Is a question about car design and associated regulations off-topic?

Question

I have a question about the rationales of some car dashboard design. Is this on topic?

I saw that there is a tag for dashboard and for car-design, which would nicely match my question. The question is not about neither repair, nor maintenance, though (but about regulations, whihc may or may not be close enough).

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The actual question is whether there are some regulations which force car manufacturers to keep roughly the same dashboard on all cars, with more or less useless indicators (for the typical driver).

For instance the temperature of the water or oil is not interesting, what is important is whether it is correct or not (or dangerously trending).

This is part of a general thought about the design of dashboards and why they are not completely configurable with today's technology.

Answer 1

For design considerations of the dashboard, I'd see no issue with it, but wonder to what end? Bringing regulations about such designs into the picture would probably invalidate it though, mainly due to it being so localized. I don't see as how it would help the body as a whole. That's just my thinking on it, someone else may have a better idea or reason why it may/may not be on-topic.

Answer 2

Well I wouldn't consider myself one of the power users on this site but to me it seems on topic and, while I only speak for myself, I think it's a fascinating question and would be interested in the answer.

That said I bet it would be really well received over on UX, especially if you gear your questions towards asking why it is the way it is in addition to the regulations. They love getting non-software questions over there. Some of their top voted questions include:

• How can users be prevented from pouring water into the bean compartment of a coffee machine?
• Why do washing machines have windows?
• Why do most public toilet doors open inwards?
• How would you have avoided the Miss Universe 2015 mistake?

There's some car related questions there already.

Answer 3

I would say the dividing line might be between design questions that illuminate repair and maintenance/reliability and those that are related to things like usability or other interesting but "off-topic" subjects.