams (another mode), or rotate the stalk left or right for turn signals.
There is absolutely no way whatever car this is a photograph of is rotating the stalk for turn signals. Turn signals are pull up or down, universally.
¹ISO-2575:2021, though technically a draft since ISO standards are not open. But this symbol has been around since forever, so unless it's changed recently…
Yeah, I was wondering about it, the car example feels like from some kind of bizarro reality.
"Driving" or "Parking" lights make no sense conceptually. Over this side of the pond, we just call these symbols by what they actually represent - tail lights, short lights, anti-fog lights, etc.
Which I guess kind of is a problem happening in UX right now. It's my firm belief that the buttons for operating equipment should be labeled by what the button does, not when to use it. In domain of illumination, "headlights" and "tail lights" are real concepts; "parking" and "driving" are category errors.
> "Driving" or "Parking" lights make no sense conceptually
You're pulled into a parking spot and you want you're waiting with corner markers on for safety and illumination, bit you don't need or want your headlights blasting.
You pull to the side during fog or severe rain. Which one you want? You drive slowly onto the ramp to a shuttle. Which one you want?
since daytime running lights have been proven to have a positive effect on accident rates, some cars just turn them on and just don't give the option of turning them off anymore. Mine does that and so does my wife's, for example. You can't run the car with zero lights
[dead]
My lights confuse me so I just leave them on all the time. Safer that way anyway
I interpret those icons as "weaker light" and "stronger lihgt" which is what they do.
Parking light does not make much sense.
In Australia we use our hazard lights in times of poor visibility and this is taught through the road-rules test which forms part of acquiring a driving licence
You must live in a different Australia from me, I've never seen anyone driving with hazards on, even in torrential downpour. Pulled off on the side of the road, of course. Actually driving without something actively wrong with the car? Never.
What is the point of parking lights? If you’re parked at night in a safe place you can simply turn your lights off. If you’re not parked in a safe place, leaving your regular lights on and putting on the flashers is the safest thing to do. If there’s bad visibility during the day, turn your lights on. You don’t need parking lights on a sunny day.
Can anyone tell me what they’re supposed to be used for? Headlights are better in every scenario, the existence of parking lights only seems to force me to flash my brights at idiots that drive with parking lights at night. Removing the option would eliminate that.
In that Porsche example, you'd just leave the knob set to AUTO and it will always do the right thing. When the wipers come on (manually or otherwise) so will the low beams, given that this is a legal requirement in many places.
At least they had the sense not to try to invent an icon for 'AUTO', to give credit where it's due. English subtitles or (better) dashboard 'tooltips' would have been a good idea, and tooltips are in fact used in quite a few other contexts.
Don't parking/marker lights generally turn on your tail lights at the same brightness as when the headlights are on? Tail lights are mostly two filament bulbs. The dimmer one is the continuously-on light (goes on with the marker lights on every car I've checked) and the brighter one is for the brakes. Maybe it's different with LED-native lights? I personally use just the marker lights in the rain (and dusk) because unless I am benefiting from the headlight beams, it's just extra light pollution for oncoming cars.