Cognitive dissonance

Was it just me, or does something in this NYTimes article on designing for the elderly not make sense?

Consumers with less-nimble fingers find the large knobs in Honda’s boxy Element easy to manipulate. But Honda did not design them for the arthritis stricken, but for young people who drive while wearing ski gloves, said a Honda spokesman, Chris Martin. The Element’s design, aimed at younger people, inadvertently attracted consumers across age groups.

An important future trend, said Eero Laansoo, a human factors engineer for Ford, will be the personalized car, which gives drivers the ability to change instrument fonts and colors to make gauges and dials easier to read.

Perhaps what they meant to say was

An important future trend, said Eero Laansoo, will be a well designed car, which has easy-to-read gauges and dials

Why anyone thinks that arthritis stricken Grannie will have any interested in determining whether the speedo is in blue Times 10, or pink Helvetica 12 is beyond me.