Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland, and I'm an executive producer
Speaker 1: with I Heart Radio and I love all things tech
Speaker 1: and today's episode is a special one. So for one thing,
Speaker 1: you're going to get to hear that intro all over
Speaker 1: again in just a second, because this episode is brought
Speaker 1: to you by Mazda. The company invited me to come
Speaker 1: out to the Los Angeles Auto Show in November two
Speaker 1: thousand nineteen to check out their cars and specifically to
Speaker 1: get some hands on time with the c X thirty suv,
Speaker 1: and that included the chance to record an episode on
Speaker 1: the show floor inside a c X thirty. And I
Speaker 1: was talking about the concept of human centric design, specifically
Speaker 1: within the context of designing vehicles and even more specifically
Speaker 1: the c X there. So what you're about to hear
Speaker 1: is the audio from that. It was recorded on Friday,
Speaker 1: November twenty second, two thousand nineteen, from the Mazda booth
Speaker 1: at the l A Auto Show. You will also hear
Speaker 1: some audio from a separate conversation with Dave Coleman, who's
Speaker 1: an engineer at Mazda. He's with their research and development division,
Speaker 1: and he talks in more detail about the kinds of
Speaker 1: decisions that go into creating a specific experience, which is
Speaker 1: kind of at the heart of the philosophy of human
Speaker 1: centric design. There are a couple of other notes I
Speaker 1: want to mention before we jump into this. First is
Speaker 1: that this episode was recorded live in the Los Angeles
Speaker 1: Convention Center, and so it's not going to sound like
Speaker 1: the studio recordings. You'll likely hear a lot of extraneous sounds.
Speaker 1: I even comment on it at one point. Another is
Speaker 1: that you may hear some other familiar voices when we
Speaker 1: get to Dave's discussions because Lauren voege Obama Brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: and and savor Uh and Jack O'Brien and Miles of
Speaker 1: the Daily Zeitgeist we're also there at the show, so
Speaker 1: they are occasionally chatting as well. You might hear their voices,
Speaker 1: and I will be popping in from the studio as
Speaker 1: in from where I'm recording right now a few times
Speaker 1: to help kind of bridge a few gaps between Dave's
Speaker 1: discussions and the episode I recorded. So with all that
Speaker 1: business out of the way, let's hear that intro all
Speaker 1: over again, So take it away past Jonathan. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to text stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with my Heart Radio and I
Speaker 1: love all things tech and ladies and gentlemen. I am
Speaker 1: having quite the experience right now. I know a lot
Speaker 1: of you listeners out there. You like to listen to
Speaker 1: me while you're in your car. Well, guess what. I'm
Speaker 1: recording this from inside a Mazda c X thirty at
Speaker 1: the l A Auto Show. Yeah. For once, I'm talking
Speaker 1: to you in a car. Let's just let's just hang
Speaker 1: out together for a while, shall we. So today I
Speaker 1: have the incredible opportunity to talk about the philosophy behind
Speaker 1: human centric design. This is something I've always been fascinated by.
Speaker 1: It's something that applies to all elements of design, no
Speaker 1: matter what you are trying to create. But I'm specifically
Speaker 1: going to talk about it in the context of the
Speaker 1: Masda c X thirty because I happen to be sitting
Speaker 1: in the front seat of one, and it is also comfortable.
Speaker 1: This is actually tri I don't know where you are
Speaker 1: right now, but this seat is really good. So if
Speaker 1: you can talk to Mazda and find out how to
Speaker 1: get the seat in the studio to be just like
Speaker 1: this one. That's great, and if you don't, you're fired. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I want to talk about the general principles behind
Speaker 1: design in the first place, and then we'll narrow it down.
Speaker 1: You guys know how my show goes. So let's say
Speaker 1: you're an engineer and you have defined what goal you're
Speaker 1: going for. You've identified a specific goal that you want
Speaker 1: to achieve. And beyond defining the goal, that's obviously one
Speaker 1: of the first big parts of this process. You need
Speaker 1: to figure out what are your objectives and what are
Speaker 1: your challenges, what are the things standing in your way
Speaker 1: of achieving your goal, and you start to make decisions
Speaker 1: to try and get to your goal as best you can.
Speaker 1: Those decisions can sometimes end up having things that conflict
Speaker 1: with each other. You have to find a way to
Speaker 1: resolve those conflicts and to actually achieve the goal you
Speaker 1: have defined for yourself. This is not necessarily an easy
Speaker 1: thing to do. It's one of the biggest challenges of engineering.
Speaker 1: It's why a lot of the engineers I've talked to
Speaker 1: relish their job. They love the process of sitting down
Speaker 1: and going from concept to reality and all the processes
Speaker 1: that go along with that. Now, some of that can
Speaker 1: end up being a lot of trial and error. A
Speaker 1: lot of it can end up being having to to
Speaker 1: retrace your steps, and if we're all being honest, not
Speaker 1: all of it is super fun. Sometimes you try out
Speaker 1: an idea that you were convinced was going to be
Speaker 1: perfect and then you realize that, oh, you know what,
Speaker 1: it's good, but it just broke everything else. So it's
Speaker 1: a very tough process to actually go through. But once
Speaker 1: you have figured out all the different challenges, you defined
Speaker 1: your objectives, you start to ideate your solutions. You start
Speaker 1: to think, this is the way I think is the
Speaker 1: best for me to achieve the goal, and then how
Speaker 1: do I go about actually making that reality. You go
Speaker 1: through that process, which can be laborious, and then you
Speaker 1: test it and you find out how well you did,
Speaker 1: and maybe it turns out that the solution you have
Speaker 1: is incredible on paper, but in reality it turns out
Speaker 1: to fall short. That's something that actually does happen quite
Speaker 1: a bit in all realms of technology, and I've seen
Speaker 1: this a lot in my uh storied career as a
Speaker 1: technology journalist. You see attempts to try and achieve something
Speaker 1: really revolutionary, let's say, and in the process you might
Speaker 1: end up losing sight of what your initial goal was
Speaker 1: in the first place, which was to deliver something to
Speaker 1: an end user, whoever that may be, that is meaningful
Speaker 1: and and produces a specific result. Maybe that the thing
Speaker 1: you've created works really well again on paper, but that
Speaker 1: it doesn't feel like it works really well when you
Speaker 1: get it in the hands of the end user. That
Speaker 1: is what human centric design tries to address. It tries
Speaker 1: to keep in mind that at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: you are making something to create a human experience, and
Speaker 1: that every decision you make ultimately needs to be geared
Speaker 1: toward that. Also, I'm probably gonna be dropping a lot
Speaker 1: of car puns unintentionally. It's just because I'm in this environment.
Speaker 1: So we've talked about that little element of challenge, this
Speaker 1: idea of trying to, you know, I, identify what your
Speaker 1: goal is and to work your way to it. The
Speaker 1: next thing you have to think about is how your
Speaker 1: goal may end up working with, integrating with other goals
Speaker 1: that other people have, or it may conflict with those Because,
Speaker 1: as I'm sure you're all aware, something like a car,
Speaker 1: a vehicle. Uh, it's actually a collection of many different systems. Now,
Speaker 1: each system needs to contribute toward that end goal, that
Speaker 1: human centric goal where you're creating this feeling that you
Speaker 1: want your end user to have. But they don't necessarily
Speaker 1: all work in harmony together natively. You can't expect that
Speaker 1: if you're working, let's say, on a drive train system
Speaker 1: and someone else is working on a different system, that
Speaker 1: those two are just going to magically work together and
Speaker 1: produce the perfect experience when it all comes out at
Speaker 1: the end. You actually have to do a lot of collaboration,
Speaker 1: and sometimes that means that you're having lots of complicated
Speaker 1: conversations weighing your different goals, weighing your different priorities, and
Speaker 1: deciding which ones are going to take priority in one
Speaker 1: case versus another. You might be able to make some concessions.
Speaker 1: You might be able to kind of find a middle ground.
Speaker 1: You might be able to find use cases where one
Speaker 1: philosophy wins out over another. For example, we had a
Speaker 1: chance to talk with a great engineer, Dave. He talked
Speaker 1: about how with the Masta c X thirty, there was
Speaker 1: this balance between performance and making sure that the ride
Speaker 1: was nice and quiet. And the problem is that as
Speaker 1: you start to weigh one of those, the other one
Speaker 1: begins begins to uh end up having needing more attention.
Speaker 1: So you have to figure out, well, where's the balance here.
Speaker 1: We want to make sure that we have all the
Speaker 1: elements here so that we create the feeling that we
Speaker 1: really want our end users to have. And that is
Speaker 1: not something again that is natively obvious. It means that
Speaker 1: you have to have a lot of conversations, a lot
Speaker 1: of collaboration. Uh. And in the case of Mazda, as
Speaker 1: we learned while we were here at the auto show,
Speaker 1: that ends up being a lot easier because the teams
Speaker 1: are more closely located to one another. They aren't spread
Speaker 1: across the globe where you might have one team working
Speaker 1: completely independently of the others. And then when you bring
Speaker 1: all the systems together, only then do you realize that
Speaker 1: you start seeing these conflicts. Hey, it's Jonathan from the
Speaker 1: booth again. But I just wanted to tell you that
Speaker 1: we're going to take a very quick break and come
Speaker 1: right back to the episode, So don't go anywhere, all right, guys,
Speaker 1: it's Jonathan from the studio again. Now I figured This
Speaker 1: is a great spot to insert some audio that we
Speaker 1: captured with Engineered Dave Coleman that really helps illustrate what
Speaker 1: I was talking about earlier on. In this episode, we're
Speaker 1: going to start with Dave giving us the sort of
Speaker 1: mission statement his team had in mind and how they
Speaker 1: went about trying to achieve it. So I guess at
Speaker 1: a high level, what we're trying to do with this
Speaker 1: car is gets something that is we'll let you do
Speaker 1: kind of just whatever it you want to do, wherever
Speaker 1: you want to go whatever. It's not really specifically tune
Speaker 1: to one particular kind of driving. UM. It's supposed to
Speaker 1: be really sort of natural and easy and capable enough
Speaker 1: to to do whatever hurt you're interested in. UM. So
Speaker 1: we wanted to make it so it's it's comfortable and
Speaker 1: quiet every day, it's efficient, it's fun to drive. When
Speaker 1: you go out on twisty road and you want to
Speaker 1: go to some you know, rock climbing place or hiking
Speaker 1: trail and mountain bike and that's way up some dirt
Speaker 1: road that's really tricky. It's got to off road capability
Speaker 1: to get you there too, and it's balancing all the
Speaker 1: kind of the right way is a big trick. Um.
Speaker 1: We're we've been working on some new sort of off
Speaker 1: road capabilities. It's mostly electronic trickery. UM, and sort of
Speaker 1: had to figure out where we draw the line on
Speaker 1: making our cars taple on offer. We've always been a
Speaker 1: completely on road company. Uh, and so we've we've sort
Speaker 1: of drawn the line that, uh, well, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff you can do to make cars super capable
Speaker 1: offer road that ruins how it drives the rest of
Speaker 1: the time. So we've drawn the line that we won't
Speaker 1: do anything to compromise how it drives on the road,
Speaker 1: but we still want all the capabilities to get places. Um.
Speaker 1: And this is the first car that we've got that's
Speaker 1: got an offer button that changes a bunch of the settings. UM.
Speaker 1: So some of the some of the kind of trick
Speaker 1: stuff that we're doing under the skin. UM. We've got
Speaker 1: our new all the drive system and the G Vectorian
Speaker 1: control system, which is a very weird, subtle thing for
Speaker 1: making the car behave in a way that feels more
Speaker 1: natural to people. UM. So we've I'll start with the
Speaker 1: G factor in control. So, UM, we found that as
Speaker 1: you're driving, the very first moment you make the steering
Speaker 1: input The cars are a little bit Every car is
Speaker 1: a little bit inconsistent about how it makes that first
Speaker 1: bit of the turn. And the reason is because you're
Speaker 1: sitting on these theneumatic tires. It's just a balloon, right Uh.
Speaker 1: And in its straight ahead state, both sidewalls are sort
Speaker 1: of unloaded, and when you corner, one of sidewall goes
Speaker 1: slack and one starts pulling, and that's what's pulling the
Speaker 1: car in the corners. So there's this transition period as
Speaker 1: the car starts to transition into that corner, and that's
Speaker 1: where things are kind of the most nervous for the
Speaker 1: driver's subconscious as they kind of DESI will when do
Speaker 1: I turn and how much do I turn? And once
Speaker 1: you get into the corner and everything feels naturally, you
Speaker 1: figure out what you're doing. But people aren't really consciously nervous.
Speaker 1: But if you watch someone's steering inputs as they turn
Speaker 1: into a corner, a lot of times they turn in
Speaker 1: and back off and adjust a couple of times because
Speaker 1: they get it figured out. Uh. And so designed the
Speaker 1: system to try to attack that subtle problem that people
Speaker 1: didn't know they were doing. Um. And what we do
Speaker 1: is we figured out that we can we can wait,
Speaker 1: but a little bit more weight on the front tires
Speaker 1: just as you turn. Uh. And this is a trick
Speaker 1: that we learned from race driving. Um I used to
Speaker 1: race rally cars racing off road in the gravel, and
Speaker 1: the rally drivers always using the left foot on the brakes.
Speaker 1: You turn the wheel and put a little bit of
Speaker 1: extra weight on the front tires and it makes them
Speaker 1: grab into the into the grab or turn the car. UM.
Speaker 1: A lot of broad racing guys will do this to
Speaker 1: one foot on the gas, one foot on the brake,
Speaker 1: unlike on the street where you're left foots on the
Speaker 1: clutch or just resting. But you've got one on each
Speaker 1: of you can you can constantly adjust the weight balance
Speaker 1: of the car. So we started sort of from that
Speaker 1: idea and tuned it and tuned it and tuned it,
Speaker 1: trying to make it so it's so subtle. You don't
Speaker 1: feel the car slowing down to shift weight under the front,
Speaker 1: but you do feel the response in the way the
Speaker 1: car turns. Um And now we've got a tune. So
Speaker 1: there's steering system. As you turn the wheel, the electric
Speaker 1: power steering knows exactly what the put you're giving it,
Speaker 1: so it looks at the steering speed and that communicates
Speaker 1: with the engine computer and it tells it to reduce
Speaker 1: power just a hair and it dips a little bit
Speaker 1: of extra weight onto the front tires and tightens up
Speaker 1: the tires so they respond more directly. Um, we don't
Speaker 1: have any on off switch for that. They'll never feel it.
Speaker 1: It's it's soon so well that it just kind of
Speaker 1: just feels normal all the time. Right. We've built a
Speaker 1: couple of cars with on off switches for that, and
Speaker 1: it's it's really funny because it's it's it's not super obvious,
Speaker 1: but it's once you kind of pick out what it's doing,
Speaker 1: it actually makes a difference even just driving completely straight ahead,
Speaker 1: because you don't realize is when you're driving straight you're
Speaker 1: making constantly making little corrections, right, and if each one
Speaker 1: of those has a little delay, and then to catch up,
Speaker 1: you're you're constantly overshooting and coming back. And as soon
Speaker 1: as we turn the system on, people just just settle
Speaker 1: up because they make repression and would stick and they
Speaker 1: wouldn't have to make the next one of the next
Speaker 1: one and the next one. Um. So that's in all
Speaker 1: of our cars now. Um that that's called g Vactric control.
Speaker 1: We just came out with the electric control plus which
Speaker 1: helps when you start straighten the wheel back out, um,
Speaker 1: and the the car will sometimes be a little bit
Speaker 1: slow to kind of come backing up the pull wheel
Speaker 1: straight and so to avoid that, we actually will drag
Speaker 1: the outside break just a hair and it suddenly just
Speaker 1: kind of kind of helps it straight back out. You
Speaker 1: don't again, you don't feel a break when you can
Speaker 1: switch it on and off. What you feel is it
Speaker 1: feels soally normal. And then if if you were to
Speaker 1: switch the system off, you feel like steerings kind of
Speaker 1: going yeah, gun, yeah, gun's a good but yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just kind of overdamped and you kind of have to
Speaker 1: pull it back. Um. So we're really kind of down
Speaker 1: in the weeds of these little subtle details to get
Speaker 1: the car to feel natural and to feel totally almost
Speaker 1: so you don't notice all the work we did, right.
Speaker 1: Is there like a general like description drivers have that
Speaker 1: like now that this stuff has been corrected, or do
Speaker 1: they just like say it's smoother, like you know, we've
Speaker 1: always had a focus on this kind of area. Um,
Speaker 1: so we've always sort of tuned our cars to feel
Speaker 1: just feel right and just feel until it used to
Speaker 1: be our slogan decades ago. It just feels right right.
Speaker 1: That's It's we've kind of always been trying to do
Speaker 1: the same thing. Um. So I don't think adding GBC
Speaker 1: wasn't like a dramatic change. Was another tool in our
Speaker 1: toolbox of all these things that we're trying to do.
Speaker 1: If we took this system and put it on the
Speaker 1: car built by people who didn't care about this stuff,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be enough to pick it right, but it's
Speaker 1: enough to sort of add in our direction of making
Speaker 1: the car, you know, more natural. Um. Sort of our
Speaker 1: our ind goal is to make driving a car so
Speaker 1: naturally you don't think about it. You're just you just drive,
Speaker 1: just do exactly what you wanted to do. Um. The
Speaker 1: whole wheel drive system in this car we mechanically is
Speaker 1: the same as almost everybody's. You drive the front wheels,
Speaker 1: there's a clutch where you can connect the rear wheels
Speaker 1: sometimes when you need it and not when you don't.
Speaker 1: And all the magic is in the software to figure
Speaker 1: out when you need it when you don't exactly how much, right,
Speaker 1: because if you're always driving the rear wheels, it uses
Speaker 1: a lot of extra fuel and it actually UM diffront
Speaker 1: reules have to go to the same speed when they're
Speaker 1: locked together, and so the car doesn't want to turn,
Speaker 1: and so you're always balancing its ability to turn with
Speaker 1: its ability to drive the rear wheels. UM. We've come
Speaker 1: up with a system where we're running software algorithm that's
Speaker 1: basically kind of like a video game algorithm that's looking
Speaker 1: at the vehicle speed and cornering G acceleration G hand
Speaker 1: calculating exactly how much loaders on each tire based on
Speaker 1: the vehicle dynamics model of how this car behaves. And
Speaker 1: so it's constantly calculating what load is on each tire
Speaker 1: and then distributing torque where it's needed to take advantage
Speaker 1: of that UM, which means that this actually can expand
Speaker 1: the performance envelope even on dry paving, not just in
Speaker 1: you know, wet or slippery conditions. UM. And that lets
Speaker 1: us use the OL wild drives to an advantage without
Speaker 1: using it in places but we don't need it waste
Speaker 1: fuel right UM. And then there's a couple of places
Speaker 1: where those two ideas the g vactor control trying to
Speaker 1: get the car turning in precisely, and what the oil
Speaker 1: drive is doing where they don't get along where we're
Speaker 1: If we're driving the rear wheels at a certain time,
Speaker 1: it will make the car resists turning in because they're
Speaker 1: trying to go the same speed. And so we have
Speaker 1: to integrate those two systems so that the g vactor
Speaker 1: control gets the authority right at the moment that it
Speaker 1: needs the car to turn. And then when you're steady state,
Speaker 1: it goes back and sends more to the rear, and
Speaker 1: then it straights back out and can even drag a
Speaker 1: little bit more to the rear to help. So it
Speaker 1: is a really complicated interplayoffs software to get all these
Speaker 1: systems and the cars to talk to each other. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it's it has to to get it to work
Speaker 1: at the speed that our mind is processing things so
Speaker 1: that it feels so that we were really fast in
Speaker 1: what we can recognize, UM. So to to make it
Speaker 1: so we don't feel that it's doing something, but it
Speaker 1: just feels seamless, and it feels like as one unit.
Speaker 1: We had to redo a bunch of the computer hardware
Speaker 1: in the car to communicate faster, to get the signals
Speaker 1: from the steering into the into the thing that makes
Speaker 1: the decisions, and then into the into the e c
Speaker 1: U two from the to change the engine, now putta
Speaker 1: to change the all world drive. Um, if I remember right,
Speaker 1: I think we've got fifty milliseconds from steering input before
Speaker 1: something has to happen at the other end or else
Speaker 1: people will notice. All right, Jonathan from the booth again,
Speaker 1: we're going to rejoin Dave a little further into that
Speaker 1: conversation he had with us. You know, we talked about
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff in that conversation, not all of
Speaker 1: it pertains kind of to this human centric design concept,
Speaker 1: but he gave us a little more insight into the
Speaker 1: challenges behind making the interior of a vehicle quiet without
Speaker 1: making it too quiet. Again, this gets to that concept
Speaker 1: of you want to make an experience for the end user,
Speaker 1: but you have to make sure you're giving the right experience.
Speaker 1: It's not just an experience, but the correct one. So
Speaker 1: we learned there's a very delicate balance to all of that.
Speaker 1: Here's Dave to explain a little further. Hopefully the first
Speaker 1: thing I'll notice is that it's quiet. You know, that
Speaker 1: used to be a weak point of ours. Because well, again,
Speaker 1: steering handling and n VH guys are fighting each farther,
Speaker 1: and we always wanted our cars to handle really well
Speaker 1: and sort of trying to elevate ourselves to the point
Speaker 1: where we can have the steering handling and have the
Speaker 1: car drive right and still be quite uncomfortable. I'm recognizing
Speaker 1: how important that is. UM. We've sort of expanded our
Speaker 1: our performance envelope and a lot of looking at sort
Speaker 1: of how people hear things, what frequency ranges matter to them,
Speaker 1: and what how it actually affects people. Um. And one
Speaker 1: of the things we've started figure out is that we're
Speaker 1: super sensitive to direction of sound, which means that if
Speaker 1: you hear, if the sound does get into the car
Speaker 1: and then uh, you hear reflect off the other window,
Speaker 1: you'll pick up that reflection, maybe not consciously, but it
Speaker 1: bothers you more than that same amount of noise just
Speaker 1: coming one high. So we put more damping into the
Speaker 1: car so that found from do get in damp out quickly.
Speaker 1: It should be good for recording, right right. UM. And
Speaker 1: we've also worked really a lot on isolation from outside noises,
Speaker 1: so you don't hear the car next to you so much,
Speaker 1: and that We're trying to strack a balance because if
Speaker 1: you isolate too much, it's you don't practical reason became
Speaker 1: the Siren's But also at a more subtle level, you
Speaker 1: don't feel connected to what you're doing well, and you
Speaker 1: you feel like you're not really controlling the car. You're
Speaker 1: driving a video game, like you don't feel We want
Speaker 1: to hear the road and feel the road just enough
Speaker 1: to feel connected and not enough to be annoyed. And
Speaker 1: that's the same with outside noises, like you want to
Speaker 1: know that car is there, but you don't want to
Speaker 1: know exactly what's wrong with his brakes. Jonathan, run the
Speaker 1: boot one more time. Another thing that Dave said that
Speaker 1: I wanted to share was about how the team worked
Speaker 1: on the sound system for the Maths to See X
Speaker 1: thirty and they did to put the sub whiffers in
Speaker 1: a very special section of the vehicle and move it
Speaker 1: away from the traditional place, which is within the doors.
Speaker 1: And in order to do that, they had to communicate
Speaker 1: and collaborate with the safety team to make sure that
Speaker 1: this design element they wanted to include would be factored
Speaker 1: into the structure of the vehicle from the very beginning.
Speaker 1: Here's what Dave had to say. One of the kind
Speaker 1: of trick ways that we improve the noise, the outside
Speaker 1: noise isolation in this car and improved the audio quality
Speaker 1: in the car was taking the big speakers out of
Speaker 1: the doors. Everyone has their their subs in the door, right,
Speaker 1: because that's whether you have enough room for Um, that's
Speaker 1: a really inefficient place for a driver. Uh, in terms
Speaker 1: of the space of the car. It's it's driving the
Speaker 1: sounding that volume in the long spot. Um. And it
Speaker 1: also is a noise path from the outside, right. So um,
Speaker 1: we moved them up into the under the dash in
Speaker 1: sort of in the corner of the room. Because anytime
Speaker 1: you corner a load of speaker, the sound quality is
Speaker 1: a lot better, right. Um. So it's a much more
Speaker 1: efficient way to get sound in the car. So if
Speaker 1: we don't have to put as much power in to
Speaker 1: get a better sound quality at the people's ears. Um.
Speaker 1: But also let's to steal off those doors. Um. This
Speaker 1: is something I think everybody understood should be done. It's
Speaker 1: incredibly hard to do because the corners of the of
Speaker 1: the interior are actually a really critical crash structure and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of there's a lot of other departments
Speaker 1: buying for for real estate there right, Because the if
Speaker 1: you crash into something, the load from the bumper goes
Speaker 1: into the frame rails, which go right back into that
Speaker 1: corner of the car, and that's where the load has
Speaker 1: to stop crumpling things. We want everything in front of
Speaker 1: the windshield to crumple and everything inside not too. And
Speaker 1: so that's a really strong structural corner. So normally you
Speaker 1: develop a car, you develt a crash structure first and
Speaker 1: then everybody gets to work on after those. And we
Speaker 1: had to get this concept of trying to move the
Speaker 1: speakers up into the corners before we started the platform development,
Speaker 1: to say, hey, crash guys, you have a space for
Speaker 1: the speaker while you're doing that, and build that concept
Speaker 1: in all right, and and so it was a really
Speaker 1: sort of big accomplishment for us to pull off logistically.
Speaker 1: Dave was a lot of fun to talk to, and
Speaker 1: he helped us understand how these decisions to craft a
Speaker 1: specific experience manifest in actual real world decisions and engineering choices. Now,
Speaker 1: these are things I typically take for granted. Whenever I
Speaker 1: use a product, I generally only think, you know, something like, wow,
Speaker 1: this thing is really easy to use or wow, this
Speaker 1: is a lot of fun, or sometimes on the flip side,
Speaker 1: because not everything is positive. Sometimes I think, who the
Speaker 1: heck thought this was a good design choice? Is so
Speaker 1: inconvenient it's hard to get to. If you ever had
Speaker 1: a user interface where you've had to navigate, you know,
Speaker 1: five steps beyond what you thought would be necessary, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about. It's it ends up being
Speaker 1: so frustrating that it actually creates a disincentive for you
Speaker 1: to use the technology. But I rarely give it much
Speaker 1: more consideration than that sort of surface level. But talking
Speaker 1: with engineers really reveals how much thought has to go
Speaker 1: into this, and it also explains that sometimes it goes
Speaker 1: wrong because you have multiple groups all trying to get
Speaker 1: their various pieces of the puzzle into place, and sometimes
Speaker 1: that means that their peace and someone else's piece, while
Speaker 1: they were meant to fit together, don't. They might overlap,
Speaker 1: they might conflict, they might be a gap between them.
Speaker 1: Those sort of things can happen when things don't go well.
Speaker 1: Now we're going to take another quick break, but when
Speaker 1: we come back, will rejoin me in the Mazda c
Speaker 1: X thirty. All right, So now we're gonna pick back
Speaker 1: up with me at the auto show, So you're gonna
Speaker 1: hear the audio audio quality change again, and I'll be
Speaker 1: talking about the importance of collaboration and communication, and away
Speaker 1: we go. That ends up saving a lot of time
Speaker 1: in the design process there. I've seen a lot of
Speaker 1: different products come out where it was only in the
Speaker 1: testing phase that they realized that there were these sort
Speaker 1: of issues, and then it just meant having to go
Speaker 1: back through a redesign process, and typically it tends to
Speaker 1: be very similar to the first design process, which means
Speaker 1: you still have that problem of these isolated silos, these
Speaker 1: isolated departments that are each working towards their own goal
Speaker 1: and not collaborating closely enough to get the end result
Speaker 1: they want. So that's a huge challenge in design in general.
Speaker 1: So you get to the point where you've built your solution,
Speaker 1: you've tested your solution, Uh, your systems are not in isolation,
Speaker 1: You've figured that part out, You've got your systems all
Speaker 1: working together, and then you see how well it works
Speaker 1: on paper, and then you throw people into it and
Speaker 1: eyes you know technology. I've I've often told this to
Speaker 1: people when I talk about my role at the podcast Realm.
Speaker 1: You know, I've got a lot of podcast friends, a
Speaker 1: lot of coworkers who do great work in all sorts
Speaker 1: of fields. But they're talking about stuff like, you know,
Speaker 1: society and culture and and and money and stuff. What
Speaker 1: don't make sense, y'all. Technology, it makes sense. It either
Speaker 1: works or it doesn't. I have the easiest job, don't
Speaker 1: tell anyone. But when you throw people into things, it
Speaker 1: gets messy because people they have expectations, they have desires,
Speaker 1: they have motivations, they have things that technology on its
Speaker 1: own does not have. As long as sky net has
Speaker 1: not yet gone you know completely, you know, self aware.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming that we're okay at the moment, but yeah,
Speaker 1: people make things complicated. When people are involved, you then
Speaker 1: have to really evaluate what your work actually means in
Speaker 1: the real world. I want to give you, guys an
Speaker 1: example that's unrelated to vehicles for a moment to kind
Speaker 1: of explain what I'm thinking about here. I once intended
Speaker 1: to talk with some roboticists who were talking about the
Speaker 1: challenges they faced when they were trying to design a
Speaker 1: robot that would that would interact with humans within a
Speaker 1: human space, and that is a difficult thing to really engineer.
Speaker 1: To create a robot that can seamlessly interact with humans.
Speaker 1: So they sat down and they identified their various goals
Speaker 1: and objectives. They sat down and said, all right, these
Speaker 1: are the things that are important to us. We need
Speaker 1: to make sure that our robot does these things. And
Speaker 1: they were parameters like this is how close a robot
Speaker 1: can get to another human being before it has to
Speaker 1: stop because otherwise it's going to be crowding someone. Or
Speaker 1: this is how close a robot can get to a
Speaker 1: stationary object. This is how fast the robots should move
Speaker 1: through the environment. This is how the robot should respond
Speaker 1: if someone were to address it. So a whole list
Speaker 1: of rules that they had to figure out and then design,
Speaker 1: and this took months and months and months of testing.
Speaker 1: There was a point where a robot was staring at
Speaker 1: a door for two hours trying to figure out how
Speaker 1: to open it. That's the sort of stuff we're talking about.
Speaker 1: They solve all these problems and then they put the
Speaker 1: robot into an actual human environment, and that's when everything
Speaker 1: went pear shaped, I guess we could say, because they
Speaker 1: realized that the human beings in that particular environment had
Speaker 1: an expectation of how the robot was supposed to behave.
Speaker 1: It was a robot, but the robot wasn't behaving the
Speaker 1: way they thought a robot should behave. The robot was
Speaker 1: behaving the way the engineers had thought the robots should
Speaker 1: behave based on the way humans behave within the same
Speaker 1: sort of social space. Now that meant that the people
Speaker 1: who were actually encountering the robot, we're uncomfortable around the robot.
Speaker 1: It felt weird. It was the sort of Uncanny Valley,
Speaker 1: except instead of appearance, it was in behavior. So uncanny valley,
Speaker 1: for those who are not familiar, is this gap when
Speaker 1: you start to approach something that appears to be alive
Speaker 1: but still has certain elements that indicate it is not
Speaker 1: truly alive. We usually use it to describe things like
Speaker 1: c G I characters, where a c G I character
Speaker 1: looks almost but not quite real. The same thing is
Speaker 1: true with behaviors. So the roboticists discovered that these robots
Speaker 1: were not performing the way they needed to, that people
Speaker 1: were not responding to them the way that they had
Speaker 1: anticipated because it wasn't robotic enough. They actually had to
Speaker 1: go back to the drawing board and go through and
Speaker 1: start rethinking their whole process of creating robots that could
Speaker 1: interact in social spaces and make them more robotic. That
Speaker 1: was a fail. You're of an approach of a human
Speaker 1: centric design in the sense that the people creating the
Speaker 1: robots had not anticipated that human reaction, and it shows
Speaker 1: that when you throw humans into an equation, things get
Speaker 1: a little more complicated. It's not as straightforward as saying
Speaker 1: this particular piece of technology needs to do task in
Speaker 1: why amount of time and it has to have a
Speaker 1: certain level of reliability. It means more than that. It
Speaker 1: means defining things like a feeling, intention, defining how a
Speaker 1: person should experience the technology. And this goes well beyond technology. Obviously,
Speaker 1: it goes to everything that we ever designed. But really
Speaker 1: in tech, it's something that you either get or you don't,
Speaker 1: and if you get it when you're designing, you can
Speaker 1: create something that actually has a legit special feeling when
Speaker 1: you experience it. It's a very tough challenge because obviously,
Speaker 1: the other big issue you have is that people are different.
Speaker 1: You know, we have general things that kind of unite us,
Speaker 1: but we're all individuals. We all have our own preferences,
Speaker 1: our own things that that maybe annoy us, uh and
Speaker 1: our own expectations, so it also means having to identify
Speaker 1: which ones are the most important to whatever end result
Speaker 1: you're looking for. So one of the things that really
Speaker 1: we heard a lot when we were here over in
Speaker 1: the auto show over at Mazda's this this concept of
Speaker 1: feel alive, that you want to feel alive when you're
Speaker 1: actually using the vehicle, and vehicles are such an important
Speaker 1: central piece of technology in our lives. That is not
Speaker 1: a small task, and it's not lips service. It's not
Speaker 1: something that is just a tagline. It's a guiding philosophy.
Speaker 1: That's the philosophy that guides the decisions that the engineers
Speaker 1: are making in order to make a vehicle that is
Speaker 1: fun to drive, that it's safe, that's efficient, that it
Speaker 1: has all the things you expect a vehicle to have,
Speaker 1: but that when you are behind the wheel and you're
Speaker 1: actually driving it, you have the sensation of feeling alive.
Speaker 1: That's sort of exhilarating feeling, and that it's something that
Speaker 1: goes beyond just your experience behind the wheel. It's something
Speaker 1: that is actually integrated into your experience of moving through
Speaker 1: an environment. So when you start thinking about that, you're
Speaker 1: thinking not just trying to define everything that's on a
Speaker 1: dashboard or just an easy reach of the driver. You're
Speaker 1: thinking about an experience that goes well beyond that, as
Speaker 1: the driver's maneuvering through different environments. That ends up being
Speaker 1: a very important concept to guide all of your design philosophies.
Speaker 1: And I was really impressed with the passion that I
Speaker 1: encountered when I talked with people from Mazda. All shared
Speaker 1: that same sort of uh, deep desire to create that
Speaker 1: kind of experience. And this is not something that is
Speaker 1: easy to engineer. It's not something you typically hear from engineers. Uh.
Speaker 1: This also kind of brings us to a dichotomy I
Speaker 1: tend to encounter in the field of technology. Broadly speaking,
Speaker 1: there are two major camps I tend to encounter when
Speaker 1: I'm looking at different types of gadgets and vehicles and
Speaker 1: things like that. One is that I see a camp
Speaker 1: that really emphasizes esthetic over everything else, so that the
Speaker 1: look of it is supposed to be extremely evocative and
Speaker 1: that it makes you want to use it in some way,
Speaker 1: but that is the guiding principle behind the design. The
Speaker 1: other I've seen is a more I think of it
Speaker 1: as the engineering approach in the sense that it needs
Speaker 1: to work, it needs to be able to do the
Speaker 1: things that it was supposed to do. Uh, And that
Speaker 1: becomes primary and aesthetic is is secondary, or maybe tertiary,
Speaker 1: or maybe for some companies, not really a thing that
Speaker 1: anyone thinks about. Uh. I'm sure many of you have
Speaker 1: owned gadgets out there that fall into that category where
Speaker 1: you think this thing is ugly as sin. It does
Speaker 1: what it's supposed to do, but I don't like to
Speaker 1: look at it. The real goal, I think, is trying
Speaker 1: to bridge the gap between those two different philosophies, bringing
Speaker 1: together the aesthetic and the desire to get the engineering
Speaker 1: just right. Uh. I think a lot about my experience
Speaker 1: with different things like mobile devices. That's the one that
Speaker 1: I always think about about how I've had experiences with
Speaker 1: ones where it looks really nice, it looks really sexy,
Speaker 1: looks like it would go fast just standing still, and
Speaker 1: others that it doesn't look so good, but you can
Speaker 1: definitely see how everything works. Uh. And maybe you have
Speaker 1: to learn the peculiarities of that particular system in order
Speaker 1: for you to have a deeper appreciation, but you once
Speaker 1: you do, it works just fine. Marrying those two is
Speaker 1: really challenging, but it's also a very important part of
Speaker 1: this human centric focus. Knowing that people do value both
Speaker 1: the aesthetic and the function of a device, and again
Speaker 1: for something as important as a vehicle, it becomes even
Speaker 1: more imperative that you get that just right. So to
Speaker 1: achieve this, it's all the all these different processes, all
Speaker 1: these different philosophies I've talked about, have to come together.
Speaker 1: We heard about how at Mazda they are still very
Speaker 1: focused on very traditional ways of modeling, say the exterior
Speaker 1: of a car, doing it through clay first and sculpting
Speaker 1: it so that you can get exactly the right feel.
Speaker 1: You know, you can very carefully shave away a tiny
Speaker 1: slow ver of clay in order to get just the
Speaker 1: right shape or just the right curve, and doing all
Speaker 1: of that to meticulous detail until you do a full
Speaker 1: scan of it and three D and then maybe then
Speaker 1: at that point you can go to additive manufacturing, like
Speaker 1: a three D printing sort of approach and create your
Speaker 1: first three D printed version of the thing that you
Speaker 1: have sculpted out of clay. They talked about how even
Speaker 1: getting to a point where you could build the full
Speaker 1: sized version of uh like a door, for example, that
Speaker 1: if it wasn't just right, their engineers would take hand
Speaker 1: uh handcrafted approaches to making sure they got exactly the
Speaker 1: curve that they wanted in order to achieve the result
Speaker 1: that they were going for. And that kind of level
Speaker 1: of attention to detail is something that I find really inspiring.
Speaker 1: It's also kind of intimidating you think about the scale
Speaker 1: that that requires, and uh, that's not something that's easily
Speaker 1: tackled either. So it's I feel like this is one
Speaker 1: of those cases where you hear about the philosophy and
Speaker 1: then you hear the stories behind it, and you really
Speaker 1: feel that that you're talking to a company that's that's
Speaker 1: walking the walk. They're not just talking the talk, they
Speaker 1: really follow through with that, uh, and that to me
Speaker 1: is really exciting. So I hope that I'm able to
Speaker 1: kind of illustrate to you this incredible journey the the
Speaker 1: from the point where you actually identify what it is
Speaker 1: you want to do to the point of seeing it
Speaker 1: come together and all the different challenges that face you
Speaker 1: along the way. Uh. There are so many different examples
Speaker 1: of that with any kind of technology, including vehicles, where
Speaker 1: you can look at this and say, like if if
Speaker 1: one of these systems didn't work just right, then it
Speaker 1: would affect everything else. It becomes a cascading effect, and
Speaker 1: no matter how good the design is on other elements
Speaker 1: of the vehicle, you would still fall short of your goal.
Speaker 1: And it really does drive home how enormous a challenge
Speaker 1: this is. So I think they're playing me off. No,
Speaker 1: I think that this has been an incredible experience for me.
Speaker 1: This is an awesome studio. I can't wait to have
Speaker 1: it installed in Atlanta. Uh everyone's laughing. Okay, well it
Speaker 1: would still be great. I think uh Tari would have
Speaker 1: fewer instances of me having you know, Diva fits in
Speaker 1: the studio if I were recording in something like this
Speaker 1: every single episode. Uh. Plus, I mean, there's it's spacious.
Speaker 1: I could have so many guests in a single episode
Speaker 1: and we could all have our own, our own nice
Speaker 1: comfortable seats. I'm just really, it's a practical thing. I'm saying,
Speaker 1: Like my studio back in Atlanta, we can fit maybe
Speaker 1: three people in there before we get it's crowded. This time,
Speaker 1: I can cram a lot of folks in here, including
Speaker 1: sound engineers. So Tary it benefits you too, is what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, but I want to think masdo for having
Speaker 1: me come out here and to experience this and to
Speaker 1: get a firsthand look at the culmination of this idea.
Speaker 1: I've heard a lot about this philosophy. I've talked to
Speaker 1: people who have been sort of really passionate about the
Speaker 1: concept behind human centric design, but it's rare that I
Speaker 1: actually get an experience, a truly immersive experience, because I
Speaker 1: am actually in it where I see the fruition of that.
Speaker 1: And when you get a chance to see that and
Speaker 1: you you understand the decisions that went behind all those
Speaker 1: design choices, you get a deeper appreciation for that process
Speaker 1: and all the work that goes into just making something
Speaker 1: actually happen. I think we all take for granted what
Speaker 1: it makes to create a piece of technology like this.
Speaker 1: You know, we might think of the manufacturing process, because
Speaker 1: that's one that is easy to illustrate. It's you see
Speaker 1: the factory line, But it's so much more than that.
Speaker 1: The process takes years of work, years of engineering, years
Speaker 1: of iterating and building upon past uh learnings, and two
Speaker 1: continue to innovate on top of that. It is a
Speaker 1: really interesting and inspiring experience to actually see this in person.
Speaker 1: With that, I think I'm gonna wrap up because, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I think I think i've I've covered it
Speaker 1: pretty well. And plus I really want to have a
Speaker 1: little more experience jumping around in the back seat of
Speaker 1: this thing, because I've been saying in the front the
Speaker 1: whole time and I haven't even experienced what the back
Speaker 1: seats like. And I don't think anyone's gonna stop me
Speaker 1: as long as I hold a microphone in my hand.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to sign off, but don't tell anyone
Speaker 1: who's actually here that I've done that. I'll just I'll
Speaker 1: pretend like I'm still point. Oh they're broadcasting the whole
Speaker 1: thing right now. Okay, well, alright, so on that. No, guys,
Speaker 1: we're gonna wrap up this episode. Remember if you want
Speaker 1: to reach out to me, text stuff at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com, or you can pop onto Facebook or Twitter.
Speaker 1: That's tech stuff hs W and uh, I look forward
Speaker 1: to talking to you again really soon. And it's Jonathan
Speaker 1: back in the studio. So I want to thank Mazda
Speaker 1: for having me out at the auto show and getting
Speaker 1: a chance to experience just a tiny sliver of the
Speaker 1: work that they put into the c x thirty. You know,
Speaker 1: I didn't get a chance to ride in it, but
Speaker 1: it was really cool getting to see it up close
Speaker 1: and actually sit in it and record an episode. It
Speaker 1: was a fun experience. And uh and everyone there, by
Speaker 1: the way, was incredibly kind and very helpful. So I
Speaker 1: had a really good experience with everybody over there. So
Speaker 1: thank you guys a lot. You guys are awesome. It
Speaker 1: also reminded me that with every piece of technology I encounter,
Speaker 1: no matter what it might be, there typically dozens or
Speaker 1: hundreds or maybe even thousands of people who helped shape
Speaker 1: that technology, maybe a little bit, maybe they helped define it,
Speaker 1: but they all had their impact on that technology before
Speaker 1: I ever got a chance to touch it. And that
Speaker 1: when it all goes right, when everything is falling into
Speaker 1: place properly, when people are able to collaborate, when they're
Speaker 1: able to communicate, then they can produce technology in turn
Speaker 1: creates a specific experience that reflects whatever the original intent
Speaker 1: was of the design team. That comes to the very
Speaker 1: goal of human centric design. And again, this is not
Speaker 1: an easy thing to achieve. It is incredibly challenging. You
Speaker 1: might define what you want people to feel like, but
Speaker 1: then it may turn out that when people actually experience
Speaker 1: the product, they feel something entirely different, and that you
Speaker 1: could argue that that represents a failure on your part
Speaker 1: as far as the design goes, and you have to
Speaker 1: factor in human psychology and human behaviors that aren't something
Speaker 1: that are so easy to quantify. As you know, how
Speaker 1: efficient an engine is running, or how long a tire
Speaker 1: can can be in service before you need to replace it.
Speaker 1: Those are things that you can quantify much more easily.
Speaker 1: So this human centric design philosophy is something that I
Speaker 1: think is really fascinating, incredibly challenging, and when you get
Speaker 1: it right, amazingly satisfying. All right, Well, that wraps up
Speaker 1: this episode. And I know I gave a sign off
Speaker 1: in the live section, but you know, I I feel
Speaker 1: like if I don't do it again, I'm not really
Speaker 1: doing my job. If you guys have suggestions for topics
Speaker 1: you would like me to cover in future episodes of
Speaker 1: tech Stuff, you can reach out via email the addresses
Speaker 1: tech stuff at how stuffworks dot com, or you can
Speaker 1: pop onto Facebook or Twitter the handle for both of
Speaker 1: those Text Stuff hs W. You can also pop on
Speaker 1: over to our website that tech Stuff Podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: You'll find an archive of every episode that we've ever
Speaker 1: recorded and published. It's all there's searchable. So if there's
Speaker 1: a specific topic you would you know I want to
Speaker 1: know more about, you can search and see if I've
Speaker 1: already done an episode on it, and if not, then
Speaker 1: use the aforementioned ways to get in touch with me
Speaker 1: and let me know about it and I'll get right
Speaker 1: on it. And also there's a link to our online
Speaker 1: store where every purchasing make goes to help the show,
Speaker 1: and we greatly appreciate it, and I will talk to
Speaker 1: you again and really soon. Text Stuff is a production
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