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DC86 Longitudinal Review: TomTom XL335TM Portable GPS
Design Critique: Products for People
English - January 31, 2012 02:54 - 46 minutes - 10.6 MB - ★★★★ - 11 ratingsBusiness Arts Design design factors human userexperience designthinking interview research usability user Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
"Attack of the Pointless Modal Confirmations"
Tim critiques almost two years of experience with the TomTomXL335TM portable GPS in a longitudinal review plagued by a ragged voice from a nasty January filled with mishaps, and a mental wooziness that we hope isn't too obvious. But food poisonings, auto wrecks, and seasonal colds cannot prevent the fact that the XL335 is a GPS that has terrific voices which sound wonderful, but unreliable software and horrid modal confirmation abuses throughout.
Just reflect on this one example of interaction design gone wrong; sadly, it is typical of the TomTom Way:
It takes eleven, that's 11, taps to change voices on the XL335TM. I am not making this up.
And here are TomTom's excellent marketing of its Star Wars celebrity voices:
Darth Vader in the recording studio: http://youtu.be/2ljFfL-mL70
Yoda in the recording studio: http://youtu.be/FdcJVuylmsM
Two feedback emails round out this 46-minute episode.