In defence of Ferrari

These past few days, a video of a Fer­rari engin­eer explain­ing the com­plex­ity of the Fer­rari F10 For­mula 1 racing car has been mak­ing the rounds. Every blog post or dis­cus­sion forum I have come across so far seem to say one and one thing only: “It is a usab­il­ity night­mare.”

Bull­shit. Every one seems to have for­got­ten the basic tenet of usab­il­ity: “Know the user, and YOU are not the user.”

If a car designer tries to cre­ate a sim­ilar steer­ing wheel for a pro­duc­tion vehicle, I can under­stand the uproar. But for a cus­tom­ized piece of machinery like a for­mula 1 car, the dis­cus­sion is moot.

Most people don’t under­stand what a motor racing car is. Com­par­ing it with an ordin­ary road vehicle is idiocy. A cas­ual driver never deals with issues like con­fig­ur­ing the fuel mix­ture, adjust­ing down-forces and wings. He never drives at speeds of over 300 kmph. He never exper­i­ences g-forces of over 4. A For­mula 1 car is a com­plex piece of machinery… Try­ing to apply ‘iPod style’ usab­il­ity prin­ciples will not work…

The defin­i­tion of usab­il­ity is ‘The extent to which a product can be used by spe­cified users to achieve spe­cified goals with effect­ive­ness, effi­ciency and sat­is­fac­tion in a spe­cified con­text of use.’ And I see no reason why the F10 steer­ing wheel doesn’t adhere to this defin­i­tion. It is designed for

• a ‘spe­cified users’ – a For­mula 1 racing driver
• ‘achieve spe­cified goals’ – win the race
• ‘effect­ive­ness’ and ‘effi­ciency’- the vari­ous func­tions avail­able to the racing driver to win the race
• ‘sat­is­fac­tion’ – a F1 car is built around a single per­son, cus­tom­ized to his needs.
• ‘a spe­cified con­text of use’ – the car and its com­pon­ents are built for one thing only – speed and maneuverability.

As a for­mula 1 afi­cion­ado and a UX prac­ti­tioner, I belive the F10 steer­ing wheel does what is sup­posed to do — help the driver race his vehicle.