This isn’t really a complaint—more of a bit of musing. I really appreciate intuitive design, but sometimes long-standing conventions can get in the way?

For example, traditional mechanical transmission shifters follow PRND, but with the NX’s electronic shifter design it feels like it might have been more intuitive to push the shifter forward to go forward and pull it back to go in reverse. Similarly, it would seem more intuitive to push the control stalk forward to spray the front windshield and pull it back to spray the rear. Maybe there are other things?

Again, not complaining at all—just throwing this out there as food for thought and an interesting discussion point.

 

Sadly the industry embraced with open arms the more economical use of ‘in screen’ controls for such items as hvac, radio, seat heaters etc. All of which were permanently etched into our intuitive memory via the easy to use layouts for these features with very standardized and common buttons and *****. The kind that invokes easy to perform muscle memory actions. Now many are speaking out and other manufacturers are listening and returning to more physical controls that don’t require you to dangerously have to take your eyes off the road to turn up the fan or turn off your seat heater. Sadly Lexus didn’t really think this through either, and now we’ll wait and see how much the next redesigns of current models will revert back to easier to use controls.

 

You can keep your eyes on the road by using "Hey Lexus" voice commands to operate many controls.

 

This works 50% of the time for me if others are in the car. and NEVER works for other drivers driving the car. Only the primary driver has the cloud based voice recognition. Other profiles have the old stupid 1990s voice (not)recognition.

 

The one thing nice is all Toyota and Lexus cars share the same ergonomics. So when you rent a car and get a Toyota, its easy to adjust. I finally got used to the adaptive cruise control on the steering wheel and the electronic door latches inside. At first I missed the cruise control stalk, but now I like the adaptive cruise control and safety lane assist feature. I wished they would have an audible for when the doors are locked or a green light like the LC500 has. One thing that I had to get used to on the IS was forward was up shift and back was down shift. For some reason, I was thinking more like an airplane throttle where pulling back would give more speed and power. I do have to say, I still prefer buttons, specially in a moving car. Sometimes touch screens are not as responsive. I do use voice control to change the radio stations.

 

So you are saying that you like the PRND order, yet you say it would have been more intuitive to go for P, D (at the top), N, R (at the bottom)???
By the way this shifter has been in place for more than 20 years in Toyota hybrids!

On my side I hate the fact that Toyota/Lexus put unnecessary fake "traditional" bulky shifters on some models instead of the mini-stick.
Even worse is how they are engineered to feel heavy and clunky for no reason.


Then are there cars where you push forward to spray the front and back to spray the back?

 

Yes I would think its more intuitive push the shifter forward to go forward and backward to reverse - but we are stuck in the convention of the way its always been -and would be difficult to change now. Until I got use to it, if I was quickly doing a three point turn or maneuvering in a parking lot I found myself pushing it the wrong when wanting reverse. (Even though reverse on our manual transmission Mustang is to the left and up!)

 

So you mean you would want to change it for ALL cars, not just for the NX?
What about the Tesla auto shift

 

Yup, that is my point. While it would be more intuitive (to me anyway) because of the widespread convention of shifters being PRND, it would be a liability nightmare for any manufacturer to do it now. But something else interesting that I read tonight - when people are panicked, they are more likely to pull back on a control than push forward. So if you are accidentally engaging a transmission it would be better to go forward than in reverse.

 

This is what AI said:

Electronic car shifters (e-shifters) often use a "forward for reverse" motion to maintain the standardized PRNDL (Park, Reverse, Neutral, Drive, Low) sequence established for traditional automatic transmissions, ensuring driver familiarity and safety.

 

I agree shift forward to go forward makes sense, but the old method can't just be reversed. It can be changed, though. What Toyota has done didn't really make that change but did require a different mindset. After renting a few Toyotas and found the same layout, it soon became a non-issue.

 

And when one considers S shifting its PRNDS, S is similar in the old days of PRND32L in a Four Speed Automatic.

Now let's consider the interior door handles: To push open the door from the inside, you now do push the e-latch vs pull, except in emergency situations. This counters the coventional way of how doors opened from the inside where you pulled the latch.

 

You push it, but everybody else who gets in your car is now struggling to open your doors haha because they either try to pull the handle, or heck of confused how they open this stpd door.

 

Sorry this is a little off the topic of discussion, but somewhat relevant as it applies to controls. We watch Clarkson's Farm at our house. Jeremy constantly has issues with his controls on his Lamborghini tractor all the time, even after two years of ownership. Has anyone seen how many buttons and levers are found in a modern tractor these days! Hundreds of them literally!

 

When it comes to the interior door handles, I actually love them except for 1 thing, explaining how to use them for any new passengers. I ended up creating door pocket cards for passengers with pretty pictures and everything, so if anyone new gets in, I go all flight attendant on them and ask them to refer to the safety cards in the seat back pockets. But of course one time I had first time passengers in the back at night so they couldn't really see my card, so it was a good 30 seconds of trying to explain how to open the door. Grab the handle, press your thumb. No grab the handle normally, now where your thumb is, just press the button. No, don't press your thumb on the side of the door, grab the handle first. Yes, the handle, the thing you pull the door closed with. Yes, grab that handle just like that, now see where your thumb rests, that's a button, now press it. Have you pressed it? The door should be open. The door isn't opening?, did you press the button? Ok, this time press the button. Finally, LOL.

But do it 2 or 3 times, and it really is better than a regular door handle, which is actually more complicated but so common we learn how to do it when we're 4 yrs old and stop thinking about it. I think truly what Lexus messed up on, was simply offering (again, I take example from the airlines) a quick little video on the main screen showing how to open the doors. A 3 to 5 second video, with the ability to replay it on demand, would remove so much confusion. They had the opportunity to turn this feature from a good intentioned, but questionably implemented feature into something easy and simple to deal with, but they let it slip thru their fingers.

Re: the shifter. Meh, now this one I've never really been a fan of. I guess it does take up a little less space on the console than the older styles, but it can be just a clumsy joystick at times. I'd say the only thing I really like about it is not having to press the "P" button after parking, it just happens automatically shutting the car off.