BMW learn from usability mistakes

By David Bomphrey

The BMW flagship model is the 7 Series. It is always the first in the range to get a refresh and represents luxury cruising beyond the means of most of us. According to Fifth Gear, it should have all the best technology as well as a wonderful driving experience. Yet in the past the BMW iDrive system, the system that controls everything from the sat nav and stereo to the air con, has been far from perfect. Indeed it has rightly been widely slated as impenetrable for certain tasks. While no one as gone so far as to call it dangerous the implications of trying to use a complex system while driving are obvious to all.

To be clear, the problem was not a hardware one. The input device, a dial with an integrated push button was very easy to work and had good tactile feedback. The screen was big and clear even in bright sunshine. The big problem came with the software. The structure was all wrong, the labels poor or misleading and the process for task completion long, complicated and unintuitive. So it was about time for a change and this came with the launch of the new 7 series.

Interestingly Tom Ford, the presenter of Fifth Gear chose to demonstrate this by conducting what effectively amounted to an on air usability test. The video starts with a broad introduction to the car and how he is going to test it. The iDrive section starts at 1m 30 second in. The participant in this case may not have been exactly target audience but should easily have been capable of the task. He was asked to set the home location in the sat nav system on both the outgoing and new 7 series. The time he recorded on the new one was half that of the old, a significant improvement in anybody’s book.

While the results are interesting what is more so is that it shows how important usability is to users even if they don’t know that’s what it’s called. While good usability may not get commented on as frequently or as publicly as press on poor products it certainly adds value, increases the customer experience of a luxury product leading to customer satisfaction and therefore brand equity. Clearly it is becoming a quality metric of the leading brands.