So right now, I’m driving a rental car. It’s a Pontiac G5. Not really my kind of car, but whatever, it’s a rental. My biggest issue with it thus far is that there is no analog engine temperature gauge in the dash. I can tell how much gas I have, how fast I’m going and how whatever it is the tachometer tells me. But what I really want to know is how cold or warm my engine is. Upon investigating a little, I found a button on my steering wheel that allowed me to flip through a few different options on the single line digital read out. It told me stuff like the outdoor tempurature, my tire pressure, oil life and lo and behold, the engine temperature.

Here’s the problem. The readout only told me the engine temperature without giving me the context of the range. If it tells me 35 degrees, I don’t know if that’s too cold, acceptable or too hot for an engine. I’d be better off with just a range that looks similar to my gas guage without knowing what the exact number is.

Poor usability strikes again.