Have We Forgotten How to Design?

"Waymo is paying Dashers to close the Waymo car doors that passengers leave open. How has Waymo the technical ability to self-drive a motor vehicle around a city carrying human passengers, but they do not possess the skill to automate closing a door? Did they overlook every method that might encourage the passenger to close it themselves?"

"Four-door taxis with automated doors are rare outside of Japan, but power-sliding doors have existed on vans for decades. The concept of vehicle doors that can open and close themselves is not futuristic. We know how to do it."

"Working in the technology industry over the last 15 years, I can actually believe it. I can believe that such things are overlooked. Because I've seen people jump to much wilder implementations before the ones that feel much more obvious to me."

Waymo partnered with DoorDash to have human drivers manually close car doors left open by passengers in their autonomous taxi fleet. This decision is puzzling given that Waymo possesses the technical capability to operate self-driving vehicles in urban environments, yet lacks automated door-closing functionality. Automated sliding doors have existed on vehicles for decades and are common in Japan. The oversight suggests a pattern in the technology industry where companies pursue complex solutions while overlooking simpler, more obvious implementations. This reflects a broader tendency in tech development where fundamental design considerations are sometimes neglected in favor of more elaborate approaches.

Read at Lmnt