Phone App Door Unlocking issue: UI design bug? (proximity unlock works fine)

[boise_mountain_biker]

Issue: When using the phone app for the last month or so (v 2.19.1), when I tap the door lock/unlock toggle, the car just chirps and locks the door. I couldn't seemingly use my phone app door lock/unlock toggle button to unlock the door. Proximity unlock works.

This annoyed me for the longest time. I did a soft reset, hard reset, and even unpaired and paired up my phone--there was no change in the phone app behavior. I finally found that I had to physically push on the "UNLOCK" icon (blue circled) on the toggle switch. Before the app update, I would just need to push on the toggle switch to lock or unlock the doors (and I normally would push on the left side out of muscle memory and that would explain why it would just want to lock and not unlock).

In my opinion, if it's a toggle switch, have it do the action reverse from the current state (i.e. if the door is currently in unlocked state, pushing the app toggle will lock the door, and vice versa).

If it's intended to act like 2 separate actions, then in the UI design, there should be 2 separate LOCK function and UNLOCK function buttons. Minor quibble, but that annoyed for the last month or so.

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[Magicbus]

Huh. It never occurred to me it was a toggle. I always thought it was two buttons which is how it works for me now. Pushing the Lock button does wake my locked truck but leaves it locked.

 

[elatrickWheels]

I don’t think of it as a toggle. I think of it as an analog to a physical key fob, and for years as I walked away from other cars my muscle memory was to press lock-lock-lock until I heard the beep (or whatever). I doubt I’m alone in that. With a toggle, that would actually be lock-UNLOCK-lock; the odd number being effective, but less reassuring.

 

[raylepper]

I always thought of (and used) it as two switches. The shading indicates the current state. If it was a toggle, I'd expect a single button, not two buttons with different icons.

 

[boise_mountain_biker]

Looks like Rivian finally made 2 separate buttons for lock and unlock in the latest app release—makes more sense to use. Before, it appeared to be a toggle or slider with both buttons on a lozenge pill shaped icon.

 

[theonetruestripes]

If it's intended to act like 2 separate actions, then in the UI design, there should be 2 separate LOCK function and UNLOCK function buttons. Minor quibble, but that annoyed for the last month or so

Yep. I’m not a UI designer, but I do know the rule: “if it acts different make it look different, if it acts the same make it look the same”.

I expect Rivian made the cool lock/unlock looking double button and maybe whoever did didn’t realize how much like the system UISwitch it looked (maybe they mostly design Android or web things)? Or they just overlooked a basic fundamental rule. I mean everyone does from time to time especially in an industry where there are 30,000 “basic fundamental rules”.

It is a lot more then a minor quibble though, it is the kind of nagging “not right” thing that makes experiences the exact opposite of joyful and seamless. So I’m glad they fixed the issue in the new app update. The lock and unlock are clearly two buttons close together, which looks less cool, but doesn’t make you think it works differently from how it actually works. Plus they have changed a table into collection view of tiles and recouped as much as”cool” as they lost in making the lock/unlock “more ordinary"

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