Crown

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phelipcopter said:
I am really scratching my head to get to grip with the issue here.

Unless you drive several cars with different configerations week in week out, it is really not difficult to get used to a new system. If someone really have a problem, to be honest, this person is a road hazard.

If we cant get over these buttons, what chance do we have when we switch job, when we drive on the opposite side of the road in certain countries ( and in manual! ), when we jump in a Japanese car when the wiper stick is on the left.....

I believe there is no 'intuitive' issue on the direction of the buttons or the stick should move to change up/down. Ask a few friends around you to confirm this. I bet you will get different answers from different persons or the same person at different times.

The ability to shift up/down on both sides is in fact far better than left/down and right/up only.

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reginos said:

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C2Nerves said:
It is surely wrong to talk about IQ's. This has nothing to do with IQ levels. One thing I learned from various forums is to respect members' opinions and try to add value to te subjects discussed. or else there is nothing to discuss. we are all in agreement so lets all sign off.

I brought this issue up not against people who contribute here, but against journalists who make a big issue and and a big fuss about this triviality.

Some of them write that they even get confused and change up instead of down!(see Autocar)

It is very valid and personal not like doing something, but to say that you cannot do a simple routine, is taking the issue a bit too far to say the least IMO.

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Le Chef said:
The point is if the interface is intuitive then you shouldn't have to adapt. Bad interface design means you have to adapt e.g. PC vs. Mac. At some point that intuitive design is adopted as the convention and then it's up manufacturers to fall into line. In reality there was no need for Porsche to go against current conventions, other than arrogance and a consequent inability to do the right user research, which led them to a poor interface.

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The new PDK is far from being a poor interface. It is already recognized by many road tests as the most advanced transmission to be introduced on a road car.

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C2Nerves said:
what about Porsche's left hand key start position? isnt that in the 'wrong place' as well?

Quote:
Le Chef said:

Quote:
C2Nerves said:
what about Porsche's left hand key start position? isnt that in the 'wrong place' as well?

No. Because the ignition was exactly where you needed it when starting off at the Le Mans 24 race. It was functionally a very smart thing to do, unlike the shifter on PDK.

But since the majority here seem to be happy being sheep like in their adoration of "Porsche knows best" we'll leave them to chew it over without questioning it.

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franki68 said:
The new 997s did not make the top 5 in Autocars best drivers car,nor in Car magazines best drivers car.This is a first as usually a Porsche always comes in the top 3.The reality is the competition has moved the game on and Porsche now has to lay catch up.

fyi

Autocars top 3

Nissan gtr
LAmbo 560
R8

car magazines

Lambo 560
NIssan gtr

Quote:
franki68 said:
The new 997s did not make the top 5 in Autocars best drivers car,nor in Car magazines best drivers car.This is a first as usually a Porsche always comes in the top 3.The reality is the competition has moved the game on and Porsche now has to lay catch up.

fyi

Autocars top 3

Nissan gtr
LAmbo 560
R8

car magazines

Lambo 560
NIssan gtr

Italo:

Quote:
franki68 said:
The new 997s did not make the top 5 in Autocars best drivers car,nor in Car magazines best drivers car.This is a first as usually a Porsche always comes in the top 3.The reality is the competition has moved the game on and Porsche now has to lay catch up.

fyi

Autocars top 3

Nissan gtr
LAmbo 560
R8

car magazines

Lambo 560
NIssan gtr

I believe Autocar intentionally did this to spite the 2 guys that left the company..I won't mention names we all know them. These 2 guys are P-car fanatics to the end

I suspect something fishy with Autocar, because one week they published this ranking below with lots of superlatives for the Carrera and the next week they reversed the order of the top 2 and deducted a star fro the Porsche.

Funny and opportunistic journalism in my way of thinking.

Judge for yourselves if you can trust some british magazines.

Strange strange! Magazine road testers seem to have agreed, following some meeting at a secret location , that pushing anything [knob, lever, paddle] forward had to be for a downshift, and pulling it had to be an upshift!!? Their arguments also included statements that were contravening Newton's second and third laws...

This from guys who normally support/favour manual transmissions, which have push AND pull motions for downshifting as well as for upshifting. They are crazy....have to have something negative to say. My NSX auto-stik [OK my other car is a 997 2 manual, with performance additions...and the NSX is great also] has a stik that is NOT attached to the steering wheel [MAJOR POINT!], and pushing [it is more up+push] is for upshifting and pulling [it is down-pull] is for downshifting...the same as the new 997...has always felt perfectly natural...as well as other numbers of other auto-stiks...

To me the major point is moving the 'lever'/paddle, or whatever we call it, OFF the rotating wheel. While for racing cars, such as F1, the wheel is never beyond crossed-arms [since they must not move their hands], in sports cars used on normal roads and even race-day-tracks the wheel IS turned beyond arms-crossed. At this point hands have to change position, and then the position of the wheel-located paddles/levers is arbitrary and basically useless. The Porsche test drivers tell us never to move our hands, and that we should not change gears while cornering anyway [now that is news...what if you are at redline in a long corner that requires 2 gears...but they now admit that the SPORTS auto mode on the new PDK is so good THEY DO NOT USE THE BUTTONS in their 'Ring testing !! And I will bet that the PDK DOES change gears during soem corners!

I have driven a few cars with wheel-located levers/buttons and only used them [COULD use them] once I was on the highway away from sharp corners.....rubbish.

Please Porsche, move the levers/paddles OFF the wheel like Ferrari [I think?] etc

Merry and Happy   KiwiCanuck

Strange strange! Magazine road testers seem to have agreed, following some meeting at a secret location , that pushing anything [knob, lever, paddle] forward had to be for a downshift, and pulling it had to be an upshift!!? Their arguments also included statements that were contravening Newton's second and third laws...

This from guys who normally support/favour manual transmissions, which have push AND pull motions for downshifting as well as for upshifting. They are crazy....have to have something negative to say. My NSX auto-stik [OK my other car is a 997 2 manual, with performance additions...and the NSX is great also] has a stik that is NOT attached to the steering wheel [MAJOR POINT!], and pushing [it is more up+push] is for upshifting and pulling [it is down-pull] is for downshifting...the same as the new 997...has always felt perfectly natural...as well as other numbers of other auto-stiks...

To me the major point is moving the 'lever'/paddle, or whatever we call it, OFF the rotating wheel. While for racing cars, such as F1, the wheel is never beyond crossed-arms [since they must not move their hands], in sports cars used on normal roads and even race-day-tracks the wheel IS turned beyond arms-crossed. At this point hands have to change position, and then the position of the wheel-located paddles/levers is arbitrary and basically useless. The Porsche test drivers tell us never to move our hands, and that we should not change gears while cornering anyway [now that is news...what if you are at redline in a long corner that requires 2 gears...but they now admit that the SPORTS auto mode on the new PDK is so good THEY DO NOT USE THE BUTTONS in their 'Ring testing !! And I will bet that the PDK DOES change gears during soem corners!

I have driven a few cars with wheel-located levers/buttons and only used them [COULD use them] once I was on the highway away from sharp corners.....rubbish.

Please Porsche, move the levers/paddles OFF the wheel like Ferrari [I think?] etc

Merry and Happy   KiwiCanuck

+1. I can't believe the uproar here. I have faith that the P-car folks did a fair amount of research and, perhaps biased by their Tip installed base, decided to go with this design. The yacking from the journalists are based on their need to yack, and their likely frequent moves from one car to another (more a display of their ineptitude than of a real UI problem).

I'd go with the words of those folks who have owned the PDK for a bit. In that case, albeit with some bias, they tend to think it a good thing. Now, if we could hear from a few people who own both PDK's and Ferrari F1's that would be good near-science. Anyone??

I will also mention that there is variance in core UI designs in other important transportation technologies as well. The most interesting being Airbus versus Boeing cockpit designs. Stick versus yoke. Radically different, no? Lots of research no doubt. Of course these things are flown by people that have good hand-eye coordination. I can't claim the same for the journalists. :)

You still come back to the point about PDK interface not being intuitive. If it had been the journo's would not have complained. Let's face it they have more breadth of experience than we do. Ye you can learn, but that's not intuitive. Second if the interface was really a breakthrough and better than "traditional" paddles then the journo's would have called it yet again. In fact they complained about them being counter-intuitive, even those in the pay of Porsche like Excellence and GT Purely Porsche. 

 I still have yet to hear what was wrong with traditional paddle shifters - anybody offer up hard facts as to why the PDK interface is superior? 

          It's made by Porsche  !

The counter-intuitive argument against the Porsche system relates to the fact that when you are under heavy braking the g forces throw you forward and it would be more natural to push the lever or the buttons forward to change down. Instead with PDK you pull back to change down.

This argument relates to racing, and perhaps it is valid in a real racing situation, but not to road use where these cars are used. The racing relatives of the Carrera (Cup/RSR) use sequential boxes and the whole gearchange issue works totally different.

IMO for road use it is irrelevanant because you wouldn't find yourself in a situation like on a race track.

The other issue is the use of buttons instead of +/- paddles. This has nothing to do with intuition. It is a matter of preference and practice and being accustomed to one or the other.

No one is born with an instinct to use the +/- paddle as opposed to pushing/pulling buttons. It is a matter of adaptability.

I disagree about the "wii push-me-pull-you" interface on PDK and so it seems did countless race car drivers and other advisors to Porsche. The winners were, according to Excellence, the marketing department who wanted something different, note not something better.

If you want to understand "intuitive design" look at how long it takes a group of people to learn how to use it until it becomes second nature. If  the "wii push-me-pull-you" interface on PDK were more intuitive then why didn't Ferrari, Lamborghini, etc. adopted this system a long time ago? Maybe they know something Porsche's marketing department don't know...like the "wii push-me-pull-you" interface on PDK is overly complicated for the task and could be easily simplified to 1 paddle that handles upshifts and 1 paddle that handles downshifts.

And still nobody has given me a factual argument as to why the "wii push-me-pull-you" interface on PDK is better than paddles. Anyone? 

Le Chef:

. . . .  : interface on PDK is overly complicated for the task and could be easily simplified to 1 paddle that handles upshifts and 1 paddle that handles downshifts.

--
997S Cab Seal Gray

Misha011:

Le Chef:

. . . .  : interface on PDK is overly complicated for the task and could be easily simplified to 1 paddle that handles upshifts and 1 paddle that handles downshifts.

--
997S Cab Seal Gray

 . . .  and that is better and more simple than ONE paddle/switch that handles UPshifts and DOWNshifts  plus they are duplicated to give us further option / flexibility  if we are to change gears with our  left or right hand . 

Some people are left-handed some are right-handed , some people need 'hand controls'  (pics. below) and can have only one hand on the steering wheel , left or right - depends in which country they live .... etc. etc.

 +1. Totally agree with this one. Duplicating the controls on the left and right seems like a great idea with me. Having driven an F430/F1 it seemed odd that you had to have each hand in the correct spot (regardless of wheel position) to trigger the correct shift. So, though the F1 is an amazing experience, I suspect that Ferrari chose the paddles on that car by inheriting the design from the F1 cars. More likely for the cool/halo effect than for the design optimization. Those F1 wheels don't ever turn even 90 degrees, and everything that needs driver intervention is mounted on the wheel, so less need to duplicate the controls because your hands never ever move.

My suspicion is that all of the conflict over this is based on comparing it to the Ferrari design (well maybe the buttons on the front versus back might be a bit non-intuitive) without very valid justification. Based on my knowledge of Porsche, they likely studied the effectiveness of this design and care a lot about the UI/UE/ergonomics but also wanted to 'plant the design flag' in this relatively immature/nonstandard area.

Me? I'm holding out for the voice and eye-movement shift control (someone should really build a nice hack like that, hmmmm...) Now that everything is electronic, why not optimize the experience and ensure that your hands are never doing anything but steering?

:)

Misha011:

Le Chef:

. . . .  : interface on PDK is overly complicated for the task and could be easily simplified to 1 paddle that handles upshifts and 1 paddle that handles downshifts.

--
997S Cab Seal Gray

 . . .  and that is better and more simple than ONE paddle/switch that handles UPshifts and DOWNshifts  plus they are duplicated to give us further option / flexibility  if we are to change gears with our  left or right hand .