Ford and Microsoft team up again with Hohm

[ausrutherford]

•Ford and Microsoft are teaming up to use Microsoft Hohm as a platform to help future owners of Ford’s electric vehicles optimize the way they recharge their vehicle and better manage their home’s energy use

•Microsoft and Ford also will work with utilities and municipalities to help develop an energy ecosystem that manages energy usage as consumer demand for electric vehicles grows

•Ford’s aggressive electrification plan includes five new vehicles in North America and Europe by 2013; in North America, they include the Transit Connect Electric later this year, Focus Electric in 2011, a plug-in hybrid and two next-generation hybrids in 2012, joining four Ford and Mercury hybrids already on the road and a new Lincoln MKZ Hybrid coming this fall

•The Focus Electric is expected to be the first Ford electric vehicle to use Hohm

NEW YORK, March 31, 2010 – Today, Ford Motor Company and Microsoft Corp. are leading the way toward a more energy-efficient future by announcing a new solution that will make electric vehicle ownership easier and more affordable for consumers.

 

The two companies are teaming up to implement the Microsoft Hohm™ energy management application for Ford’s electric vehicles. Ford is the first automaker announcing the use of Hohm, starting with the Focus Electric next year. Hohm will help owners determine when and how

to most efficiently and affordably recharge battery electric (BEV) and plug-in hybrid (PHEV) vehicles. It also should help utility companies manage the added demands of electric vehicles on the electric grid.

 

“Ford and Microsoft both share a strong commitment to contributing to a better world. Today, we begin the next major step in our working together and leading the way for energy efficiency and environmental sustainability,” said Alan Mulally, Ford Motor Company president and CEO. “For Ford, this is a needed step in the development of the infrastructure that will make electric vehicles viable.”

 

Both companies agree that effective management of the energy ecosystem is critical for electric vehicles to be successful and for consumer interest to grow. In a recent Accenture survey, 42 percent of consumers said they are likely to buy a hybrid or electric vehicle in the next two years.

 

Increasing numbers of electric vehicles, however, will have a significant impact on energy demand. That is because the addition of an electric vehicle to a household could effectively double home energy consumption while the vehicle is charging.

 

Ford and Microsoft agree that making energy management easy and affordable for consumers will be key to the success of electric vehicles in the marketplace as well as in creating a positive environmental impact.

 

“Electric vehicles will play an important role in the global effort to improve energy efficiency and address the issues of climate change and sustainability,” said Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO. “But as the market for electric vehicles expands, it will have a significant impact on home energy consumption and demand across the nation’s energy grid. With Microsoft Hohm, Ford and Microsoft will deliver a solution that will make it easier for car owners to make smart decisions about the most affordable and efficient ways to recharge electric vehicles, while giving utilities better tools for managing the expected changes in energy demand.”

 

Introducing Hohm to Ford’s electric vehicles supports Ford’s aggressive global electrification plan, which will put five new electrified vehicles on the road in North America and Europe by 2013. In North America, they include the Transit Connect Electric later this year, Focus Electric in 2011, a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle and two next-generation hybrids in 2012.

 

America’s largest domestic hybrid seller, Ford Motor Company today has four hybrids on the road and another coming this year. They include the Ford Fusion Hybrid, Ford Escape Hybrid, Mercury Milan Hybrid and Mercury Mariner Hybrid. Also coming this fall is the Lincoln MKZ Hybrid, which is expected to be the most fuel-efficient luxury sedan in America.

 

Life with electrified vehicles – with full battery electric (BEV) and plug-in hybrid (PHEV) vehicles needing to be recharged daily – will require consumers to change how they think about personal transportation and energy use.

 

Hohm, an Internet-based service, is designed to help customers avoid unnecessary expense by providing insight into their energy usage patterns and suggesting recommendations to increase conservation. With Ford electric vehicles, Hohm also will help drivers to determine the best time to charge their vehicle. Smart recharging habits will help utility companies understand and better manage the increased demands placed upon the electric grid because of electrified vehicles.

 

Ford and Microsoft’s participation in the Hohm program builds on the success of their decade-long partnership to provide customers with superior in-car experiences. The Ford SYNC® communications and infotainment system, built on the Windows Embedded Automotive platform, has been installed on more than 2 million Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles since its launch in 2007, helping drivers connect and voice-control their mobile devices while driving.

 

Microsoft Hohm is available today for free to all U.S. residential energy consumers and has multiple partnerships with utilities and other stakeholders already in place. Ford is the first automaker to join in collaboration with Hohm.

 

Ford and Microsoft also plan to continue to work with utility partners and municipalities to help further develop the energy ecosystem. Ford’s work includes collaboration with a dozen North American energy companies to road-test a fleet of 21 Ford Escape plug-in hybrid vehicles. The research has accumulated more than 160,000 miles of real-world data, which provided important groundwork for the new Hohm application.

 

“Rechargeable vehicles represent a new frontier. Their commercialization will take broad-based collaboration and systems solutions,” said Mulally. “Working together, Ford and Microsoft will provide the systems solutions to help facilitate this exciting future.”

 

http://media.ford.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=32266

[phil1336]

I think Ford should consider scraping its Microsoft connection and team up with Steve Jobs and his Apple Team instead! Windows 7 (it`s NOT my idea), will eventually also end up on the scrap pile of other Window versions as well. I can`t figure it out, The entire world is in love with iPhones, iPods, iTablets, and iMacs. When will people just take that "Leap of Faith", dump their PC`s and convert once and for all to Apple. Happiness is never to see the Blue Screen of Death again, informing you that YOU have committed another "fatal error". Too me, a real "fatal error" is either a heart attack or stroke, not a frozen computer screen!

[NickF1011]

I think Ford should consider scraping its Microsoft connection and team up with Steve Jobs and his Apple Team instead! Windows 7 (it`s NOT my idea), will eventually also end up on the scrap pile of other Window versions as well. I can`t figure it out, The entire world is in love with iPhones, iPods, iTablets, and iMacs. When will people just take that "Leap of Faith", dump their PC`s and convert once and for all to Apple. Happiness is never to see the Blue Screen of Death again, informing you that YOU have committed another "fatal error". Too me, a real "fatal error" is either a heart attack or stroke, not a frozen computer screen!

 

If people were as in love with Apple products as you say, Microsoft wouldn't have a 90% share of the home and business OS market. Microsoft is still looked upon very favorably by the vast majority of its customers.

 

Why do Macs run so well? Mostly because there are so few of them. Nobody bothers to write malware for them and most of their current user base is informed enough to avoid installing so much useless crap on their system and renaming the wrong files as to cause "fatal errors".

[Pioneer]

I think Ford should consider scraping its Microsoft connection and team up with Steve Jobs and his Apple Team instead!

 

 

Ugh, I sure hope not. Knowing Apple and their proprietary "do it our way" mentality, they would force you to use iTunes to read off your USB device and say praises to Jobs for the phone system to work.

[fordmantpw]

Ugh, I sure hope not. Knowing Apple and their proprietary "do it our way" mentality, they would force you to use iTunes to read off your USB device and say praises to Jobs for the phone system to work.

 

Plus Apple would want to produce the entire car!

[RichardJensen]

If people were as in love with Apple products as you say, Microsoft wouldn't have a 90% share of the home and business OS market. Microsoft is still looked upon very favorably by the vast majority of its customers.

 

Why do Macs run so well? Mostly because there are so few of them. Nobody bothers to write malware for them and most of their current user base is informed enough to avoid installing so much useless crap on their system and renaming the wrong files as to cause "fatal errors".

 

Apple are control freaks. That's why they don't have 90% of the market. They don't play well with others. That's why they missed the boat on vehicles. Their insistence on 100% end to end control of the product ensures that they will never be a major player in any field that demands multiple architecture support. iTunes being the sole exception, and that only because of the popularity of a proprietary closed system (iPod).

 

And Macs run well because they're built on BSD. It's not because 'there are so few of them', it's because it's darn hard to write malware for *nix because of the multiple user nature of the OS.

[notquitesane]

I think Ford should consider scraping its Microsoft connection and team up with Steve Jobs and his Apple Team instead! Windows 7 (it`s NOT my idea), will eventually also end up on the scrap pile of other Window versions as well. I can`t figure it out, The entire world is in love with iPhones, iPods, iTablets, and iMacs. When will people just take that "Leap of Faith", dump their PC`s and convert once and for all to Apple. Happiness is never to see the Blue Screen of Death again, informing you that YOU have committed another "fatal error". Too me, a real "fatal error" is either a heart attack or stroke, not a frozen computer screen!

 

Ask anyone with an iPhone with OS 3.1, it does NOT like the Sync system. As soon as it gets a bluetooth connection, it'll start playing music even if the Sync system is not set to Bluetooth Audio. The sound is choppy when using bluetooth audio streaming playing your music and if you plug your phone into the USB port, it's still trying to stream over bluetooth audio. After Sync reindexes the iPhone (pretty much everytime now) you have to manually change it to the dock connector to get it to play through the USB port. Unplug it and plug it back it, it defaults to bluetooth audio streaming. I hate it so much that I turned bluetooth off so it doesn't kill my battery playing music for no reason. So no hands free phone for me. Do we really want Apple involved with our cars?

[BoomerSooner]

Ask anyone with an iPhone with OS 3.1, it does NOT like the Sync system. As soon as it gets a bluetooth connection, it'll start playing music even if the Sync system is not set to Bluetooth Audio. The sound is choppy when using bluetooth audio streaming playing your music and if you plug your phone into the USB port, it's still trying to stream over bluetooth audio. After Sync reindexes the iPhone (pretty much everytime now) you have to manually change it to the dock connector to get it to play through the USB port. Unplug it and plug it back it, it defaults to bluetooth audio streaming. I hate it so much that I turned bluetooth off so it doesn't kill my battery playing music for no reason. So no hands free phone for me. Do we really want Apple involved with our cars?

 

If by choppy, you mean the Bluetooth cuts out about every 20 second, then, yep, I've got the same experience. From calls to both Apple and Sync, they are each aware of this glitch. Has Sync completely refused to recognize your iPhone yet? I have to periodically disconnect the ground from my battery to get Sync to recognize my iPhone through the USB plug. And, have you figured out a pattern to when it reindexes? Mine does it randomly (sometimes quickly, sometimes after 20-30 minutes, though), even if I haven't changed the content of my iPhone in weeks. Don't get me wrong: I love my iPhone and I love Sync. But, I wish they would just learn to get along and play nicely together. Having more Apple gear in a car leaves me a little cold.

[RichardJensen]

Hey BoomerSooner--you follow WBB at all? Two Big Twelve teams in the final four....

[rmc523]

Ask anyone with an iPhone with OS 3.1, it does NOT like the Sync system. As soon as it gets a bluetooth connection, it'll start playing music even if the Sync system is not set to Bluetooth Audio. The sound is choppy when using bluetooth audio streaming playing your music and if you plug your phone into the USB port, it's still trying to stream over bluetooth audio. After Sync reindexes the iPhone (pretty much everytime now) you have to manually change it to the dock connector to get it to play through the USB port. Unplug it and plug it back it, it defaults to bluetooth audio streaming. I hate it so much that I turned bluetooth off so it doesn't kill my battery playing music for no reason. So no hands free phone for me. Do we really want Apple involved with our cars?

 

 

If by choppy, you mean the Bluetooth cuts out about every 20 second, then, yep, I've got the same experience. From calls to both Apple and Sync, they are each aware of this glitch. Has Sync completely refused to recognize your iPhone yet? I have to periodically disconnect the ground from my battery to get Sync to recognize my iPhone through the USB plug. And, have you figured out a pattern to when it reindexes? Mine does it randomly (sometimes quickly, sometimes after 20-30 minutes, though), even if I haven't changed the content of my iPhone in weeks. Don't get me wrong: I love my iPhone and I love Sync. But, I wish they would just learn to get along and play nicely together. Having more Apple gear in a car leaves me a little cold.

 

Yup, I'm in the same boat! Mine cuts out too - I sometimes have to plug-in, unplug, and plug-in the iPhone a few times before it'll work through the USB/Dock Connector. I prefer being able to control the iPod/iPhone music through the steering wheel controls or the Nav screen/radio controls....with the Bluetooth audio, I have to use the phone to control the song choice, so it's pretty useless in my mind, not to mention the fact that like notquitesane said, the thing still tries to put bluetooth audio on even when you've got it plugged in, etc. Mine also indexes strangely - just as you said, sometimes it takes 2 minutes, other times I'll drive for 20 minutes and I still am looking at "INDEXING |||||." I hope one of them (SYNC, or iPhone) figures out how to play nicely with the next update to either.

[twintornados]

Ugh, I sure hope not. Knowing Apple and their proprietary "do it our way" mentality, they would force you to use iTunes to read off your USB device and say praises to Jobs for the phone system to work.

"Steve Jobs is a wonderful human being" iCar replies, "Sorry...not good enough, try again."

 

"Steve Jobs is a fantastic element of the human experience." iCar replies, "I am not impressed, try again."

 

"Steve Jobs is the Alpha and the Omega, without him life would have no meaning." iCar replies, "Ok, that'll do for now, but you better come up with something better next time."

 

Car then starts and your music begins to play as you then are allowed to drive off.....

[Tboneguy]

Apple does a lot of great work, especially in the areas of user interface. Macs truly are great products, but they are far from flawless. Example: Although you don't hear about these things in the media, there are large numbers of Mac vulnerabilities being patched on a regular basis. In fact, the Security update released 3 days ago patches 70 separate vulnerabilities! http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4077

 

And, this Mac lover (really he is) just found another 20. http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2010/0412/technology-apple-hackers-charlie-miller.html?partner=yahoomag

 

So, Apple truly knows how to create a great consumer experience, such as iPods and iPhones, and they know how to create a income stream from those products. But they are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination.

[RichardJensen]

Apple deserves credit for prioritizing human interface design.

 

I know several programmers, most of them assume that they are good designers.

 

A quick review of the awful user interfaces in Linux will convince you that most programmers are either not good designers or not as good as they think they are.

[BoomerSooner]

Hey BoomerSooner--you follow WBB at all? Two Big Twelve teams in the final four....

 

Actually, I have been! After losing amazing talent from last year and taking a serious loss with Hand's injury this year, I have to think Coach Coale has definitely earned her keep. Having to play in the Big 12 this year apparently made them battle-tested and game-ready. Let's see how the Final Four goes, but they've already had an awesome season.

[BoomerSooner]

Yup, I'm in the same boat! Mine cuts out too - I sometimes have to plug-in, unplug, and plug-in the iPhone a few times before it'll work through the USB/Dock Connector. I prefer being able to control the iPod/iPhone music through the steering wheel controls or the Nav screen/radio controls....with the Bluetooth audio, I have to use the phone to control the song choice, so it's pretty useless in my mind, not to mention the fact that like notquitesane said, the thing still tries to put bluetooth audio on even when you've got it plugged in, etc. Mine also indexes strangely - just as you said, sometimes it takes 2 minutes, other times I'll drive for 20 minutes and I still am looking at "INDEXING |||||." I hope one of them (SYNC, or iPhone) figures out how to play nicely with the next update to either.

 

Have you had the iPod part of the iPhone randomly start playing during a phone call yet? That's happened a few times on business calls. Depending on what I've been listening to, it has made me feel pretty foolish on a business call.

Edited April 1, 2010 by RichardJensen
fixed the formatting

[RichardJensen]

Actually, I have been! After losing amazing talent from last year and taking a serious loss with Hand's injury this year, I have to think Coach Coale has definitely earned her keep. Having to play in the Big 12 this year apparently made them battle-tested and game-ready. Let's see how the Final Four goes, but they've already had an awesome season.

 

Every year, I grouse about how the Big East is overrated in men's basketball (this year especially!!).

 

But the Big Twelve was definitely tough in WBB this year. Definitely.

 

I'm still trying to figure out where the heck Nebraska came from, and what they'll be like next year.

 

(BTW: here's a lovely bit of trivia for you to file away : Nebraska had a verbal agreement to come to Brookings and play the Jacks in WBB as part of a 2-1.... Then the Jacks dismantled them, breaking a streak of 24 consecutive home opener victories. Shortly after that the Cornshuckers backed out of that return trip agreement. Chickens....)

 

---

 

It's UConn's to win this year. I wish some of the BCS schools would increase their spending on WBB and smooth out the talent distribution among the big name programs.

[SVT_MAN]

Apple deserves credit for prioritizing human interface design.

 

I know several programmers, most of them assume that they are good designers.

 

A quick review of the awful user interfaces in Linux will convince you that most programmers are either not good designers or not as good as they think they are.

 

I'm a PHP, SQL, XHTML, CSS, Javascript, Java, and ActionScript programmer.

 

[edited due to arrogance]

Edited April 2, 2010 by SVT_MAN

[RichardJensen]

With all due respect, that's not human interface design.

 

Also, there are competent designers at Microsoft. But Microsoft does not place a priority on interface design. Corporate structure--the decision making process--does not assign it the proper weight.

[SVT_MAN]

With all due respect, that's not human interface design.

 

Also, there are competent designers at Microsoft. But Microsoft does not place a priority on interface design. Corporate structure--the decision making process--does not assign it the proper weight.

 

What proof do you have that Microsoft places no priority on interface design? Moreover, how can you prove that interface design isn't assigned the proper weight at Microsoft? Do you have some kind of insider knowledge of Microsoft?

 

I think that Microsoft has shown and placed considerable effort into the interfaces on systems like SYNC, Xbox360 GUI, and Windows Media Center. When it comes to their primary OS though, I will agree that they did not put as much effort into it. But the fact is: they didn't have to.

 

I will agree that both Vista and Windows 7 are not as strong as they could be from a user interface standpoint, but you have to remember that Microsoft is serving to three kinds of customers:

 

1. People like you who bitch about their designs (they really are not serving these customers, but they appeased anyway with Aero, unsucessfully)

2. Business owners who actually use their products to be productive and do work (who would still be doing work on Windows XP if they had it their way)

3. Home users who have gotten used to Windows over the years

 

Many corporate types hate change. They balked when Windows Vista got its new interface. The balked when Windows 7 came out. They don't care how hard something is to complete (much less how ugly something is) as long as they know how to complete a task. Does this sound like the old Ford? Absolutely. I'm not saying this is right. This is just an aspect of Microsoft's core customers. They care less about how easy something is to do and more about whether they know how to do it. Is this stifling innovation and forwardness in design? Maybe. Is this holding back Microsoft from designing better interfaces? Well, probably I'd agree with that too.

 

Even so, Windows' GUI is not as bad as people make it out to be. It's very efficient if you know how to use it, especially when you get into Windows 7.

 

 

Also, what is your definition of human interface design then?

 

If websites don't fall under HID, then you'd better contact a lot of schools out there. I worked on an HID team in college and I'm pretty sure that we did a lot of usability testing on websites ...

Edited April 2, 2010 by SVT_MAN

[RichardJensen]

What exactly is your definition of human interface design then? Websites are a type of user interface, so in my opinion it qualifies. The site even contains contact forms and pseudo-shopping carts which have received high praise from customers (which is all that matters when you are a business).

 

Your brochureware website has such a limited range of tasks to carry out that it is, frankly, not a challenge from an interface design standpoint. It is 'human interface design' in the same way that making a bowl of oatmeal is cooking.

 

There is a rather large gap between your site design, and the design of an entire operating system including dialog boxes, buttons, icons, etc.

 

That's not meant as an insult to you, or to denigrate the particular challenges involved in designing a website.

 

It's simply a statement of the comparative difficulty of building a website that has a dozen or so pages (counting the album pages as a single page), vs the challenge of building an entire OS interface.

 

---

 

The website you linked to, while certainly not bad, lacks coherence. Chiefly, the header images are related to each other, but not to the logotype. The flourish under the logotype was an opportunity to connect the two design elements, instead it becomes a barely noticed third element.

 

Here's a comparison:

 

Your design

 

A better design:

 

These designs were contest entries for the baptistry doors at the cathedral of Florence. The subject matter and contents of the composition were strictly defined. Both reliefs depict the sacrifice of Isaac, at the moment where Abraham's attention is called to a ram with its horns caught in a thicket.

 

As you can see, the lower design (by Lorenzo Ghiberti) displays a more cohesive composition.

[RichardJensen]

What proof do you have that Microsoft places no priority on interface design? Moreover, how can you prove that interface design isn't assigned the proper weight at Microsoft? Do you have some kind of insider knowledge of Microsoft?

An exceptionally long web presentation about the ribbon interface development process.

 

But the fact is: they didn't have to.

How can you 'prove' that this is a 'fact'?

 

1. People like you who bitch about their designs (they really are not serving these customers, but they appeased anyway with Aero, unsucessfully)

2. Business owners who actually use their products to be productive and do work (who would still be doing work on Windows XP if they had it their way)

3. Home users who have gotten used to Windows over the years

1: AERO SUCKS. Aero uses up an incredible amount of graphic card processing power to generate those blurred transparency effects (among other things) that do NOTHING to advance usability.

 

The BEST user interface Microsoft ever had was Windows 3.11 (IMO), and you could run that on a 286. Good design is not processor intensive.

 

There is a huge difference between applying an effect to something and actually designing it.

 

2: The Office '07 ribbon was a change that completely disrupted user behavior, and Microsoft's OWN studies showed that after 2 months of use, 40% of users disagreed with the statement that the Office ribbon made their work 'less stressful'.

 

After sixty days using it, close to half of all Office users surveyed felt that, at best, the Ribbon interface had not improved their work experience.

 

3: Microsoft renamed many of the control panel objects. Why? Microsoft changed the behavior of the top drop down on the standard file save box. Why? So you can save to websites (the new default behavior)?

They care less about how easy something is to do and more about whether they know how to do it.

When Apple went from OS 9 to OS X they carefully preserved certain behaviors, labels, and the process by which you accomplished tasks. In going from XP (arguably Microsoft's best interface design since Windows 3.11) to Vista, Microsoft changed a lot of stuff that was fine the way it was (ESPECIALLY THE FILE SAVE box).

 

---

 

Comments from Microsoft employees and the inconsistent behavior of Microsoft products (WMP has no "File/Edit/View" dropdowns by default, IE 7 had no "File/Edit/View" dropdowns by default, but IE 8 does) are sufficient indictment of Microsoft's attitude toward HID.

 

And frankly, I have no idea why you're fighting Microsoft's battle on this front. When MS gets something right, subsequent conduct shows it to be almost as much a result of accident as anything else.

Edited April 2, 2010 by RichardJensen

[silvrsvt]

Apple deserves credit for prioritizing human interface design.

 

I never really cared for IU for Apple, mostly because it was designed for one mouse button operation and well after using 2 button mice with Windows or even Linux, I felt it was a bit backwards. The iPhone interface is pretty decent though.

 

A quick review of the awful user interfaces in Linux will convince you that most programmers are either not good designers or not as good as they think they are.

 

 

Lets not even go there LOL

 

 

[mustang_sallad]

Your brochureware website has such a limited range of tasks to carry out that it is, frankly, not a challenge from an interface design standpoint. It is 'human interface design' in the same way that making a bowl of oatmeal is cooking.

 

There is a rather large gap between your site design, and the design of an entire operating system including dialog boxes, buttons, icons, etc.

 

That's not meant as an insult to you, or to denigrate the particular challenges involved in designing a website.

 

It's simply a statement of the comparative difficulty of building a website that has a dozen or so pages (counting the album pages as a single page), vs the challenge of building an entire OS interface.

 

---

 

The website you linked to, while certainly not bad, lacks coherence. Chiefly, the header images are related to each other, but not to the logotype. The flourish under the logotype was an opportunity to connect the two design elements, instead it becomes a barely noticed third element.

 

Here's a comparison:

 

Your design

 

A better design:

 

These designs were contest entries for the baptistry doors at the cathedral of Florence. The subject matter and contents of the composition were strictly defined. Both reliefs depict the sacrifice of Isaac, at the moment where Abraham's attention is called to a ram with its horns caught in a thicket.

 

As you can see, the lower design (by Lorenzo Ghiberti) displays a more cohesive composition.

 

dude, you're a moderator, what the hell are you doing? I hope you don't get paid for this kinda bs.

[mustang_sallad]

Increasing numbers of electric vehicles, however, will have a significant impact on energy demand. That is because the addition of an electric vehicle to a household could effectively double home energy consumption while the vehicle is charging.

 

This statement could have been made a bit clearer, i hope it doesn't get misunderstood.

Charging an EV could possibly double your instantaneous POWER draw (kW), but it would be really hard to double your overall daily energy consumption (kW-hours). My little apartment's daily energy consumption is about 40kW-hours. Charging up a Chevy Volt for a full 40 mile drive would consume 8kWh, so adding about 20% to my daily energy consumption - a far cry from "doubling my home energy consumption". The key words they used there were "while the vehicle is charging", which means that charging an EV takes about 1.5kW of power if you're charging from a standard outlet, so about as much as a hair drier. That would need to be on for about 5 and a half hours to get your full 40 mile charge. If you had a dedicated 240V, 30amp hookup for charging, that would be more like 7kW while charging, which is a pretty heavy draw that could recharge your 40 miles in just over an hour. Overall it would obviously be about the same energy consumption, the question is whether we could supply the instantaneous power draw. So yes, charging an EV could easily double your power draw while it's on charge, but your overall energy consumption is not likely to increase by more than about 20% if you drive 40 miles on average every day. If you drive over 100 miles a day, i would not advise an EV for the time being as the initial cost for those batteries is gonna be pretty hefty.

[SVT_MAN]

Your brochureware website has such a limited range of tasks to carry out that it is, frankly, not a challenge from an interface design standpoint. It is 'human interface design' in the same way that making a bowl of oatmeal is cooking.

 

There is a rather large gap between your site design, and the design of an entire operating system including dialog boxes, buttons, icons, etc.

 

That's not meant as an insult to you, or to denigrate the particular challenges involved in designing a website.

 

It's simply a statement of the comparative difficulty of building a website that has a dozen or so pages (counting the album pages as a single page), vs the challenge of building an entire OS interface.

 

---

 

The website you linked to, while certainly not bad, lacks coherence. Chiefly, the header images are related to each other, but not to the logotype. The flourish under the logotype was an opportunity to connect the two design elements, instead it becomes a barely noticed third element.

 

Here's a comparison:

 

Your design

 

A better design:

 

These designs were contest entries for the baptistry doors at the cathedral of Florence. The subject matter and contents of the composition were strictly defined. Both reliefs depict the sacrifice of Isaac, at the moment where Abraham's attention is called to a ram with its horns caught in a thicket.

 

As you can see, the lower design (by Lorenzo Ghiberti) displays a more cohesive composition.

 

You're certainly entitled to your opinion.

 

But - Ouch! Brochureware?! That's interesting you think it's just a brochureware website. Can a brochureware website really send a business owner detailed information about what photos a customer wants to purchase? Give me a break dude. This site goes far beyond being a brochure. The majority of Russ's customers who visit the site end up ordering photos directly on the site. Thanks for bothering to look past the homepage.

 

 

To say that what I did on this site is on not the level of a OS GUI, I'm not going to disagree. However, I would offer you two things to keep in mind when comparing an OS GUI to what I did.

 

First of all, OS GUIs are designed and implemented by a large TEAM of coders and graphic designers. I am a single person doing all of this. You cannot discredit the challenge of this, especially since I know you do graphic design and XHTML coding yourself as well. (Although I cannot remember if you do PHP, SQL, Javascript, ActionScript, and Java as well ...)

 

Secondly, you have not seen the back-end management systems on the sites that I design. Unfortunately, I cannot show you these. Every site that I design has a custom-designed back end management system that ties into a database table which, at a minimum, manages the page content's. Most sites also include custom tables and management to store things such as customer information (in this case, customer contact information). The challenge of developing a content management system is great. It is not easy to design something that is user friendly and works well from a programming-standpoint as well

 

As far as your comments on my apparent inability to design a logo that matches the customer's overall branding .. keep these things in mind:

 

1) My client did not have the financial resources to pay for a real logo. I know what I designed isn't fantastic, but it isn't bad either. Because he didn't have the resources, I offered about 3 hours of my time to make a "fauxgo" (what I call a hastily designed logo without rules). I realize that a logo without rules is just a graphic, but my client only does this job part time, as a hobby, and did not have unlimited financial resources. You cannot disregard this, no matter how you try to spin it. Also, you cannot say that what I designed is any worse than the horrendously horrible logo that this particular client used before. (Times New Roman anyone?)

 

2) Had my client had the resources to pay for a real logo, I would have outsourced it to a company that designs logos. I recognize my limitations when it comes to this. Again, this comes down to resources.

 

3) In the real world, only graphic designers care about buzz words like "coherence." In the real world, websites are designed to be a 24-hour storefront for your customers. Yes, they need to look nice and match your branding, but in this case, customers do not care if Russ' site meets all the newest design trends or if it would win an award in graphic design. The bottom line is that I do not seek to win awards; I seek to win my customer's business through website designs that blend ease of use with pleasing visuals. This mentality has never failed me yet. Ask most business-minded people on this site and they will agree that effective marketing of your business does not necessarily mean being coherent or trendy. It means catering to your customer's wants and needs.

 

To give you an idea of the value that I offered my client in this site, prior to me designing and developing the site, Russ had no way for his customers to directly contact him with information on the proofs he / she wanted to order. Now, customers can submit their intent to order right on the website by choosing proofs through my AJAX and PHP-session driven dialogs that allow you to add a proof to your "basket." His customers have been raving about how simple the process is, and Russ has given me nothing but praise for the easy, custom, back-end management systems that I have developed that allow him to upload his files in batch.

 

At the end of the day, I don't expect you to agree with any of the above because it seems like you're bent on discrediting my work. So be it. You're the first who has done this, although I'm sure you're not going to be the last.

 

 

By the way, I recognized the first graphic you sent as the sacrifice of Isaac. The second I did not, because Isaac is not easy to see. It's more cluttered. This further proves my point: what is good from a design-standpoint may not be good for your customer.

 

 

3: Microsoft renamed many of the control panel objects. Why? Microsoft changed the behavior of the top drop down on the standard file save box. Why? So you can save to websites (the new default behavior)?

 

 

I'm not denying this. But, you act like Apple has never done this. They have.

 

And MacOSX was a horrible thing to use entirely before Cheetah, and even then, Cheetah was riddled with kernel panics and bugs. It wasn't until recently that MacOSX became a decent operating system.

 

And frankly, I have no idea why you're fighting Microsoft's battle on this front. When MS gets something right, subsequent conduct shows it to be almost as much a result of accident as anything else.

 

I'm not fighting Microsoft's battle. I am simply telling you the truth: I am more productive on a Windows box.

 

Is MacOSX prettier? I don't deny that. But Windows is still the better OS for me as a power-user, especially since many applications I use on a daily basis require it.

Edited April 2, 2010 by SVT_MAN