Controller Design and Usability Flaws

2:20

6:31

224K views

At 2:20 in

Western Snow Plow Review

Watch on YouTube

What happens here

The presenter critiques the Western MVP3 controller. He demonstrates its non-intuitive design, featuring eight small, irregularly patterned buttons. He points out a particularly confusing design flaw: two 'wing' buttons that control the blade's forward and backward movement. Pressing a button once moves the wing out, but pressing the *exact same button* a second time moves it in, making it difficult to predict the movement and leading to inefficiency, especially when trying to 'scoop' snow. This design is contrasted with more traditional and intuitive hand/foot controls found in other heavy equipment like a Case skid loader (shown in the background), which operators are trained on for decades.

Goal: Critique the Western MVP3 controller's non-intuitive design and its impact on operation.

Tools and materials

Case Mini Excavator Case — Background visual for heavy equipment comparison
Case Skid Steer — Comparing control types (hand controls)
Western V Controller Western — Demonstrating confusing controls

What they say

(1,521 characters)

Hide

to look at the controller on this western snowplow. A very good point was made by Tim where we had just tested out a case skid loader that had hand control. We've been trained for [music] decades to do hand foot controls and within 6 8 hours we were running the case with hand controls only skid loader pretty efficiently. But now you give us this new western controller and we've got 40 plus hours on this [music] controller and it's still not intuitive. It's got an eight button pattern and it's [music] small buttons in a wonky pattern. Plus on top of that, you have two buttons that do separate functions. So you have two buttons that when you hit the button one time, it'll make the left wing move out. And you hit the exact same button a second time and that western blade, that same wing will move in. So, if you're trying to scoop with this button and with this plow and you hit the button the first time, you don't know if it's going to go forward or backward. And so, sometimes you're trying to scoop and the plow's going backwards and you lose your whole load. Not a very good controller in any way, shape, or form. So, between the manufacturing flaws, the micro adjustments in the tea bar that you have to make to make sure that you don't get a too aggressive a cutting edge. You wear through a cutting edge and you don't know it. You're you're a snowplow guy. You're not a a technician. You're out making your living moving snow [music] and you can't make a living when you're putting 25% of your income back

Auto-generated from the video audio.