Agreed, this is probably what you’ll want to do most of the time, but just yesterday I was recycling in a dark supermarket car park, and wanted to leave my lights on (pointing at the bottle banks) so that I could see what colours my bottles were. My car also turns the lights off automatically, and to do so takes:

1. Turning the engine (and lights) off.

2. Turning the ignition back on without starting the engine.

Which is also OK . . but could we do better? Press a button as you turn the engine off to leave the lights on?

I’ve always been struck by a UCD mantra that I picked up somewhere that stated ‘Simple things simple, complex things possible’. I think the simple thing here is the ‘Do the Right Thing’, non scolding behaviour, but I accept that some mechanism might be needed for the edge cases. But … isn’t that where our designs often go wrong? Trying to accomodate everybody all the time in all ways? Extra Button Creep?

In fact I was tripped up on a related matter the other day which is revealing. Having ‘assumed’ this magic functionality, I set off in the dark without turning the lights on. As it happened I hadn’t parked in the dark, so my lights weren’t already switched on, but not illuminated as I expected. Nearly crashed as it happens…

So, that experience tells us that when we design this clever stuff, we also need to design to meet the new assumptions - the next generation clever car needs to turn lights on when we set off in the dark.

Agreed on the automatic lights though - my mother’s Fiat Stilo has exactly this functionality:

Daylight - lights off

Darkness - lights on

.. although for some reason the designer has decided that if you have the lights on automatic, you can’t turn them onto full beam without turning automatic off. Maybe this is for safety, so full beam lights don’t accidentally come on without user input - but about 2 minutes driving on a country road and you’re already swearing at the inconvenience.