You’re in a new car, and suddenly there is a torrential downpour. What do you do? Do you grab this shiny knob or push that red button. No. The answer is you do nothing. Automatic windshield wipers are a technology that seems to have snuck into new cars without a whole lot of fanfare. They have been designed to work when you need them and disappear altogether when you don’t. They magically find that sweet spot where the wipers whisk away the water but don’t screech across the windshield when the rain is all gone. You no longer are reaching for controls haphazardly, dramatically trying to figure out how to change the speed only to turn on the wiper in the back. It rains; they turn on. It stops raining; they turn off. It is a simple and elegant design.
When the car in front of you hits a puddle and splashes water into your line of sight, the automation kicks in and calmly swipes away the hazard. It is a simple but luxurious design. Why this inspires me is because it shows that sometimes good design can be invisible. It takes action to help us in our daily lives and doesn’t add to our cognitive burden. Automated windshield wipers help us drive safely, while at the same time eliminating the difficulty of manually controlling their function.
Of course, the specific implementation of these wipers will be slightly different depending on the manufacturer, and in this particular case, I have only experienced them in Volkswagen cars. They designed the windshield wipers to be automated by default, but you can manually override them at any time. They are ultimately there to support you in your driving adventures.
Another design in the car that I am constantly fascinated by , is the sun visor! I grow up taking buses (privately owned cars are not that popular in China) so most of my early childhood and it is not until I started learning driving did I realize, this flip board is designed with the perfect angle and size to protect the sun (often time not good enough when you are driving west directly to the sun after work). I think there must be an iteration process too to modify the sun visor to offer the flipping-over to the sides, as cars are mobile and these small gadgets also should be designed to allow agency and control from the driver and accommondation to the environment.
I love this example because not only does it reduce the user’s cognitive burden and stress, as you say, but it actually keeps the user safer. Driving in the rain or with other obstructions on your windshield is no joke!
As someone who chose her car specifically for the safety features, I hope all cars eventually have automatic wipers. (Mine doesn’t.)