[HN Gopher] Physical buttons outperform touchscreens in new cars...
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Physical buttons outperform touchscreens in new cars, test finds
Author : eriksdh
Score : 1393 points
Date : 2022-08-17 10:40 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.vibilagare.se)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.vibilagare.se)
| tzs wrote:
| If I weren't sure that car makers would botch the security, I'd
| be in favor of legislation that requires that for a specified
| list of controls or categories of controls if the car does not
| provide dedicated physical controls for them (either solely or in
| addition to non-dedicated controls) the car must also must
| provide an API for those controls to allow third-party add-on
| devices to operate them.
|
| The API and how it as accessed (e.g., OBD port, Bluetooth, USB-C)
| would be specified, along with an extension mechanism to allow
| car makers to optionally allow more than just the required things
| to be controlled in a way that wouldn't conflict with extensions
| from other makers.
|
| Then go ahead and go full touchscreen if they want. I'll buy a
| nice third party set of controls and use that with the car, and
| since the API and interface is standardized I can move it to my
| next car and so on, and so not have to learn a new layout for
| each car.
|
| I say "non-dedicated controls" above instead of "touchscreen" so
| that a manufacturer can't do something like have a knob and a
| couple buttons coupled with a screen where you use the screen
| (via touch or using the knob and buttons to navigate) to choose a
| set of functions from a menu tree, and then activate/adjust those
| settings with the knob and buttons, and say that they don't need
| to provide the interface and API because they are using physical
| controls.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Reinventing the material design wheel :)
|
| Maybe one day touch interfaces will evolve into serious
| performance but most of the time physical interfaces got enough
| performance as they were before smartphone came into play.
| radiojasper wrote:
| My 2004 Fiat Stilo has dedicated buttons and no single touch
| screen. The "board computer" is a 5 "pages" menu that is able to
| adjust simple things like dashboard lighting and disable my door
| light, that's it. I never have to search for anything and, even
| more important, don't have to take my eyes off the road to adjust
| heating, radio, etc.
|
| What's next? Touch screen gear shifting? Touch screen horn? It's
| dumb IMHO.
| gertrunde wrote:
| Being a driver of a car with a buttonless touchscreen... it's
| such a joy when something screws up in the software, and you stop
| being able to alter any of the climate control settings, or
| change any of the audio until after rebooting the infotainment
| system by holding down the on/off button for 10 seconds...
|
| But at least it doesn't happen very often, only half a dozen
| times a month...
|
| Isn't technology progress wonderful? /s
| tomohawk wrote:
| touch screens are for phones, not cars.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I'm driving a rental MG on vacation right now and today I managed
| to hit a button that made the speedometer on the digital gauge
| screen go away. It's just... gone.
|
| Hoping it comes back after being turned off overnight, or I'll
| have to find a manual online somewhere.
| wreath wrote:
| Check the glove box first. Manual should be there ;)
| climb_stealth wrote:
| I know of at least two recent BMWs that were sold without
| handbook and instead it needs to be read on the touch screen
| in the car. It's terrible. Welcome to the future.
| powerhour wrote:
| I wonder if the engineers working at car companies use keyboards
| with physical switches or if they've moved on to superior
| touchscreens laid flat on their desks.
| stuaxo wrote:
| They should test it with phones.
| dm319 wrote:
| I was trying to use my e-tron to change radio station this week.
| But it kept registering my press on the station as a small
| scroll. Probably due to the slight undulation of the suspension.
| Very frustrating and dangerous when travelling at speed on the
| motorway. I guess it's better just to not use it.
| fleddr wrote:
| There is one way to make a touch screen suck even more, which is
| found in my car. As your finger is under way in mid air to press
| it, it detects this motion, and then changes the UI. Some
| pulldown hover menu pops up, displacing the thing you wanted to
| touch.
|
| This is also a car where when you slowly park close to something
| (bushes, wall) it has a complete meltdown as if in a car crash.
|
| When in a traffic jam, 10 minutes later it loudly alerts "slow
| traffic ahead".
|
| It even auto breaks in situations where I had plenty of response
| time, and then some more.
|
| It feels like I'm in some sociology test. How far can we push
| this guy before he drives this piece of shit off a cliff? I
| imagine a team of engineers watching me on a live feed for Friday
| afternoon entertainment.
| tapper wrote:
| Here is a side affect of having touch screens in new cars. As a
| blind person when my wife is driving I have to be very careful
| when changing the radio or music playing on Spotify as not to
| fuck things up or put her off driving. All so I cant change the
| AC in my half of the car. All so using my phone to play music is
| so laggy over blue tooth I cant use my screen reader to make
| things better. I all so have a friend who was born with one hand.
| He has to pull over if he wants to make changes to his radio or
| AC. In a car with nobs his stump can make most things work with
| out mutch of a struggle.
| vsdlrd wrote:
| To be fair, the test is pretty biased as they only tested use
| cases that are bound to be better as physical controls. It would
| have been more interesting if they had includes cases like
| selecting a route on Google Maps or navigating an app like
| Spotify.
| wikitopian wrote:
| It's disappointing to me that there's not a manufacturer leaning
| into a market for people who don't want big screens and spyware
| in their ride. In every thread, I see a lot of people who share
| my concerns, but they don't seem to manifest as an actual
| consumer class to be catered to.
|
| https://twitter.com/jazz_inmypants/status/138178395638376038...
| dailykoder wrote:
| I just want a "dumb", but good and kinda long-range EV....
| (that's affordable somehow)
|
| I don't need any big screen or surveillance things. I just want
| to drive, with a little music and that's it. Nothing more
| nothing less. Maybe navigation, but even that is not necessary.
| I have my phone, which works fine.
| WorldPeas wrote:
| i'd wanted a bollinger for so long for this reason. shame
| they were 125k and now only make industrial chassis
| CountHackulus wrote:
| Kia Niro EV. It's basically just a car but with EV systems.
| I've owned one for 2 years now. The newer ones have slightly
| larger touchscreens for Android Auto/Apple Carplay but
| there's buttons for everything. The Hyundai Kona is basically
| the same thing but I don't have one to compare.
| liotier wrote:
| A basic Bluetooth interface to the car amplifier and
| microphone, a sturdy tablet stand that takes multiple
| sizes... And that's it - cheap and future proofed.
|
| ... But no way to keep the commercial relationship going
| after the sale - huge downside, for the manufacturer !
| the_snooze wrote:
| I bought a 2020 Honda Civic hatchback a while back and found it
| reasonably designed. There's a small touchscreen for
| Apple/Android integration, but the car itself has no internet
| connectivity, and the center console has plenty of physical
| buttons and knobs to control sound and climate.
|
| Honda said they're not too keen about touchscreen-mania [1],
| but that seems to have gone away in more recent model-years (at
| least based on what I saw displayed at a recent auto expo).
|
| https://www.thedrive.com/tech/32797/long-live-buttons-hondas...
| wistlo wrote:
| Our 2009 Honda Fit has a gloriously button-face radio with a
| giant knob that's primarily for volume, but can serve a few
| other (and harder to access) functions. It's absolutely the
| easiest radio to use, kind of like a FIsher Price toy.
|
| The Fit was redesigned with a touchscreen for 2015. ONe of
| the biggest owner complaints was lack of a a volume knob for
| the audio system. In 2018, Honda responded with a mid model
| change that added a knob. I have a 2018 with Android Auto,
| with a side array of fixed buttons (Home, Back, Menu) that
| have proved useful when underway and making split-second
| decisions (need to see map _right now_ for instance).
|
| The Fit's HVAC system is delightfully simple: Fan, Temp, and
| a mechanical lever for fresh/recirc. We would have liked dual
| zone controls and the dozen-speed fan control in higher
| models instead of just 4 speeds, but also I'm old enough to
| remember car air conditioners with 3 speeds (1964 Impala, for
| example). To me even the 4 speeds still seems like something
| of an upgrade.
|
| Sadly the HR-V with its increased weight, cost, and height
| siphoned off sales from what was an already anemic sales
| performance for the poorly marketed Fit. It was dropped in
| the US in 2021. The Jazz (the moniker for the Fit in most
| places) continues to be available in sales territories when
| people still buy cars.
| Pasorrijer wrote:
| Just a note, this is because in the 2016-2017 Honda Civic
| Hatchback, they went all in and buried all the physical
| buttons and knobs for sound and climate in the touchscreen,
| and got major negative customer feedback to the point where
| they brought them back.
| ihuman wrote:
| Which functions were buried? All the images I can find of
| the 2016/2017 model have the same sound and climate
| controls as the 2020. The only major difference was that
| they replaced the capacitive buttons next to the touch
| screen with real buttons, but I think that happened before
| the 2020 model. The 2022 seems to have the same controls as
| well, but rearranged (and the touch screen moved farther
| away)
| Pasorrijer wrote:
| All the climate control was in the touchscreen. No knobs,
| only a button that took you to the climate control
| screen, but you had to change all the settings on the
| touchscreen. (Looking at the photos, you could change the
| temperature but nothing else. No fan speed, A/C, etc.)
|
| The capacitive slider for volume seems fine, until you
| realize it was implemented entirely in software, so if
| the touchscreen hadn't finished booting, or was slow
| because it was too cold, that experienced extreme lag.
| Since the steering wheel buttons ALSO didn't work until
| the touchscreen booted, it meant if the wife was
| listening to music super loud with the windows down at
| night, when you turned the car on in the morning it took
| about 10s to be able to turn the volume down.
| troyvit wrote:
| I'm hoping for two things, and I mean "hope," not "expect." The
| first hope is for the growth of aftermarket mods that electrify
| internal combustion cars.[1][2] They don't save you money right
| now but maybe costs will come down. They'll never be as slick
| as the OTS stuff.
|
| The second is even more distant, and that is for the right to
| repair to extend to cars so that we can safely mod all the
| software that comes with a modern car. Then, at least if we
| don't want it we can turn it off.
|
| One bright spot though is a massive growth in non-car
| transportation. I work by the window in a lower middle class
| neighborhood in a small town and I already see all kinds of
| cool e-bikes, scooters and hell-knows what whizzing by the
| house. No room for awful electronics on those, they're just
| wheels, motors, and helmets. Here in Colorado something like
| that would serve 80% of my transportation needs. Maybe renting
| a car for the other 20% becomes more of an option.
|
| [1] https://www.electric-cars-are-for-girls.com/electric-car-
| con... [2] https://canev.com/
| dotopotoro wrote:
| Probably we are like linux users. In total, over whole globe,
| we make up quite a sizeable number, but in each geographic
| location we are still a rare breed (not enough to get the
| enough momentum).
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| I don't think we can expect manufacturers to lean into this.
| They care about sales. It seems like regular folks are more
| impressed by whiz-bang, "wow, this new Bronco played a video of
| beautiful scenery on its HD screen when I got in" than, "hey,
| this car's button layout is just like my last couple of cars,
| there won't be any learning curve". The automakers know which
| trims and options have sold best and presumably they're
| competent at interpreting this data and catering to the whims
| of the market.
|
| It may make more sense for regulators to get involved. "Include
| physical buttons for commonly-used controls" is a clear common-
| sense goal, although I'm not sure which things would qualify as
| commonly-used. And of course automakers could maliciously
| comply - maybe Tesla would bury tiny controls in the bottom of
| the center console or something and just keep focusing on
| touch-screen controls and minimalist dashboards.
| freedomben wrote:
| > _The automakers know which trims and options have sold best
| and presumably they 're competent at interpreting this data
| and catering to the whims of the market._
|
| Based on conversations I've had with people involved, I think
| presuming competence is too generous. The huge number of
| variables and gigantic bureaucracy involved is highly
| stifling to legitimate improvements and ends up making
| terrible decisions. They do _try_ to make data-driven
| decisions, but they 're quite incompetent at it. And, most of
| the decisions they do are to comply with regulations and
| protect their asses from lawyers. Much better (from their
| perspective) to have an enraging user experience for
| navigation than to have a person crash because they were
| plugging in an address while driving.
| briandear wrote:
| Definitely don't want government involved in car UI design.
| Imagine if government dictated that phones must have
| BlackBerry-style keyboards. Even the FAA doesn't go that far.
| Speaking of aviation, avionics is where UI gets really good
| for the most part. The Garmin G1000 is nearly perfect in my
| opinion -- powerful tech with great hardware controls that
| are easily to use when task saturated in difficult flying
| conditions. Car makers could learn a lot from Cirrus, Garmin,
| and Embraer.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| I guess you might say that you don't want government
| further involved in car UI design. They're certainly
| involved already with plenty of regulations around
| speedometers, the familiar "PRNDL" shift order, etc.
| a9h74j wrote:
| Just a thought, incentive-wise. Could part of the
| motivation for automakers to use touch-screens involve
| regulatory risk? It is one challenge to freeze
| requirements within a companies own process well enough
| in advance. It is a risk to have those requirements
| changed from outside. _And what if regulators start to
| assume touchscreens and lower cost of implementation._
| kube-system wrote:
| Regulators, at least in the US, have not made last minute
| changes to motor vehicle regulations. NHTSA usually gives
| multiple years of advanced notice and a phase-in period.
| rahen wrote:
| Dacia does. The Spring and Sandero are hugely popular in Europe
| as no-frills cars.
| cheschire wrote:
| "Great news!" -James May
|
| Joking aside, I wonder if it's a difference in much pride is
| tied to cars in USA vs Europe, or if there's the same amount
| of pride but just fewer predatory loan offerings allowed in
| Europe. Is it a legal limit, or just people unwilling to
| commit to 8 year loans?
|
| I suspect if there were some government mandated limit of 5
| years on car loans you would see no-frills cars take off like
| gangbusters in the USA as well.
| dublin wrote:
| There are three groups of people buying high-end cars that
| might require a 5+ year loan in the US: 1) The
| independently wealthy, who don't finance anyway, but pay
| cash (unless the manufacturer offers 0% financing - never
| turn down a chance to use someone else's money for free...)
|
| 2) Those who want to keep up appearances with their richer
| friends (often in group 1), but are financially savvy
| enough to lease rather than finance a loan, especially
| since they would not be caught dead in a five-year-old car.
| This is by far the largest group, and why there is (or has
| historically been) such huge depreciation on high end
| luxury/sports brands, excepting Lexus.
|
| 3) The group who really wants to fool people into thinking
| they have more money than they do, and actually takes the
| idiotic road of financing a depreciating asset in such a
| way that they will be perpetually "upside down" on it, and
| responsible for horrendous maintenance and repair bills
| once the warranty period is up.
| nicbou wrote:
| It varies wildly, but I think that credit is perceived and
| granted differently in Germany, compared to Canada. Where I
| live, we also need to drive less than in North America, so
| many of my friends don't have a driving license.
|
| I'm tempted to say that cars matter less here - they're
| usually parked out of sight - but I bike to a different
| neighborhood and there are young guys in pristine luxury
| cars cruising around. If you visit a different part of the
| countries the composition of cars changes too.
|
| It definitely varies according to nationality, too. Perhaps
| it's a function of culture, insurance prices and petrol
| prices.
| globalise83 wrote:
| Seconded. Their 3rd gen Sandero and new Jogger (basically
| Sandero Stepway estate version) are really great value for
| money, and have physical controls for almost everything
| important.
| jdvh wrote:
| I got a Mazda for this reason. Physical buttons for everything
| and carplay for navigation+spotify. Best of both worlds.
| Infotainment has touch screen when stationary, but while
| driving it can only be operated by voice and console
| buttons/wheel.
| [deleted]
| robin_reala wrote:
| This is what I was going to reply with. Mazda's viewpoint is
| that using touchscreens is dangerous while driving, so they
| specifically deactivate it above around 5mph. Surprisingly
| this works fine with Carplay: the navigation dial moves a
| focus outline through the various focusable elements of the
| screen, then a press to activate it.
|
| Fine for me as the driver, absolutely infuriating for my
| partner as passenger.
| freedomben wrote:
| > _Mazda's viewpoint is that using touchscreens is
| dangerous while driving, so they specifically deactivate it
| above around 5mph._
|
| My Ford (which brand I will _never_ buy again by the way)
| disables much while driving as well, which is utterly
| infuriating for the passenger. If they think it 's "safer"
| then they didn't do much research because it just leads to
| us using our phones instead, which are _far_ more
| distracting.
|
| Thanks for mentioning this about the Mazda. I had
| considered looking at one for my next purchase, but I'll
| look for something less tyrannically paternalistic and full
| of misplaced self confidence and hubris.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > My Ford (which brand I will never buy again by the way)
| disables much while driving as well, which is utterly
| infuriating for the passenger. If they think it's "safer"
| then they didn't do much research because it just leads
| to us using our phones instead, which are far more
| distracting.
|
| Toyota owner checking in with this exact pain. Whenever
| my wife and I go on a road trip, we rarely use the built-
| in nav because the car needs to be at a complete stop in
| order for you to program it, even if it's the passenger
| manipulating it which has effectively zero safety risk.
| Total madness.
| scohesc wrote:
| May I ask why you're turned off by Ford?
| freedomben wrote:
| Yes absolutely. I bought a practically brand new vehicle
| from them (Expedition) and have had all manner of crazy
| breakages, and even the dealer can't fix them properly
| (but will still charge me $2,000 for the "repair" even if
| it didn't actually work). Just the top things:
|
| 1. The backup camera faults out about 40% of the time.
| Usually it gets riddled with digital artifacts that make
| it impossible to see important details (like was common
| when watching video files under weak hardware during the
| 90s/00s). This becomes a major problem when backing up to
| a trailer hitch or backing into a tight parking spot. I
| took it in _twice_ to the dealer and the first time they
| said they couldn 't find anything wrong at all (and
| charged me a hefty diganostic fee) and the second time
| they said the camera was bad and replaced it (for almost
| $1,000). Within a few days the new camera was glitching
| like the old.
|
| 2. The Throttle Body fails every two years and has to be
| replaced (which is not cheap). When this happens also, it
| enters "limp mode" which essentially leaves me stranded
| wherever I happened to be when it decided to die. Unlike
| an older (and better) vehicle it doesn't give me the
| owner/operator (who has to pay the bill) the option of
| saying, "I accept the risk and command you to run." I
| lived in Alaska for a few years and this could literally
| be a death sentence to somebody if it happened in the
| wrong place. As much as I hate the inconvenience of the
| design, I can't even imagine the rage and hate I would
| have after freezing to death because it refused to
| operate.
|
| 3. The blower motor stopped working, so Heater and A/C
| don't work. This is at best highly uncomfortable (and
| when paying $40,000 for a new vehicle, is unacceptable),
| but at worst it's a major safety issue. In the winter
| time the windshield and windows will fog up and I can't
| clear them. The dealer has replaced nearly every part
| involved (blower motor, resistor, etc) at $700 per pop,
| and it never fixes it. Utterly infuriating.
|
| 4. The bluetooth is awful. I frequently have to pull over
| to the side of the road and _reboot my vehicle_ in order
| to fix the damn radio. It 's like having a windows 95
| powered car.
|
| 5. The physical controls for the rear heater/AC (which
| does at least blow unlike the main) are broken for some
| inexplicable reason.
|
| 6. The tail light bulbs burn out every few months and
| frequently need to be replaced. It's not terribly hard
| but I have to get out my tools and take off the tail
| light to change the bulb. Takes about 15 minutes but I'd
| much rather do something else with that time, and I hate
| randomly becoming a cop magnet every time one burns out.
|
| There's more, but I am weary and must stop.
| jdvh wrote:
| The problem for (1) is not the camera. It's very likely
| moisture in one of the connectors in the wiring harness
| in the tailgate. The fix is contact spray and taping up
| the connector with duck-tape. (You can test if this is
| the problem by opening and closing the trunk when you're
| in reverse to see if that makes the video worse/better)
| freedomben wrote:
| Thank you! I will definitely look into this
| freedomben wrote:
| Too late to edit the original but wanted to add, this is
| a 2017 Ford Expedition and all of these problems have
| existed since I bought it in late 2017 (except item 3,
| which started in December of 2019).
| scohesc wrote:
| Thank you for mentioning these details.
|
| I've been considering a light-duty hybrid/electric
| vehicle for a while and the Ford Mavericks have caught my
| interest - I've been holding off because I don't want to
| be an early adopter of new technology that may or may not
| spontaneously break/wear out after a few years.
|
| I'll have to do more research on vehicles - It sucks how
| you can only get massive heavy-duty giant trucks in North
| America - there's an entire market segment that wants
| light-duty trucks but nobody wants to serve it
| (regulatory emissions restrictions or otherwise)
| jdvh wrote:
| You can rootkit your Mazda and disable the "tyranny" if
| you like. It's no big deal, I just never felt the need to
| do it.
| twblalock wrote:
| If you have to look at the screen it doesn't matter whether
| you are touching it or using a dial. Your eyes aren't on
| the road either way.
|
| Using a dial is significantly less ergonomic than using
| your fingers to just touch things on the screen.
|
| Dial interfaces hurt ergonomics without improving safety.
| fishywang wrote:
| That's last gen. Current gen they removed touch altogether
| (not even when stationary), and since the screen is no longer
| touchable, it no longer needs to be within arm's reach, and
| they actually moved the screen to a better position closer to
| the driver's pov (it's upper, further, and slanted towards
| driver)
| hedora wrote:
| Good for them.
|
| Disabling chunks of the UI while the car is moving should
| be illegal. First, I learn how to use the car while it is
| not moving. Then, I have to re-learn the damned UI on the
| freeway with people cutting me off because I'm swerving or
| whatever.
|
| I wonder what percentage of rental car accidents are caused
| by this effect.
| arthurofbabylon wrote:
| The layers of separation between stakeholder interests (what
| does the customer want?) and operating behavior (what gets
| built?) is fascinating.
|
| In this case, I wonder what the story is. Ideas... - Feedback
| loops are very slow to close in auto design/manufacturing,
| widening the stakeholder-execution gap. - I have the impression
| that disconnected, unaccountable "futurists" lead auto design
| and obfuscate real human needs - Classically, there is a big
| gap between what people say they want and what they're actually
| willing to pay for
|
| What else might be contributing factors?
| natch wrote:
| People with a bias, working for publications that take
| massive advertising dollars from the auto industry, design
| biased tests and publish them, is one contributing factor.
|
| But then consumers who imagined all sorts of problems with a
| system sit down and try the system in real life (not in a
| contrived test) and they find they surprisingly like it and
| it works very well.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Cost - as others are pointing out, it costs a lot more (in
| time and money) to design a physical interface, and then you
| can't deliver updates if there is an error, so you gotta
| really take the time to test that everything works.
|
| The other is that, when it comes down to it, consumers
| probably care more about other things, like price, MPG/range,
| exterior styling, brand loyalty, etc. This means that even if
| the car has a sub-optimal UX, customers will still buy it
| (because the positives outweigh the negatives).
| LittleAnaconda wrote:
| There might just not be enough demand overall to justify
| creating lower tech versions of cars. Similar to how car
| enthusiasts tend to like manual cars. The economies of scale
| for companies just often isn't there to create manual
| versions across multiple models of cars.
|
| It should in be easier to create low tech versions of cars
| (no need to have an entirely different transmission) so
| perhaps this is a flimsy reason.
| lallysingh wrote:
| http://ineosgrenadier.com/ is probably what you're looking for.
| cbovis wrote:
| Given some manufacturers are experimenting with subscription
| models on car features (see Mercedes with heated seats) I don't
| hold much hope the touch screen only controls will be
| disappearing any time soon.
|
| Much simpler to remove something from a digital UI in a way that
| the consumer knows what's happened than it is to disable a
| physical button and leave the customer wondering why it no longer
| works.
| soxocx wrote:
| Isn't it BMW with heated seats subs? Or are both doing it?
| cbovis wrote:
| Yeh that's my bad, I was getting them mixed up.
| ryanbrunner wrote:
| I think my (old, 2nd gen) Prius was a decent balance of physical
| controls and touchscreen controls. It does have a touchscreen
| integrated, but it's used primarily for display and very
| secondary functions. Most of what you need to do is controllable
| from the steering wheel or physical controls on the dash, it's
| only secondary things like adjusting the A/C (which isn't needed
| frequently since it auto-adjusts to temperature) and maps (which
| is clunky as hell but ideally is being manipulated when you're
| stationary.
| aembleton wrote:
| You also have some A/C controls on the steering wheel, so
| rarely need to use the touchscreen.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| The best thing the prius does is put the display forward where
| your hands and steering wheel spokes can't obscure them. This
| is cancelled out by that godforsaken shifter that returns to
| the same position regardless of the gear it's in and is only
| one step above the stupid FCA knob.
| FeistySkink wrote:
| I love cars with physical controls like the amazing (IMHO)
| central console jog dial that naturally rests under your right
| hand (in left-side drive models) in some Audis that lack a touch
| screen. That and the option to physically hide the screen (it
| slides down) and enable a fully tactile driving. Coupled with
| Android Auto (which is great when it works, but pain when
| doesn't) is all I need from a car aux function control. Contrary,
| I can't deal with the likes of the latest Golfs (the ones with a
| nipple for a shifter) where even setting the seat heating is
| hidden away behind some menus, and the dashboard has views that
| have no driving information at all.
| brailsafe wrote:
| This tendency really drives home the fact that my last car was
| probably my last car, and new ones aren't objects of desire. I
| forget this sometimes, until I drive a rental or something and
| expect to be able to adjust volume or heat without much thought
| while driving. Nope, gotta slide some laggy fucking thing on the
| middle of the dash.
|
| Bad physical controls can be _almost_ just as bad initially, but
| easier to remember and feel for.
| misja111 wrote:
| The whole thing with touchscreens in cars reminds me of the touch
| bar in MacBooks. It's a nice looking gimmick if all you want is
| to show off but not suited for serious use.
| dag11 wrote:
| I really love the idea that the Hummer EV has which is a row of
| large (hopefully clicky?) switches that each have a tiny display
| above them indicating their function. They can be reprogrammed by
| the user, but still interacted with entirely by feel. I'd loove
| to see this concept taken to much greater lengths! User-
| programmable knobs, toggles, buttons, etc., with tiny embedded
| displays that aren't (too) modal in use.
|
| Disclaimer: I haven't actually been inside the vehicle.
| brushfoot wrote:
| I think it's a moot point.
|
| One of the features of modern cars is conversational UIs (CUIs)
| that enable a truly hands-off approach from controls altogether,
| both touchscreen and analog.
|
| I hardly use my car's touchscreen except for discoverability, and
| definitely not while driving. Speaking to the car is easier and
| more efficient:
|
| - "I'm cold"
|
| - "Turn on the windshield wipers"
|
| - "Navigate to work"
|
| CUIs have evolved to the point where controls are generally a
| hindrance to consumers and manufacturers both. Why include
| expensive, breakable analog controls when you can give the driver
| a better user experience hands off.
| jackmott wrote:
| lkramer wrote:
| Not everybody wants to talk to their devices? I think they are
| fine to have, but there always need to be a fallback to a
| manual hands on input.
| brushfoot wrote:
| Alternatives are important for accessibility, but I don't
| agree that they need to be available to all drivers at all
| times. The idea of going back to panels of analog controls
| that I have to reach for and memorize the positions of just
| isn't appealing. They break, the paint fades, they chip. CUIs
| are easier and safer in general.
| willhackett wrote:
| I agree with this. Voice control fitted to cars is pretty
| terrible still. It interrupts playback, takes a long time to
| resolve an input and takes even longer to repeat it back to
| you before doing it. Siri makes this a little bit better, but
| she's not been given access to the AC APIs of my car.
|
| Buttons are the way. Or those cool switches from fighter
| jets... I'd like to see those in a car.
| brushfoot wrote:
| > Voice control fitted to cars is pretty terrible still. It
| interrupts playback, takes a long time to resolve an input
| and takes even longer to repeat it back to you before doing
| it.
|
| I can't speak to all cars, but this isn't the case for
| Tesla. It's a very good user experience. It may be
| inconsistent across manufacturers right now, but as that
| evens out I don't see a barrier to more adoption.
| piceas wrote:
| Mine triggers when I say my kid's name with different vowels
| and number of syllables. I had to turn it off.
|
| If I have to press a button to make it work I might as well
| press the button that does what I want.
|
| It seems like a good idea for adjusting the climate control but
| I apparently didn't pay enough and it replies something along
| the lines of "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."
|
| So far it hasn't offered a monthly subscription to enable that
| feature.
| hengheng wrote:
| How do you know what you can say? Do you keep a separate
| vocabulary, like you would when you talk to a pet?
| brushfoot wrote:
| Start with telling it what you want in natural language.
| Conversational AI is good at understanding variations like "I
| want, " "I need," "please," etc. The touchscreen can help you
| discover what features the car supports, and those should
| have CUI commands that are easy to intuit, which you can then
| use while driving.
| skywhopper wrote:
| Sorry, but this sounds like a nightmare to me even if it worked
| well, but the actual quality and robustness of CUIs is nowhere
| near what you imply. In any case, there's about 0% chance any
| car computer is going to do the right thing if I say "I'm
| cold". And in no world is saying "turn on the windshield
| wipers" a better user experience than turning a knob within
| easy reach, especially if you are listening to anything or if
| you have other people in the car.
| brushfoot wrote:
| > the actual quality and robustness of CUIs is nowhere near
| what you imply
|
| I don't agree - I've been very happy with my car's CUI. I
| can't see going back to analog controls or touchscreen. There
| just aren't that many commands that I need to execute while
| driving, and the CUI understands them all.
| indymike wrote:
| Until it doesn't work, then voice is the worst.
| nottorp wrote:
| Let's see:
|
| - you never drive with your windows open?
|
| - you never drive with passengers that you talk to?
|
| - you never listen to music in the car?
| worewood wrote:
| > Turn on the windshield wipers
|
| "Can't open the trunk with the car in movement."
|
| Clicking a button is orders of magnitude faster than casting a
| spell. Voice controls fail more often than analog controls
| break. You do not want a delay to turn on your wipers when you
| are at 60mph and hit a sudden localized rainstorm.
| brushfoot wrote:
| > Clicking a button is orders of magnitude faster than
| casting a spell.
|
| It depends on how many buttons there are and how familiar the
| driver is with them. I like not having to remember/look for
| the positions of analog buttons on the dash.
|
| > Voice controls fail more often than analog controls break.
|
| I haven't had a voice control failure, but any system can be
| designed with varying degrees of reliability. CUIs have a lot
| to offer in the way of safety and convenience.
| ryanbrunner wrote:
| > It depends on how many buttons there are and how familiar
| the driver is with them. I like not having to remember/look
| for the positions of analog buttons on the dash.
|
| If it's your car, this problem will solve itself for you in
| short order. There's not that many functions that a
| dashboard needs to do that you won't familiarize yourself
| with it in a month or two of driving.
|
| Look to a computer for an example, some shortcuts that you
| probably use on your keyboard are downright arcane, but
| because you use it so frequently it's probably natural.
| benj111 wrote:
| "turn of windshield wipers" What speed? I know intermittent. I
| don't know what the fast speed is called, I call it crazy
| wipers, I suspect the manufacturer's don't call it that. And
| that's just a 3 speed wiper, some have more speeds.
|
| "I'm cold" well if you say 'goodnight' to Alexa, she says
| goodnight and carries on with the music which isn't what I
| want. I can imagine "I'm cold" being the same, and even if the
| car does get the hint what do they set the temp to?
|
| "Navigate to work" I know where my work is, I mostly want to
| navigate to places I don't know, and are therefore not in the
| memory. So it's "car navigate to some street, city X" "Would
| you like 1 some street, 2 some street, 2a some street...."
|
| Or "Do you mean some street or sum street or summ street?"
|
| And that's assuming they know the pronunciation, the locals of
| Slaithwaite can't agree on the pronunciation. And theres many
| places pronounced weirdly.
| yourusername wrote:
| My car has full touchscreens and can't understand even the most
| basic voice commands. Ask it to navigate to the town of
| Drachten (NL) and it's likely to route you to some village in
| Serbia or just say "i don't understand". It's utterly useless.
| ho_schi wrote:
| https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-mazda-is-pur...
|
| Mazda learned it already and prefers HUDs. Tactile interfaces
| (buttons, wheels, keyboards...) perform generally better when
| well arranged. Mercedes did a good job about that thirty years
| ago. Logical layout, one button one task, LEDs within a button
| representing the status and the buttons arranged in the layout of
| the seat.
|
| I wonder how a complete industry just assumed that touchscreens
| are somewhat better just because their widespread in smartphones.
| Smartphone are small devices, require visual attention, every app
| is different and distracts the users, touchscreens are cheap and
| - therefore working on them is slow. Apple and Lenovo tried both
| the add a "TouchBar" but the tacticle keyboard has proven to be
| better. Apple tried also a touch area in Apple Remote, the
| current one is back to tactile buttons ;)
| gnrlst wrote:
| As a Mazda owner, I can confirm the general layout and
| philosophy was a key reason for me to choose it over others -
| couldn't be happier. It's not a perfect car, but damn it's got
| super intuitive controls.
| snarfy wrote:
| Now if they could only figure out their electric vehicles.
| I've been looking to buy an electric. I love my Mazda but 100
| mile range is a non-starter.
| sircastor wrote:
| What are your daily range needs? I bought a used 2012
| Nissan Leaf in 2015. The range on a very good day would
| probably have topped out at around 60 or 70 miles. However,
| for virtually every need I have, it's worked really really
| well, and I've been extremely happy with it.
|
| We own a second, gas car for long trips, but if you don't
| have a need for a second vehicle, you can supplement this
| with ride sharing, or vehicle rental. Would I like more
| range? Sure, it wouldn't hurt. But do I need it? Really
| very rarely, and there are certainly options to charge mid-
| day if I do.
| cmos wrote:
| Also with the leaf _how_ you drive makes a big
| difference. No AC or heat and accelerating slowly when
| safe can extend it a bit.
| snarfy wrote:
| Going into the office is a 50 mile drive. The mazda might
| just work but there is no wiggle room which makes me
| uncomfortable. What if I need to run an errand on the way
| home? I'll pick a different electric or stick with gas
| until they can get their range issues fixed.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| The MX-30 EV is almost certainly just a compliance vehicle.
|
| I have a not-too-old Mazda 3, and will switch to an EV the
| day after Mazda comes out with a 200mile range EV.
| wffurr wrote:
| What are the odds they put a huge touchscreen in their EV?
| duped wrote:
| The MX-30 EV does not have one, so it seems unlikely
| recursive wrote:
| The MX-30 is a classic compliance car, so I wouldn't draw
| any long term conclusions.
| notsapiensatall wrote:
| I wouldn't put money on it either way.
|
| On one hand, their focus on tactile controls is a key
| differentiator for their brand.
|
| On the other hand, it is very difficult for automotive
| companies to diverge from their peers, as we saw with
| their universal lemming-like cancellation of chip orders
| in 2020.
| turtlebits wrote:
| Short range EVs are great as commuter/secondary vehicles.
| They just need to be substantially cheaper. I still can't
| find anything cheaper than my 2018 Bolt, which was under
| 25k after tax credits. (and still cheaper than the Mazda EV
| before credits)
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| In 2012, Cadillac went to a touchscreen in their vehicles. They
| too have come back to regular buttons too. What looks nice
| isn't always what is the most safe while operating a vehicle.
| fckgw wrote:
| >I wonder how a complete industry just assumed that
| touchscreens are somewhat better just because their widespread
| in smartphones.
|
| When the requirement for backup cameras mandated a screen in
| the car the automakers responded by utilizing that screen for
| other functionality.
|
| There was a set time for when screens were going to end up in
| cars which is why they all seemed to do it at the same time.
| rootcage wrote:
| Mazda makes cars that are aimed at maximizing
| performance/comfort/usability/etc for the driver and nobody
| else in the car.
|
| With this in mind it makes sense to not have a touch screen,
| but what happens when the front seat passenger is controlling
| the music? It's not a great setup if you tend to have multiple
| people in your car often.
|
| If most of the time you're a solo driver (perhaps like Uber?)
| then Mazda's focus on building everything with driver in mind
| makes sense.
| altairprime wrote:
| > I wonder how a complete industry just assumed that
| touchscreens are somewhat better
|
| They didn't assume that they're better for drivers, only for
| themselves. Touchscreens are considerably better for
| manufacturers, and their severe usability issues in a moving
| vehicle were until recently "unproven" and therefore could be
| disregarded with plausible deniability.
|
| It would be very revealing for automotive reporters to ask car
| manufacturers what their views of the safety of a touchscreen
| are compared to physical buttons.
| para_parolu wrote:
| Mazda controls layout is one of the main reasons I chose their
| cars.
| thereddaikon wrote:
| Ask how the US Navy thought touchscreens were a good idea for
| steering warships? Sometimes people don't think decisions
| through and just got with the bling and institutional momentum
| makes it hard to change.
|
| Mercedes old layout way great and a good example of a well
| thought out analog interface.
| dotopotoro wrote:
| For ship, there is probable benefit (tradeoff) of making
| backup bridge easy - theoretically just a bunch of tablets.
| lolinder wrote:
| "Fast" for a warship is 50 mph, they're in theory piloted by
| a few well-trained sailors, and they're doing that mostly on
| the open ocean with very few obstacles. In retrospect touch
| screens were still a bad idea, but they're less glaringly so
| in that context than in the millions of consumer vehicles
| being driven by largely untrained citizens at 80 mph in thick
| traffic.
| gregw134 wrote:
| I've got a 2017 Miata with absolutely no screens at all, which
| I love. There's a law now requiring all cars to have backup
| monitors, so I plan on keeping this car for another 30 years.
| orev wrote:
| A backup camera/monitor is a game changer, so not really the
| best place to draw the line. I think you're probably more
| concerned with them also using the monitor to do other
| things.
| toxik wrote:
| Why? I used them and I am wholly unimpressed.
| dangus wrote:
| Parallel parking
| pavon wrote:
| They have around double the angular field of view in both
| vertical and horizontal directions, and their placement
| at the rear of the car has a clearer line of sight than
| you do looking back from the front of the car. A rear
| view mirror (or even turning your head) has huge blind
| spots in comparison, including below the rear window
| where children and animals could be walking, and both
| sides which can be blocked by adjacent cars when parked,
| or landscaping when backing out of a driveway.
|
| At first, I didn't like the lack of spacial positioning
| you have when you turn around and look with your own two
| eyes, but in reality I only need that when navigating an
| odd route in reverse, whereas I always benefit from the
| increased view that a camera provides.
| 4ad wrote:
| A rear camera could have its display in the rear view
| mirror, it doesn't need a display in the dashboard where
| it will be repurposed for everything else.
| pavon wrote:
| It could, although with the increased field of view, you
| would either need a significantly larger mirror, or
| smaller image neither of which are ideal. It would also
| need to be brighter to be visible with daylight in the
| background (although that would be good on a dash display
| as well to minimize eye adjustments).
|
| My car actually has both. I think the rear view mirror
| display is primarily intended to be used at night to
| avoid glare, and is enabled using the same toggle as a
| traditional prismatic anti-glare mirror. To keep the
| image at approximately the same scale as the real
| reflection, the image is significantly cropped compared
| to what is seen on the dash display. It is fine for
| situational awareness, but I never use it for backing up.
| duped wrote:
| If only Mazda sold hybrids (barring the new EV and plugin
| hybrid which you can't buy). They really screwed up being late
| to the game.
| grelek wrote:
| Can confirm. Mazda got it right and it's so easy to use. I only
| have to move my arm a little to reach the main control button
| and after a few days/weeks of driving the car you mostly
| memorize the common stuff you do or you can really quickly peek
| at the screen and focus on the driving.
|
| Hardware buttons are the way to go, always. The most basic and
| common tasks apart from driving should be doable without taking
| eyes of the road (volume, AC, rolling windows, ...).
| SN76477 wrote:
| >I wonder how a complete industry just assumed that
| touchscreens are somewhat better
|
| We as people have learned to trust technology... I miss the
| times when we were more skeptical about it.
| joebob42 wrote:
| Frankly in my experience the literal opposite is true. I and
| the people around me trust technology less and less with
| time.
| coleca wrote:
| This article is spot on. I am not even a fan of how the
| manufacturers switched from sliders and knobs on the HVAC
| controls to up/down buttons with a digital temperature reading.
| Does it really matter if you set the heat to 78 or 79? Most
| people I venture would be happy with all the way low, all the way
| high, and the midpoint. It's so much quicker and less distracting
| to be able to turn a knob for temperature to your desired level
| without even taking your eyes off the road. Up/down arrows with a
| readout require you to look at the current reading, then press
| the correct button a number of times, sometimes 20+ times to get
| your desired setting.
| devilbunny wrote:
| Even worse, those digital temp settings _try to make your cabin
| that temperature_. No, no, no. Let me pick the temperature of
| the air that blows out of the vents, and just keep on blowing
| at that temp. If I 'm in the sun in my car, I'm going to need
| cool air (but not necessarily the coldest setting) blowing on
| me to avoid discomfort. But no; it's winter, and now my choices
| are either coldest setting or at least somewhat warm air. I'm
| in winter clothes; the sun is more than enough heat.
| zephrx1111 wrote:
| Do we really need a "test" to find this?
| rob_c wrote:
| this isn't just cars, there's a reason warships don't use giant
| touch-screens during warfare
| gertrunde wrote:
| Another fun facet of in car touchscreens that I've seen - icons
| and 'home screens'...
|
| Lets have a home screen consisting of a 2x5 grid of icons, and
| because we have 14 icons to fit in, lets make that scrollable by
| swiping, but not give any visual indicator of that at all.
|
| And just for fun, lets have half the icons overlap in
| functionality, so Radio, CD and USB Media are all different icons
| to get to mostly the same functionality, and we have two
| different settings icons, so if we did a better job of grouping
| functionality we could manage with <10 icons...
| gitpusher wrote:
| Um. Duh?
| motoboi wrote:
| yeah, you just need now a physical panel that morphs into several
| panels based on context, so users can interact with a media
| player, maps, settings.
|
| Oh, and OTA updates to the buttons too, please.
| alediaferia wrote:
| no way!
| EricE wrote:
| File under "water is wet". I loath touchscreen only controls.
| darthcloud wrote:
| The thing I hate most in new car is clicking forever on the
| temperature button to get to the min or max degree setting. At
| time it's really distracting from the road. All I want is either
| maximum cold, maximum heat or off.
|
| I miss the hold rotation knob so much.
| psychomugs wrote:
| Car design peaked in the 90's with the Toyota Camry and has been
| an overengineered shitshow ever since.
| beeboop wrote:
| I really like my 2015 Yaris. Modern air bags and traction
| control/ABS, but windows/locks/AC controls/seat
| adjustments/everything big is all mechanical. Changing where
| the air blows with the dial is mechanically opening and closing
| valves using wires attached to the dial. There are of of course
| toggle buttons for defroster/air recirc but I love not having
| to worry too much about computer crap breaking. I had to
| replace my alternator and managed to do it in an AutoZone
| parking lot in a couple hours (and only got attacked once by
| someone with substance abuse problems - this was in Seattle).
| Great car.
| psychomugs wrote:
| That does sound nice; most cars I've driven this side of the
| century annoy me with pointless "eco" gauges and infotainment
| screens that just serve to distract.
|
| "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to
| add, but when there is nothing left to take away." Hence why
| the Miata Is Always The Answer.
| spicymellon wrote:
| never liked the buttons on the smart devices. It is annoying to
| have to look at a button to push it. With old dump phone, can
| call people with almost looking. Physical button always out
| perform touch screen.
| vardump wrote:
| I'm shocked no one mentions voice control. Isn't that superior to
| _both_ touchscreens and physical knobs?
| jackmott wrote:
| zppln wrote:
| No. Pressing a button will give you the functionality you want
| 100% of the time. A voice command won't.
| JustMarco wrote:
| Agreed, I use scroll wheels on my steer for volume and
| next/previous song. Voice control for temperature & navigation
| and if an text comes in do a quick reply.
|
| Honestly I barely feel the need to use the touch screen in my
| car while driving, and if so I always make sure autopilot/high
| way assistant is turned on as extra safety.
| arethuza wrote:
| Maybe its because I'm a Scot and apparently have an accent, but
| I'd say that voice control is _by far_ the worst means of
| controlling anything.
| umanwizard wrote:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NMS2VnDveP8
| arethuza wrote:
| If I encountered a voice controlled lift (do such horrors
| actually exist) I'd get out and take the stairs.
| [deleted]
| makosdv wrote:
| I'm not sure they would work well if you're listening to loud
| music or something. Personally, I don't think I'd ever buy a
| car that uses voice control as its primary interface; I greatly
| prefer physical buttons.
| 2rsf wrote:
| It actually does work on my Polestar even when music is
| played, it pause the music while listening. Polestar uses
| Google voice recognition which is great, but still I hate
| using it except for rare cases at it is slow and prone to
| misunderstandings. It is ok-ish for listening to incoming
| messages though.
| skywhopper wrote:
| Good lord, no. Voice control is the worst possible UI, because
| it's just as easy to flub or mumble or be misunderstood as it
| is to aim wrong on a touchscreen. It's far more vague than
| actual buttons, knobs, and touch screen controls. How to even
| describe what you want is a challenge, or even knowing what's
| possible. Plus if you are listening to anything or have other
| people in the car, it's incredibly disruptive, not to mention
| the risk the car will misinterpret something actually being
| said.
| cooperadymas wrote:
| Yes, but you can't show ads on physical buttons.
|
| It's only a matter of time, folks.
| scaredginger wrote:
| In other news, water is wet.
|
| I'm sure manufacturers have known since before the proliferation
| of touch screens in cars that it's a worse product, but they
| chose it for convenience. Maybe there's an argument that the
| convenience allows them to make things cheaper or spend the
| development budget elsewhere, but I'm not convinced it's a good
| trade-off. The lack of a tactile button is a huge downfall when
| one needs to keep their eyes on the road.
| anothernewdude wrote:
| My eyes will be on the road. How am I meant to use a touchscreen?
| donedealomg wrote:
| speedgoose wrote:
| What a badly designed test though.
|
| Why not testing the navigation system or the radio? I suspect
| they would not get the same results. Like who cares about
| changing the luminosity of the instrument system while driving?
| not_a_sw_dork wrote:
| brundolf wrote:
| Can we get some regulation here?
|
| "New cars must have dedicated physical controls for critical
| functions A, B, and C, and always-present displays (physical or
| otherwise) for critical info X and Y"
|
| Can leave room for nonessential functionality to live on a touch
| screen
|
| I think it's a safety issue and I think manufacturers will never
| be motivated to do it otherwise
| ajross wrote:
| So folks are aware: this isn't research, this is a single test
| designed by Vi Bilagare, which is a Swedish auto industry
| magazine. And like the US auto industry rags (Car & Driver, Motor
| Trend) it's dependent for its revenue on advertising business
| from the industry being reviewed. And Tesla doesn't advertise.
| delackner wrote:
| Indeed this "test" is laughable. "the drivers had time to get
| to know the cars and their infotainment systems" really though?
| Like an hour? Is it their personal car? "...By photographing
| the same driver in all cars..." How many drivers were involved
| and how long did they use their car?
|
| A photo of the winning 2005 Volvo V70 shows it is a pure
| traditional all controls, zero screen interface. So only
| intentions that are possible in that era are testable. It is
| not feasible to have a button for every possible command today.
|
| I've been driving Audis for several years, with their rotary
| dial interface, and it takes a maddening amount of time to do
| anything, so much that I often just give up and don't do
| whatever task I was trying to accomplish.
|
| On a touchscreen, I can be driving along, then 1. take perhaps
| 0.1s to glance at the screen 2. while watching the road, move
| my hand to hover a finger where I think is the right place. 3.
| take another 0.1s glance where my finger is. If I was right,
| just tap and immediately look back at the road. 4. If I was
| wrong, while watching the road, adjust and repeat.
|
| At no time am I ever looking away from the road for more than a
| fraction of a second, and since I don't have to think about
| finding where some "currently highlighted screen element
| cursor" is, my mind is relaxed to focus on driving, and each
| glance at the screen is just to look at EXACTLY what I know is
| the location of the feature I want to touch.
| pwinnski wrote:
| Physical buttons outperform touchscreens in every situation, but
| they're not always compact and portable. Smartphones and tablets
| work better with touchscreens because portability matters more,
| and because no two apps have the same input expectations.
|
| A physical knob, slider, or lever is always going to be a more
| effective control, but if it's only usable a small percentage of
| the time, it's pretty wasteful to have it always sitting there
| taking up space.
|
| There are contexts in which the space and uniformity matters
| more, like smartphones and tablets, and contexts in which the
| effectiveness of the control matters more, like in a car.
|
| Cars invented by computer people have touchscreens because
| they're cheap and easy, and because some computer people don't
| understand effective interface design. Of course, now cars
| invented by car people also have touchscreens because they're
| cheap and easy and because Tesla's getting away with it, so why
| can't they?
|
| Having a round knob (or slider, but a round knob is standard in
| cars) always in the same place for volume control is better than
| having a touchscreen widget that might or might not be visible at
| all times, because it can be found by touch and doesn't require
| anyone to take their eyes off the road while driving, and because
| it can be spun or pushed quickly when needed.
|
| This is really, really basic stuff.
| Linda703 wrote:
| theknocker wrote:
| gfodor wrote:
| There are two kinds of cars with touchscreens, ones that will
| always be driven by a driver, and ones that probably eventually
| won't be. Only the latter ones really can justify their
| touchscreens. (And even then it's a bit of a tough sell.)
| systems_glitch wrote:
| Big reason I avoid modern test equipment, too.
| dz0ny wrote:
| Fine but get them fuck out away from steering wheel, I hate cars
| that put 30+ buttons for shit you never use there.
| blobbers wrote:
| Touch screens are a cheap way to create modular displays: they
| can be reused for any "app". They're upgradeable and skinnable.
|
| In a car, maybe they have a place for people who want
| customization; my personal take is the opposite though.
|
| I just want something tactile where I know that I've depressed,
| turned or toggled the right knob without any visualization.
|
| My cars have had simple analog buttons that I enjoy using and can
| switch without distraction through muscle memory.
| atty wrote:
| Many of the top rated comments in here are kind of missing the
| point. "No touch screens" isn't the optimal configuration.
| Instead, you want buttons on the dash or wheel for commonly used
| actions, and you want less common actions on a nice large touch
| screen that also functions as a good GPS screen. The touch
| screen, since it can have scrollable menus, gives significantly
| more customization opportunity than pure physical controls allow.
|
| I'd also point out many of the things they asked the driver to do
| are things you wouldn't normally be doing once you're already
| driving, you'd do then before you started. A much more
| representative sample of things you'd do while driving would be
| something like "turn down volume, turn on windshield wipers".
| karaterobot wrote:
| > The touch screen, since it can have scrollable menus, gives
| significantly more customization opportunity than pure physical
| controls allow.
|
| I do want a screen for GPS navigation, and for the backup
| camera, but I don't need it to be touchable at all. I'd rather
| have fewer features that need customization than add a whole
| system that allows me to customize those features.
| LtWorf wrote:
| The screen should also be matte. The glossy screens which
| point the sun at my face when the sun is behind aren't so
| good.
| jehlakj wrote:
| Does "turn down volume" work when you're playing loud music or
| have the windows down driving on a windy/noisy road?
| cush wrote:
| If the only way to access the extra "less common" features is
| via touch, then it's a fail. Mazda has lots of menu options,
| and you can access it all via their click wheel. It's a great
| UI, and if you like touching, you can touch the screen too.
| MaulingMonkey wrote:
| > "No touch screens" isn't the optimal configuration
|
| [citation needed]
|
| > Instead, you want buttons on the dash or wheel for commonly
| used actions,
|
| Yes.
|
| > and you want less common actions on a nice large touch screen
| that also functions as a good GPS screen.
|
| No, I don't want a whole second set of controls tossed willy
| nilly into an entirely different physical interface as a
| second-class afterthought because the designers were too lazy
| to figure out how to do it properly with physical controls.
| Consoles like the XB1 and PS4 have been doing fine building
| gamepad-driven user interfaces with a relatively limited number
| of physical inputs, no touchscreens required. Yes, including
| such things as scrollable menus. And given the disappointing
| nature of bespoke car GPSes (my current one can't even handle
| my home address!) I'd honestly prefer a proper phone dock
| replacing that touch screen, and allowing my car's manufacturer
| to focus on their core competencies, and allowing me a modular
| choice for handling what the car lacks.
|
| > [...] gives significantly more customization opportunity than
| pure physical controls allow.
|
| A power which is used for evil far more than it's used for
| good. "Customizable" and "bespoke and standardsless" are
| synonymous here. The limitations and constraints of physical
| controls are a wonderful forcing function that made for more
| consistent, tactile interfaces, that will inevitably be skipped
| over for some gauche touchscreen based vomit whenever there's
| an opportunity to do so.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| > > "No touch screens" isn't the optimal configuration
|
| > [citation needed]
|
| Yeah, citation isn't going to convince me. Touchscreens are
| still shit. Data can be tortured into submission depending on
| how and what metrics we look at. To be fully thorough is
| hard.
| vsdlrd wrote:
| > I'd honestly prefer a proper phone dock replacing that
| touch screen
|
| So you are not against touch screens, but against poorly
| designed touch interfaces
| MaulingMonkey wrote:
| I'm seriously considering "downgrading" to a flip phone
| with real buttons and no touch screen, despite the absolute
| ubiquity of touch-driven mobile software - so no, that's a
| premature narrowing of my words. I disable touchscreens on
| laptops because 90% of my interaction with them has always
| been accidental, even ignoring the cases where an
| overheating panel "touches" itself. Even a touchpad demands
| a physical toggle, or palm-triggered touches while typing
| will make using the device an exercise in masochistic self-
| flagellation. My poor mom is _constantly_ accidentally
| triggering her 's cellphone's touch screen by the slightest
| brushes of a trailing finger, or simply by holding the
| edges of the phone.
|
| Put another way: I dispute the existence of touch
| interfaces - at least for cars - that _aren 't_ poorly
| designed. I will admit the possibility of the existence of
| touch interfaces for other things that aren't poor, but I'm
| becoming ever more skeptical of that over time as well.
| [deleted]
| alexb_ wrote:
| >The touch screen, since it can have scrollable menus, gives
| significantly more customization opportunity than pure physical
| controls allow.
|
| You can do this while also having actual physical interfaces.
| You just have to put actual effort into making a design.
| Touchscreens are not the end-all-be-all of good design.
| jollyllama wrote:
| Speak for yourself; I'd rather be able to leave the GPS at home
| when I want.
| tinsmith wrote:
| What you described should be the industry ideal. I point to my
| 2017 Kia Niro as a good example of this. For the most part, it
| offers physical buttons for all common and "while driving"
| actions, leaving the touch screen to be an effective passive
| display for navigation. In fact, this is largely why I
| purchased the vehicle after test driving a few others that had
| much bigger touch screens, but less physical buttons. The Niro
| felt the most balanced.
|
| Oddly (perhaps not?), I use this same thought process when
| shopping for smartphones. One or two physical buttons is not
| enough, especially with screens being prone to the same
| failures they were 10 years ago.
| sbradford26 wrote:
| So my wife owns a 2017 Kia Niro and I have a 2017 Hyundai
| Ioniq. The cars have the same drive train and the
| infotainment systems and controls are similar but there are
| small differences between the two of them. For one both cars
| have dials for controlling the temperature but my Ioniq has a
| dedicated display for the temperature while the Niro only has
| a display overlay that appears when you adjust it.
|
| Just always thought it was odd to have a physical control for
| something but then relegate the display for that control to a
| pop up on the touch screen.
| jmyeet wrote:
| The problem with touch screens is that they're lazy design.
|
| If you have to design an interface with physical buttons you need
| to fully design that interface because you can't easily or
| cheaply update it after you ship it. This is expensive. This is
| in addition to physical buttons themselves being expensive.
|
| With a touch screen a UI change is just a software update. The
| net effect of this is you can be lazy about UI/UX development
| because hey you can always fix it later.
|
| For cars in particular, physical buttons allow some use without
| looking at the display. Touch screens do not.
|
| Phones went touch screen because of their limited size, so much
| so that on iPhones we even lost the home button (which I still
| miss). Actually the home button is a perfect example because the
| swipe up gesture is strictly worse. Example: which direction is
| "up"? It depends on orientation. Also some apps are only in, say,
| landscape orientation so "up" is actually "right" from the user's
| perspective.
|
| Driving with a giant iPad is generally suboptimal.
| trippsydrippsy wrote:
| robomartin wrote:
| I have done a lot of work in this area. In commercial, industrial
| and aerospace applications (not automotive). If I had to
| summarize it to a single word I would say touch screens are
| dangerous.
|
| Context is important, of course. Many have mentioned airliners
| with buttons surrounding a screen. That is very different from
| the automotive use case. For one thing, the cognitive load
| required to interact with a full touch screen or one with buttons
| and knobs around the periphery is much comparable. The difference
| is that pilots are able to take shift their sight and attention
| to the display for as long as necessary to operate it. Anything
| important during takeoff and landing is on a physical interface
| they can just reach for. Also, outside of single-seat fighter
| jets (which is an entirely different category) you have a copilot
| to assist. Anything works if there's another person who can focus
| on the UI while you do something else. And, of course, let's not
| forget that pilots have far more training on the aircraft they
| are flying than the average driver has on their vehicle. It isn't
| about experience, it's about having to pass tests to obtain
| qualification to operate the equipment.
|
| The problem with touchscreens is cars is that it takes a non-
| trivial level of concentration, focus and physical interaction to
| operate them. Beyond that, they are fragile. Very fragile. I
| don't mean in the mechanical sense (not talking about breaking
| them). Randomly run your hand on the surface of your iPad and see
| what happens. That's a fragile UI. It's OK for a tablet, where
| you are focusing on that task. Not OK for a vehicle where you
| could end-up in some undetermined state if you touch the wrong
| area on the screen. I've been involved in some pretty high level
| evaluations of touch screen technology for aerospace. The outcome
| is always the same: For things that matter, add dedicated
| physical buttons.
|
| A long time ago we worked on a project to add full touch-screen
| control for an industrial CNC machine. The end result was to
| abandon the idea completely when a mistake caused the Z axis to
| crash into the table at high speed, causing severe damage. As I
| said: Dangerous.
|
| I would argue that the issue on the road has nothing to do with
| being able to operate the touch screen and everything to do with
| potentially causing a horrible accident due to the shift in
| focus. I am sure accidents have already happened because of touch
| screens. They are probably not recorded in statistics for us to
| be able to understand just how prevalent this might be. I know I
| still see tons of people messing with their smart phones while
| driving on the highway, which isn't a formula for safety.
| heywire wrote:
| My wife's car is a Hyundai Tucson, which is a touchscreen. Mine
| is a Mazda CX-5, which is a touchscreen, but one which is
| disabled when the car is in motion. Instead, the primary mode of
| input is a set of buttons and a wheel. I much prefer the buttons
| and wheel. I feel like I can safely navigate both the native and
| CarPlay UI with the wheel while my eyes remain on the road. In my
| wife's car, I'm extending my arm and trying to counter movement
| from bumps in the road, while trying to tap small touch targets.
| That said, my wife isn't a fan of the buttons and wheel in my
| car, so it might be more of a case of what we're used to. But
| even then, if it is easy to get used to a mode of input that
| keeps your eyes on the road, I feel like that is a good thing.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| The button/wheel combo in my CX-5 is fantastic. You can develop
| actual muscle memory for the most important tasks: switching
| to/from currently playing song, and switching to navigation
| guidance.
|
| This mostly comes down to the fact that Mazda has buttons for
| those right alongside the wheel.
| Jamie9912 wrote:
| Wow who would've thought?
| zinekeller wrote:
| It seems that most marketers and automotive interior designers
| live in another universe. I really, _really_ want to ask them
| if they really thought that this is appropriate and why.
| fpoling wrote:
| As was stated in another comments, it reduces the production
| cost. Screen is needed for navigation, so why not use it for
| other stuff?
| vanattab wrote:
| And at least early on in the adoption of touch screens and
| probably somewhat still today the average consumer assumed
| touch screen was better because it was new.
| netsharc wrote:
| Probably there is/was the "ooh shiny" factor of making
| everything be screens, and "ooh shiny!" sells/sold cars
| better than "ooh, functional!" which is also "ooh, looks
| outdated" in the mind of buyers of the last decade or so.
|
| But after a while living with the stupid UX, the buyers would
| probably rather have the functional than the shiny.
| Joker_vD wrote:
| "Now the screen is the button? Or is the screen _not_ the
| button? I don 't know! Maybe we'll all find out by the time
| when we're compacted like tuna fish in a can!"
| LanceH wrote:
| I can't believe some of the choices they make with touchscreen.
| Some screens in my car have tiles -- large squares where 8 of
| them fit on the screen -- which are easy to press. Then there is
| the phone number listing for dialing, which is are line items
| which only fit 4 or 5 per page, they are wide, but short. So if
| you're driving and the road isn't completely smooth, it's very
| difficult to press the correct line, and requires a lot more
| attention on the screen.
| jonplackett wrote:
| The trend to touch screen and touch control in general is so
| pointless and regressive.
|
| It's not just cars. You now get high end cookers with touch
| buttons that can't be quickly adjusted, require long presses to
| turn on and off and don't work when wet.
|
| Same with high end digital cameras. My old SLR from the 90s had
| instant access to shutter speed, focus, f-stop, +/- with clicky
| dials that you could use with your eyes closed. Modern ones have
| half that buried in a menu somewhere.
|
| The Touch Bar on mac - now you have to look at the keyboard to
| use shortcuts. Useless.
|
| This was a god damn solved problem! Buttons let you use them
| without looking, touch screens don't.
| willhackett wrote:
| This touchscreenification needs to stop.
|
| Familiarity is my personal favourite part of driving. Knowing the
| road, how much input you need to apply to a turn, knowing where
| the buttons for things are, just being able to feel for a control
| and know its purpose. All while my eyes are on the road.
|
| You lose this with a screen.
| JackFr wrote:
| This exactly.
|
| Simply put, with physical controls you can operate them without
| looking. That is impossible with a touch screen.
| abap_rocky wrote:
| My favorite thing about the touchscreen on the used car I bought
| 2 years ago is how the lower third of the screen no longer
| accepts any input. Given that many important buttons and options
| are only present on this region of the screen, I'm essentially
| locked out of using them. To this day I've never been able to
| configure Bluetooth.
| marviel wrote:
| I would have purchased a Tesla by now if the controls were not
| touchscreen-only.
|
| Critical (to me) operations like volume control, should be
| manageable from any context, and with physical controls for
| precision and no-look-requirements.
| art3m wrote:
| Buttons in old Range Rover (L322) was designed to use in winter
| gloves. Imagine how good they are.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| The ford truck products were like this in the 80s and 90s. The
| "all push button" radio of that era was spec'd out the way it
| was because of that goal.
| adhesive_wombat wrote:
| Same for Volvos back in the day.
|
| And the new generation are all using touchscreens which need
| you you take eyes off the road to find the fan settings (return
| to home screen, touch near the bottom centre, then find the
| wedge-shaped fan speed widget and adjust that). Temperature
| needs to pop up another pane and set that by clicking the
| temperature number and then manipulating a bar chart thing.
| None of this except the "return to home" button is tactile in
| any way.
|
| Before: turn the dial. Done. Temperature is the one next to it.
|
| Adjusting the sound balance is downright dangerous (pull down
| the Android-esque menu and click though levels in the UI). Old
| car: press the tactile centre of the volume wheel until it says
| balance, then use the wheel.
| NDizzle wrote:
| Same situation with even modern land cruisers, with the
| exception of the hvac system in the top end models. A common
| modification is to order the base model modules from Australia
| and get rid of all the touch screen components.
| llIIllIIllIIl wrote:
| Touchscreen for media system and navigation in the car is ok. I
| always find it distracting to go through the menus to change air
| conditioning.
| api wrote:
| One of the things I like about my 2022 Nissan Leaf is physical
| buttons and switches. It has a touch screen but it's only really
| for config stuff, the radio, and of course showing maps from the
| phone which is its primary role.
|
| The lane keeping works very well too.
|
| Only thing that sucks about the car is the CHADeMO fast charge
| port. There's a good number of them around here but not as many
| as CCS or Tesla and they're probably on their way out. Of course
| I don't road trip with it that much so it's not a huge deal for
| me personally.
|
| There are some indie folks working on a CHADeMO/CCS dongle but
| it's non-trivial. It can't just be a dumb dongle. Basically has
| to emulate both sides. Will end up being expensive, and would
| also mean your car has a dongle. But then again in the future
| everything has a dongle.
| major505 wrote:
| I cloud had saved some money and told them this from beginning.
| Driving around is hard enough. You need some tactile feedback
| when you press something in the car.
| VLM wrote:
| If it doesn't work they can blame the victim. Same as accidents
| with self driving cars.
| robg wrote:
| This finding has been known for decades. There used to be heads
| up displays with info projected on the windshield. Seems
| futuristic and compelling. Until you investigate how long people
| look away from the road to focus on the display. The brains in us
| meat bags are embodied from birth, baked into our how we think
| and act with precision. Driving is a risky proposition,
| milliseconds lost can be deadly.
| dbg31415 wrote:
| It's two things...
|
| Buttons are easier to find without looking. Nice tactile "you
| pressed it" feedback instantly.
|
| And the fact that all of the cars have such horrible touchscreen
| UI design. We're used to Apple and Android, and what the cars
| have is so crappy. And it's always those junky feeling plastic
| screens. Like how is it they don't just hire Samsung or any
| tablet maker to build something nice and then hire good designers
| to just blatantly rip off Apple?
|
| Honda seems about as good as any I've used. I was in a Ford the
| other day... it was horrible. Just unusable. I couldn't find how
| to turn the radio on. It was tucked away under "input" and it
| took me literally 5 taps to get from power off to music playing.
| And forget trying to tune the damn thing, I had to pull the car
| over before I realized those buttons were on the steering wheel.
|
| Cars used to be really standard. You could hop into any car and
| you knew the radio was in the center console. And the lights were
| on the left (or right if you're foreign), but the brights turned
| on the same way in all cars. It's just the wild west right now.
| The designs aren't just non-standard, they're really bad. The
| tech the cars are using is really bad.
| zzo38computer wrote:
| I think physical buttons are better anyways and I do not like
| touch screen. I also think physical buttons are better than voice
| controls, too. This would be applies to other computers too
| though, not only the car.
|
| We have computer with a full keyboard, that all of the commands
| can be entered, and many key combinations are possible, so a
| touch screen is not needed. Even many function should not need
| mouse but sometimes mouse is helpful, though.
|
| Specifically in a car controls (I am sometimes passenger, not the
| driver), tries to lock some controls while car is moving,
| preventing the passenger from adjusting the controls. It is
| better to allow the passenger to adjust the controls in order
| that the driver will not be distracted from driving the car, I
| think.
|
| I think that a reasonable design for buttons will including a
| numeric keypad. You can include other controls such as volume,
| channel, play/pause/stop/rewind/fast-forward/previous-track/next-
| track/eject, radio (AM/FM), and possibly a few other function if
| needed, but many function can be done by combination of other
| function, e.g. sequence of numbers for a more complicated
| function option
| yakorevivan wrote:
| riffic wrote:
| file this under _no shit_.
|
| Even better than buttons are good old fashioned dials and knobs,
| those little twisty things that click into place and give you
| mechanical feedback when you are adjusting something in a car.
| Rocker switches are great too.
| polynomial wrote:
| I'm not sure this was ever in question, but it's good to see
| supporting research. The problem would seem to be economic in
| that the market seems to be going in the latter direction. (As
| wikitopian points out, there's a lack of manufacturers offering
| non spy-screen based dashboards.)
| eaplant wrote:
| Anyone who works in automotive manufacturing/pricing: what does
| the touchscreen/cameras/"smart" part of the vehicle cost? I'd
| love to buy a "dumb" chassis/motor/battery/interior from Toyota
| (for example) and plop in a tactile console with a simpler
| controller. I wonder if there's a market for something like that
| at a possibly lower price point.
| ladyattis wrote:
| This reminds me of how the US Navy had touchscreen controls which
| ultimately were found to be dangerous, especially for ship
| throttle controls. All these touchscreens result in gorilla arm
| and engineers know this. It's not like it's an unknown problem as
| aircraft control designers have had to deal with the same
| pressure to make controls look fancy and new.
| sddat wrote:
| I also do product safety risk assessments , yet in other industry
| . But from safety perspective , I cannot come up with any
| reasoning how touch screens are acceptable . For sure they
| distract eye from the road when you try to find the right button
| . In a good car , your hands find the right function without the
| need to look for them . And not to speak of Tesla tachometer on
| the touchscreen. To my understanding , this has to be banned . It
| would've been acceptable if the things would drive themselves ,
| yet as this is not in sight , that kind of distraction from the
| road seems unacceptable . I would never buy a car designed like
| this just out of safety reasons
| trixie_ wrote:
| Idk my Tesla drives itself 95% of the time. It also drives
| better than an most of the raging morons on the road.
| cosmos14 wrote:
| Nice to see Dacia Sandero from Romania. I have a simple car with
| a basic screen(nit even in color) with physical buttons. Easy to
| operate.
| walnutclosefarm wrote:
| Touchscreens seem to me to be wrongheaded primarily because they
| inevitably end up with multiple screens and layouts that require
| "navigation" to perform a task. Every navigation action is a
| hand-eye-brain coordination problem to be solved. Moving common
| tasks to a touchscreen multiplies the cognitive and re-focus
| burdens very quickly, and sometimes by quite a lot. Environmental
| controls are a great example of this. I can turn down the heat on
| my Tacoma with at most a single glance at the dash, followed by a
| "muscle memory" action to turn a knob counterclockwise, with
| haptic feedback as to how far (one, two, three clicks). Put that
| on a slider on a touch screen and I may have two or three purely
| navigation steps to get to the right screen, and find the slider,
| and then a visually engaging task to move it. This is nuts, as
| the Swedish study shows.
| beambot wrote:
| With my touchscreen, I can set the temperature controls to
| precisely 72F and never touch it again.
|
| Perhaps I'm a counter narrative -- I find touchscreens vastly
| simpler than a bunch of old buttons: you have vastly superior
| configuration potential, connecting to other technology is
| easier, the few buttons you have make scrolling through options
| easy (eg steering wheel for audio & channel select), and the
| UIs are constantly improving via software updates. Yes, you
| lose some of the physical affordances, but the benefits
| outweigh the drawbacks.
|
| (Speaking specifically to Tesla Model-3.)
| walnutclosefarm wrote:
| > ith my touchscreen, I can set the temperature controls to
| precisely 72F and never touch it again.
|
| Sure. I can do the same. That doesn't eliminate the fact that
| I frequently do want to adjust the environment controls. And
| the temperature, was, of course, just an example. My argument
| goes for any common control operation that gets stuck onto a
| touch screen for the manufacturer's convenience.
| amluto wrote:
| That has nothing to do with this touchscreen issue. Any car
| with a decent thermostat works like that, going back to at
| least 1991 (the model year of the oldest car I recall with a
| decent thermostat). There are plenty of cheap cars today with
| physical, non-thermostat climate controls.
| minutillo wrote:
| There's another reason why touchscreens are used. It breaks up
| one of the "long poles" in the project schedule.
|
| Hardware buttons and switches have to be designed, tested, re-
| designed, and validated very early in the process of designing a
| new model so that there is time to figure out how to manufacture
| / source all the parts, how they integrate with the rest of the
| car's systems, and how they'll be wired and assembled. Just
| imagine what the impact would be if late in the process a new
| feature needs to be added! Pretty much forget about it, add it in
| the next major model refresh.
|
| With a touchscreen all those dependencies go away. The hardware
| team just says "there's going to be an iPad sized capacitive
| touch screen here for climate/infotainment, and another custom
| sized display here for the instrument cluster". The software guys
| can independently do the design of the UI, changing things down
| to the very last moment, or even after the last moment if the car
| can be updated.
| packetlost wrote:
| I've long had the belief that a handful of multi-function
| buttons below a touch-screen headunit or something would be
| ideal. Give me physical buttons and a _very_ clear and easy way
| to tell what "mode" they're in (and switch it if necessary).
| As long as you don't have too many functions and have glance-
| able labeling (perhaps with small OLEDs on the buttons
| themselves) you'll get the best of both worlds
|
| edit: hire me VW, I'll fix your awful infotainment lol
| unwiredben wrote:
| Effectively an ATM-style interface?
| packetlost wrote:
| Yeah, actually. But maybe a bit nicer. Think like 2-4 dials
| that have multiple functions (adjust temp, volume, seat
| warmer, etc.) with a small OLED to indicate which, then
| like 4-6 buttons above the dials (but below the screen)
| that have ATM style multi-function with the infotainment
| screen (or themselves have small OLEDs).
| ec109685 wrote:
| The Tesla Model S/X did this right. All commonly used functions
| are on the steering wheel, with customizable rocker knobs, and
| voice control works.
| rstupek wrote:
| Agreed. I never need to look at my screen to change volume,
| skip songs, adjust the A/C.
| jfoster wrote:
| I've heard it's also cheaper from a hardware perspective,
| because ultimately any modern car was going to have some kind
| of screen anyway, so you get the screen to replace every
| instrument cluster. It might then mean using a better screen
| for usability reasons, but all of the other instrument cluster
| parts no longer exist; they cost $0.
| minutillo wrote:
| I worked on a project (not cars, phones) where we replaced an
| older model that was operated through buttons and LEDs with a
| newer model that was just a giant multitouch screen.
| Surprisingly to me, it was way, way cheaper! And cheaper in
| multiple dimensions: the hardware buttons and LEDs weren't
| just more expensive, they implied a multi-step manufacturing
| and testing process on every unit. The touch screen was
| relatively standard and just came as an integrated assembly
| from a supplier.
|
| We also went through a phase where we had a hybrid interface,
| the most common interactions done through hardware controls,
| everything else on the touch screen. There was always some
| level of regret associated with the hardware stuff, like we
| had some extra LED we never actually needed or just one more
| button would have been nice.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > if late in the process a new feature needs to be added!
| Pretty much forget about it
|
| What are you going to _need_ to do _while driving_?
|
| Operate the headlights. Operate the wipers. Operate the climate
| control fan speeds, mode, and temperature. Operate the windows.
|
| There are not an endless number of essential operations that
| cannot be foreseen at design time. These are the ones that
| should have single-purpose, fixed context physical controls.
| PontifexMinimus wrote:
| > Hardware buttons and switches have to be designed, tested,
| re-designed, and validated very early in the process of
| designing a new model
|
| No they don't, just use the same ones as the previous model.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Yes, but the most important reason is cost. Alps catalog for
| switches has been diminishing and they are becoming more
| expensive.
|
| Development/schedule impact is NRE, but any addition to COGS
| impacts the bottom line in every car.
| khy wrote:
| I had a car that had a single physical input: a dial that you
| could press. The dial would move the focus around the screen,
| and you'd press the dial to click. This was, in my opinion, a
| far superior experience than regular touch screens, and it
| probably doesn't suffer from the problem you're describing.
| bluedays wrote:
| I had an ipod once.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| The BMW i* line is like this, and although it works alright,
| it's a terribly clunky experience when you're actually
| driving, even more distracting than a touchscreen.
| dqft wrote:
| And you can't even use it when the car is moving above
| 10mph.. I have the same system in my Lexus.
| hedora wrote:
| I don't have any of these problems with the jog dial on
| my BMW i3. I can use it at any speed, and it is much less
| distracting than all the touchscreens I've used from a
| half-dozen manufacturers.
|
| Sadly, BMW seems to be switching to android auto. Having
| a jog dial is about as important as the overall vehicle
| form factor, being an EV and safety. Hopefully, they'll
| become more popular over time.
| heleninboodler wrote:
| BMW's i-drive interface is _OK_ but it 's not great. What
| I definitely _do_ appreciate about BMWs, however, is that
| they provide some dedicated hardware controls, e.g. the
| volume knob. I also like the fact that they seem to be
| dedicated to the idea of making most everything doable
| with the shuttle puck thingy, which lets you sit in a
| comfortable driving position while going through menus
| and only glancing off the road briefly.
|
| My main gripe with touch screens is not that you have to
| look at it at all, it's that you have to _keep looking at
| it_ while you 're touching it. With the shuttle control,
| you can glance over to see that the focus is on the right
| item, then look back at the road while you click it.
| Hitting a button on a touchscreen at arm's length while
| driving a vehicle over even minor bumps is basically
| impossible without looking. And in most cars, you have to
| slightly lean forward as well. Aiming error is introduced
| all the way from your upper back through your shoulders,
| arm, and fingertip. It's absolutely ludicrous that some
| car manufacturers don't see this.
| Tagbert wrote:
| No but it converts the action into a multi-step process. A
| button is a single-step process. Multi-step is fine for
| infrequent configuration-type actions that happen when you
| are not actively driving but are a distraction while driving.
| jdvh wrote:
| It's also a multistep process with a touch screen: 1) find
| the button on the screen 2) lean over to reach it 3) touch
| it and look at it while doing so to confirm you did it
| right.
|
| In a clickwheel car the wheel moves the focus rect. You
| twist it blindly to approximately the right spot. Then you
| look at the screen and adjust one or two clicks and press
| to confirm. You won't trigger the wrong action by accident
| and the focus rect makes the operation async: you don't
| have to look while you turn the wheel, you can look at the
| screen when it suits you.
| dmead wrote:
| cars that support android auto try to do this. theres a
| button on the steering wheel that turns on the voice
| assistant like a phone. you can do a lot an definitely not
| take your eyes off the road.
| someguy5344523 wrote:
| Really? That sounds like the worst of both worlds to me; you
| still have to look at the screen to see what you're
| selecting, but you also can't just click the thing you want
| directly.
| ak217 wrote:
| The key is to design the menus in such a way that it's easy
| to memorize (long press to pop up to the top menu, scroll
| all the way to the right, back two clicks left, press to
| get into the climate control menu, etc.) The power of this
| approach is amplified when the controls are thoughtfully
| designed with precise tactile feedback and multiple
| dimensions of interaction (e.g. two dials or a dial
| surrounded by multi-function buttons) and the menus are
| designed to take advantage of those dimensions.
| hedora wrote:
| The jog dial is great. I don't have to watch my finger find
| the right thing to press on the screen. This more than
| halves the time I spend looking at the screen.
|
| Also, our car (BMW i3) has 8 programmable buttons (like
| old-school radio presets) that let me jump around in the
| user interface to frequently used screens.
|
| Some niche things I use frequently (check my email for new
| GPS destinations, bypass FM auto-tuner, and advanced energy
| efficiency monitors) are buried two or three menus deep, so
| I created shortcuts for them. I use buttons 1, 3 and 8 all
| the time.
|
| I use the jog dial more frequently than the shortcuts
| though. The menus provide fast access to more commonly used
| stuff (pair bluetooth, choose podcast / artist / album,
| control GPS zoom and routes, turn off screen). You can skip
| audio tracks and initiate phone calls to people in your
| phone book with dedicated buttons and a thumb dial on the
| steering wheel.
|
| There are dedicated buttons and knobs for climate, and eco
| drivetrain modes.
| mulmen wrote:
| Does it still have a touchscreen? My 2010 BMW has iDrive
| which works great for almost everything. It only falls
| down with text entry because I have to scroll through the
| alphabet. It does do predictive entry so I don't have to
| type the whole address but it is the one time a full
| keyboard would be nice and even I admit that's too much
| in a car.
| falcolas wrote:
| > you still have to look at the screen to see what you're
| selecting
|
| Asynchronously, yes. And since there's physical feedback
| (detents in the turning), you can do it by feel eventually.
|
| > you also can't just click the thing you want directly.
|
| If it's off screen, you still have to do some kind of
| scrolling, and hope you don't inadvertently select
| something while trying to scroll. I do this ALL THE TIME
| with the touch screen I have.
| banannaise wrote:
| Audi used this through around 2018. It's wonderful.
| Absolutely superior to a touchscreen. It's very hard to
| precisely touch a screen at the distance and angle typical of
| a car touchscreen (and even harder if you're actually driving
| the car). Wheel-and-button means more scrolling through
| options, but zero accidental inputs, and you don't need to
| focus on the precision of your inputs.
|
| It's a bad interface for everything but a car screen, and an
| unquestionably superior one for a car screen.
| SomeBoolshit wrote:
| For use cases where you don't want to look away from the main
| task you're performing, it's definitely better than a regular
| touchscreen.
|
| You don't have to aim your finger at anything, you just have
| to scroll and check whether you're there, yet.
|
| And you'll start remembering how many notches you have to
| scroll to reach the functions you need, becoming less
| dependent on the screen at all.
|
| The difficulty is in balancing the number and arrangement of
| submenus and the buttons/menu entries triggering whatever
| function, although the same issue exists with regular
| touchscreens.
| ghostpepper wrote:
| I'm starting to feel like I'm shilling for Mazda but this
| is exactly how the touchscreen control works in all their
| new cars.
|
| Physical dials and buttons for all the important controls
| for, y'know, driving the car - but for stuff like
| interacting with maps, streaming music and all the other
| CarPlay/Android Auto apps - what you've described is
| exactly what they have, and I got used to it very quickly.
| Even though the touchscreen works at low speed, I never use
| it.
|
| I'm sure there are other manufacturers who have resisted
| the urge to copy Tesla's omni-screen and I'd love to know
| who they are.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> The dial would move the focus around the screen_
|
| That sounds dangerous. It's basically the interface that
| AppleTV uses.
|
| I find it _extremely_ confusing, as I _frequently_ select the
| wrong item (and I have been using AppleTVs for years).
|
| Also, it's no fun to program.
| falcolas wrote:
| AppleTV remotes have a problem where they're too sensitive.
| You almost can't click without entering a "move left/right"
| touch command. In many ways, Apple has found a way to get
| the worst of both worlds by trying to incorporate both
| worlds into one touchpad (yes, even in the newest remotes).
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I agree. The newest remote is a big improvement, but I
| find the touchpad to be all but worthless (I assume it is
| useful for games, which I never play on the TV).
|
| I wish there was a way to disable the directional part of
| the touchpad.
| pkz wrote:
| Maybe a button cluster for cars could be standardized?
| Everything relating to AC, heat, etc could work with similar
| symbols and placement. Everything else had to go below or above
| this module?
| itslennysfault wrote:
| Sometimes "long poles" are good.
|
| Having a touch screen means they can (and will) half ass the
| UI/UX because they can update it later.
|
| Also, this isn't just a car problem. You can see it all over
| the web and mobile apps. I'm a huge fan of rapid iteration, but
| it has the unintended side effect of allowing people to ship
| half baked products because they "will iterate on it over time"
| [deleted]
| NonNefarious wrote:
| That's the rationale, for sure; but for mechanical features
| physically built into the car that can't be altered by
| software, there should be physical buttons.
|
| I don't even like electronic climate controls. I drove a
| minivan last week that had a click-wheel for the blower speed,
| which inexplicably suffered from a several-second lag. Yes,
| multiple seconds before the fan speed changed, making the
| selection of one a ridiculous pain in the ass.
|
| And any UI that makes you poke at a button or twiddle a dial to
| iterate through a list one item at a time, without showing the
| whole list at once, is a monumental failure. You see this
| blunder way too often, when there should simply be a drop-down
| list for a finite number of options.
| mLuby wrote:
| That makes sense.
|
| Do aftermarket physical panels exist for consumers to replace
| their touch dashboard with physical buttons linked to the same
| functionality? That'd sidestep the long pole issue and give
| drivers the ability to customize their cars.
|
| If they don't, I imagine the Devil's in the "linked to the same
| functionality" details. It could be that carmakers make doing
| this legally or technically impossible or maybe just that there
| isn't demand for aftermarket adaptor software.
| dublin wrote:
| No, we lost what little ability we had to do that when
| manufacturers abandoned the globally used single and double
| DIN radios for tightly coupled and proprietary systems tied
| to each individual car. NOTHING on current cars control and
| "infotainment" systems is upgradeable or changeable by the
| buyer anymore.
|
| Oh, and a reminder: Stand for freedom and NEVER buy a car
| that has a data connection (Internet or private radio) back
| to the manufacturer. I want my car talking to its
| manufacturer (and by invisible proxy, the big ad tech corps,
| governments, and insurance companies) exactly never.
| FabHK wrote:
| Can one still buy those?
|
| (I think it is not trivial to buy a dumb TV set that
| doesn't phone home... that'll soon hold for cars as well,
| I'm afraid.)
| dottedmag wrote:
| In the world I'd love to live we as a humanity would conduct an
| experiment: design two cars differing only in
| touchscreen/regular controls, produce, sell them and collect
| accident history.
|
| Let's say touchscreen version would end up having a bit more
| accidents, say, one death more per 10000 machines sold.
|
| And then the critical step: for every other touchscreen car
| ever designed by anyone, charge a manager who signed off the
| touchscreen with one manslaughter for every 10000 machines
| produced.
| albertopv wrote:
| For their front car doors Vw, Audi, Seat have been using same
| design for years. Touchscreens are just an easy way to cut
| costs.
| [deleted]
| tomxor wrote:
| > if late in the process a new feature needs to be added!
| Pretty much forget about it
|
| This is a feature of the physical process... can you imagine
| how annoying it would be if the dial for your aircon or volume
| control kept changing it's position!
|
| If they can't plan the feature properly, I don't want it, I
| don't want a buggy piece of software with UI that changes every
| week. In a way I wish this was true for modern software as
| well... no more updates at any time, at least try to get it
| right the first time rather than just rushing any old shit out
| of the door "because you can fix it later AKA never".
|
| I understand there is a balance to be struck with these
| manufacturing decisions and quality - sometimes it's worth
| sacrificing some things so that other areas can benefit and the
| overall quality can improve or the reach that a product has is
| greater - but this is nuts, touchscreens in cars is just
| dangerous and annoying.
| dr_orpheus wrote:
| Yes, but a lot of car manufacturers got around this by making a
| relatively common control suite for all of their cars. There
| are car-specific items, and luxury versions of a brand tended
| to change it up from the standard, but most manufacturers
| seemed to have an identical set of buttons/knobs for climate
| control in each of their cars.
| katbyte wrote:
| I am pretty sure my 2022 tacoma has the exact same clutch
| start cancel button as my 1998 4Runner did. But then that's a
| very Toyota thing to do.
| ghostpepper wrote:
| I had to look up what a "clutch start cancel" button even
| does.
|
| For anyone else curious, "allows the truck to be started
| without the clutch pedal depressed". This generally causes
| the vehicle to lurch forward as the engine starts with
| first gear already engaged.
|
| I am curious if you've ever had to use that button?
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Not the OP, but I used to use it while off-roading.
|
| If you are in 4-lo it means you can start the car in gear
| on a tricky section and not have to worry about using the
| clutch or rolling backwards while the clutch is
| disengaged. Part of this is probably to do with the
| unconventional parking brake that toyota trucks use. They
| have a t-handle under the steering wheel, so it is harder
| to use the parking brake as a hill-holder than it would
| be with a truck with a traditional lever style brake
| handle.
|
| It has a very limited use case, but its handy when you
| need it.
| katbyte wrote:
| whoa t-handle under the steering wheel? which truck (or
| year?) is this? my 4runners and tacoma's all had what I
| thought was the standard the pull up handle in the centre
| between the seats!
|
| will say with the newer one has hill assisted breaking,
| makes starting on hills while off-roading quite a bit
| easier :) wasn't sure I'd like it, ended up liking it
| quite a bit
| logifail wrote:
| > Yes, but a lot of car manufacturers got around this by
| making a relatively common control suite for all of their
| cars. There are car-specific items, and luxury versions of a
| brand tended to change it up from the standard, but most
| manufacturers seemed to have an identical set of
| buttons/knobs for climate control in each of their cars.
|
| I drive in rental cars quite often and it's always a huge
| relief when I'm at the desk to pick up a vehicle and they
| hand me a key for either an Audi or a VW.
|
| Before even I've even seen the vehicle, I know I'll be able
| to use the controls in it.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| An MPD (screen with buttons around the edges) gets you best of
| both worlds.
| ortusdux wrote:
| It is really common for $1mil+ super-cars to have OEM turn
| signals, window toggles, etc. from budget cars for this reason.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Or, and hear me out on this, just standardize and keep it as
| modular as possible. Competition is said to require innovation,
| but we're all familiar with how this tips into planned
| obsolescence and just pushing out a new model with largely
| cosmetic changes every year for marketing purposes. It's not so
| uncommon to see excellent overall designs acquire incongruous
| and thus ugly chrome for no other reason than to distinguish
| this years' model from last.
| toss1 wrote:
| Yes, that is definitely a key reason touchscreens are used.
|
| This does NOT mean that it is a good reason.
|
| The design team saves time & project risk once, and every user
| for decades (the car is supposed to live that long, right?)
| pays for the entire life of the car, a few pay with their own
| lives or the lives of a random pedestrian/cyclist because they
| are distracted by a bad UI at just the wrong moment and end up
| in a preventable accident.
|
| Plus the test in the article is GREAT! It should be enhanced
| and required as a manufacturing standard. The test should also
| include blindfolded trials, or with a screen blocking the
| dashboard -- it's not rare to have to operate the controls
| without looking at the dashboard -- rainy, cool, dark, in 2-way
| traffic, and your windshield is fogging fast... that should
| require 1.5sec blindfolded for a person new to the car.
| screye wrote:
| Genuine question, why do buttons take so long when keyboards
| are so standardized ?
|
| Mechanical keyboards have mastered haptics, replaceability and
| reliability over high repetitions. They could easily iterate
| over a mechanical keyboard housing that's custom, but the
| individual components within it stay completely
| interchangeable.
|
| Also, why is it so hard to understand that touchscreens can be
| good if they've got haptics ? Is a mac-book-sized haptic-
| trigger motor THAT HARD to facilitate in a vehicle ? Is a
| blackberry like physically moving touchscreen a complete no-go
| ?
|
| Lastly, I wonder if touchscreens can be used as a large
| capacitive backend to put physical buttons on top of. That way
| the UI can be designed independently, and the independently
| tested buttons get added last minute onto whichever grounding
| spot on the touchscreen is agreed upon by the designers.
| [deleted]
| nopenopenopeno wrote:
| How hard could it be to have physical buttons with miniature
| lcds in them so that their labels could be programmed as well?
|
| In fact my 2022 Honda Civic has climate controls with dynamic
| labels like this, with LCDs in them. I see no reason why these
| couldn't be programmable.
|
| Also the left half of the gauge cluster in my Civic (behind the
| steering wheel) is an LCD that can almost perfectly imitate a
| physical needle gauge one moment and or be a settings menu the
| next, and a fully customizable output the next.
| incrudible wrote:
| I get it, but how much more crap must you pack into the
| interface of a _car_ , to the point where you can't decide
| ahead of time, like with all of the other physical components?
| This is lazy design and the results are terrible. Is this
| really what people want, or what the car design echo chamber
| believes people _must_ want, because Tesla is somewhat
| successful with it?
| potamic wrote:
| The obvious solution is to use a touchscreen with cheap plastic
| buttons that sit on the touchscreen and emulate touch.
| titzer wrote:
| The solution to that is simple. Put four/five physical buttons
| down each side of the screen, maybe along the bottom too, and
| then you can make everything still programmable in software. I
| have no idea why you absolutely need to put _buttons_ in the
| middle of the screen to be touched. It 's one thing to put
| _items_ or whatever that can be selected, or allow pinch /zoom,
| but in reality almost all interaction just boils down to
| picking between a limited set of options at any given time.
|
| With a decent response time and hierarchical menus, it's easy
| to make a system that is navigable without looking. Throw in
| some (hopefully non-annoying) audio feedback, and it is
| extremely accessible--even by a blind passenger! In fact,
| that's a good benchmark. If a blind passenger could operate the
| thing, then the driver should be able to as well.
| mbjorkegren wrote:
| Encoders are great for this too. Music hardware often uses
| mappable encoders with LED rings to indicate the current
| value, and/or with the screen showing what the encoder is
| controlling.
|
| https://www.ableton.com/en/products/controllers/apc40mkii/tr.
| ..
|
| https://www.native-
| instruments.com/en/products/komplete/keyb...
| Nav_Panel wrote:
| Yep -- my favorite version of this is in the Ensoniq ESQ-1.
| 1980s box that helped pioneer the use of digital readouts
| in synths. Digital readouts eventually became terrible in
| synths because of "menu diving" (look into the Yamaha TG-33
| for an awful example). But the ESQ-1 had a few cool
| features to keep editing simple:
|
| 1. The entire page hierarchy was only one level deep. You
| had 10 buttons that select a parameter, and a single data
| entry slider. So, with two hands, you could very rapidly
| manipulate parameters. I believe the Yamaha DX7 also had
| this, but what made the ESQ-1 cool was that the button
| usages were listed right on the digital readout next to the
| buttons themselves, rather than off to the side and hard-
| coded to the parameter. So it was like hitting a hardware
| button that could automatically remap.
|
| 2. Again unlike the DX7, there was no button-press needed
| to "edit" -- you just hit the button and moved the slider.
| It felt very natural to use even though it was technically
| a digital parameter being editing. If you needed additional
| editing power, you could still hunt for the other buttons
| outside of the 10 "screen" buttons.
|
| I had one about 5 years ago, and swapped it for a JP-8000.
| I regret it. Very cool synth, very innovative UX.
| digitallyfree wrote:
| Even for buttons I've seen small matrix displays beside the
| button (or even underneath its plastic shell) acting as the
| label and indicator. This prevents the need of having the
| programmable buttons next to the screen, but at increased
| cost.
| wildrhythms wrote:
| I have a Roland FANTOM keyboard which has a touchscreen UI,
| however it also has a row of knobs and buttons that offer
| an alternate control surface without having to touch the
| screen. It's so much better.
| kawfey wrote:
| They really should.
|
| Even commercial and fighter aircraft -- which have human-
| interface requirements of incredible depth and complexity --
| are transitioning to large touchscreen displays. ALL of which
| require physical boundary buttons and knobs as a redundancy
| for touchscreen controls.
|
| In fact, controlling the screens via buttons are the
| preference for many pilots since accurately fiddling with
| touchscreens during turbulence, pulling Gs, evading missiles,
| while being task-saturated etc is very hard to do, but doing
| the same with physical buttons is far more reliable. Button-
| pushing tasks can be performed from memory in the blind (or
| while not looking) (a.k.a. "memory items").
|
| There's always been a dichotomy in human-machine interfaces
| between airplane customers (airlines, charters, governments,
| and militaries) vs. their own pilots. Airplane builders have
| to keep up appearances and look cool by putting in putting in
| flashy, futuristic features like big screens and AI, and
| ditching old button-laden displays and the "old way of doing
| things." It too often disregards the needs and wants of
| pilots and "human factors" engineers. Fortunately, safety
| comes first, so the buttons and redundancy must stay.
| LordKano wrote:
| I think that manufacturers are too busy trying to be the
| Steve Jobs of cars.
|
| They're thinking about making their vehicles look differently
| than everyone else's instead of thinking about what would
| work the best?
| Angostura wrote:
| Put physical buttons and knobs on and allow configuration of
| the image displayed on the button - like programmable
| keyboards.
| jlkuester7 wrote:
| This. %100 this. The airline industry figured this out years
| ago with some of the cockpit controls. (admittedly there are
| a lot of other buttons and switches for the pilot to worry
| about too, but it seems like the digital display panels
| always are flanked by rows of buttons which were used for
| interacting with the panel. Works great even with gloves on
| and does not lock you into a single feature set.
| albert_e wrote:
| many ATM machines I have seen do this as well -- just a
| blank set of buttons on either side of the screen
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| CNC, robotic, and industrial equipment too: Human-machine
| interfaces have rows of "Soft keys", buttons whose
| function changes depending on the context. Many machines
| used soft keys in the ages before touchscreens were
| available, but manufacturing is slow to change and even
| with the advent of multi-touch high-resolution color
| displays, they've remained. For examples:
|
| https://www.fanucamerica.com/images/default-source/cnc-
| image...
|
| https://www.fanuc.eu/~/media/corporate/products/robots/ac
| ces...
|
| https://i.imgur.com/3vsHBhl.png
|
| (OK, maybe the AB went a little overboard on the number
| of function keys...) but these are really effective tools
| to structure menus and build HMIs.
| ak217 wrote:
| If you look at those MFDs, many also have rotational
| controls in the corners (some even have two levels of
| dials, one sitting on top of the other), which are another
| key way to keep the UI tactile and promote muscle memory.
|
| Things like eliminating lag, organizing menus into
| predictable paths that can easily be committed to muscle
| memory, and designing buttons and dials that can be used
| even in high vibration environments, are all key design
| criteria for these cockpit controls. It's so sad that
| automotive design refuses to take any lessons from that
| industry.
| QuercusMax wrote:
| When using the touchscreen in my old Nissan Leaf, I used
| to anchor my thumb underneath the display so I could hit
| controls reliably via muscle memory even when the road
| was bumpy. Preposterous that we have to do these kinds of
| hacks when there are much better solutions.
| NonNefarious wrote:
| That's fine if the controls work without significant lag.
| Last week I drove a minivan whose blower speed was
| controlled by a multi-purpose knob, and each speed change
| took several SECONDS to be affected. Pathetic.
| Litost wrote:
| This comment reminds me of this video, where a F-15C
| fighter pilot breaks down the "Human Interface" in the
| cockpit where there are over 250 buttons and various other
| displays including HUD and panels and a button they aren't
| allowed to press because it requires an engine rebuild
| afterwards: https://arstechnica.com/features/2020/06/human-
| interface-com...
|
| It suggests it was meant to be part of a series but I've
| not found any other examples????
| eterevsky wrote:
| I'm not so sure that's an optimal solution. If you are
| going to use the display to show the UI, you may as well
| just use touch interface, as long as it is responsive
| enough. Physical controls make more sense when they are
| optimized for ergonomics so that they can be used without
| looking.
| munificent wrote:
| _> If you are going to use the display to show the UI,
| you may as well just use touch interface_
|
| This is just absolutely not true in practice.
|
| Many synthesizers have the described design where you
| have a set row of knobs or buttons and what those
| controls do changes based on the current mode or state. A
| screen tells you the current function of each control.
|
| It is _much_ easier to build up muscle memory that lets
| you grab the right control and do what you want than it
| would be if you had to interact with the screen itself.
| The difference is so stark that it 's hard to even
| explain if you haven't experienced it first-hand.
|
| And this is for musical instruments used in live
| performance, often in the dark, where muscle memory and
| interacting instantly and correctly is vital.
| elihu wrote:
| Even those kinds of modal interfaces with physical
| knobs/switches/buttons are often regarded as clumsy and
| aggravating compared to knob-per-function interfaces
| where everything control does just one thing and always
| that one thing.
| dumpsterlid wrote:
| Exactly, trying to use a software synth without some sort
| of hardware interface with physical controls becomes a
| nightmare very quick in any situation that isn't just
| sitting on your computer at 12am leisurely editing synth
| patches.
|
| The same it turns out is true of steering a multi-
| thousand pound metal rolling deathbrick.
| klyrs wrote:
| I think the point here is that most people who use the
| interface a few times will learn the necessary key
| sequences. This learning can happen with the car at rest,
| and after that the user can keep their eyes on the road.
| It's not perfect, as some people have a slower learning
| rate than others, but it's sure better than a touch
| screen.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Well, if the control all change in meaning depending on
| the interface state, you can only memorize sequences if
| there is a reset somewhere. And those will probably be
| very cumbersome sequences.
| klyrs wrote:
| If there are "back" and/or "home" buttons that's a non-
| issue. And that's been my experience with oscilloscopes
| with this kind of interface.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| A "home" is a reset. A "back" button won't solve the
| issue.
|
| On a second thought, if the options are hierarchical, the
| sequence of clicks may not be cumbersome at all. Also, in
| a car the state can be something really easy to keep
| track of, like "the car is running", but even then, I'm
| not sure it's safe to rely on this.
| singlow wrote:
| Most of the ones I have used allowed you to navigate the UI
| using physical buttons on the steering wheel. Something
| similar to a up/down/select/back button group with some
| other specific buttons for frequent actions.
| nuccy wrote:
| Yes, buttons on the steering wheel are ones of the most
| useful ones, though even they become capacitive e.g. in
| new VW, BMW, Tesla Plaid.
|
| I have a VW car with a basic HUD (2015-ish era HUD, where
| a glass pops up). It can show lane keeping state,
| adaptive cruise control, current speed, recognized signs
| and navigation directions. Those features are essential
| for normal driving, so I don't look at all on the
| instrument cluster (either dials or the screen). The fact
| that you don't need to look down and change the focus of
| the eyes makes a significant difference.
| NittLion78 wrote:
| I was going to cite the example of the Garmin G1000 glass
| cockpit. Even moving a cursor around a map requires pushing
| a physical knob in 360deg to guide it.
| FabHK wrote:
| I wouldn't call the Garmin G1000 a paragon of UX design
| though. I wish there were some serious competitors that
| would give the UX another try (like Avidyne), but Garmin
| seems to be the standard now.
|
| Philip Greenspun wrote about some of its problems (back
| in 2006):
|
| > In some ways this makes life more difficult for the
| pilot. For example, suppose that you are busily trying to
| fly the airplane and study an approach plate when ATC
| gives you a new transponder code. With a less integrated
| system, you know exactly where the buttons are to enter a
| transponder code and your fingers will find their way
| there almost automatically. The buttons are always in the
| same place, i.e., on the physical transponder box, and
| they never change their function. With the G1000, you
| find the soft key labeled "xpdr" and press it. Then some
| more soft keys take on the function of digits. It is
| clearly a less direct and more time-consuming procedure.
| Similarly for entering a frequency into COM 2. With a
| traditional radio stack, you reach over to COM 2, which
| is probably underneath COM 1 and labeled "COM 2". You
| twist the knob that is always there and that always
| adjusts the COM 2 frequency. With the G1000, you study
| the COM freqencies display (typically four numbers) and
| figure out which number is surrounded by a box. This is
| the number that you are going to be changing if you twist
| the COM knob. If the box isn't surrounding the number you
| want to change, you have to think long enough to push the
| COM knob to toggle between "I'm adjusting COM 1" and "I'm
| adjusting COM 2" modes.
|
| > A 1965 Cessna has what computer nerds would call a
| "modeless interface". Each switch and knob does one thing
| and it is the same thing all the time. This is a very
| usable interface, but it doesn't scale up very well, as
| you can see by looking at the panel of a Boeing 707. Both
| the Avidyne and the G1000 have some modal elements. Knobs
| and switches do different things at different times. The
| G1000 is more deeply modal and therefore, I think, will
| always be harder to use.
|
| https://philip.greenspun.com/flying/avidyne-versus-garmin
| fjni wrote:
| > I wouldn't call the Garmin G1000 a paragon of UX design
| though.
|
| In some ways I would. I wouldn't call it "intuitive," but
| once you understand its semantics, it's phenomenally
| predictable in its behavior. And quite well thought
| through I think. Here's one of my favorite examples: On
| the MFD, in an urgent situation, two of the most helpful
| pages are the "map page," and the "nearest page." These
| are (unintuitively) the first and last page. Until you
| realize that that means you can access both without
| looking which page you're on by spinning the page knob
| either all the way left or all the way right.
|
| It isn't perfect, but I find it generally well thought
| through.
|
| I certainly can't argue with the points about transponder
| and com1/com2 inputs, but within the parameters for the
| device, I consider the UX for the G1000 to be ... maybe
| not a paragon in its entirety, but certainly much more
| thoughtful than what I encounter in other life daily.
| falcrist wrote:
| Lab equipment does the same thing. Decades ago,
| oscilloscopes started having banks of buttons corresponding
| to an area of the screen, and knobs that have context
| sensitive functionality.
|
| Those can be placed side by side with buttons that have
| fixed purposes delineated by printed or debossed lettering.
|
| I realize that we're getting pretty far from the automotive
| use-case, but this style has worked remarkably well over
| the years, and has made it into all sorts of equipment.
| hammock wrote:
| Two more examples that everyone ought to be familiar
| with- ATMs and electronic voting machines
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| ATMs in my area have started to ditch the physical
| buttons.
|
| I've never seen an electronic voting machine and hope I
| never will.
| CommitSyn wrote:
| When did you last vote? The 2016 election is when I first
| experienced them. I asked to vote by paper as I wasn't
| comfortable with electronic voting machines, so they gave
| me a paper and pen to fill it out, which I was then to
| feed into the computer.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| It didn't make waves here presumably because people are
| jaded with politics, but people in this sub-thread might
| be interested in this recent story about a quasi-legal
| effort to penetrate electronic voting infrastructure in
| the wake of the 2020 election.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/08/15/
| sid...
| bmitc wrote:
| > which I was then to feed into the computer.
|
| Not that it's directly relevant, but this phrase reminded
| me of this moment in _Dr. Strangelove_ :
| https://youtu.be/zZct-itCwPE?t=96
| amalcon wrote:
| I'm also surprised to see "electronic voting machines"
| referred to as something everyone ought to be familiar
| with. I've never seen one of this type. I last voted a
| year ago (it was a local election); the last national
| election was two years ago.
|
| I have seen the bubble sheet type, but the voter
| interface to those is a pen and paper.
| archi42 wrote:
| Not everyone lives in the US ;) Around here we cast votes
| on paper and then use computer assisted verification &
| counting.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > Not everyone lives in the US ;)
|
| I don't see how that affects the comments you're replying
| to in any meaningful way. They only mentioned a
| particular election to establish a timeline.
|
| > Around here
|
| Voting varies wildly between parts of the US too.
| interstice wrote:
| > I don't see how that affects the comments you're
| replying to in any meaningful way. They only mentioned a
| particular election to establish a timeline.
|
| Because many countries won't have had a meaningful
| difference in election systems in that window?
| cguess wrote:
| That's how it is in most of the US as well. Fill in the
| bubbles, throw it through the scanner.
| hef19898 wrote:
| That's not how it works outside the US. In Germany you
| fill out the bubbles and throw it in a ballot box. The
| cobtent of the box is later counted by multiple actual
| people. Results are very accurate and almost instantly
| available after voting closes. Thousands of voting
| locations, properly staffed, make sure of thay. Those
| preliminary results are later recounted and verified.
| williamscales wrote:
| this year, by mail, in California. I've lived in the US
| most of my life and have never seen one.
| Shared404 wrote:
| Last time I voted, there was a machine which spat out a
| paper where you could verify your answers, which was then
| fed to another machine for counting.
|
| Seems like a reasonable path to me, though I'm still a
| bit distrustful of the whole process (I live in Texas
| currently, so Shenanigans(TM) are not out of the
| question).
| tunesmith wrote:
| It is weirdly hard to have conversations about insecure
| voting machines these days. Progressive that care are
| sometimes shouted down by other progressives that are in
| favor of dominion suing fox. Conservatives that care are
| sometimes trying to justify disproven conspiracy theories
| about the most recent election.
|
| It seems both sides have reason to push for voter-
| verifiable paper trails, but I'm not seeing a lot of
| momentum along those lines legislatively.
| tssva wrote:
| The 1st election I voted in was 1987 and the last was a
| couple of months ago. For the 1st couple of elections I
| used the giant old school mechanical voting booths with
| the levers you threw to record your votes.. Since the
| early 90s I have only used ballots which I filled out by
| hand and then ran through an optical scanner before
| leaving the polling place. I imagine quite a few people
| in the US have never seen an electronic voting machine.
| dexterdog wrote:
| That's only half stupid. The last primary I voted in I
| used a poorly-designed-by-committee interface which then
| printed out my ballot which I then fed into the scanner.
| amalcon wrote:
| The style where it prints out a ballot which you feed
| into the scanner is actually not-insane. It's good for
| accessibility (e.g. lets visually impaired people vote
| without assistance) but still leaves a paper trail for
| recounts and things.
| withinboredom wrote:
| I suppose it doesn't rain much in your area? Buttons tend
| to work even when moist. Touch screens tend to give you
| the wrong amount of money out of your bank account.
| [deleted]
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| Military equipment commonly uses these Multi Function
| Displays too.
| gnull wrote:
| A few months ago I met a teen (maybe 15 y.o.) who was
| trying to withdraw money from an ATM that had a non-touch
| screen. He kept failing and trying to tap on the screen.
|
| He was doing it for his grandfather, a wheelchair user,
| who was nearby. The grandpa couldn't use the ATM himself
| because there was no wheelchair ramp. Seeing the teen's
| failing attempts he started asking passerby for help.
|
| My takeaway from this story: we need more wheelchair
| ramps, not touchscreens.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Seconded. Touchscreens are great in many contexts but I
| have never liked them on atms. The latency between
| tapping something and the result might be the bank
| checking my account balance, or might be something wrong
| with the UI. When I'm dealing with money stuff I don't
| want any distracting ambiguities.
|
| Having said that I like machines enough that I assume I
| can figure anything out because it was intended to be
| used by someone, so I rarely struggle unless it's a truly
| awful design. Touchscreens are way more intuitive for
| most people, though in cases such as you describe I
| wonder what the helpless people think the buttons outside
| of the screen are there for and why they're reluctant to
| try pushing them.
| CPLX wrote:
| Professional audio equipment has been doing this for
| awhile too
| scrumbledober wrote:
| Just learned a new word, "debossed" and I love it
| rpdillon wrote:
| Very common in military systems as well.
| snowbrook wrote:
| Just like every gasoline pump I've used in the last decade.
| pavon wrote:
| That's not a panacea. My Honda CRV has buttons along the side
| of the screen, and after seven years of owning it, I still
| have to look at the screen to do anything.
| andrewla wrote:
| General-purpose buttons whose action changes with context are
| just as bad as touchscreens. The whole point of tactile
| interfaces is that the buttons and controls have a consistent
| action regardless of context. A button that sometimes does
| one thing and sometimes does another depending on what is on
| the screen is no better than a touchscreen, since it requires
| active attention to operate.
| titzer wrote:
| > it requires active attention to operate.
|
| It just requires _context_. How that context is critically
| important. If it is a hierarchical menu, then the context
| is the navigation path (i.e. the sequence of previous
| button pushes, each of which transitions from one state to
| the next). Importantly, with a fixed hierarchical menu, the
| path to a button 's functionality doesn't change and can be
| memorized. With some audio feedback, the current state can
| also be announced, so that a person's mental state matches
| the state the interface is in.
|
| There are several problems with touchscreens, not the least
| of which is the context issue. The next issue is there is
| no tactile feedback, which requires you to look at where
| you are touching, often because interactive things can
| appear _anywhere_.
| sitkack wrote:
| The solution is to have a "mode selector" so that the
| buttons have a fixed meaning in that mode. Like a 3
| position rotary selection switch, all the way the left
| could mean basic AC control.
|
| I'd love buttons with braille on the surface so I could
| read what they said without looking at them. Does someone
| make mems braille screens?
|
| *edit, looks like there is a bunch of stuff in the works
|
| https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=mems+braille+screen&iax=im
| a...
| romwell wrote:
| Well, certainly having _some_ buttons with context
| dependence is still better than having touch screens.
|
| Also, hard no to "just as bad". I have no issue with volume
| control buttons also being camera triggers on my phone, for
| example.
|
| Details matter.
| andrewla wrote:
| In the context of operating a vehicle I'm going to stick
| with "just as bad".
|
| When you aren't driving, if you have to set up something
| (like configure the doors to auto-lock when when you
| shift into drive or something) then a touchscreen is
| clearly superior. You can navigate to a menu and read the
| options and select the appropriate one. But like the
| camera shutter button, this is a situation where you can
| afford to pay some attention to the task at hand.
|
| While operating a vehicle, if you're trying to turn up
| the fan on the A/C, then using a button to switch to
| climate controls, then using a button to switch to fan
| settings, then clicking the up button three times, is
| just as bad as a touchscreen, because if you switched to
| climate but didn't yet switch to fan settings, and you
| have to put more attention on the road because you're
| exiting, you've lost context and can no longer know where
| you are in the navigation with looking and assessing the
| situation.
|
| So dedicated climate controls >>>>>> touchscreen or
| context-buttons. The difference is close enough to be
| indistinguishable.
|
| If you get a popup saying "there's traffic ahead click
| here to accept a new route" then dismissing it by jabbing
| the screen and dismissing by jabbing a button, it's
| really hard for me to see a lot of air.
| djaychela wrote:
| Exactly. Back in the hardware days of music technology, I had
| an Akai S2000 Sampler. I could navigate the most commonly
| used functions by touch alone, using actual buttons - even
| with complex menus.
|
| With simple menus (or a custom setup of your own), the common
| things could be on buttons, instead of taking your
| concentration off the road.
| ChikkaChiChi wrote:
| Is there a standard for this or any defaults in an OS for
| this? In the past, I've been monumentally frustrated by the
| inability to bind inputs to non standard keys.
|
| I've tried building out several projects like this, and using
| HID keyboard as standard, you are relegated to ANSI
| keystrokes or combos that a user/os wouldn't need, or third
| party drivers that come with their own headaches. Another
| option is a video game controller.
|
| I never understood why we can have a billion emojis but
| adding some additional unused input mappings is a bridge too
| far.
| kbenson wrote:
| A central rotating knob or directional jiystick that can be
| pressed is also fairly intuitive. I fortunately they've
| futzed that one up often too by making it rotate _and_ a
| directional pad (such as in Honda Odysseys, at least circa
| 2017), where you can rotate and also tilt the knob left or
| right, and I can never remember whether a particular menu
| section wants one or the other to change selections.
|
| To the automakers, when two controls have overlapping things
| they're good at doing, maybe pick the one that fits best and
| just include that, but at a bare minimum make sure they are
| always used consistently and clearly, _please_.
| th1s1sit wrote:
| fridek wrote:
| FWIW this is what Audi's MMI does. (Or used to do? My car is
| old.)
|
| The control panel has:
|
| * 6-8 buttons for switching between different MMI modes,
| labeled
|
| * 4 universal buttons, function contextual to the current
| screen
|
| * 1 return button
|
| * Turn/press controller
|
| I can navigate 90% of the menus blindfolded. Despite my older
| MMI not being a marvel of UX, I can access functions 5
| actions deep, while driving, from pure muscle memory.
| sithadmin wrote:
| Audi's phased out the entirely physical-button driven
| interface in favor of touchscreen and trackpad-based
| inputs. There was a generation in between that also had an
| odd and extremely large implementation of the legacy
| combination dial/joystick/button thing.
| titzer wrote:
| That sucks. Touchscreens have become so cheap (because
| economies of scale), Audi is probably saving
| manufacturing cost by not having physical buttons, simply
| because of the custom design cost of integrating buttons
| into a PCB and then programming it[1]. Touchscreens might
| even be cheaper than non-touch screens. They often have
| higher resolution. Audi is probably transitioning to
| using software stacks designed to build touch-screen apps
| instead of buttons and don't want their software devs to
| even think in that outdated mode of "buttons". It's
| completely self-serving and chasing the design trends,
| tripping after Tesla tech woo, not consumer demand.
|
| [1] Which is totally ridiculous IMHO, because even with
| my completely amateur skills, wiring up a few buttons to
| an embedded chip is NBD.
| detaro wrote:
| I doubt _design_ cost is relevant, and software stacks
| also don 't really care. Support for hardware buttons is
| a very thin layer, and widespread.
| Arrath wrote:
| I only drove an Audi once, and loved that little joystick
| thing. It was perfect.
| blobbers wrote:
| I f'in hate this thing. I've used it on my partner's car,
| and it doesn't compare to a few real purpose driven
| buttons. Try adjusting which vents are blowing, or
| something like that. Total PITA!
| mnot wrote:
| Like the Apple Touch Bar.
|
| The problem is that it's contextual, so you still have to
| look to it you can trust that a hardwired button won't change
| purpose; that's the important property here.
| mywacaday wrote:
| Audi have had this for years, dial with four buttons around
| it down by the handbreak so you don't have to reach up. Also
| some industrial pick and place machines work this way, I used
| to operate them over 20 years ago and the speed you could
| navigate through the screens once you built a bit of muscle
| memory beats any touch screen.
| mulmen wrote:
| Well, "beats a touch screen on input" isn't really a bar as
| much as a line on the floor.
|
| Another comment claims Audi no longer uses this system and
| went to touch as well.
| mywacaday wrote:
| Could well be, my car is over 10 years old.
| Kye wrote:
| More to the point: the missing physical buttons that really
| grind people's gears are gimmes. You need some way to control
| the heating and air. Some way to control audio. Some way to
| control safety stuff like wipers and signals. These have been
| around as long as the things they control. Decades! It is
| known. This is the way.
|
| Give those physical buttons and 99.999% of complaints
| vaporize, and people are happy. Apply your idea for stuff
| that's up in the air. Boom. Done.
| thwarted wrote:
| Another solution is to not make every make and model have a
| completely custom dashboard interface. The physical interface
| for turn signals is completely standardized. The physical
| interface for windshield wipers is about 95% standardized (I
| wish we would finally decide on if the short bar or the long
| long bar indicates frequency of activation or delay between
| activations). The physical interface for the radio is mostly
| standardized, at least the icons on the buttons are well
| defined and understood. It just gets worse from there. The
| climate controls look standardized, and often have well-
| established icons and coloring, but not standard positioning.
| Then again, even things that are standardized, people can't
| fully grok: how many people know how to find out which side
| of the vehicle the gas tank is on while sitting in the
| driver's seat? It's so goofy, the Mini I drive regularly is
| infuriating because the touchscreen has a paddle/joy-knob in
| the center console for navigation, and you turn it
| COUNTERCLOCKWISE to move "forward" and "down" through
| menus/option lists.
| crooked-v wrote:
| > The physical interface for turn signals is completely
| standardized.
|
| You might think that, but lots of people complain about how
| BMWs have different turn signal stalk behavior than other
| cars.
| red369 wrote:
| >> how many people know how to find out which side of the
| vehicle the gas tank is on while sitting in the driver's
| seat?
|
| Is there actually a way (apart from pulling a lever to open
| it and looking in a mirror if it is the type which flips
| open)?
|
| The symbol on the fuel gauge indicating the side of the
| tank opening is a myth isn't it? Doesn't consistently hold
| true for my car, and people seem to remember the version
| the does - does the hose indicate the side of the flap or
| the side the hose needs to be on?
| macspoofing wrote:
| >The solution to that is simple. Put four/five physical
| buttons down each side of the screen, maybe along the bottom
| too
|
| Absolutely. It's why smart-phones and tablets (the ultimate
| 'touch' devices) still put some physical buttons (power,
| volume control).
|
| A well designed UI, complemented with physical input (buttons
| or knobs) is best.
| notriddle wrote:
| Dedicated, single-purpose buttons that work all the time
| are _clearly_ superior to touch screens. That 's why even
| smartphones have them.
|
| Context-sensitive buttons are less awesome. They might be
| superior, if you memorize the combination, but they're
| decidedly inferior to touchscreens for the long tail of
| infrequently used features.
|
| The study linked here focused on "simple" tasks, and the
| top performing cars probably have dedicated buttons for
| everything measured. The story would likely be very
| different for context sensitive buttons, and subjective
| reporting would likely be unreliable, if studies on the
| speed of mousing vs keyboarding are anything to go on [1].
|
| [1]: https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/30682/are-
| there-any-r...
| _nalply wrote:
| > even by a blind passenger
|
| but not by a deaf driver
| Findecanor wrote:
| BTW, what you are describing has a name: "Soft keys", and had
| first been developed for use in air plane cockpits.
| (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_key>)
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Computer keyboards have had them for decades also (PF keys,
| labeled F1--F12), though I've only really seen them used on
| mainframe terminals and old DOS programs like WordPerfect.
| cjohnson318 wrote:
| Absolutely. I have a 2016 Outback with a touchscreen that I
| can't see in sunlight about 90% of the time. I can, however,
| see the smudge on the screen where I press play for
| audiobooks. (Plugging a phone in pauses the audiobook.)
|
| I'd love more physical buttons because, and this may come as
| a shock, usually when I need to use these darn things, I'm
| driving.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > The solution to that is simple. Put four/five physical
| buttons down each side of the screen, maybe along the bottom
| too, and then you can make everything still programmable in
| software.
|
| This, though functions like climate control, audio, and
| anything needed to operate the car while in motion should
| still have dedicated buttons. Touchscreens in cars are an
| abomination.
|
| > I have no idea why you absolutely need to put buttons in
| the middle of the screen to be touched.
|
| They don't need to, they're just following the touchscreen
| all the things UX fad. Turns out capacitive touchscreens were
| a great fit for cell phones, but that doesn't mean they have
| a place _anywhere else_.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > Turns out capacitive touchscreens were a great fit for
| cell phones
|
| Sure. However removing the physical buttons on cellphones
| was a pretty big loss that the touchscreens do not make up
| for.
| vikingerik wrote:
| Why are capacitative touchscreens such a great fit for cell
| phones? Because the physical size is so limited. You want
| to use the same physical space for output (screen) and
| input (buttons). For a car instrument panel, physical size
| mostly isn't a concern.
|
| "Touchscreen all the things" was cargo-culting. Apple made
| a trillion dollars with touch screens, therefore we should
| use touch screens too.
| jrcplus wrote:
| Remember, even the original iPhone still had physical
| buttons/switches for Home, Sleep/Wake, Ring/Silent, and
| Volume Up and Down.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > "Touchscreen all the things" was cargo-culting. Apple
| made a trillion dollars with touch screens, therefore we
| should use touch screens too.
|
| IMHO, that's one of Apple's biggest competitive
| advantages. They have so much cachet that everyone
| assumes whatever they do is "best" and mindlessly apes
| it. That way they never have any real competition,
| because followers are always at least a step behind.
| efitz wrote:
| > Why are capacitative touchscreens such a great fit for
| cell phones?
|
| Because you are always staring at the display while using
| it?
| mulmen wrote:
| I touch typed this comment but never obstructed the
| display to do it.
|
| Why would I want I/O to become IO?
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Car manufacturers are not cargo-culting Apple as much as
| Tesla. People in industry saw touch screen and went meh,
| but then people voted with wallets and opinions (Tesla
| has one big touchscreen, so modern, so much wow,
| lightyears ahead of everybody else! - heard it gazillion
| times in the past, no matter how much I tried explain to
| folks how utterly shitty and cheap that approach is in
| cars).
|
| In similar way as current/recent SUV cargo-culting. For
| premium performance manufacturers like Porsche or BMW it
| didn't make sense, why have bulky car with shitty driving
| characteristics, slower, much higher roll risk, much
| higher center of gravity, much smaller inside space than
| usual family wagons, that costs more to run and buy it
| from premium brands... thats what you have Fiat Peugeot
| etc for. Especially for people who drive on paved roads
| 99/100% of the time, ie typical soccer moms.
|
| I know that inexperienced drivers enjoy higher seating
| position and feel safer, but I would suggest taking some
| driving lessons if thats a problem for a given driver,
| much better results and resulting real safety.
|
| Yet Cayenne and X5 and whatnot sold like hot cakes for
| premium money because footballers and other celebrities
| bought them, so eventually every manufacturer jumped on
| that bandwagon, screw any logic if people buy it. The
| more performance the brand, the longer it took them to
| pick this trend up, and thus Ferrari is the last (from
| what I gathered, not following this topic seriously). And
| so folks today buy crossovers and god knows what other
| names are in vogue these days, which are tiny short cars
| with high ground clearance. To drive in cities.
| pandaman wrote:
| Even an experienced driver can appreciate not having the
| view completely obstructed by the clouds of droplets from
| the wheels of other cars in a rain and no amount of
| driving lessons can make one see through the water. On
| top of better visibility in all weather conditions, SUV
| offer easier loading/unloading, easier access for setting
| up children in the child seats and, even though not an
| off-road vehicle, still much better in the adverse
| weather (snow, floods) because of high clearance. If
| you're are not racing the only reason to choose a wagon
| is the few more cubic feet of room are more important to
| you than anything above. This is why SUVs displaced
| wagons IMHO, I doubt people buy so many RAV4s and CR-Vs
| in the US just because of some footballers who bought
| Uruses.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| I don't think that's the reason.
|
| Touchscreens let you build arbitrary UI/UX. You can click
| anywhere and do gestures anywhere and type anywhere. When
| there doesn't need to be UI, like when watching a video,
| the whole phone is the screen. So the UI can optimize for
| the best UX. It's much more powerful.
|
| With physical buttons, software is pigeon-holed into UI
| designed around those buttons. It's a massive trade-off.
| Something we take for granted like navigating a website
| becomes much more tedious when you only have buttons.
|
| Just look how much effort goes into making software-
| specific hardware like the scroll wheel/drum on old-gen
| music players like the iPod, yet it doesn't solve
| something as simple as typing in a song search query.
| dogleash wrote:
| And even then... there were people that still preferred
| the physical keyboards on smartphones even as they fell
| out of fashion because everyone was chasing apple.
|
| Swipe keyboards are good enough and physical keyboards
| are out of fashion long enough that it's been a while
| since I've seen an bluetooth keyboard build into a phone
| case. But I haven't actually tested my preference in
| years.
| mlyle wrote:
| There are truly obscure things in cars you don't do
| often. Changing settings. Programming the radio. Changing
| a drive mode for specialized off-road use. Getting a
| report on usage / economy / etc.
|
| If an operation is infrequent and doesn't need to be made
| when driving, burying it in a touchscreen menu sounds
| great: conserve those physical control surfaces for stuff
| that matters so you don't have a ridiculous surplus of
| buttons. You can go and put _the majority of functions_
| on touchscreen menu hell. But don 't go and put the
| climate or windshield wipers or even audio modes on touch
| surfaces, please. :/
| titzer wrote:
| > But don't go and put the climate or windshield wipers
| or even audio modes on touch surfaces, please. :/
|
| I agree with that, but I don't see any added value of a
| touchscreen for the other things you mention. It could as
| well be a deep menu that is still accessed with many
| button presses to drill down into it.
| mlyle wrote:
| > It could as well be a deep menu that is still accessed
| with many button presses to drill down into it.
|
| I think if I'm not driving, the usability of picking from
| menus by touch is _usually_ nicer than using buttons to
| navigate.
|
| If I'm really experienced with the controls, buttons are
| better than a meh touchscreen.
|
| In a rental car, I appreciate the touchscreen menus.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > If an operation is infrequent and doesn't need to be
| made when driving, burying it in a touchscreen menu
| sounds great: conserve those physical control surfaces
| for stuff that matters so you don't have a ridiculous
| surplus of buttons..
|
| That's a bit of a straw man. No one seriously says
| literally every function needs a button.
|
| And it makes sense to bury seldom-used things in menus.
| However, there's _no_ reason those menus need to be
| touchscreen menus.
|
| E.g., in my car, care settings are in a menu, but the
| screen for it is in the instrument panel and controlled
| by buttons on the steering wheel. I believe the reason is
| when it was made they still offered a low-end trim level
| without a touchscreen entertainment system. This menu is
| better than a touchscreen, but IMHO it would have been
| better with done with menu-buttons in the center console
| screen.
| mlyle wrote:
| > That's a bit of a straw man.
|
| It's not a straw man; it's nuanced agreement. It's a
| shame that people expect argument so much that they can't
| see where the edges of one opinion are being offered.
|
| > However, there's no reason those menus need to be
| touchscreen menus.
|
| Might as well be touchscreen menus. Using up and down
| buttons to pick things in a modal interface isn't clearly
| superior to a touchscreen for experienced users and worse
| for new people.
|
| A good button menu system is better than a bad
| touchscreen, especially with experience. But in a rental
| car, I appreciate the touchscreens to pair my phone, etc.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > It's not a straw man; it's nuanced agreement. It's a
| shame that people expect argument so much that they can't
| see where the edges of one opinion are being offered.
|
| I understand that, that's why I said it was "a bit" of
| one.
|
| > Might as well be touchscreen menus. Using up and down
| buttons to pick things in a modal interface isn't clearly
| superior to a touchscreen for experienced users and worse
| for new people.
|
| IMHO, if you have the space, f-key/button menus (e.g. the
| _hardware_ shown at https://www.informatique-
| mania.com/en/tutoriels/quest-ce-que...) are better than
| touchscreen menus.
| mlyle wrote:
| > IMHO, if you have the space, f-key/button menus (e.g.
| the hardware shown at https://www.informatique-
| mania.com/en/tutoriels/quest-ce-que...) are better than
| touchscreen menus.
|
| I like avionics and ATMs where you see these. They're
| great for experienced users with relatively fixed
| functionality.
|
| You can't tradeoff UI factors so easily, though. If you
| usually have 5 options, and found you have 6 somewhere--
| you need to break up the section _or_ add a page, etc.
| And if you add an option the user UI workflow completely
| changes.
|
| While, with a touchscreen you could accept a smaller
| target for the least-used option, and adding a new target
| on a page doesn't change things too much for users (and
| is arguably more discoverable).
| unbalancedevh wrote:
| And speaking of audio, make the volume control a real
| analog knob that's directly in the output circuit, so
| when I quickly spin it down it immediately goes down. Not
| some encoder that's trying to rationalize how far down I
| really meant to turn it, with an inevitable delay.
| mlyle wrote:
| > make the volume control a real analog knob that's
| directly in the output circuit
|
| I don't miss noisy potentiometers :D
|
| And having a bus with user operations being streamed to
| it means that designers can choose mappings and behaviors
| late.
|
| The issue is the delay. I have a lot of amplifiers with
| knobs that are perceptually instant, even if they really
| are encoders behind the scene. Stuff is fast enough now
| that there's no reason for delay. I've built control
| systems that use encoders that operate at 1000Hz over
| slower embedded networks than are in modern cars.
| Baeocystin wrote:
| And stop having bizarrely chunky steps between volume
| levels, too. It annoys me regularly that so many of my
| digital devices have less than a dozen steps between
| minimum and maximum, leaving me with either too quiet or
| too loud, and nothing in-between.
| mlyle wrote:
| Half a decibel per step is a reasonable chunk; average
| perceptible change is 1dB but sometimes it's better than
| that.
|
| Figure maybe 65dB of useful dynamic range in a car + 10dB
| of range needed based on levels of the recording. That
| implies you want about 150 steps.
|
| Go ahead and display a number between 1-30 if you want--
| that's probably good for usability. I can find "13" and
| be close to what I typically want. Just, have the actual
| control surface move 5 steps per number so that I can
| fine tune.
| withinboredom wrote:
| If you've ever rented a car in another country, you will
| find yourself in those menus. Probably while driving. The
| best cars are when the menus are easy to get to, using
| buttons on the wheel.
| mulmen wrote:
| > Turns out capacitive touchscreens were a great fit for
| cell phones
|
| Yes but to be clear they are still an enormous compromise
| there. Maybe it is this generation of UX people, maybe it
| is fundamental to the technology, but there hasn't been
| much advancement in touch interface tech in years. Apple
| tried "deep touch" or whatever with feedback but then
| abandoned it because nobody (users or devs) wanted to deal
| with it. We just deal with all the downsides of touch
| screens because the rest of the device gives us such an
| incredible capability, even with the (sometimes literally)
| painful UX.
| mfer wrote:
| > With a decent response time and hierarchical menus, it's
| easy to make a system that is navigable without looking.
|
| There is a difference between working with a touch screen
| where you can focus on it and using a touch screen where you
| need to focus elsewhere (like the road). There is also a
| difference between something like a plane where you have a
| great distance from other moving objects most of the time and
| a car where you are regularly around other cars.
|
| My wife has a slightly older car with no touchscreen. We can
| operate it by feel. Without ever needing to take our eyes or
| focus off the wheel. My car has a touch screen. I can't
| operate that by feel. Constant glances are required.
|
| These are different experiences. Looking at the situational
| environment is important when creating a good user
| experience.
|
| I wish I could buy a car with more physical buttons. Would
| make the whole car driving experience more usable with me as
| a less distracted driver.
| ak217 wrote:
| Those same systems are used in jet fighters and ground
| attack planes where they (along with a HUD - another thing
| now available in cars) are used to support split second
| decisions.
|
| Having tactile, easily memorized controls with screens is a
| solved problem in the avionics industry. It's just that car
| makers refuse to learn any lessons from them.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Hardware buttons and switches have to be designed, tested, re-
| designed, and validated very early in the process of designing
| a new model"
|
| To be fair though, the buttons should be pretty standard from
| the previous model or other models. Vehicle design is generally
| iterative, building off the prior models.
| ISL wrote:
| It is almost as if there is a market for a touchscreen that can
| reconfigure itself to present arbitrary tactile physical
| buttons.....
| comicjk wrote:
| As long as the design team has the discipline to freeze the
| button layout for any given car, so the driver doesn't have
| to deal with moving or disappearing buttons.
| incrudible wrote:
| No, the problem is that a car interface isn't _supposed_ to
| reconfigure itself. You 're supposed to be able to learn to
| use it blindly.
|
| Designers need to be able to make decisions and _stick to
| them_. If they can 't do that, it means they suck at their
| job.
| trey-jones wrote:
| Because this paradigm has been working so well for the software
| industry. Physical buttons being better (and safer!) for a
| driver is so obvious it's almost not even worth testing. No
| science required!
| falcolas wrote:
| Cost and driver safety are orthoganal. You can't increase
| driver safety without increasing the cost. And given how we
| treat companies which don't grow their profits yearly, it's
| (sadly) an unsurprising output.
| Poppys wrote:
| I think this is more a problem of standarisation and if car
| companies got together and pitched in a bit of research to find
| out what worked well with users they could all get an interface
| (or a set of standards) that worked well for most users.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| Task time is just one aspect of it.
|
| Touchscreen interfaces give you a worse reaction time than drunk
| driving [0]
|
| This alone should be reason enough to regulate infotainment into
| oblivion.
|
| [0] https://trl.co.uk/publications/interacting-with-android-
| auto...
| hasbot wrote:
| I'll be needing a new car in a couple of years; I hope physical
| buttons are back in style by then.
| alliao wrote:
| Tesla did it to reduce cost pure and simple
| manholio wrote:
| SpaceX did it on the Dragon too. Hard to imagine an environment
| that is more mission critical and less cost sensitive than a
| space ship under severe engine vibration or tumbling out of
| control though space.
| alliao wrote:
| though they hardly have much agency to deal with non-existent
| traffic, so distraction isn't a big deal...
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| I think that's different though. Spacecraft have orders of
| magnitude more features that need to be controlled than cars
| do. Just look at how busy the space shuttle cockpit was.
| squarefoot wrote:
| Probably also to appear more modern. The problem with that
| approach is that, besides well known touch screens usability
| issues, it takes only one bump in the wrong spot to screw all
| the interface, so it's cheaper only until something goes wrong.
| They seem to know this though, as Space-X ships have all
| important functions replicated on real physical interfaces.
| civilized wrote:
| I'm refusing to buy any recent model car until an automaker
| defects from the horrible trend of touch screen hell.
| mantas wrote:
| Also, a glowing touchscreen is a distaction at night. Compared to
| physical button that just sits there.
| someweirdperson wrote:
| Hard to read in direct sunlight, too. (Partially-)Reflective
| displays with perfect dailight readability exist (used in
| aircraft), but they would likely not satisfy the cheaper-than-
| buttons requirement.
|
| But cars without roofs are getting out of fashion anyway. Next
| step after no steering-wheel will be no windows.
| bsagdiyev wrote:
| This frustrates me to no end in our family car. Even if I "turn
| it off", which turns off the radio, the screen still shows a
| clock over a globe and still glows. There is no escaping it.
| not2b wrote:
| My 2012 Prius has the most commonly used controls (sound system,
| temperature, answer a call) right on the steering wheel meaning
| they can be accessed without taking my eyes off the road. That's
| much safer than a touchscreen (it also has a small touchscreen
| but that doesn't have to be used nearly as much).
| nextstepguy wrote:
| I like the nest therm except for the most intricate choices
| (typing passwords) but it still beats the touchscreen from the
| competition.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| They don't out perform in coolness.
| havblue wrote:
| While I like the Mazda I own with physical buttons, it can get
| confusing for newer users to traverse the screen in Android auto.
| There's the spin knob, the click action and the up right down
| left rocking motion.
|
| I know how to use this but most people I know prefer to start
| with the touch screen.
| yonatron wrote:
| Duh!
| cs702 wrote:
| This strikes me as an unjustifiably harsh/absolutist conclusion
| based on a tiny sample. Reality is more complicated.
|
| For some things (e.g., turning on blinkers, turning on a
| windshield wiper), a physical control may be the best choice.
|
| For other things (e.g., scanning the map of an area, configuring
| trunk opening height), a touch screen may be the best choice.
|
| And for yet other things (e.g., choosing a destination, finding a
| charging station), a voice command may be the best choice.
|
| Finally, if we ever get fully-conversational self-driving cars at
| some point in the future, most physical controls may become
| unnecessary. For now, I'm OK having a modest number of physical
| controls for common everyday tasks and a touch-screen and voice
| commands for all other tasks.
| butterfi wrote:
| Anyone with a touchscreen on their stove can tell you physical
| buttons are superior
| eimrine wrote:
| Yes and no if you need/want to clean them somehow
| temptemptemp111 wrote:
| smm11 wrote:
| My source is a BMW with DAB, and a Prius with whatever that
| tablet is.
|
| The DAB system is a thousand times better, and I can use it 90
| percent of the time without looking at it. The tablet? No way.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| To quote the late Norm MacDonald from a Saturday Night Live
| "Weekend Update" segment:
|
| > _A new study says that people who quit smoking have healthier
| lungs. Yet another groundbreaking story from the pages of the
| medical journal "DUH"._
| someweirdperson wrote:
| I don't want buttons. I want switches.
|
| More generally: I want to be able to feel the state something is
| in. Whether it is push/pull, turn, or flip doesn't matter, but it
| has to physically maintain the state I put it in.
|
| An exception to this of course are functions that are used
| temporarily, like the horn, and the wipers swipe-once. And if
| direction indicators turn off automatically, the input device has
| to change its state accordingly.
| naravara wrote:
| If a function can be controlled from more than one place (such
| as power windows or locks that can also be controlled from the
| driver's seat or key fob, or anything controllable by software
| via central control panel) then you can't really have a manual,
| state-full control for any of it since it can go out of sync
| with the state of the function.
|
| The exception would be to put a tiny motor on each control to
| keep it synced up, but the cost to reliability (not to mention
| just money) would be unacceptably high.
| someweirdperson wrote:
| As substitute for physical state inputs I could accept
| separate inputs for different states (this excludes off/on
| toggle buttons, but could be satisfied e.g. by separate off
| and on buttons) and a state indicator in a visible location,
| preferably close to the input.
|
| Power windows are close to fulfilling this (up/down
| separated, and it might be argued that the state is
| sufficiently obvious, though questionable for the rear
| windows). A central lock controlled through a common
| lock/unlock button does not satisfy this.
| s_somayaji wrote:
| I agree with your view. Looks like history will repeat. We will
| be back to with all buttons someday!
| pretext-1 wrote:
| You should become an airplane pilot.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| It is no co-incidence that the book "The Field Guide to
| Understanding 'Human Error'" By Sidney Dekker contains case
| studies mostly drawn from aircraft incidents. They're less
| numerous than car crashes, but more impactful and better
| understood.
| someweirdperson wrote:
| I am (PPL).
| tapland wrote:
| Switches that show state are invaluable.
|
| I'm a flight sim nerd and it's immediately clear when you have
| to keep track of more states than your are used to how much
| attention is needed and how much is freed up if you can reach
| over and feel the state of the switch.
|
| I would love that for many functions in a car. And a knob with
| some bump or whatever at the ac temp setting, so I can adjust
| its position based on feel alone as well.
|
| On a modern keyboard the caps-lock key would probably benefit
| from one too =)
|
| I think switches that can set themselves to current state (flip
| back) are a bit pricey but can be had from $12 or so (iirc).
| theshetty wrote:
| I completely agree with this. I never understood how this
| became the new normal and mostly acceptable in the new
| generation vehicles (especially the EVs) in the name of
| progressive/futuristic design.
|
| I hope the automobile manufacturers take a note of this, and
| bring back some of it that's worked for decades. I believe few
| German manufacturers like the Mercedes-Benz to have a sense of
| this, hope they don't get along with this trend too.
| hbossy wrote:
| It's just cheaper to design and certificate one part and put
| it on multiple models than making dedicated analog controls
| for every new design. Touchscreens are just cost cutting
| measure. I wonder how many people died fiddling with car
| radios so one pencil pusher could get a bonus for skimming
| $10 off manufacturing cost.
| kipchak wrote:
| Unfortunately if the EQS is an indication Mercedes may have
| also lost the plot.
| orangepurple wrote:
| Fortunately you can buy a street legal production car like this
| for over 25 years: The McLaren F1 GTR
| Lio wrote:
| When you say _I_ can buy a McLaren F1... :D
|
| Joking about the price aside I always loved that the original
| design goals for the F1 included that if someone found one in
| a barn in 50 years time they should be able to repair it.
|
| I think that leads to quality, simple, tactile controls.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| My car has a quiet indicator tick, it's so frustrating not
| being able to hear if the indicator is on. Particularly because
| they (Vauxhall/Opel) butchered the indicator stem switch
| meaning it doesn't click, which would be fine, except it
| returns to middle, which would be fine, except the dashboard
| indicator lights are hidden by the steering wheel, which would
| be fine ... if the indicator tick wasn't too quite.
|
| Honestly it makes driving a real chore and is a huge safety
| problem; just that one little anti-feature ruins driving.
| einpoklum wrote:
| That's right!
|
| And I want my bottom buttons on my smartphone, too. No, I don't
| need the extra ~50 pixels at the bottom for some video or game,
| damn it.
| riskable wrote:
| > "Instead of developing, manufacturing and keeping physical
| buttons in stock for years to come, car manufacturers are keen on
| integrating more functions into a digital screen which can be
| updated over time."
|
| That's lame. 3D printing buttons is a very quick and simple
| solution to that problem. They can even use my lasts-forever,
| contactless analog hall effect Void Switch design:
| https://github.com/riskable/void_switch
|
| Keeping buttons--something that's so quick and easy to 3D print--
| in stock seems like a huge waste of storage space.
| asoneth wrote:
| I once worked on a user interface for passenger use in military
| vehicles and field testing similarly showed that hardware buttons
| were superior. I wasn't even a driver interface so glanceability
| was not the issue, it was the improved haptics and being able to
| differentiate buttons by touch in a moving vehicle.
|
| Given the added cost of physical buttons, the compromise was a
| series of physical buttons along the edges of the screen.
|
| One technique used to convince stakeholders that the added cost
| was worth it: have them sit an an office chair and ask them to
| complete tasks on each prototype while someone holding the back
| of their chair occasionally jerked it around to simulate vehicle
| movement. Never had objections from anyone who went through one
| of those presentations.
| dotancohen wrote:
| I love my Tesla model 3. It's the best car I've ever owned from a
| comfort standpoint, an economic standpoint, a cargo-space
| standpoint, and a performance standpoint. I do four hour road
| trips with the children regularly in it, no complaints.
|
| But I can not stand the touch screen.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| I have a touch screen, hud, voice, and my steering wheel has
| controls on it. I haven't missed having a knob once and rarely do
| my hands leave the wheel.
|
| What controls are we talking about? Air conditioning? Radio? What
| else? I've always felt the analog controls were made out of cheap
| plastic regardless of how expensive the car was.
| iambateman wrote:
| This is coming largely from Tesla-envy, and for them it made
| sense...
|
| In 2016, They thought they were going to be pushing level 4 self-
| driving capability to their cars in 2021. As soon as a car has
| true self driving, a giant screen makes the most sense.
|
| But now we are getting a bunch of cars which still require
| traditional steering and that's obviously much worse.
| trixie_ wrote:
| I do over 100 miles a day in a Tesla on autopilot. Touchscreen
| works fine.
| neither_color wrote:
| I tried to be open-minded with Tesla but way too many features
| are in 2nd & 3rd level menus and it's just plain annoying.
| Their UI sucks
|
| I need a sub menu to switch the headlights to parking lights
|
| I need a sub menu to adjust the mirrors
|
| I need a sub menu to open the glove box
|
| Not knowing for sure if your car is locked when you get in or
| having to walk several feet away before it auto-locks is really
| bad if you live or stop in sketchy areas. Instead of a quick
| lock button you have to go into... you guessed it: sub menus.
| This may seem benign but let's say you walk out of your house a
| couple minutes before your passenger and you're waiting for
| them. When they get to the passenger door is it open or not?
| With a Tesla you don't really know until they try to open it.
| Now what if you're in a sketchy block and you just got in? You
| also don't know. There's no quick "lock all doors" button.
|
| If you want to idle/wait in your car somewhere with everything
| off you have to go into sub menus and power the AC and
| headlights off one by one. It's not like an ICE car where you
| just flick the key back until only the radio is on.
|
| I thought voice commands would redeem it:
|
| "turn on parking lights"
|
| "set lights to parking"
|
| _unknown command_
|
| It's worse than siri. Car UI designers need to understand that
| we are not online shoppers needing to be funneled into a single
| call to action. We are operating complex machinery in sometimes
| life-or-death situations - minimalism and machinery are a bad
| combination. Even if we achieve full self driving in 10 years
| we'll still be _piloting_ our cars not just sitting in them
| waiting for the AI to guess what we want. We need instrument
| panels too.
| zaroth wrote:
| You don't have to go to a submenu to lock and unlock the car.
| Just tap the padlock status indicator. It will also tell you
| if the doors are locked or not. It's right there in the top
| row!
|
| The mirrors are automatic and set themselves for you as soon
| as you sit down based on the profile tied to your phone.
| Changing driver profiles is super slick in the Tesla and way
| easier than any other car.
|
| I'll take the glovebox being behind a second tap because I
| also get to put access to the glovebox behind a PIN.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > In 2016, They thought they were going to be pushing level 4
| self-driving capability to their cars in 2021
|
| I can't imagine anyone in Tesla _actually_ thought that.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| And I think Tesla could get away with it, because to a point
| they were trying to be like Apple for cars, and Apple has
| reinvented some user interfaces very successfully - including
| touch screen interfaces in favor of physical buttons.
|
| It can work. I remember so many people sticking with their
| Blackberry for so long because it had physical buttons. And to
| be honest, I'm still not comfortable with touch screen
| keyboards. However, I can see a lot of benefits in having a
| touch screen for text input; predictive text, language
| switching, character set switching, 3rd party keyboards to
| combine emoji into monstrosities
| (https://emoji.supply/kitchen/), etc.
|
| The cost was ergonomics; the gain was dynamic options as
| described above.
|
| Anyway, I think that's what Tesla was aiming for, I don't know
| if they or other car manufacturers have achieved it. I don't
| have experience with it myself, only drove a VW for a while
| that had a screen for the gauges so you could change the
| styling and get some sweet animations; I didn't mind that, it
| was workable enough, and allowed for more efficient use of
| available real estate.
| master_crab wrote:
| Dynamic keyboards are great but the main reason physical keys
| lost out on phones was because the space trade off wasn't
| worth the extra screen real estate afforded by virtual
| keyboards.
|
| That's not a problem with cars. Particularly American ones.
| "Acres" of dashboard to work with there.
| DrBazza wrote:
| The number one thing you should be doing in a car is paying
| attention to the road, not glancing at a touch screen because
| there's zero tactile feedback.
|
| And even worse, putting what would have been a physical button on
| an old dashboard, or car stereo, 2 levels down in a touchscreen
| menu. If we have to have touchscreens in cars, then at least put
| "the most used buttons" at the top-most level.
|
| The current touchscreen-in-cars is a dangerous UX disaster.
|
| Frankly, I'm surprised there hasn't been more accidents. Perhaps
| annual accidents statistics will increase as more cars get
| touchscreens.
| trixie_ wrote:
| Looking at a touchscreen isn't a big deal, people look down and
| around their cabin all the time while driving. People here
| sound like you have to be staring at the road without blinking
| to drive. In reality people are always looking around the cabin
| while driving for all sorts of reasons.
| AtNightWeCode wrote:
| Like that they added traveling distance for comparison. Very
| pedagogic.
|
| Btw, I believe touch screens originally was more or less created
| for military vehicles, so I don't buy a lot of comments in this
| thread.
| martythemaniak wrote:
| Love the controls in my Model 3. Whenever I see people complain
| about this, I always think "What is it that you're fiddling with
| your car so much that you need a shortcut button for everything?"
| because I don't fiddle with my car while driving, and little
| while parked.
|
| Not surprisingly, this test is highly contrived and nonsensical.
| Let's review:
|
| > 1. Activate the heated seat, increase temperature by two
| degrees, and start the defroster.
|
| > 2. Power on the radio and adjust the station to a specific
| channel (Sweden's Program 1).
|
| > 3. Reset the trip computer.
|
| > 4. Lower the instrument lighting to the lowest level and turn
| off the center display.
|
| 1. Seats, steering wheel, air are warmed by the app before I
| leave. Seats and air temp are set on auto and I rarely have to
| change them during a trip. defroster is a button on the bottom.
|
| 2. I click a button and say "Play <Blah> on Spotify". Sometimes I
| play stuff from my phone. Four years in, I have not yet used the
| radio.
|
| 3. Car has auto trips from last charge, last park as well as two
| manual ones. They are burried deep, in the menu. But why is
| anyone resetting trip counters while driving on the highway?
|
| 4. Ugh, it's set on auto brightness and I've never touched it
| after setting it up. Switches to dark mode on sunset as well.
|
| Touchscreens are better because you don't need to fiddle with the
| cars they come with.
| kipchak wrote:
| Is this the case for all cars with touch screens or Teslas in
| particular? I've seen some pretty horrible touch screens in
| cars. For a recent example, the MK8 Golf GTI.
| JonathanBeuys wrote:
| Only as long as people still drive.
|
| If we had to dial every number we want to call manually, physical
| buttons on phones would outperform touchscreens too. But nobody
| does that anymore. And it is nicer to select the name of a friend
| on a touchscreen than to type it with physical keys.
|
| Same goes for cars. Humans spending their time keeping the car in
| lane, stopping at red lights, starting when the light turns
| green, doing turns etc will phase out more and more over the next
| 10, 20 years.
|
| The interaction we still _want_ to have with a car is probably
| nicer on a touchscreen. Especially when you are not dabbling with
| a steering wheel anymore.
|
| Stuff like seeing the route on a map, selecting waypoints etc. We
| would not want physical keys for that when we are at home at our
| computer, right? I think dedicated keys are just legacy from the
| "I'm busy with the steering wheel and need to do other stuff
| blindly" area.
|
| Much of it will probably also move to voice control.
| jcranmer wrote:
| Perhaps when driving is no longer the main focus of the driver
| in the car, a touchscreen interface might make sense. Except
| that is not the case for any car on sale right now in any state
| of being (save for being parked and motionless). Yet there is
| still much eagerness to move everything to touchscreens _right
| now_...
| adhesive_wombat wrote:
| > And it is nicer to select the name of a friend on a
| touchscreen than to type it with physical keys.
|
| It really isn't for me, it's much easier with the T9-style 3
| letters per key on a physical keypad and then up/down on the
| steering wheel.
|
| Some cars have a click wheel that lets you set letters one at a
| time, which also works well.
|
| What doesn't work well at all is typing with one hand on a
| centre console touchscreen.
| vel0city wrote:
| I never thought I'd see some argue _for_ the MacBook Wheel.
|
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=9BnLbv6QYcA
| adhesive_wombat wrote:
| The click wheel is a very good interface, especially when
| you are very often setting a scalar value (volume,
| temperature, fan speed, etc) or navigating a linear list
| (songs, contact names, call history, etc) and using one
| hand without looking at that hand. So it's a good fit for
| both MP3 players and cars.
|
| Not so good for typing, but can be quite good when there's
| a good UI that narrows down options for you at each entered
| letter.
| WickyNilliams wrote:
| Voice control is not an improvement imo. An anecdote...
|
| I wanted to make a call to my partner recently, whilst driving.
| I have an old car, with all physical controls. But my phone was
| in front of me with maps running. I said "OK Google.." and
| waited for it chime that it registered. "Call [my partner's
| name]", I commanded it. It responded that the name was
| unrecognised - even though it repeated the name back to me, so
| it wasn't a case of mishearing. I repeated this at least 5
| times, getting increasingly frustrated.
|
| Then eventually it started calling. Joy! But I notice it
| doesn't say my partners name on the screen, just a phone
| number. "OK", I think to myself, "perhaps this is some quirk of
| voice dialing, it doesn't show the name" (I don't know my
| partners number by heart so I could not recognise it).
|
| It rang through to voicemail, and whilst the name given by the
| voicemail recording was correct it was definitely not my
| partner's voice. It turns out my phone had just dialled a
| random mobile number from the Internet that matched that name.
| It may have been a business, or a personal number, I'm not
| sure. Either way, I would never want this behavior!
|
| I guess the point is that voice commands have terrible error
| handling and recovery modes. Give me physical controls any day.
| Even if they're slower, at least they are accurate,
| discoverable, and do not make guesses about intention
| brk wrote:
| While I think your estimates for self-driving cars are
| aggressive, we have also had these touchscreens in cars for
| about a decade already.
|
| _IF_ we get to more autonomous driving, sure add in the
| touchscreens, but until then I think we may have started that
| trend about a generation too soon.
| JonathanBeuys wrote:
| Any quantifiable arguments that 10-20 years is aggressive?
|
| Google started development 13 years ago and now already has
| fully autonomous taxis on the road in a 4 cities. If they
| double the number of cities every year, in 10 years they will
| be in over 4000 cities.
|
| Tesla started around the same time. Looking at videos of
| tesla in self driving mode, my feeling is that without human
| interaction, it would crash maybe once every 50 hours of
| driving. Double that every year and in 10 years it will crash
| once every 50000 hours. A human driver, driving 1 hour a day,
| would need 136 years of crash free driving to achieve that.
| But the average driver has 4 accidents in their lifetime. So
| we are already in superhuman territory by then.
| brk wrote:
| I guess my argument against the aggressive timeline is that
| I have been working in MV/AI for the last decade or so, and
| am pretty deeply connected into NVIDIA, AMBA, a few SS
| lidar companies and so forth (though I do not deal with
| autonomous driving, I am in physical
| security/surveillance).
|
| While there has been a lot of progress made to date, much
| of it (IMO) has been around the low-hanging fruit kind of
| stuff. Sure, we've mapped a lot of roads and covered many
| of the basics. But none of the systems are really able to
| do human-level context awareness, like you see a bunch of
| kids running around near, but not on, the road a few
| hundred feet up, might want to slow down or at least be
| extra aware, or people clearly driving in "tourist mode",
| etc.
|
| My personal assessment is that we are still 20+ years away
| from the point where the human driver is mostly along for
| the ride (and thus to the point of this thread, can fiddle
| with a poorly implemented touchscreen UI without risk). I
| am led to believe the ultimate solution is going to involve
| altering/enhancing the road infrastructure, along with the
| general improvements for the in-vehicle stuff (which itself
| has at least a decade of development still to go). Combine
| those things together, and we're still quite a ways off
| from the vision that was sold 10 years ago.
| JonathanBeuys wrote:
| So the "argument" you give is your gut feeling when you
| look at how things are now.
|
| I expected something like this. That's why I said
| "quantifiable". We humans are animals of habit and have a
| hard time imagining a changing world. But every time a
| few decades pass, we look back and see - damn! - a lot
| has changed.
|
| A way to get away from feeling and towards a rational
| prediction is to look at rate of change. In my
| experience, doubling the performance of a new technology
| (self-driving is only 13 years old) is usually doable.
| And that means 1000x improvement in 10 years. And from
| where we are now, that gives us Waymo in every major city
| and Tesla with super human capabilities.
| brk wrote:
| So your response is essentially _your_ gut feelings then?
|
| I do not think your rate of change assessment is
| accurate. With many newer technologies, like the DNN/CNN
| frameworks, we see a more or less immediate order of
| magnitude improvement, and then declining rate of
| improvements as the easier bits are done and we are
| forced to do deeper development or refinement.
|
| Saying that Tesla has super human capabilities sounds to
| me like you are not assessing it rationally. Super human
| would mean, to me, that it manages to do better than
| humans in extreme conditions. Instead, we have seen a
| number of very preventable causalities in the current
| generation systems.
| jcranmer wrote:
| What evidence have you that growth in self-driving
| capabilities is inherently exponential, much less doubling
| every year? Indeed, if I extrapolate your numbers into the
| past, when Tesla started self-driving it would have been
| crashing minute or so, which is laughable.
| JonathanBeuys wrote:
| Technological progress is usually exponential.
|
| In terms of self-driving, some factors are:
|
| The amount of data grows exponential. Not only do the
| existing Teslas keep adding data, but more and more
| Teslas are added to the fleet, accelerating the pace at
| which data is generated.
|
| Crunching the numbers gets exponentially faster, because
| compute power is growing exponentially.
|
| The algorithms used to crunch the data become better.
|
| As more and more revenue comes in, more and more can be
| spent on data crunching.
|
| The sensors become better.
|
| Maps become better.
|
| All of these factors multiply. Adding _another_
| exponential force. Even if the data would grow at a
| linear pace and the algorithms would get better at a
| linear pace, this would result in exponential
| improvements, as these two factors multiply.
| olivierlacan wrote:
| This is precisely why I'm so infuriated so many people (me
| included until recently) aren't aware of the excellent
| alternative manufacturers like Mazda are offering in their cars,
| their Command Controller: - no touch screens
| - no embedded screen below the dash, instead screen is at
| instrument cluster height - in center column, where your
| hand natural can rest, a palm-sized wheel: - tactile
| feedback on rotation - multi-directional shifts (cardinal
| & diagonal) - pushing/clicking wheel is
| selection/confirmation - finger tips buttons surround
| wheel with shortcuts: - navigation (either
| CarPlay/Android Auto nav app or GPS) - music (either
| radio or CarPlay/Android Auto currently playing music app)
| - favorites (can be radio, satellite, etc.) - home
| (one click -> CarPlay Home, double click CarPlay Dashboard with
| map & media) - back
|
| Here's a good video showing how it functions:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8ORngbdKI4
|
| I've seen myriad folks passing judgement on these systems because
| they've lived with touch screens in cars for a very long time. I
| was lucky to skip that entire generation going from a minimal LCD
| digital screen straight to a Mazda with this system. It took a
| few weeks to feel comfortable, but not once did I ever feel as
| insecure as I have in a vehicle with an touch screen located
| below the instrument cluster line.
|
| I think we've numbed ourselves to the routine distraction of
| touch screens which (generally) bypass most people's ability to
| mentally map physical buttons to specific actions. It's obvious
| as has been mentioned in this thread that touch screens are a
| massive cost saving (initially at least) and vehicle production
| timeline trick.
|
| The huge missing story for touch screens is user experience and
| safety. The Mazda input system does take some time to learn, and
| it does divide my attention when I use it, but it has trained me
| to be more sparse with my interactions with the multimedia system
| and to rely far more on voice input control whenever I absolutely
| need to input data into the system (music selection, route
| finding, text response, etc.)
|
| This isn't even getting into the surprisingly well-designed
| software and hardware intermingling that Mazda has accomplished
| between the instrument cluster (which features one central LCD
| gauge that mimicks the two real physical gauges that surround it)
| and the multimedia operating system navigation.
|
| Here's some references for folks who find it interesting and are
| interested hardware/software design for safety in vehicles:
| - https://www.wardsauto.com/interiors/why-mazda-blindfolding-its-
| engineers-and-designers -
| https://www.mazda.com/en/innovation/technology/philosophy/human-
| centric/
|
| PS: not a Mazda shareholder or rep, just a happy owner, take that
| bias as you wish
| bayindirh wrote:
| Blind operation of a car is a very important notion and existing
| research is pushed aside to cram screens into cars to make them
| hip and cool.
|
| I have a 2002 Ford Focus, and I can use everything while still
| looking to the road. This is very important for my and everyone
| else's safety. Every other newer car I have driven needs much
| more attention to do simple tasks, and I'm traveling 80km/h at
| that point. This is dangerous.
|
| I have read that Ford had a vehicle simulator to test cognitive
| loads of their consoles and dashboards during driving, but can't
| find the article now. Hope they're still using that, because new
| screens are a clear step back with no tactility.
| kingkawn wrote:
| We need an in between interface. Maybe a physical interface that
| can remodel itself to present different button options based on
| what the user needs at the time without requiring visual
| interaction.
| hebrox wrote:
| That's what I like about Tesla, it has buttons for stuff you'd
| expect (lights, cruise control, wipers, volume, media navigation,
| a/c) and touchscreen for something complex like navigation or for
| settings that aren't used frequently.
| masswerk wrote:
| Haven't they moved gear shifting to the touchscreen (with
| neutral in a submenu) on some models lately?
| RajT88 wrote:
| This was known when the iPhone came out.
|
| Studies about how using the touchscreen was less efficient than
| physical buttons.
|
| Shocker: It's still true!
|
| My new phone which arrives shortly will have a full keyboard.
|
| Also: Stay off my lawn.
| ok123456 wrote:
| Link to phone with full keyboard.
| RajT88 wrote:
| Boom: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/astro-
| slide-5g-transforme...
| ok123456 wrote:
| As much as I'd like to have a phone with a keyboard again,
| I have low expectations about an crowdsourced device of
| what will ultimately be a small production run Shenzhen
| phone.
| RajT88 wrote:
| I crowdfunded the Gemini PDA from them, and absolutely
| loved it.
|
| https://www.www3.planetcom.co.uk/gemini-pda
|
| I had few nitpicks. The worst thing was some apps only
| work in portrait mode (not the fault of the device when
| MS Teams behaves that way).
|
| Next nitpick was that you couldn't use the screen at
| various angles - it only had an "open" and "closed"
| position it wanted to stay in. Minor gripe.
|
| Third nitpick was that it didn't have any kind of water
| resistance. (Hence why the Gemini is dead - my fault)
|
| The phone version of the Gemini was just a little too big
| for a phone, IMO. Although I do love the clamshell design
| more than the slider design. Nobody yet has made
| something close to the Nokia e90 which was any good.
| plussed_reader wrote:
| I'm faster with one thumb on t9 than two thumbs on a touchscreen
| and I don't need my eyes except to proofread. Those phones with
| the transforming screens changing from smooth to textured.
| naet wrote:
| I remember going from my small "t9" style flip phone button
| texting to my first touchscreen texting and thinking it was a
| huge downgrade- I had internalized my keypad well and could
| easily text one handed under a desk or in my pocket without
| looking at what I was typing, whereas on the new smart phone I
| was constantly accidentally fat fingering one letter over
| another even while staring directly at it using both hands. Not
| to mention how much bulkier smartphones are compared to flip
| phones, the battery life being way worse, etc.
|
| This got slightly better with autocorrect fixing some of the
| accidental misses, but it's really a bandaid over the fact that
| key misses still happening constantly on touch screens, and now
| anytime you need to type something other than what the
| autocorrect expects it becomes doubly hard, since you have to
| not only fight the touch screen but also fight the autocorrect
| trying to help by actively changing your inputs.
|
| I'm still looking for a great "smart" flip phone. It should
| have a decent screen and camera, real buttons, be not too big,
| but still be able to use most standard apps like maps, web
| browsing, etc. I did see a friend with a foldable double screen
| smart phone, which is... sort of in the right direction? Cool
| tech, but doesn't help with the tactile feedback issue.
| mixedbit wrote:
| Couple of more such tests and modern car designers will maybe
| finally read the Design of Everyday Things. In this 1988 book the
| interface of cars was praised, but then the companies of course
| had to improve it.
| michaelmior wrote:
| At least 10 years ago, there was talk of touch screens that could
| modify their surface to expose physical buttons. It's still not
| the same as physical controls, but it seems like it would be an
| improvement.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv7OLP41nlM
| dotancohen wrote:
| That would be an improvement if one could actually rest their
| fingers on the tactical buttons without depressing them.
| dom9301k wrote:
| Shocking
| trixie_ wrote:
| I love driving a Tesla with no buttons. I hate buttons. The two
| multipurpose buttons on the steering wheel are enough for me. I
| don't even like having a HUD. Just useless information in front
| of my face. Just give me a big touch screen and I'm happy.
| colordrops wrote:
| Absolutely. My theory is that most of the people hating on
| touchscreens in this thread are using horrible solutions
| provided by manufactures other than Tesla.
|
| It's similar to when everyone claimed that touchscreens on
| phones wouldn't work. They were right until they weren't.
| Touchscreens on phones didn't work until Apple fixed that.
| Tesla has done a proper job on car touchscreen UX, but everyone
| else is putting out garbage.
| dotopotoro wrote:
| Would you use a PC without any of keyboard hotkeys?
|
| I'm not fanatical about this, I would use it if I would be
| forced by circumstances. But I would not be happy about it.
| And I still would try to educate/convince older colleagues
| that hotkeys make things quicker/easier/"reliabler".
|
| From your speculation of source of touchscreen hate, I see
| that you feel that tesla has superior car touchscreen
| experience. And I don't doubt that. But however good you can
| be with touchscreen, you can do even better if you also have
| bunch of physical buttons (in addition to touchscreen/must
| look then point device).
| colordrops wrote:
| > Would you use a PC without any of keyboard hotkeys?
|
| That's not a good analogy. The main interface to the car is
| not the controls/screen, it's the steering wheel and
| pedals. The controls and screen are interacted with only
| intermittently. There is more information available
| allowing for automating most of the controls, and voice
| control for the rest, meaning the screen is mostly just
| used for visualization and the occasional action.
| barnabee wrote:
| I dislike touchscreens.
|
| Sure, phones are a marvel ans show what you can do with
| touchscreen apps but that is nothing like driving. I also
| can't play games on a phone well without a controller (or
| keyboard and mouse for FPS) for the same reason (computer
| aim/walking assistance is cheating, why bother?!). I use an
| external mechanical keyboard even when on the road (Keychron
| K7) because I don't find even the M1 Macbook Pro's keyboard
| good enough for real work.
|
| So yeah, the touchscreen puts me off getting a Tesla
| (alongside a bunch of other cars) almost as much as the
| amount of remote control they have over their cars. No
| thanks, as much as I love the _idea_ of owning a Tesla.
| trixie_ wrote:
| It's funny how I'm the opposite. I play FPS games on my
| phone as good as with a mouse and keyboard. I like low
| profile laptop keyboards because I can type faster with
| minimal down distance and force per finger. In the car the
| touch screen is so much bigger and nicer than any button
| interface in a legacy car.
| colordrops wrote:
| That's fine, everyone has their preferences. But it's
| perhaps better to try something before judging that it's
| crap without experiential evidence.
| ericmcer wrote:
| Touchscreen interfaces in cars never made even an iota of sense
| to me. What if we make an interface that requires you to stare
| down at it... while driving...
|
| After a few months in a car with tactile controls it is easy to
| turn on the A/C, radio, whatever with a quick glance or not
| looking at all.
| jam3sn wrote:
| I miss the buttons and dials from my old car. Muscle memory meant
| I could just turn on air con, change the fan speed, zone, volume
| etc with taking eyes off the road. Having to do this with the
| touch screen is bit of a pain in my new(er) car.
| bjoli wrote:
| Is anyone surprised? On my current car I can do literally
| everything without looking. Everyone around me said I would get
| used to a touch screen quickly, but having driven a car with
| touch controls as much as I drive my personal car for about half
| a year I still cant even change the temperature or turn the butt
| warmer on.
| spandrew wrote:
| Doing evaluative research on "screen v. buttons" you'll find that
| even on smartphones physical buttons outperform touchscreens. The
| reason people choose no-keyboard is the benefits a phone brings
| them as a multi-purpose device outweighs the benefit of "more
| accurate typing than on a screen".
|
| Creative Selection is a good book to read. It details the process
| at Apple from the dev who worked on the very first keyboard of
| iOS. The design of the keyboard + autocorrect needed to be _good
| enough_ that people could type on it reasonably well. It was one
| of the credited reasons why the Newton was said to have failed so
| they put A LOT of effort into this feature of the handset.
|
| Does this apply to a car screen? Probably. A car is also much
| bigger than a handheld device so maybe you don't have to choose.
| But in the end great design is always about making good choices.
| marcrosoft wrote:
| I don't know about other cars but the 2020 Prius touchscreen is
| laggy. It reminds me of early android phones. If your going to
| make touchscreen the main input source please make it responsive.
| the_black_hand wrote:
| The guy who thought that it was a good idea to put volume
| controls on touchscreen needs a spanking. It baffles me that some
| companies still think this is a good idea.
| gambiting wrote:
| I have several friends who owned multiple Volkswagen products,
| and they all swear they won't buy them any more after trying the
| latest generation cars with their idiotic controls. It's
| literally a cancer on cars, that some idiotic marketing types are
| pushing because it looks "more modern". I just hope that the
| market pushes back on it hard enough that they are forced to
| revert some of those insane decisions.
| H1Supreme wrote:
| There was a massive backlash towards the new (MK8) GTI because
| of this. I'm somewhat okay with the infotainment being all
| touch. But, the capacitive touch controls on the steering just
| goes over the line. I can't imagine a single person who prefers
| this.
| synu wrote:
| Are they different than Audi? I bought a new S5 last year and a
| big part of the choice was that, while there is a touchscreen,
| all the basic important controls have duplicates on the
| steering wheel or center console. I never have to touch it
| while in motion.
| pornel wrote:
| VW went for the worst of both worlds, and created physical
| buttons that don't respond to physical press, but are
| capacitative instead.
|
| So you just don't know if it's receiving your inputs, there's
| no tactile feedback, and it's too easy to activate things by
| accident. Especially faux-buttons on the steering wheel
| activate if you just rest your hand on them.
| gambiting wrote:
| The worst of the worst is the window switch in the ID.4.
|
| Like, just changing the window open/close button to a
| capacitive touch surface is bad enough - you rest your arm
| there, and the window opens.
|
| But no, that wasn't bad enough for VW engineers - they
| reduced the number of buttons from 4 down to 2, +
| another(capacitive of course) button to switch between
| front and back windows. How do you know which ones are
| being controlled? The button lights up, of course! Don't
| you love looking down by your elbow to see which window you
| are about to control? It's great! So futuristic!
| piceas wrote:
| I think vw messed up because in my opinion the buttons on their
| steering wheels are usually terrible.
|
| In my experience I have more false touches on the capacitive
| versions but it balances out reasonably well by being able to
| swipe. Swiping is better than buttons or a scroll wheel for me.
| vel0city wrote:
| A lot of these experiences focus on the driver's experience using
| the center console while the car is in motion. But, when the car
| is in motion, the driver really shouldn't be messing with the
| stereo or most anything else in the center console. Any controls
| the driver should need should be available on or immediately
| around the wheel, where the driver's hands and focus already are.
|
| What about the experience when the car _is not_ in motion, or by
| the passenger? Personally I like having a large touch screen when
| going through the media I 'd like to play rather than a tiny
| screen far away. Same for going through the settings of the car.
| Same when planning out a route or even just entering a
| destination.
|
| I have a car with a big touchscreen. I have a car with a ton of
| buttons and a small screen. I prefer the car with the big
| touchscreen, hands down. When stopped it's a much better
| experience as I'm almost exclusively using the screen. When
| driving, I'm practically never pressing any of the buttons on the
| dashboard. Meanwhile, the screen being much smaller makes the map
| and directions harder to see, just about the only thing I _do_
| bother to to care about on the center console while the car is in
| motion.
|
| My car with a bunch of buttons has lots of buttons that
| practically never get pressed. That's such an immense waste of
| space on that dashboard.
|
| https://arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-tbt.s3.amazonaws.com/public...
|
| You're telling me having a SETUP button is useful for driving?
| INFO? BLUELINK? Should I be using the PHONE button to scroll
| through my address book while driving? No! All of this is
| essentially a waste of space. I shouldn't be pressing most of
| these buttons while driving, so the argument of safety of a
| physical button is moot.
| alexb_ wrote:
| > But, when the car is in motion, the driver really shouldn't
| be messing with the stereo or most anything else in the center
| console.
|
| In a fantasy world where everyone follows every single rule,
| correct. In the real, actual world, I'm driving 70mph down the
| highway and want to skip this song without risking my life to
| do so.
| vel0city wrote:
| In every car I've owned for over 20 years skipping a song is
| something that can be done from the steering wheel. It would
| be a less safe choice for me to use the center console to
| change the track than just using the control on the wheel.
| lazide wrote:
| It is when you're sitting at a light, or crawling at 2mph on
| the freeway and can keep an eye on traffic.
|
| Do you really think it's ridiculous to _change the radio_ in
| those scenarios?
|
| Most folks in California would literally never be able to do
| anything at all to their car otherwise.
| vel0city wrote:
| When I'm sitting at a light I'd prefer a large and easy to
| navigate interface to change what playlist I'm in or maybe
| change to the podcast app or something along those lines
| instead of a clickwheel. There's a reason why I don't have
| the MacBook Wheel.
|
| When I'm sitting at a stop light and want to change the
| music, I prefer a big touchscreen versus a single-row seven
| segment display, several knobs, and a bunch of dials.
|
| When I'm wanting to quickly type an address I prefer a QUERTY
| keyboard on a touchscreen than a list of letters
| alphabetically and a wheel to scroll and select them.
| lazide wrote:
| Sure, but that wasn't the statements I was replying to?
|
| I've always thought touchscreens were a huge hassle and
| terrible for anything you needed to do regularly without
| looking. I bought my current vehicle avoiding touchscreens.
|
| But the assertion was it _shouldn't be a thing using any
| non-driving essential controls at all_ while driving,
| correct?
| vel0city wrote:
| > It is when you're sitting at a light, or crawling at
| 2mph on the freeway and can keep an eye on traffic. Do
| you really think it's ridiculous to change the radio in
| those scenarios?
|
| When you're sitting at a light, sure, adjust the stereo,
| adjust the AC, change your seat position, change your
| driving mode, do whatever with the center console. You're
| stopped. Just make sure to start going when the light
| turns green and the intersection is safe.
|
| When you're creeping in stop and go traffic, no, I don't
| think you should be making lots of stereo adjustments or
| fiddling with the AC or doing anything else with the
| center console. Your car is in motion! You should be
| paying attention to the road! Maybe if we didn't have
| people fiddling with the center console and actually
| focusing on _just driving_ we wouldn 't have so many
| rear-end collisions of people crawling in traffic. Why do
| you think its OK to be distracted when the car is in
| motion, even if only at low speeds? Why is it OK to be
| distracted by buttons and knobs but not a screen? In my
| opinion, doing _anything_ other than driving when the car
| is moving is _less safe_ than just focusing on driving.
| But for some reason lots of people here think buttons and
| knobs are perfectly safe to play with while driving but
| screens, those are the devil!
|
| If the car is in motion, you _shouldn 't_ be messing with
| the center console, _at all_. And when I drive my cars,
| when my car is in motion and I 'm in the driver's seat, I
| _do not_ mess with the center console. At all.
| lazide wrote:
| Believe it or not, it's _actually possible_ to pay
| attention to two (or more!) things at once! It's even
| required to drive effectively, such as paying attention
| to side and rear view mirrors while also paying attention
| to what's going on in front, while also paying attention
| to vehicle handling and road conditions.
|
| Or are you white knuckling while staring straight ahead
| the entire time, and thinking you're being safer?
|
| And no, I haven't had any accidents despite driving a
| lot.
| vel0city wrote:
| You're right, driving involves paying attention to and
| doing a _lot_ of things all at once. None of those things
| should be making fine adjustments to the stereo or
| manipulating the climate controls or placing a phone call
| or adjusting the drive mode (whatever that means) or any
| of the other features on your center console.
|
| I'm not white knuckling it, but I'm also not lying to
| myself and thinking that messing with the stereo or
| anything else isn't reducing my focus on driving.
|
| Why is it OK to be distracted by adjusting buttons and
| knobs that are superfluous to driving when the car is in
| motion?
| devmor wrote:
| I view my car as a tool for driving. You seem to view yours as
| an entertainment center. I think consumer preference sides with
| you, and thus manufacturers cater more to people with your line
| of thought, but I don't think your line of thought lines up
| with safety on the road.
|
| When my car is not in motion, I don't care what's on the screen
| because I'm probably about to get out of it.
| vel0city wrote:
| > When my car is not in motion, I don't care what's on the
| screen because I'm probably about to get out of it.
|
| So do you just not stop at stop lights? When you enter your
| car, do you somehow manage to get it to engage into reverse
| without you being in it and you jump in it while its moving?
|
| No?
|
| I guess when you get to a stop light you shift into park and
| step out of the car then?
|
| No?
|
| Huh. I guess you probably _do_ spend _some_ amount of time
| with your car not actively in motion then.
|
| > I view my car as a tool for driving. You seem to view yours
| as an entertainment center.
|
| If anything my comment is arguing the opposite. I'm arguing
| when you're in the driver's seat, and the car is in motion,
| _the only thing_ you should be doing is _driving_. You
| _shouldn 't_ be fine tuning to a radio station or changing
| some other stereo setting. You _shouldn 't_ be adjusting the
| AC. You _shouldn 't_ be pressing that PHONE button or
| BLUELINK or INFO button or NAV button while you're driving
| the car. You _shouldn 't_ really be doing _anything_ on the
| center console, at all. Both your hands _should_ be on the
| wheel, and all your attention _should_ be focused on the road
| ahead, the environment around outside the car, and how your
| car is currently moving.
|
| So with that, it _shouldn 't_ matter what the center console
| is like, because the driver _shouldn 't_ be messing with the
| center console _at all_ while driving. It might as well not
| even exist to the driver. That 's my argument. I'm far more
| leaning towards your car being a tool for driving when you're
| in the driver's seat and the car is in motion than you
| probably are, as I imagine you'll probably say the driver
| _should_ be adjusting the fine tuning of the radio, the
| driver _should_ be changing how the AC is blowing, etc.
|
| When I'm driving my car, if I can't do it from the steering
| wheel or the toggles immediately around the steering wheel or
| is manageable from the voice commands, I don't mess with it
| when my car is in motion. When I'm at the wheel and the car
| is in motion, my focus is on driving not playing around with
| dozens of buttons and knobs and wheels on the center console.
| squaresmile wrote:
| I agree. I think touch screen is a balance that should be
| designed thoughtfully rather than an all or nothing thing. My
| car isn't the best but I think it struck a good balance.
|
| It has a 10" infotainment screen with physical climate control.
| I much prefer looking at google maps on a bigger compared to
| using a phone mount. It's easier to glance and get the
| direction, where I am, next turns with a bigger screen. The
| steering wheel has change tracks, change mode, volume which is
| all I ever need while driving and can be navigated by feel
| without looking at them. A bigger screen also allows for a
| bigger backup camera view and 360 view. The climate control has
| knobs to change the temperature which is perfect.
|
| > What about the experience when the car is not in motion, or
| by the passenger?
|
| Yep, on the right seat, navigating the map with drag, pinch to
| zoom is intuitive. Using Android Auto/Carplay without a
| touchscreen or with a poor one is a miserable experience. My
| friends have always commented on the intuitive infotainment and
| thought about replacing the ones on their cars or looking at
| cars with the same infotainment.
| vel0city wrote:
| There's only one button I press for my climate control, AUTO.
| Everything else is just a waste of space to me. Auto climate
| controls with some decent low-emissive tint on my cars have
| been fine for over 20 years, and I live in a place that gets
| snow and >100F temperatures over the course of the year, at
| somewhat low latitude for the US so I get lots of long sunny
| days.
|
| I do agree with the idea that not _everything_ should be
| behind a screen. There 's one button I miss on my car with
| mostly just a touchscreen. My many-buttoned car has a button
| to engage the 360 cameras while at a low speed even in drive.
| That's so useful for parking rather than waiting until I get
| close to something for the car to automatically show it.
|
| But even then, theoretically that could easily be achieved
| _without_ me needing to press a button. I 'd love for there
| to just be a toggle to say "if I'm creeping and the radar
| senses I'm probably in a parking lot or garage, engage the
| cameras". It wouldn't be that hard for the car to tell that
| I'm going slow in a narrow space with lots of probably-car-
| like-things on the sensors and cameras.
| ARandumGuy wrote:
| Touchscreens work well for functionality that the driver
| shouldn't be touching while in motion. Stuff like adjusting
| settings or configuring bluetooth. And some car manufacturers
| do use their touchscreen primarily for these sort of tasks.
|
| The issue is when car manufacturers put stuff you need modify
| while driving in their touchscreen. Stuff like climate
| controls, pausing music, or switching driving modes. Sometimes
| these controls have associated buttons on the steering wheel,
| but not always. This causes issues because it's harder to
| navigate touch interfaces by feel, which forces the driver to
| look down at the screen to make necessary changes.
| vel0city wrote:
| > Stuff like climate controls, pausing music, or switching
| driving modes.
|
| None of these things are things you _need_ to be doing while
| actively driving.
| Ichthypresbyter wrote:
| Climate controls are the exception there. You may need to
| switch on the defroster to stop your windshield fogging up.
| vel0city wrote:
| There's little reason why that couldn't be completely
| automated. The car knows the outside temperature. The car
| knows the inside temperature and can easily know the
| humidity. Its pretty basic math to figure out if the
| window is going to fog up or not.
|
| You shouldn't _need_ to engage your defogger, your
| windows should just never fog in the first place.
|
| I do agree though, most cars sold today don't bother
| automating this and that _critical safety controls_
| should be controllable by the driver. I think defrost
| controls should be controllable on the same stalk that
| lets you control the windshield wipers, its a pretty
| similar concept of controlling outside visibility, even
| if there automatic systems in place to prevent fogging. I
| don 't think it should necessarily be at home on the
| center console seeing as how its an important safety
| control a driver should be in charge of and should take
| precedence over any climate setting.
| intrasight wrote:
| "So in what way have these screens affected safety? Vi Bilagare
| gathered eleven modern cars from different manufacturers at an
| airfield och measured the time needed for a driver to perform
| different simple tasks, such as changing the radio station or
| adjusting the climate control. At the same time, the car was
| driven at 110 km/h (68 mph). We also invited an "old-school" car
| without a touchscreen, a 17-year-old Volvo V70, for comparison."
|
| "The easiest car to understand and operate, by a large margin, is
| the 2005 Volvo V70. The four tasks is handled within ten seconds
| flat, during which the car is driven 306 meters at 110 km/h."
|
| That's my car (2004 actually) and it fits like the proverbial
| glove. I am pretty anxious about getting a new car. I may just
| get a newer V70 - like a 2015.
| [deleted]
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| Touchscreens just seemed cool as they were a cool fresh
| futuristic tech and I were a kid. Now as I'm more rational and
| touchscreens are ubiquitous, it seems obvious to me analog
| controls are almost always better. The only exception is when the
| number of controls you need to fit really is too much so you
| better switch pages.
| evanreichard wrote:
| I just picked up a new Mazda 3 Turbo, and absolutely _love_ the
| dial interface. It took a little bit to get used to, but the
| muscle memory is now there and I can do most everything while
| barely even glancing at the screen.
|
| I have the touch screen in my Porsche, as well as in my fiancee's
| Civic. But I definitely prefer the dial.
|
| All that being said, there are some quirks. Mostly around CarPlay
| "losing" the focus. It might just be an app thing (it pretty much
| only happens in Apple Music). I'll scroll through some options,
| and just as I'm about to click something, the focus goes back to
| the first option.
| leejo wrote:
| I've commented on touchscreens before[^1], but here's my latest
| anecdote: we finally got a replacement washing machine in the
| apartment (owner's choice, not ours). It's top loading and has a
| touchscreen and a spinny wheel for selecting the program. So it's
| a hodgepodge of physical, mechnical, electronic, and touch
| sensitive controls with a screen.
|
| Except it's not a screen at all, the interface is entirely static
| and the function of each "button" is always the same; so really
| it's "touch sensitive buttons" with something masquerading as a
| screen. I don't understand why. They're annoying because they
| don't always register the touch, and sometimes over register so
| you go past the option (e.g. setting the timer or spin speed).
|
| Then there's the start/pause/stop button, which is a mechanical
| switch/button that is _also_ touch sensitive. It boggles the
| mind, we interact with this thing a couple of times a week - why
| does it need touch sensitive buttons rather than just being fully
| mechanical switches?
|
| [^1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17448932
| sdflhasjd wrote:
| To be fair, in this instance touch-sensitive buttons are more
| robust when it comes to leaks and spills.
|
| My LG washer is the same (albeit frontloading) and its far
| easier to clean than the Miele my parents use.
| kk6mrp wrote:
| The other huge advantage to physical buttons is no blue light. I
| get too much already, and I really don't want to be seeing the
| glow of a screen in my car. If they came out with an eInk model,
| they might get me then. :D
| acd wrote:
| Cars are not video games. Cars is a 1500kg - 2500kg heavy object
| that can kill pedastrians if the driver is distracted.
|
| Puzzled how these new interfaces passed regulators.
| vishnuharidas wrote:
| Another thing, in countries that drives on the left (right-hand
| side driving) it's hard to use a touch screen using the left hand
| for most of the people. Physical buttons are always good, and
| makes use of muscle memory to operate without taking eyes from
| the road.
| mancerayder wrote:
| I wish the Model 3 had more physical buttons. Some of the
| important stuff requires reaching and looking. Man, even the
| odometer requires turning your head down and to the side to view.
|
| I knew touchscreens were a nightmare path we were going down when
| I had the Sidekick phone and I was typing without looking at a
| very rapid clip, while the iPhone had come out and typing on a
| shitty feel-less keyboard became the latest fashion.
|
| And here we are. I hit backspace probably 15 times typing this
| (and that's with word prediction). Not on an iPhone though.
| SSchick wrote:
| I do prefer touchscreens although I wish design philosophies
| would shift away from tiny buttons to bigger ones, also I really
| wish Tesla etc. would offer haptic feedback on their
| touchscreens.
| atoav wrote:
| No shit. This is why all the good professional gear in any field
| (think of 100 kEUR cinema cameras or high price audio recording
| equipment) has physical switches on it. Having a 5 position turn
| switch that you can turn blindly (with a satisfying physical
| response) will always be better than a touch screen that you have
| to look at to figure out:
|
| - is the touchscreen in the right context? (Sure you could make
| important controls the same independent of the submenu, tab, page
| etc, but you still have to hit the right button)
|
| - did you actually hit the button?
| april_22 wrote:
| yes and the consequences of 'not hitting a button' on a car can
| be really bad
| shafkathullah wrote:
| I see much parallel with this and MacBookPro touch-bar failure.
| Visual interaction need much attention, so switching from primary
| attention(Road/MacBookPro main display) seems to be a slow/tiring
| overhead.
| viktorcode wrote:
| The important part
|
| > WHICH TESTS WERE PERFORMED? Activate the heated seat, increase
| temperature by two degrees, and start the defroster. Power on the
| radio and adjust the station to a specific channel (Sweden's
| Program 1). Reset the trip computer. Lower the instrument
| lighting to the lowest level and turn off the center display.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| As a teenager I built a Car PC for my Toyota Corolla (I was
| pretty cool, I know). I added 3 control mechanisms:
| 1. Video touch-screen 2. Mini numeric keypad 3.
| Audible User Interface
|
| The touchscreen allowed me to navigate through my custom menu
| system by touching the screen. The numeric keypad worked as
| "arrow keys" as well as allowing numbered inputs. The Audible
| User Interface gave me voice feedback of any selection I made,
| and would ask me to make a selection; I could make my selection
| by voice feedback, the numpad, or the video screen.
|
| Voice feedback was iffy and the touchscreen was distracting and
| finicky. What ended up sticking was the numpad and audio
| feedback. I could navigate every single aspect of my UI _without
| ever taking my eyes off the road_. I would hit a "Menu" button,
| and the car would say "Main menu." I would hit the down-arrow and
| it would say "Music." Another down-arrow and it would say
| "Settings". Hit the Enter key and it would say "Settings menu."
| And on and on... Any selection could be made by scrolling through
| a menu or typing a number, and I could hear where I was in the
| menu.
|
| To impress people at car shows (well, to impress girls) I mapped
| an RF remote control to the numpad. I'd stand outside the car and
| hide the remote behind my back and talk to the car, then hit the
| right button on the remote, and the car would talk back, like
| Kitt. People loved it :) mostly guys though :(
|
| That was 18 years ago. I don't know of a single device that
| provides an Audible User Interface today, but it's still my
| favorite.
| magic_hamster wrote:
| H2O tastes like water, researchers conclude in new test.
| throwaway625637 wrote:
| If they didn't do the test with people already quite familiar
| with the car's interface, I don't consider the results all that
| valid:
|
| Most cars, most of the time, are driven by people who are very
| used to their particular interface. I couldn't find mention of
| this in the article, but it's necessary to state.
|
| Furthermore, increased automation in many of these cars means you
| don't have to do many of the listed sequences as often, or at
| all:
|
| "Lower the instrument lighting to the lowest level and turn off
| the center display." Why would I ever do such a thing when this
| is fully automated already?
| eriksdh wrote:
| Yes, the test was devised with people who had learned how the
| system and the screen work.
| throw_a_grenade wrote:
| FTFA:
|
| > One important aspect of this test is that the drivers had
| time to get to know the cars and their infotainment systems
| before the test started.
| h2odragon wrote:
| My wife drove a 2002 Honda Insight for 2 years. She never did
| understand the "window override" switch on the dashboard that
| disables the power windows in the doors. She taped plastic over
| one side for a week the first time she hit that button and the
| windows stopped working. She took it to the mechanic a couple
| times "the windows stopped working again" because the switch on
| the dash was easy to frob by accident.
|
| Why was that switch there in the first place? Being familiar
| with the car didn't help her remember it existed, even when she
| encountered the "windows wont move" problem repeatedly.
| Assuming you want a "stop the windows working" switch, why put
| it up in the corner of the dashboard and in a form where it's
| easy to hit accidentally and hard to tell that it's not in the
| right position?
|
| The problem is deeper than screens and older than "legally
| required backup cameras;" the ergonomics of the car interior
| became secondary to "but marketing says people want feature $X"
| checklists.
| jen20 wrote:
| The switch typically disables the passenger and rear windows,
| and is there is that the driver can stop kids or pets
| controlling the windows. It's been next to the window
| controls in every car I've ever driven that had electric
| windows.
|
| To verify that a mountain was indeed being made out of a
| molehill, I checked the manual [1] for the 2002 Insight: page
| 78 explains this is the case in a single sentence.
|
| [1]: https://techinfo.honda.com/rjanisis/pubs/OM/AH/AIN0202OM
| /enu...
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Genuinely curious, how does she hit a button on the dashboard
| by accident? To me, the dashboard is behind the steering
| wheel and shielded from accidental presses.
| h2odragon wrote:
| Its up in the top left corner by the vent, and its a rocker
| switch. Quite easy to hit without noticing on entering or
| exiting the car, it got me several times too.
|
| It gets others, too:
| https://www.insightcentral.net/threads/passenger-window-
| stuc...
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| > by the vent
|
| Ahh, that is a high touch area. Thanks for the response,
| I was worried that my question was a bit blunt.
| danielvaughn wrote:
| It's usually bad form to claim that you had some special insight
| prior to anyone else, but this should have been _obvious_ to
| everyone from the start. How such a terrible idea made it through
| various teams of experts at these large car companies, I 'll
| never understand.
| spurgu wrote:
| Would've interesting to see how long the actions took to perform
| for the first time vs for the 10th time (it's not apparent to me
| what they were actually measuring in the test).
|
| Also, after having just read the title my immediate reaction was
| "duh". I've been aware of this ever since phones switched from
| keyboards to touchscreens. Back in the day I could text with the
| phone in my pocket, or while driving. Nowadays I have to steer
| with my leg so that I can operate the huge mobile phone with both
| hands.
| djhworld wrote:
| I think my car has it right, it does have a touch screen but
| there are tactile buttons for the common ancilliary controls (air
| con, hazard lights, shortcuts to navigation, radio, settings)
| underneath.
|
| To me it seems "why not both?" with proper thought to the UI is
| the right approach.
| upsidesinclude wrote:
| It would be great I'd we could sideline the automotive interior
| designers for just one truck and put some tractor or boat
| designers in their place.
|
| Tractors and boats have amazing layouts that accommodate your
| engagement in operating. Cars are full of gimmicks and showroom
| fluff
| bborud wrote:
| I bet it would end up looking better as well. High quality
| switches and buttons _feel_ really luxurious.
|
| If you look at Gordon Murray's latest car, the t50, he spent a
| lot of time sourcing buttons and switches for the car because
| he cares deeply about their tactile feel. There is also not a
| single touch display in the car. Because he passionately hates
| them.
|
| If you are into sports cars you kind of want to cry when you
| look at how badly some of the dashboards tend to age. Some of
| them look like embarrassing student projects where a 1990s web
| designer has crammed all manner of animated gifs with a
| horribly infantile palette onto the dashboard.
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| > High quality switches and buttons feel really luxurious.
|
| That's part of why I have an Audi.
|
| It's a 2021 model with a touchscreen. But it also has high-
| quality buttons and knobs for each of the tests in the
| article mentioned and would thus pass with a very low
| distance measured.
|
| There are some weird issues, however. The audio buttons
| control the current audio source but don't fall back if the
| current audio source disappears. Like if you are playing
| music through your passenger's phone via CarPlay. If you drop
| them off at their house and keep going, the physical audio
| controls do nothing at all until you select a new audio
| source on the touchscreen.
| kristaps wrote:
| To nobodies surprise.
| hoffspot wrote:
| In my car, there are physical buttons on the steering wheel. A
| left and right button with a scroll wheel in between on each
| side. Those buttons change context depending on what you're
| doing. Left side is usually audio controls and the right side
| does a few different things but I mostly use it for adjusting the
| adaptive cruise control. I find no other need for buttons all
| over the place. Climate is set to auto, most everything else used
| for driving is on the stalks. I don't understand this great need
| for lots of buttons. Just have a few useful physical buttons and
| controls.
| magwa101 wrote:
| vwcx wrote:
| I'd love to see similar testing conducted on "consumer" avionics
| boxes used in general aviation. Garmin has moved many of their
| units from fully-tactile buttons and knobs to touchscreens. This
| puts the onus on the pilot to fully master the system before
| entering a situation where you can't simply swipe/scroll your way
| to success. But using a touch screen in turbulence is nearly
| impossible; Garmin engineered a physical lip edge around the unit
| to hang onto to assist the pilot in stabilizing their finger.
|
| There's a reason professional cockpits still largely eschew
| touchscreens when 250+ lives are at stake in the back.
| SomeHacker44 wrote:
| It is for this reason that I have almost no Garmin avionics. I
| use Avidyne IFD GPS navigators which can do almost everything
| without using the touch screen. Even then I find the knobs are
| too easily turned to use very accurately in turbulence. To use
| them or the physical buttons in turbulence it is necessary to
| brace part of your hand or some fingers on the bezel, which is
| fine.
| WalterBright wrote:
| You can't use a touchscreen either when the cockpit fills with
| smoke.
| briandear wrote:
| Critical checklist items for a smoke filled cockpit have zero
| to do with avionics. And those items are practiced so much
| that any pilot should be able to handle smoke in cockpit with
| their eyes literally closed.
| vwcx wrote:
| One could argue that the EGT and other secondary engine
| items could be hidden on secondary tabs on something like a
| G3X. Unless they own their own aircraft, I don't think most
| GA pilots can do much with their eyes closed.
| Groxx wrote:
| > _using a touch screen in turbulence is nearly impossible_
|
| This is one of the biggest reasons I dislike touch screens in
| cars, yeah. Tons of roads are more than turbulent enough to
| make it hard to hit buttons. Not having a physical edge /
| clicking / etc to tell you where you are and when you've done a
| thing means you have to use _your eyes_ , which means disabling
| what is _by far_ your biggest safety tool while driving.
| berkut wrote:
| I'd personally agree with this, but at the same time, I think
| aircraft like the F-35 have moved to touch displays instead of
| 4th gen MFDs (but works with gloves?), and didn't some of the
| SpaceX stuff have touchscreens. There must be _some_ logic
| driving it in the defence /space industry...
| zppln wrote:
| Touchscreens are potentially very useful in a fighter (maps,
| general SA, designation etc), but not for everything and not
| in every situation. But just because you get a touchscreen
| doesn't mean you have to forfeit frame buttons with onscreen
| labels, HOTAS etc.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > but works with gloves?
|
| I bet Lockheed Martin sells a $50K glove that works with the
| F-35 touchscreens.
|
| It's not that bad, however. In a car you need to be
| constantly aware of the road ahead of you. On a plane, you
| are not required to have your hands on the controls while on
| autopilot and you can pay attention to the screens, as well
| as operate them - there won't be any wildlife crossing ahead
| of you, not any red lights forcing you to brake.
|
| And if the plane sees a threat it will warn you well before
| your human senses can so you can pay full attention to it
| (and the helmet-mounted displays). I assume the F-35 also has
| stick-mounted controls to operate in the helmet display.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Military pilots like the F-35 except for the touchscreen.
| BeefWellington wrote:
| Which should kind of be a sign that for any important high-
| stakes task you should be using physical switches.
|
| I predict in 10 years car manufacturers will bring back
| physical controls for some things (if not all).
|
| One advantage physical controls have is that I can operate
| them sightless once I learn the layout. Most touchscreens
| I've seen in cars don't really have that feature because of
| the design of the system behind it (whole screens shift so
| returning to navigation isn't often simple, for example).
| queuebert wrote:
| Exactly. Why can't we invent better manual controls that
| don't wear out as quickly, rather than switching entirely
| to something as problematic as a screen?
| datavirtue wrote:
| They should always be available on trucks. How can I turn
| on the heater with work gloves?
| malfist wrote:
| > I predict in 10 years car manufacturers will bring back
| physical controls for some things (if not all).
|
| Maybe. If new cars are all self driving, I could see
| manufacturers keeping with touchscreens. It's safer to stay
| distracted longer if you're not in direct control of the
| vehicle.
| BeefWellington wrote:
| Touchscreens are fine for performing car-related settings
| and tweaks.
|
| Eventually if we get to actual full-self-driving they
| might go that route. That's way more than 10 years out
| though, I think. You're talking about a point where cars
| are able to not have a driver at all before that becomes
| a reasonable option IMO. That said, even elevators have
| buttons.
| brk wrote:
| Same general trend on marine MFDs (basically the equivalent
| thing for boats). Models with knobs and buttons are the
| "premium" version, the default is typically just a giant
| touchscreen, which is not always great when you have wet hands.
|
| The flat screens look good, and work great in calm situations,
| but in heavy seas and/or rain, they can be challenging at
| times. In my case the manufacturer (Raymarine) offers a wired
| remote control, so I have a knobs-n-buttons controller that is
| easy to reach and offers more direct control when needed.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| There is one practical argument that can be made against
| mechanical switches and buttons, and that is they will
| eventually fail from long-term use.
|
| I've heard from friends in the aviation industry that pilots
| take extra care to put as little stress on switches and buttons
| as possible during normal use to prolong their service live.
|
| The uninitiated might think why bother when a switch or button
| is dirt cheap, like several cents per unit cheap. And they
| would be right, the best kind of right. But when a
| switch/button does inevitably fail and needs to be replaced,
| the cost can easily come out to at least several hundred bucks
| between the labor, reinspections, and recertifications among
| other red tape that help ensure safety.
|
| So if (if!) touchscreen interfaces are more durable and last
| longer, that is one fair argument in favor of them over
| mechanical switches and buttons.
| briandear wrote:
| The only people taking special care are the ones that pay for
| the maintenance.
| donatj wrote:
| In my twenty years of driving I have had a single manual
| control fail in a vehicle and it cost less than $50 to get it
| fixed. I can't imagine fixing anything on these modern cars
| being less than several hundred.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| Do keep in mind I was talking about replacing failed
| switches in the context of commercial airliners. As far as
| ordinary cars are concerned, I agree those would be dirt
| cheap and easy affairs.
| BeefWellington wrote:
| > There is one practical argument that can be made against
| mechanical switches and buttons, and that is they will
| eventually fail from long-term use.
|
| Before a touch interface fails from long-term use? I highly
| doubt it. Plus, a switch is a very easy component to replace.
| Touch screens _can_ be but aren 't always.
|
| I think service life arguments are just poor effort. We well
| understand the appropriate average service life of a variety
| of switches. We don't understand the same for touchscreens,
| especially modern ones, as they haven't been around as long.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Also the touchscreen is more of a single point of failure.
| If the touchscreen fails, a whole range of systems and
| functions are affected. If on the other hand a single
| switch fails, only one function/system will be affected.
| cjrp wrote:
| > Plus, a switch is a very easy component to replace.
|
| From experience, in aviation nothing is simple or cheap to
| replace. Cheaper than replacing the entire Garmin unit
| though, yes.
| LeonidasXIV wrote:
| > From experience, in aviation nothing is simple or cheap
| to replace.
|
| Of course it is relative but I would still assume a
| switch in aviation is easier to replace than a
| touchscreen.
| omegant wrote:
| My experience after flying 737, MD80, A320, A330 and A340 is
| that nobody takes special care with cockpit buttons. They are
| work tools and treated as such.
|
| The main ones (autopilot and flight controls), rarely fail if
| at all. The only ones failing from time to time are small
| switches for radio channel volume or cockpit light
| adjustments and system buttons at the overhead panel that are
| easy to replace by maintenance.
|
| Touchscreens are not a good option for main controls due to
| poor visibility(dirt from fingers and sun reflections),
| hidden submenus, turbulence making hard to press the correct
| button...
|
| The A350 and 787 are using trackball controlls for submenus
| and the onboard computers, not a touchscreen.
| omegant wrote:
| I must add that one place where we are using touchscreens
| is in the fly documentation. Most airlines use somekind of
| tablet, ipad or surface with apps for performance
| calculation, navigation charts, pdf manuals, etc... they
| are working mostly ok now a days and I'dont think you can
| substitute the touch screen with buttons for that without
| loosing a lot of functions.
| UmYeahNo wrote:
| I drive a 2007 pre-touchscreen car, and have told the dealer
| every time I go in for service (yeah, yeah) that I will hold on
| to this car until the bitter end because it has physical buttons.
| I tell them "I can 'touch type' this car" i.e. I never need to
| take my eyes off the road in order make a critical adjustment.
|
| I've driven a LOT of rental cars in the last 5 years, and the de-
| standardization of the interface elements -- even how to shift!,
| increasing distraction and eye-aversion has made the highway
| driving experience much worse - both as a driver and someone who
| has to share the roads with distracted people baffled by their
| cars.
| tibbon wrote:
| I feel the same way! I have a 2005 Porsche Boxster, and it
| doesn't have a touch screen or junk like that. I can operate
| all controls without looking at them. People are shocked to
| find its 17 years old because it doesn't look dated like cars
| just a few years newer with bad TFT displays, slow touch
| screens, infotainment, etc. This car is the best driving
| experience I've ever had, and for less than a new Kia.
| nso wrote:
| The shifting thing has not been standardized in a while. Stick
| shift, stick on steering wheel, even buttons on steering wheel
| in some cars. I agree with you tho.
| Ichthypresbyter wrote:
| Even within floor-mounted stick shifts there's a bunch of
| different layouts- reverse can be anywhere from up and left
| to down and right, and can have various different lockouts
| (push the stick down, pull up a ring...) or none. And then
| there are "dog-leg" shift patterns, where reverse is
| immediately above first (this means that the shift between
| second and third, which is the one most commonly needed in
| racing, is a simple straight movement)
|
| The only legal standardization in the US is the PRND layout
| (and the direction of automatic column shifters). Before this
| was codified, in the 50s, some cars had PNDLR layouts which
| resulted in people accidentally selecting reverse while
| driving.
|
| (There is also a requirement that the shift pattern of a
| manual car needs to be displayed somewhere visible to the
| driver, _except_ if it 's what is still, amusingly, called
| the "standard" 3-speed H pattern. The last passenger car
| available in the US with a 3-speed column shift was the 1979
| Chevy Nova, though it hung around on trucks for another 8 or
| so years.)
| dublin wrote:
| The "three on the tree" manual column shift is the
| _ultimate_ anti-theft device these days. There aren 't many
| of us left who know how they work.
| driverdan wrote:
| There are still a lot of cars with physical buttons. My 2018
| Camaro, for example, has physical buttons for all normal
| functions. I don't love that it has screens since they will be
| impossible to replace in 20 years but at least everything
| important will be usable.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| I see comments like this and I don't really get it. What are
| you changing during your drives? What are those critical
| adjustments? I've got a touch screen, but I don't touch it
| while driving, and I'm not sure why I would. Aside from volume
| control but hopefully that's not on a touch screen.
| dmix wrote:
| Yeah in my modern Civic I use Carplay touchscreen all the
| time. The only controls I need during driving are:
|
| - volume
|
| - change the song
|
| - air conditioning
|
| - signalling
|
| - cruise control
|
| All of those are on the steering wheel besides air
| conditioning which is still a dial.
|
| For the touchscreen I open Spotify and then Waze and use
| voice commands to set a destination before I drive (which is
| pushing one button to toggle voice and one button to select
| the top result). I might ID a police car or hazard using Waze
| if I'm in slow traffic but usually my passenger does that.
| That's the only touch screen apps I use.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Wait... signaling? Like turn signals?
| [deleted]
| dmix wrote:
| Yes, turn signalling.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Nvm I misread. Thought that was in the touch screen.
| dheerajvs wrote:
| Lol, don't give them ideas.
| dm319 wrote:
| Have you seen the Tesla yoke turn signals?
| [deleted]
| alistairSH wrote:
| Things I regularly adjust... - seat heaters - HVAC temp/fan
| level - audio volume - audio track
|
| Last two are via steering wheel controls on both our cars
| (BMW, Honda). But, on different sides of the wheel, so I
| frequently hit cruise control buttons when intending to hit
| volume.
|
| First two are via physical buttons in both cars. However,
| buttons are located in very different locations, one uses
| dials and the other paddles. Also, the BMW has what I feel is
| a needlessly complicated fan control/temp system with a
| left/right split and also a chest vent temp setting that
| functions independently of what the HVAC panel displays,
| which means even in "auto" mode, there are manual settings
| that need tweaked (and this is all in a small 230i coupe -
| total overkill).
|
| I can't imagine the mental load using a Tesla, where the seat
| heat control is burned 2-3 menus deep at the bottom edge of a
| touchscreen where the virtual buttons actually change
| function depending on what your doing. It's a UX mess and
| never should have been allowed.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| > Last two are via steering wheel controls on both our cars
| (BMW, Honda)
|
| Try a new Golf 8. It turns out manufacturers can even screw
| _that_ up.
| dublin wrote:
| Heck, Mercedes can't even get _steering column stalks_
| right. For decades, they 've insisted on an asinine
| arrangement that combines way too much (turn signals,
| wipers, mist, clean, high-beams) into one stalk that is
| positioned so poorly low that you always hit the adjacent
| (not opposite side!) cruise control stalk when you try to
| signal a turn or lane change. Truly one of the most
| horrific physical UI experiences ever....
|
| I will say that my wife had a Pacifica (the crossover,
| not the minivan) that is one of the best thought-out cars
| I have _ever_ driven - not the best built (though it was
| tolerable), but definitely the best thought-out. (And we
| 've owned dozens of cars from America, Italy, Japan,
| Germany, and Korea) Absolutely everything about that car
| oozed the thought and consideration of the designers
| _thinking_ about how the car would be used. We 'd still
| have it if it hadn't been totalled by a careless wench
| shoving her Jeep's winch deep enough into the Pacifica to
| total it.
| Hamuko wrote:
| I have never ever activated the cruise control when
| trying to signal in a Mercedes-Benz, and I find the mono-
| stalk to work well. Really the only difference is that it
| has wiper controls (since most cars have signal and high
| beams in one stalk).
|
| I find the BMW way more confusing, since I can never
| remember which direction does a single wipe and which
| direction actually turns them on (one of them is up on
| the stalk, one is down, don't ask me which one was
| which). And you can't actually know by feel which wiper
| setting you are in since the BMW stalks are fixed. The
| Mercedes has completely different actions for single wipe
| (push button) and activating wipers (rotate the knob) and
| since the knob rotates, you have tactile feedback of
| which setting you are in.
| prvit wrote:
| > into one stalk that is positioned so poorly low that
| you always hit the adjacent (not opposite side!) cruise
| control stalk when you try to signal a turn or lane
| change.
|
| We're talking about these stalks, right?
| https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/attachments/test-drives-
| initi...
|
| How do you hold your steering wheel to manage that?
|
| The turn signal stalk isn't low at all, it's exactly
| where your hand is supposed to be https://i.pinimg.com/or
| iginals/56/73/61/567361ad8bb3e7313a38...
| dmix wrote:
| My friend has a Tesla and they have 2 different
| seat/steering wheel/mirror presets they use before driving
| and I've watched them do it multiple times within a second.
| They tap a few times and everything automatically glides
| into place which seems super convenient, that would be 3x
| different manual motions in my Civic to move the seat,
| mirrors, etc (finding the steering wheel toggle is always a
| struggle).
|
| The only thing that seems annoying about Tesla is the A/C
| is toggled via the screen.
|
| Otherwise it has those same controls for changing
| songs/volume/assist on the wheel.
| dereg wrote:
| This is far from a Tesla feature. Seat/wheel/mirror
| presets have been a thing on analog luxury cars for a
| long time.
| dmix wrote:
| Sure but the critique was about Tesla having a touch
| screen menu for it.
| michaelgrosner2 wrote:
| You don't even need to toggle any buttons. All those
| things can be tied to your key, or your phone if you use
| bluetooth as your key. Climate and A/C is also a preset,
| just set it to 70 on Auto and never think about it again.
| llbeansandrice wrote:
| > 2 different seat/steering wheel/mirror presets they use
| before driving
|
| This was a feature on a truck my dad bought in like 2002.
| It was mapped to physical buttons near the seat controls.
| Tapping a few times is a regression.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Of course you could make physical buttons for presets as
| well :)
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| A lot of modern cars can be told to tie the presets to
| the key fob (it's a setting, not usually turned on by
| default).
|
| If you open the driver's door with your key fob in your
| pocket, your presets are loaded and the seats and mirrors
| move to what you want. If your spouse opens the driver's
| door with their key fob, everything changes to their
| settings. If you have more than 2 drivers, you can buy
| extra key fobs at the dealer (expensive!!) and the car
| will keep track of settings for those too.
|
| It's not just luxury cars that do this ;)
| FabHK wrote:
| Sooner or later, those settings will not be tied to (or
| saved on) the fob, but your smart phone. Everyone has one
| of those in their pocket.
|
| I found the car related announcements in Apple's most
| recent WWDC key note monumental in their reach. Many
| manufacturers signed on (notably except Tesla, Mazda,
| BMW) to support the next version of Car Play, which in a
| sense might reflect a surrender of the UX ownership:
|
| > Ford, Lincoln, Mercedes-Benz, Infiniti, Honda, Acura,
| Jaguar, Land Rover, Audi, Nissan, Volvo, Porsche, and
| more
|
| https://www.macrumors.com/2022/06/06/apple-announces-
| multi-d...
| servercobra wrote:
| They're currently tied to your phone (or NFC card if you
| use that) for most Teslas, since that's usually your key.
| alistairSH wrote:
| _They tap a few times and everything automatically glides
| into place..._
|
| Every car I've owned in the last 10 years has had this
| feature, except it's tied to the key fob, so there's no
| tapping beyond unlocking the door. If they truly have to
| tap a few times just to get an electric seat into their
| saved position, then Tesla screwed that up (but I'm
| pretty sure Tesla ties those settings to the owner's
| smartphone/key).
| dmix wrote:
| They just bought a Tesla last week so idk if there's an
| easier way to trigger the two different presets. I'm
| guessing two different fobs can toggle one for each
| person or something? Or the fob has a button to toggle
| between them?
|
| My friends wife only drives once in a while so I doubt
| they have to change from the default preset often.
|
| But I'm pretty sure it's universally agreed on HN Tesla
| took the touch screen thing too far.
| cortesoft wrote:
| On my Tesla, I control all of those things with buttons on
| my steering wheel. I never have to touch the screen. You
| can also use voice control.
| danparsonson wrote:
| Never been driving along on a wet day and had your windscreen
| suddenly fog up? This happened to me once in a car with
| unfamiliar controls and within moments I could barely see a
| thing, even making it difficult to pull over and sort it out.
| Those kinds of critical adjustments :-)
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Exactly. This is very common here, both during winter and
| summer. Happened to me just yesterday as I was driving on
| the highway, went from 100% to less than 20% visibility in
| seconds.
|
| In my current and previous cars, there's been a separate
| button which turns the AC heat to max, fans to max and
| directs it all at the windscreen.
|
| When you suddenly lose visibility while driving, you
| definitely appreciate having a physical button in a known
| location that fixes the issue.
| fbanon wrote:
| - Switch to internal air circulation if I'm stuck behind a
| diesel car
|
| - Adjust temperature
|
| - Turn off automatic high beams if it misbehaves and starts
| blinding oncoming traffic
|
| - Switch suspension to comfort mode if bumpy road is ahead
|
| - Turn on/off fog lights
| baby wrote:
| The fan for when the windows get sorta wet. I always have
| trouble turning it on, even with buttons.
|
| Also the AC and the recycled air.
| throwaway9870 wrote:
| I accidentally turned on manual shift while recently driving
| I am unfamiliar with. WTF. Didn't know how to turn it off and
| had to drive that way until I could safely pull over, put in
| park, and then back in drive. Bat-shit insane.
| giaour wrote:
| > What are you changing during your drives? What are those
| critical adjustments?
|
| Lights, wipers, and cruise control are critical adjustments.
| I also often change A/C and audio settings because I can do
| it without looking (though it wouldn't be the end of the
| world if I couldn't mess with those while the car was in
| motion).
| dr_orpheus wrote:
| This is what they tested in the article:
|
| 1. Activate the heated seat, increase temperature by two
| degrees, and start the defroster.
|
| 2. Power on the radio and adjust the station to a specific
| channel (Sweden's Program 1).
|
| 3. Reset the trip computer.
|
| 4. Lower the instrument lighting to the lowest level and turn
| off the center display.
| nvr219 wrote:
| Change radio stations, change A/C settings.
| dangerlibrary wrote:
| If you live in less-than-temperate climates, adjusting the
| AC/heat is very common.
|
| If you listen to the radio, switching stations is common (a
| not-safe-for-kids story comes on the news, a song you hate
| comes on, there are obnoxious commercial breaks).
| slau wrote:
| Both AC controls and volume are on touch-sensitive buttons on
| the new VW entertainment systems. The volume bar/AC
| temperature buttons don't even light up at night, making it
| completely invisible under the bright touch screen.
|
| Once in a while, the system locks up, and you can't change AC
| anymore (can't turn it on/off, can't change the intensity).
| You have to shut down the engine, walk away from the car
| (with the key) for more then 20-30 meters and then wait 10
| minutes.
|
| I love my Seat Leon for many reasons, but the lack of buttons
| is not one of them.
| Ikatza wrote:
| Aircon, music volume and skipping songs, emergency blinkers,
| driving mode (suspension, etc)... These are some things that
| I could manage with a physical button and are now placed on a
| screen, forcing me to look since I don't have tactile
| feedback.
| upupandup wrote:
| I use the volume key to turn down the music when other cars
| are around me at a stop.
|
| Then as I get away I turn the volume back up
| mbar84 wrote:
| It's not just the frequency of access, it's things that are
| time critical: Next song. Hazard lights. Lock doors. Accept
| call. Hang up call.
| k2enemy wrote:
| Speaking of non-standard controls, it does seem that in the
| last ten years car designers have just plain forgotten long-
| standing conventions. It used to be that the fuel gauge would
| appear on the same side of the instrument cluster as the gas
| cap for refueling the car. Now it seems to be random. It makes
| it very frustrating with rental cars.
| ziddoap wrote:
| Every car I've been in has a little arrow/triangle on the
| fuel gauge that points to either the left or right, wherever
| the fuel cap is.
|
| I've never actually heard of (or noticed) the entire fuel
| gauge being on the respective side. Only ever noticed the
| arrow.
| huffmsa wrote:
| The little arrow by the E is supposed to point to the fuel
| cap side.
|
| E> means right <E means left
| stewarts wrote:
| There is often an indicator on the gauge itself. The spout or
| an arrow will point to the side of the gas cap.
| 28304283409234 wrote:
| My expectation: Just like Open Office Floorplans, this common
| sense backed by science will be happily ignored because it's not
| sexy.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >The screens in modern cars keep getting bigger. Design teams at
| most car manufacturers love to ditch physical buttons and
| switches, although they are far superior safety-wise.
|
| Why do those have to be in conflict? I want a big screen, and
| physical buttons (for the most common car functions - AC/Heat,
| Volume Control, windshield control, etc.)
| [deleted]
| fallingfrog wrote:
| Yes but you don't expect me to _listen_ to YouTube while I 'm
| driving do you? How am I supposed to watch TikTok on the highway
| without a touchscreen?
| throwaway92921 wrote:
| These results are so overwhelmingly obvious to anyone who drives.
| It makes no sense to have to use a screen for simple car features
| like A/C.
|
| What screens make sense for are maps and safety features like
| showing your cars relation to the road, people, or other cars.
|
| Hopefully this is a fad
| jsight wrote:
| They should have tested opening the glovebox while driving too.
|
| TBH, the test should have been more real world: - Turn off the
| heated seat (this is more likely than turning it on... most turn
| it on when getting in and turn it off later) - Turn on the wipers
| when rain starts - Use the washer fluid - Turn on the headlights
| when it gets dark - Change the navigation destination - Change
| the climate temperature - Change the vent direction
|
| The results would have likely been more ambiguous for a car like
| the Tesla. Heated seats can be automated, so that would depend on
| whether the person liked the Tesla algorithm. Wipers and
| headlights are likely automated in the touchscreen car too. Voice
| works pretty well in some for navigation selection, and probably
| doesn't work well in the non-touchscreen cars.
|
| OTOH, Tesla would do really poorly at climate temperature changes
| and vent direction. I suspect some other cars would fare badly at
| those too, but probably Tesla is uniqely bad at vent direction.
| pdimitar wrote:
| Every time I see this format of a title:
|
| "$EXTREMELY_OBVIOUS_THING that literally everyone outside the
| corporations knows, $STUDY_FINDS"
|
| ...I lose a little bit of hope for humanity.
|
| Physical knobs, levers, buttons etc. have superior usability and
| the fact that car manufacturers deliberately closed their eyes on
| that is only saying bad things about them.
|
| What's even more despairing is seeing comments arguing in favor:
| "it's cheaper". Yeah well, it's also cheaper to die on the road
| because you couldn't press the touch-screen control and not live
| 20-50 more years and pay those pesky bills and food now, is it?
| Both what they say and what I said are complete non-sequiturs.
|
| What's "cheaper" might seem like an awesome idea to some manager
| looking for a promotion but they never play the long game.
| They'll be gone and another more sensible human will take their
| place... eventually. Any day now... Maybe this century?...
|
| [starts crying]
| jacknews wrote:
| IMHO touchscreens in cars are the beginning (or perhaps a
| continuation) of the crapification and tiktok-ization of this
| entire product category.
|
| I remember once driving, I think a Renault Megane, which had all
| the controls (stereo, climate, etc) replicated as buttons on
| (behind) the steering wheel. A slight learning curve, but
| completely seamless driver-car integration once learned. Someone
| had obviously thought carefully about how this should work,
| instead of just slapping in a touchscreen and a bunch of menus.
| LtWorf wrote:
| My car radio is completely unusable. I had it for 2 years and
| never figured out how to tell it to just play everything on the
| usb. Instead it groups by artist or genre and only plays that.
|
| Eventually the usb port just stopped working so I use VLC on
| the phone and stream to the car via bluetooth.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| This has been an issue for car radios playing digital media
| ever since it became available though.
| mannykannot wrote:
| Bluetooth in cars is often itself a shitshow, however. You
| are lucky it does not replicate all the anti-usability
| features of the USB interface.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32162131
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| I wish I knew what the designers/engineers were thinking when
| they created the ability to play music from a USB drive. It
| feels like their target audience is not the type of person
| that would put music on a USB drive for the car.
|
| I just want it to recognize that I sort my music into folders
| and show the folder hierarchy. Instead, in my last car, it
| would flatten the entire structure and then sort by filename.
| To top off the shitshow, it would also only show up to 99
| files, and scrolling through the list was painful. Each tap
| on the scroll button would only move one line, not one page,
| so if I wanted to play the 80th song, I'd have to tap to
| scroll 80 times.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| It's called ergonomics [1].
|
| The "crapification" you describe is the creep away from the
| scientific principles that once underpinned this field. Before
| UX we had HCI (Human Computer Interaction) which was in turn a
| development of CE (Cognitive Ergonomics) and other "human
| factors" sciences.
|
| These sciences were rooted in very rigorous but time consuming
| tests, observation, psychology and physiology.
|
| from TFA: "Designers want a "clean" interior with minimal
| switchgear"
|
| This is where the wheels fall off the wagon. Should "what
| designers want" be high amongst the priorities for safety
| critical products?
|
| [1] https://iea.cc/what-is-ergonomics/
| Unbeliever69 wrote:
| I have a bachelor's and master's in Industrial Design. When I
| first entered the software industry after grad school in 2000
| a master's was the floor for work in UI Design or Information
| Architecture (Ux wasn't a job title at this time). Many of
| the people I worked with in these early days were CogPsy
| PhDs. Design was slow and methodical. This seemed to hold
| true for the next decade or so. As design as a competitive
| advantage (or necessity) started to take hold more and more
| people flocked to Ux. Many in the field today are self-
| taught, attended bootcamps, or pivoted away from graphic
| design (thanks Dribble) to Ux. Did we lose something when
| many Ux practitioners no longer have roots in HCI, library
| sciences, human-computer interaction, industrial design,
| human factors? I'm not going to judge. Myself, I transitioned
| from Ux to programming.
| robbie-c wrote:
| Yes, if designers are component at all of these things:
|
| > tests, observation, psychology and physiology
|
| Is that not their job?
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| I worked briefly as a freelance experience designer hired
| by an appliance manufacturer. I asked if they could send me
| physical prototypes of controls so they could be tested.
| They refused and said it would be too expensive. They
| expected the controls to be designed, spec'd, and sent to
| the factory without any usability testing.
|
| Designers can do all those things, but often they're not
| given the space to.
|
| The best products are typically produced in an environment
| where the people running the company care about the design.
| This is a rare environment.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Often they recruit kids with graphic arts backgrounds, hand
| them some fancy post-it notes and a YouTube video of how
| Zipcar did a journey map, and set them loose.
|
| UX usually focuses on the critical path for the top-5
| tasks. So turning on the car radio makes sense, but
| changing the radio station didn't make the cut, so some
| rando engineer guy stuffed it in a menu.
|
| When it's done well with a great team and time it's magic.
| It's easiest to see when Apple gets software right, like
| Keynote - the functions of making a presentation are
| immediately obvious to an elementary school student. But
| even then, once you leave the happy path, woe to you -
| modifying a template is a dark art to most people.
| dublin wrote:
| Or you could use Apple's iTunes as an example of how to
| build one of the world's worst and most user-hostile
| interfaces, but one that every iPhone user must deal with
| unless they let Apple have complete access to all their
| information via iCloud.
|
| I'm convinced most people really don't like iCloud, but
| since the alternative is iTunes, they basically have no
| choice...
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Agreed - I should have used a different example, as Apple
| is too visceral for many people.
|
| iTunes is the equivalent of legacy VB apps in
| enterprises. As far as I can tell, there was essentially
| no design for many years.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| No it's not their job, and I'll try to explain why I think
| that.
|
| Apart from the remit being just too broad, designers in any
| case are part of a complex team that deal with a multitude
| of functional, non-functional, regulatory and financial
| requirements.
|
| Now, we have many different definitions of "designer",
| which I am very aware of, but I believe that, in some
| circles "designer" has become romanticised and extended to
| include a set of perceived "magical" powers to "deliver
| what a boss wants". That is a distortion of the role to
| something grotesque.
|
| Speaking from a domain in which I have expertise; in sound
| design a great battle ensued between designers, users
| (audiences) and the 'bosses' (studios and publishers) as to
| how music and films should sound. You probably know this as
| the "Loudness Wars". I think it remains a textbook example
| of misalignment between technical, artistic and financial
| factors. It also remains an example of why I think "Markets
| are a myth" [2].
|
| Despite listeners saying over and over that they "Don't
| want it", the producers, through a mess of internal motives
| (mainly financial), repeatedly foisted their values onto
| them, being obsessed with what they _think_ users want in
| preference to flat-out contradiction that would be evident
| in even the most cursory market research.
|
| The job of a designer is to balance factors, and in a sense
| act as an advocate (stand-in) for the user by mentalising
| their _actual_ needs. It 's a very demanding and complex
| skill. Doing "what your boss says" is absolutely _not it_
| and reduces a designer to a tool.
|
| On the other hand, a job of the designer is also to listen
| to expert technical advice outside of their skill-set, and
| so must not get carried away with any grand "aesthetic
| vision", wanting to be Steve Jobs.
|
| A hard line to tread, and one requiring strong will and
| ethics as well as judgement.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
|
| [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=32463541
| mattmillr wrote:
| Related, the challenges sound designers face in making
| dialogue audible. What seem like simple problems (make
| car climate control buttons easy to use, make the speech
| in a movie easy to understand) turn out to be incredibly
| complex.
|
| https://www.slashfilm.com/673162/heres-why-movie-
| dialogue-ha...
| lukeramsden wrote:
| It's supposed to be their job - lots of "designers"
| nowadays seem mostly focused on aesthetic trends rather
| than those (IMO) more important things
| jacknews wrote:
| One problem is that 'aesthetics', both graphical and
| functional, dominates actual usability design.
| indymike wrote:
| Many, but not all, designers are just making their boss
| happy.
| bombcar wrote:
| This is it 1000% - touchscreens look cool in "demos" and
| "show the CEO" and so they're selected for.
|
| Buttons and actual things that let you use the
| device/vehicle for 8+ hours a day, not so selected for.
| mckirk wrote:
| Just look at Windows 11 to see how far removed designers
| can be from users, despite probably seeming quite
| competent.
| iguanayou wrote:
| I like Windows 11!
| mckirk wrote:
| Genuinely curious, what do you like about it compared to
| Win10?
|
| I've only tried it in a VM for a few minutes so far, but
| was unnerved by the general feeling of 'pretty, but
| impractical', mainly thanks to the taskbar and the right-
| click 'hide everything by default' context menu.
| Silhouette wrote:
| _Is that not their job?_
|
| Evidently not if the work they're producing is reportedly
| outperformed by old school physical controls from more than
| a decade ago and in most of the vehicles tested it wasn't
| even close.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| > _from TFA: "Designers want a "clean" interior with minimal
| switchgear"_
|
| Speaking as someone with an Interaction Design (IxD) degree:
| no we fucking don't. Tactile buttons being superior has been
| known for ages. For example, Bret Victor wrote "A Brief Rant
| On The Future Of Interaction Design" in 2011, so over a
| decade ago[0]. Not that anyone with the power to change
| things listened, because these decisions aren't made by the
| designers.
|
| This is mostly a consequence of people higher up trying to
| save costs by using touchscreens, which is cheaper to buy and
| cheaper to develop for. HCI and IxD have always had this
| issue that we're asked to fix things up after everything else
| has already been decided. Basically, we're mistaken for
| graphic designers who decide on what the final product will
| look like. So we're given a touchscreen to develop an
| interface for, not a blank-slate car interior (or whatever)
| for which we get to decide the button layout.
|
| At the risk of pulling a "no true Scotsman", this is a
| consequence of cost-cutting first and foremost. Don't blame
| the people who actually have a background HCI or Interaction
| Design. We all knew this was coming, and we hated it. If
| we're told to make do with the touchscreens we are given,
| with the alternatives of actual physical buttons being
| ignored before we even get to make decisions, then don't
| blame us for the lack of those buttons.
|
| [0] http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionD
| esi...
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Bret Victor article is very good. Thanks for sharing.
|
| Some remarks stood out for me:
|
| > talk about technology. That's the easy part, in a sense,
| because _we control it_. (my emphasis)
|
| Yes, I agree with him strongly. But - there's been a
| dreadful anti-intellectual tide this past decade - a
| descent into "technological determinism", or the idea that
| technology is its own process to which humans must bend.
| It's the idea that we _don 't control it_. It comes along
| with the overuse of words like "inevitable", "ubiquitous",
| "unavoidable" and endless talk of cats escaping from bags
| and genies refusing to go back into bottles. It's a
| defeatist and lazy creed that seeks to excuse a race to the
| bottom of cheapness, as you describe, with a narrative
| about how we "have no choice".
|
| > if a tool isn't designed to be used by a person, it can't
| be a very good tool, right?
|
| Increasingly, tools are designed to be used by other tools.
| Humans are being sidelined amidst the interplay between
| machines. For example; the demise of the Web is largely due
| to bots and the arms race to create other gatekeeping bots
| to defeat them.
|
| > Hands
|
| Bravo! Not "a finger" or "your thumbs". That's why I use a
| keyboard, interact through text-based technology, and
| cannot fathom thumb-twitching smartphone users. I totally
| get what he's saying, having worked in sonic interaction
| design with musical instruments (NIME) stuff like the ROLI
| seaboard (or whatever they changed the name to)... hands
| and touch, with mechanical haptic feedback is the way to
| go.
|
| I wish more people payed attention to this understanding of
| our relation to technology as embodied beings, instead of
| chasing a "clean" disembodied dream - which I think hides
| within sublimated Orthodox Dualism in the tech community -
| but that's another story.
| philwelch wrote:
| By "designers" I don't think they mean interaction
| designers.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| Fair enough, but even then it's blame-shifting away from
| the actual cause of the problems.
|
| I don't think we're going to get physical interfaces back
| until car manufacturers (or whatever) are forced to
| because of said cost-cutting.
| philwelch wrote:
| Most executives don't have the vision or creativity to
| come up with these trends; they have to pick them up from
| somewhere. I think there's plenty of blame to go around
| though.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| The trends adapt to the requirements of the customer. See
| also: the appeaiance desktop interfaces having phone
| interfaces that don't fit desktop affordances at all.
|
| Note that "customer" can be a manager or similar higher
| up in the hierarchy.
| potamic wrote:
| How are touchscreens cheaper? On my phone replacing the
| screen costs way more than replacing a physical button.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| The cost of fixing hardware failure in a final product is
| not the same thing as the cost of developing and mass-
| producing the product.
|
| For example, we're not talking about _one_ button, we 're
| talking about _a lot of buttons_ , usually custom-made
| for the car in question. The whole dashboard physically
| has to be designed around them. Meanwhile Tesla just
| slaps a screen on a mount in the middle of the car and
| calls it a day. It's basically "we have to get everything
| right the first time" vs "fuck it, we can always fix
| things in a later software update". Which is a way to
| save costs by cutting corners.
|
| The buttons all have their own complicated logic too,
| although I suppose that even with physical buttons one
| can handle almost all of that purely through software
| these days, so that's not really as much of an issue any
| more as it used to be (it does make me terrified that
| cars can be hacked and bricked, but I digress).
|
| Speaking of a lot of buttons, that's the other thing: if
| all your buttons are virtual, you can have infinite
| buttons! The only thing we have to do is introduce a ton
| of mode switches! Which is _absolutely terrible_ when you
| 're driving, but nobody seems to care! So we can cram a
| ton of features into a screen that would otherwise
| require a million buttons, and use that in marketing.
| Even though we'd probably be better off if some time was
| spent to whittle things down to the essentials and design
| the interface around those cleanly.
| Groxx wrote:
| Many buttons also means many more pieces to physically
| install, and many many more wires. And each one (or small
| cluster) is often accompanied by even more independently-
| wired small information displays (small LCDs and LEDs for
| showing the state / temperature / etc) which are yet more
| wires.
|
| A touchscreen is largely just a single fused physical
| unit with ~two cables: a data ribbon and power. Utterly
| trivial to install and wire up in comparison.
|
| The total assembly cost adds up very quickly.
| zppln wrote:
| Sounds like the car equivalent of HOTAS.
| JasserInicide wrote:
| This is what happens when Ivy League MBAs run every industry
| WalterBright wrote:
| I learned that when the touchscreen starts flickering, it means
| the alternator has shorted out and you've got only a few miles
| before the car goes dead.
| WalterBright wrote:
| A voltmeter would tell me the same thing, but modern cars
| seem to have replaced them with a touch screen.
| jmclnx wrote:
| This started years ago, my example is the transformation of the
| Jeep CJ into the wrangler. CJ were fairly cheap, worked fine
| and came with no frills (I won't talk about rust). The wrangler
| is an overglorified SUV. When that happened, I went to regular
| automobiles, which are now getting harder to find these days.
| repler wrote:
| I can understand where you're coming from, but compared to
| the vehicles I own now my 98 TJ seems "no frills".
|
| The soft top folded down pretty nicely. The rear seat could
| also fold down, as did the windshield. The half doors were
| still removable, and there were still only 2 of them.
|
| It was a manual transmission but had A/C. The heater had two
| settings: "lava" and "off" :D
| nso wrote:
| My cars heater started bellowing hot steam into my car
| through the vent system a few weeks ago. I took it to a
| friend who is mechanic and asked how much it was to fix it.
| He said "we live in the tropics, what would you use a
| heater for?", then disconnected it completely and charged
| me a beer.
|
| Very unrelated.
| conductr wrote:
| > crapification and tiktok-ization
|
| I think Apple's design choices provide a better analogy but the
| point is still taken and I tend to agree. They want cars to be
| disposable technology that consumers are continuously upgrading
| (like their phone)
| thiht wrote:
| Wtf does it have to do with TikTok?
| jacknews wrote:
| You'll see.
|
| Now, you control your car, though with increasing friction.
| motoboi wrote:
| Just someone getting older and repeating the ancient mantra
| of "things are getting worse! because children are not
| educated the way they used to be".
| jacknews wrote:
| Sounds like someone doesn't know what 'better' actually
| means.
| astura wrote:
| It's the current Boogeyman.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Gosh darn KIDS these days TICK TOKING all the DARN time,
| back in MY day we'd just PLANK on RANDOM THINGS then hit
| the WHIP and yell YEET and post it on INSTAGRAM for LIKES.
| driverdan wrote:
| Absolutely nothing. The problem existed before TikTok.
| doliveira wrote:
| It's more of an alias for the zeitgeist.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| Yes! I want a car interface designed by whoever is responsible
| for vim.
| kh_hk wrote:
| It's all fun until someone else tries to quit your car.
| mempko wrote:
| Isn't this what Tesla's electronic door handle is all about
| while the car burns?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| What do you mean someone else? What about me!
|
| Alternatively, what do you mean, quit?
| TuringNYC wrote:
| Its a joke, because vim is so difficult to exit from.
| arjvik wrote:
| wooosh!
| willhackett wrote:
| "Sir, can you please explain what you were doing when the
| accident occurred?"
| kh_hk wrote:
| "I just thought I was in INSERT mode"
| HeckFeck wrote:
| I accidentally had caps lock on, sorry.
| Timon3 wrote:
| When I read your comment, I immediately thought of a car
| which you exit by removing the floor plating, after which the
| car lifts itself up, so you can comfortably step away from
| the underside. Can't wait to see my grandma try that!
| VTimofeenko wrote:
| Oh hey, this reminds me of a car I saw. Thankfully did not
| have to ride it. The floor on passenger side was missing
| and it was a bit lifted , so you could get out the car that
| way. Was handy because sometimes the door lock got jammed
| and refused to work. Same goes for the meatgrinder-style
| window controls.
|
| Other than that - it worked and somehow had all the needed
| papers to be street-legal.
| toxik wrote:
| So only professional drivers can turn off their cars? :-)
| iepathos wrote:
| To the surprise of no one.
| highspeedbus wrote:
| That's why I like to think of Alien's Nostromo tech as perfectly
| on point. Just enough computing to get things done and working
| for hundreds of years.
|
| Maybe the Prometheus era folks eventually got sick of touch
| screens and sleek, barely useful software that keeps changing for
| the sake of it.
| hooby wrote:
| I have only one big question:
|
| Why does that need to be tested? Does any driver exist on this
| planet, to whom this is not immediately and completely obvious?
| greyhair wrote:
| Touch screens suck. My twenty year old son and I were just
| discussing this a couple days ago. He has been working part time
| as a valet to make some extra money, so he gets to drive a lot of
| different cars, just to park them, but has to interact with the
| transmissions, at the very least, and often has to turn off
| blaring sound systems (yeah, people drop their cars with the
| valet with the radios cranked.)
|
| His daily driver is a 2012 Hyundai Elantra GLS. He also
| occasionally drives my 2007 Ford Fusion. Both have fairly logical
| physical controls.
|
| He hates how non-intuitive the touch screen controls are, and how
| you physically have to look (even if briefly) at the screen to
| see what state it is in, and to find the buttons. You cannot just
| operate them by feel.
|
| He also does not like electronic shifters. I have never driven a
| Mercedes, but he says the shifter on the newer Mercedes is
| frustratingly slow. You have to put you foot on the brake, tap
| the lever, then wait for the indicator to actually change.
|
| What I find particularly frustrating on all this, I know that the
| knob driven climate controls are just inputs to a computer that
| is driving servo motors under the dash. There are no cables. But
| it is intuitive, it is tactile. I don't have to look to change
| the fan, or the temperature, or the vent configuration. Same with
| the radio. I know where the on/off and the volume is. I know
| where the AM/FM/CD buttons are. I know where the six preset
| buttons are. I can run the radio with out looking. And when I
| move the shift lever on the Elantra, it has a very distinctive
| 'gate' flow. It is easy to know what gear it is in without
| looking. Doubly true for the five speed manual in the Fusion.
|
| So this change to glass panels is not for the consumer, it is for
| the manufacturer. It is for the designer. We have reached the age
| in electronics where the display is cheaper than physical
| controls. The manufacturers are trying to sell it as a 'feature'.
| It is not a feature, it is cheapness. It is crass.
| robg wrote:
| Part of the problem is the car industry operates in 10 year
| product horizons, given costs to amortization and legacy systems.
| I consulted at a 2012 LA autoshow workshop led by a major vendor
| of in-car systems and equipment (Faurecia). The default
| assumption for two days was in 10 years (this year!) we'd have
| self-driving vehicles for most of our in-car experiences. So
| design that cabin. These screens and legacies are part of that
| false belief from 10 years ago. Tesla's "success" has only helped
| fuel the assumption. If you got that assignment this year for the
| year 2032, what would your in-car experience look like? It's a
| really hard problem to build big, costly, deadly consumer
| products into. Knobs and buttons still seem preferable cause they
| just work and work well for 10 years or more.
| fbanon wrote:
| My 2010 Opel/Vauxhall Astra has tons of buttons/knobs, and I love
| it. I hope the next time I'll have to buy a car (in 3 years? 5
| years?), the touchscreen fad will be over.
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| I really dislike touch buttons in car, for some reason looking at
| that screen is a distraction that feeling for a button is not.
| Even worse, though, are physical buttons that digitally change. I
| drove a Landrover like that and it was very, very frustrating.
| jeremy_wiebe wrote:
| Here in BC we have fairly tough distracted driving laws (ie don't
| even think of touching your cell phone while at the wheel). Yet
| the proliferation of touch screens in cars seems like it's almost
| exactly the same type of distraction as looking at your phone. In
| both cases you have to look away from the road. Tactile buttons
| given you "no look" control.
| kh_hk wrote:
| Happy if cars ditched the navigation screen altogether. Having an
| external GPS is not such a bad thing. Something you can remove,
| replace or upgrade.
| mhdhn wrote:
| I hardly know anyone who uses an internal GPS provided by the
| car. Everyone uses their phone, either through CarPlay or just
| putting the physical phone up somewhere, somehow. Every car
| manufacturers' GPS's I've seen or heard of have terrible UX
| compared to phone apps such as Google Maps, Waze, or Apple
| Maps.
| 2rsf wrote:
| Polestar, and probably new cars from the sister Volvo,have a
| really good Android Auto based (not the screen cast Android
| Automotive) navigation screen using Google Maps for
| navigation. On electric cars it uses information from the car
| to build better routes, estimate battery usage and suggest
| charging stations.
| konschubert wrote:
| I want CarPlay/Android Auto.
| aarghh wrote:
| One of the reasons I like Nobe - https://nobecars.com/100gt/ - is
| the fact they have a very simple,tactile user interface while
| being an EV. We really need more auto makers to get that not
| everyone sees an EV as a media experience that also provides
| mobility.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I don't need no steenkin' test to know that's true. Nothing like
| a knob or switch with tactile feedback as to its function and
| setting.
| osigurdson wrote:
| I think a lot of automakers have landed on pretty good ux. Some
| physical buttons / knobs for commonly used features and a touch
| screen for less commonly used things.
| rbanffy wrote:
| I really liked the physicality of the Fiat Uno satellites - you
| could operate all the more important functions without moving
| your hands off the steering wheel.
|
| https://i0.wp.com/blog.carlider.com.br/wp-content/uploads/20...
|
| Buttons and instruments would vary depending on the model, of
| course, but the satellites were there for a long time before
| being replaced with more usual levers.
|
| In a sense, it's a design reminiscent of the Citroen Karin
| concept:
|
| https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lkoNEToBeSo/YW2L9JqMzgI/AAAAAAAAg...
| omega3 wrote:
| Physical buttons will be definitely one of the more important
| criteria when buying a new car.
| sizzle wrote:
| This should be regulated that physical buttons are mandatory for
| frequent core functionality e.g. air conditioner, windshields,
| etc.
| Tade0 wrote:
| I'm so happy to have physical buttons on the steering wheel
| because the touchscreen, powered by some obviously ancient
| chip(feels 2009-ish), is mostly useless, aside from maybe showing
| the map.
|
| That being said I don't actually use any features during driving,
| except for adjusting climate control and compulsively checking
| fuel economy.
|
| I'm curious what features people miss now that physical controls
| are mostly gone.
| Pasorrijer wrote:
| Adjusting climate control, since that is now in the
| touchscreen, although thankfully some manufacturers are back
| tracking on that one.
|
| Adjusting the radio station is the other big one.
| prvit wrote:
| New cars have decent hardware. New S-class infotainment runs on
| a 6 core Nvidia Xavier SoC with a Volta GPU and 16GB of RAM.
| colordrops wrote:
| I wonder if any of you that consistently spew all this hate for
| touchscreens own a new-ish Tesla. I was skeptical at first but
| it's far better than the myriad of buttons and knobs in any car
| I've had before. The combination of automation and voice commands
| cover most of the cases where you'd be fiddling with controls.
| And interacting with the display really isn't all that difficult
| either, especially when you've got lane keeping on, where you can
| afford to look at it for a couple seconds.
|
| There _are_ also physical controls on the steering wheel for the
| most used functions, but they aren 't absolutely necessary.
|
| I'm also curious about how they accounted for bad UX in this
| study. They didn't just test Teslas, but also other cars with
| touchscreens. My experience is that the touchscreens in other
| cars are smaller, slower, more janky and have worse UX in
| general.
| michaelgrosner2 wrote:
| Totally agree. There is so much less interaction required with
| the controls (whether hardware or software) with a Tesla. I
| also have a relatively recent Audi Q7 in addition to my Tesla
| and holy crap the physical dials and buttons are horrible to
| use in the Q7 compared to the Tesla M3. With the Tesla, all my
| settings such as my last listened to Spotify station, seat
| position, auto wiper/lights preferences, etc is saved and I
| never really have to interact with the screen unless I need to
| enter in a map destination.
| colordrops wrote:
| Even for map destinations, I always use voice control. Don't
| remember the last time I entered an address manually - the
| voice recognition is nearly flawless.
| rzimmerman wrote:
| My family has two cars - a 5 year-old Subaru and a relatively
| new Tesla. The Subaru has great physical controls for pretty
| much everything. It has a slightly janky touch-screen for
| changing audio sources (with nice physical buttons on the wheel
| for pause/skip/change channel). The touch screen is a little
| frustrating to use, but I rarely need it. I can imagine I'd be
| pretty annoyed if it was required for car functions or climate
| control. But the buttons and knobs are great.
|
| The Tesla touchscreen is very good. I would be annoyed if I
| frequently had to use it while actually driving, but I don't.
| Everything in the Tesla is pretty much automatic, including
| climate control, windshield wipers, lights, and door locks.
| It's easy to use the touchscreen to raise or lower the
| temperature a degree - that's the main thing I find myself
| doing while driving that requires the screen. Everything else I
| do has a physical control on the wheel. The one frustrating
| exception is defog which the latest update put behind a menu. I
| have them shortcutted on the home screen but it is obnoxious.
|
| I think having a big screen is nice. It does require thoughtful
| UX design and a few physical controls. Tesla probably errs a
| little too much on the side of automation + no buttons but it's
| generally well done. As driving becomes more automatic I think
| it really is less important to have tactile controls and more
| important to have screen real estate.
| wilg wrote:
| Yeah, I have no issue with my Model Y.
| yreg wrote:
| I drive a Tesla and to be honest I would appreciate a few more
| physical buttons, e.g. for climate control and seat heaters.
|
| But the touch screen is not as bad as it sounds like. The trick
| is to grab the screen by the edge and use the thumb to tap it
| precisely. It can even be done withou looking.
|
| Steve Jobs said it best in 2007. They have all these phones
| with full physical keyboards. But what happens if three months
| down the line you get a new brilliant idea on how to improve
| the interface? You can't add more buttons! The devices have
| already shipped.
| [deleted]
| colordrops wrote:
| I agree, but I think it's more a problem of the latest
| software update rather than a fundamental issue with the
| touch screen. Older versions of the UI had climate control
| and seat heaters always up front and in the same location on
| the main screen. They recently buried these in version 11,
| which was a huge mistake. I think they believe that climate
| and seat heaters are better automated and don't need user
| interaction but I don't know if that's true.
| cespare wrote:
| Well that's partly sampling bias. You're not likely to own a
| Tesla if you hate the touch controls. My wife and I went
| through the car buying process this year and test drove a Model
| Y. I was pretty meh on the touch interface and my wife hated
| it. We ended up with a non-Tesla EV.
| colordrops wrote:
| Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Like I said I was skeptical at
| first. There's also a bit of acclimating to a new way of
| interacting with the car - e.g. trusting it to turn on the
| lights and wipers for you, as well as learning how to use the
| voice controls. I don't think it's biased to say that
| automation and voice are more ergonomic than buttons and
| knobs while driving. The screen is mainly used for
| visualization in the Tesla. The navigation experience is so
| much better than other cars.
| trixie_ wrote:
| Can confirm, drive a Tesla and don't need any extra buttons the
| screen is fine thanks.
| qikInNdOutReply wrote:
| At some point- optional physical buttons attached via magnets
| that transcribe the input to the touchscreen, will make a
| comeback.
| kelvin0 wrote:
| No.Shit. So called infotainment systems have the most ridiculous
| UX/UI I've seen.
| 734129837261 wrote:
| Touch screens are just their 60+ year old fossils deciding
| "that's hip, that's what kids want!" and probably their testing
| audiences responding more positively to images of flashy touch
| screens and shiny lights.
|
| Driving a car with touch screens (new BMW or Mercedes) has left
| me very unimpressed. My 2016 VW Golf has actual buttons,
| switches, and knobs to twist and turn and press and flip.
|
| Car reviewers, too, often say it's a shame that car manufacturers
| are switching to touch screen nonsense. It's such a shameful
| trend if you think about it. The BMW series of pre-2022 had
| buttons in the dashboard, but the upcoming new series will do
| away with those entirely.
|
| Touch screens even find their way onto steering wheels and doors.
|
| Of course, it's easy to understand why:
|
| 1. It's cheaper to produce; 2. It looks more expensive, so the
| price goes up; 3. Testing audiences respond positively to shiny
| lights; 4. Fossils decided that this is what the young people
| want.
|
| Honestly, I hope European legislation makes it illegal at some
| point. For the sake of safety. With touch screens, even the most
| simple task requires you to take your eyes off the road in front
| of you; with regular buttons you could do many task just with
| touch.
|
| What was even more surprising, to me, is that Mercedes had this
| amazing nice center console unit to control things with your arm
| in a rested position. They removed that piece of brilliance!
|
| So, now you need to do everything with an outstretched arm in a
| moving vehicle to operate tiny buttons on a flat touch screen.
|
| Oh, and the touch screen can only barely hit 60 frames per second
| and often feels much slower. They're even saving costs on GPU
| power in their fancy luxury cars.
| greggeter wrote:
| stinos wrote:
| _With touch screens, even the most simple task requires you to
| take your eyes off the road in front of you; with regular
| buttons you could do many task just with touch._
|
| Sort of related, I have the exact same issue with portable
| music players while walking or cycling. Most of the time the
| only task I need to do is play/pause or forward/backward track.
|
| For a player with buttons it takes a small amount of attempts
| and after that you've learned the position of the buttons by
| heart and can control the device even while it's in your
| pocket, without needing to see it. Usually aided by some
| tactile feedback. Fast, convenient, and somewhat safer since
| we're talking traffic situations.
|
| With a touchscreen-only player that is much harder, sometimes
| impossible (depending on which screen you're in the controls
| might not be in the same place or not be there at all).
|
| Sad thing is, this was already the case like a decade ago,
| leaving me wondering if designers have any pride in their UX,
| simply don't know they're doing it wrong, willingly just focus
| on other things apart from usability, etc. In any case: driving
| a heavy vehicle at high speeds should be the last case where
| simple things like switching a radio station actually requires
| you to take your eyes of the road. That's just insane.
| nicbou wrote:
| They sell dedicated controls you can clip onto your clothes.
| You could give that a try.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Decent not-so-expensive headphones come with buttons for
| those functions.
| [deleted]
| StevePerkins wrote:
| I'm not sure how you juggle the cognitive dissonance of
| cramming "Testing audiences respond positively" and "Fossils
| decided that this is what people want" into the same
| explanation.
|
| I do agree with the premise that physical buttons and knobs are
| generally far superior to touchscreen UI's, at least for the
| common core basic things.
|
| However, I don't agree that it's about the boomers, or the
| capitalists, or any other Internet strawman forcing something
| onto the masses against its wishes. I think it REALLY IS a
| matter of test audiences and "casuals" having tastes that
| differ from power users and other people that think deeply
| about a thing. You see this in many different domains.
| dogleash wrote:
| > Touch screens are just their 60+ year old fossils
|
| Please don't play this game where a bad design decision was
| finally recognized as bad design and a scapegoat is found
| rather than admitting the "experts" who did it have no clothes.
|
| UX branding itself "UX" rather than any of the half dozen other
| names we used to use was a clear statement of "It will be
| different this time, I promise." It wasn't. The design trends
| we got were different, but bad interaction design is still bad
| interaction design.
| ptsneves wrote:
| I have a 2021 BMW and I really like the alternatives on button
| and touch screen it offers.
|
| I barely use the touchscreen and when not needed I outright
| turn it off. This is quite easy because BMW has 8 buttons that
| can be mapped to any function in the touchscreen including
| turning off the main screen.
|
| Another thing I enjoy is the gesture detector. It sometimes has
| false positives when I gesticulate a lot but it works when I
| actually intend it to. It is very satisfying to mute the radio
| or change an annoying music with a hand gesture. If they would
| keep trying to integrate and perfect it I think it would be the
| right direction for innovation.
|
| Touchscreens are fine when parked or for the passenger.
| Anything else they are useless and often have too much
| distracting info, so they are turned off.
| WXLCKNO wrote:
| I ordered a new 3 series (2023) which does away with those
| buttons and a few others. I would have preferred having at
| least the temperature controls as physical buttons but other
| than that they do have the navigation knob/joystick which is
| well positioned to control the system. It feels like a
| reasonable compromise.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| The joystick in BMW's is awesome. Gives you access to every
| function in the car with minimal glance at the screen
| needed. If you get the one with the HUD, no need to even
| look at the map.
| bena wrote:
| Maybe I'm weird. I don't use the center console that much. For
| music, I'm either streaming or shuffling what's on my phone.
| And then I have the screen showing maps. If I want to put in a
| destination, it's usually done before I even get out of park.
|
| My steering wheel has volume controls and the environmental
| controls are still button based.
| marvinvz wrote:
| It's mainly about cost and a bit about "but Tesla!".
| konschubert wrote:
| > Touch screens are just their 60+ year old fossils deciding
| "that's hip, that's what kids want!" and probably their testing
| audiences responding more positively to images of flashy touch
| screens and shiny lights.
|
| It's mostly a cost saving measure.
|
| Physical buttons are expensive. I you eliminate them, the car
| gets cheaper to make.
|
| That's all.
|
| It's a sign of low quality and I expect that in 5 to 10 years,
| consumers will start to realise this.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| > It's a sign of low quality and I expect that in 5 to 10
| years, consumers will start to realise this.
|
| I'm not so hopeful. The same can be said about household
| appliances. Yet more and more random things figure they
| should have touchscreens, or at the very least touch buttons.
| And this trend has lasted for far more than 10 years.
| Joker_vD wrote:
| Surely the buttons don't cost _that_ much compared to, y
| 'know, the rest of the vehicle?
| postalrat wrote:
| It's the difference between an on screen keyboard and a
| keyboard where you make the buttons.
| hulitu wrote:
| It's not just buttons. It's PCB space, testing, special SW
| etc.
| rcxdude wrote:
| The reason cars are as insanely cheap as they are for the
| level of manufacturing and design sophistication within
| them is because of many, many such cost reductions across
| the whole vehicle (which is made possible by the large
| scale on which they are manufactured).
| Lio wrote:
| Every little counts when it comes to exec bonus time.
|
| My favourite feature of touchscreens in cars is when you
| try to click a button but go over a bump[1] so your finger
| misses and you press something else. Genius.
|
| I do get that touchscreens allow manufactures to add and
| remove controls though.
|
| Rolling out UI changes for self-driving cars, like getting
| rid of the, knob behind the wheel, will help with safety no
| end.
|
| 1. Not sure what the bump was, probably the neighbour's kid
| or dog or something. Too busy trying to get the latest
| Smartless. That Will Arnet, what a card, etc, etc...
| tokai wrote:
| I guess its the installation. One touch screen is one
| process. 15 buttons require 15 operations to finish the
| dashboard. You have to save everywhere, else costs will run
| up. Small savings become huge at scale.
| [deleted]
| cma wrote:
| 104 key mechanical keyboards have 104 buttons and may go
| for $30. Maybe it is the knobs? But you can get a midi
| keyboard with 8 knobs, 49 keys, 12 pressure sensitive
| pads for ~$100 (but maybe it wouldn't last in car cabin
| heat).
| greyhair wrote:
| Those keyboards don't have the same environmental
| requirements. Automotive environmental is hard.
| Temperature extremes, high and low, plus humidity
| extremes.
|
| There are also reliability expectations. If I need
| defrost because the windshield just fogged over, it
| better activate when I turn that knob on my sixteen year
| old car. And so far, it always has.
| hulitu wrote:
| Can it work at -40 C or 85 C ? Can it work after it was
| in a salted atmosphere for 100 hours ? And then in a
| sandy atmosphere for 100 hours ?
| Joker_vD wrote:
| Okay, remind me to never leave a keyboard in a front seat
| of a car, apparently it can't survive in there.
| brk wrote:
| You'd be surprised how much cost savings matter.
|
| Years ago when I was working in IT at FoMoCo I recall
| seeing a piece of paper on an office bulletin board
| outlining how they had managed to save like $40 on the
| production cost of a Taurus, a vehicle that at the time was
| about $20,000. Those savings were the result of multiple
| sub-$1 to several dollar cost savings tweaks made between
| production years.
|
| Ford has built something like 8 million Tauri, save a few
| dollars on each of them and it adds up to real money, like
| enough to redecorate the executive cafeteria.
| LtWorf wrote:
| Buttons are installed manually by workers. One by one.
|
| Gluing a single tablet is much faster.
| m000 wrote:
| > It's a sign of low quality and I expect that in 5 to 10
| years, consumers will start to realise this.
|
| _Consumers_ is the key word here. Manufacturers already know
| that buttons have the "disadvantage" that they break
| independently. They are also easier to fix with a generic
| replacement part. Which means that you won't have to scrap
| your car because it suddenly became unusable.
|
| Force manufacturers to provide replacement parts for 25 years
| after original purchase, and see them flocking back to the
| basics. But that prob. won't happen in EU (because it's
| against the interests of Germany) or USA (because
| "communism"). So I guess we're depending on the common sense
| of Japanese and Korean manufacturers?
| kgwgk wrote:
| The impressive thing about the touchscreens in BMWs is that you
| don't need to touch them at all. [I've not seen the new models
| though. I'm sure they are not better than the ones being
| replaced.]
|
| https://www.carbuyer.co.uk/tips-and-advice/170098/bmw-idrive...
| Sakos wrote:
| Why would that be a good thing? That sounds awful
|
| edit: Nevermind.
|
| > The main part of the BMW iDrive system is a control wheel,
| which can turn clockwise and anticlockwise like a volume
| dial. It can also be pushed forwards, backwards and to each
| side as if it were a joystick, and the centre acts as a
| button that can be pressed to confirm a choice or select an
| option. As mentioned above, later versions have adopted
| touchscreen technology, gesture control and voice commands,
| so there are multiple ways to operate a newer iDrive system
| in addition to the rotary control.
|
| It's a physical user interface with buttons and a joystick.
| Which is basically what everybody here wants.
| flakeoil wrote:
| Isn't that a drawback. Even easier to press the wrong button.
| Must be terrible when driving on a bumpy road and your hand
| is jumping around.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| No, it's not. It's by far the best HID in any car I have
| driven in the last 10 years and I have driven probably 50
| different rentals.
| prvit wrote:
| Why would that be a drawback? If you can't keep your hand
| steady on the iDrive controller, you probably shouldn't be
| driving a car at all.
| kgwgk wrote:
| No, it's not easier to press the wrong button and your hand
| doesn't jump around when using the controller.
| amelius wrote:
| You still have to browse through menus.
| kgwgk wrote:
| I find the system very usable and in any case the point is
| that it's not _touch_screen based.
| [deleted]
| neilv wrote:
| > _Touch screens are just their 60+ year old fossils deciding
| "that's hip, that's what kids want!"_
|
| Is there evidence it was 60+ year-olds who decided to lean on
| touchscreens for cars?
|
| If that's just an assumption, isn't an equally likely ageist
| guess that it was pushed by people who came up through the
| ranks in the era of "UX"? (Since I'd expect that old-school,
| pre-UX human factors engineers, who grew up on research coming
| from aircraft cockpit optimization, safety, and UI in service
| of the user... would research the heck out of a new technology
| option like this.)
| TaupeRanger wrote:
| The parent comment could not have gotten it more wrong. It
| was not "60+ year old fossils" that made this decision. It
| was "30-40 year old disrupter hipsters" that told the older
| people in charge what looks immediately appealing to the
| average person (and not just young people, who can't afford
| to buy new cars).
| greyhair wrote:
| My brother works in automotive engineering, it isn't 60+
| driving this trend. It is the design team, which skews young,
| and the marketing team, which also skews young.
|
| Tesla does not skew 60+ anywhere in the company, and they
| introduced these oversized screen based displays years ago.
|
| So on you four bullets above:
|
| 1) True 2) I don't know, perhaps? 3) Maybe a quick 'image'
| audience, but are they doing usability testing? 4) Completely
| false.
|
| The big weight is on point #1, for two reasons.
|
| 1) Those displays may seem expensive, until you actually price
| out the panels they are using. Then go and see what those
| physical buttons cost. They are not cheap. And there are a lot
| of them. And both technologies have micro processors behind
| them, so using physical knobs and buttons doesn't save money
| there.
|
| 2) Using modal displays to cover multiple controls saves
| dashboard real estate, and eases design constraints. Designers
| love it.
|
| One of the things I hate the most, is that I want a mostly dark
| interior when I drive at night, and now I'll be stuck staring
| at an illuminated display that I hate using in any case.
| paganel wrote:
| > One of the things I hate the most, is that I want a mostly
| dark interior when I drive at night,
|
| Another of the many reasons to decry the death os Saab as a
| car company.
|
| Later edit: Added link to YT video demonstrating Saab's night
| mode [1]
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xgh2zbifn7E
| HPsquared wrote:
| Night driving is especially annoying if there is a lot of
| backlight bleed through the display. Perhaps OLED displays
| would make this better, but of course... more expensive.
| 734129837261 wrote:
| Thanks for clarifying that. I stand corrected.
|
| It all makes sense from just the financial point of view. So
| that means it isn't going away any time soon, unless there's
| a huge backlash from consumers.
|
| Perhaps the best thing we can hope for is 1 car manufacturer
| deciding: "Buttons first, touch screen(s) second."
|
| Let consumers decide with their wallets. Though, I wouldn't
| be surprised that many consumers go for an inferior product
| just because it _looks_ cool. Because that, unfortunately, is
| how humans work.
| thesuitonym wrote:
| >but are they doing usability testing?
|
| You know they're not. If they were, nobody would ever replace
| a knob with a touchscreen.
| a2tech wrote:
| I can guarantee you that they are doing exhaustive
| usability testing. I've had friends that worked in Ford's
| design and usability group. EVERYTHING is extensively
| demo'ed and discussed to death. My friends in the design
| group complained that the actual engineers would take their
| designs and fight them constantly on every change and that
| what WAS a nice interface was junk by the time it went into
| the vehicle.
|
| I suspect that the engineers fighting them is really just a
| case of the hardware team and the software team not
| understanding the world the other lives in. The hardware
| team is working with a slow as molasses processor that is
| the only thing thats been approved for the ridiculously
| rugged life that a car CPU lives and the software people
| don't understand that just because a webkit rendering
| engine is completely fluid on their 6 month old Precision
| workstation it won't be on a 500mhz in dash processor.
| cosmotic wrote:
| More likely they are doing testing but aren't measuring the
| right things or are performing the tests improperly. I can
| say with high confidence that any of today's UX folks don't
| understand the scientific method nor statistics.
| ce4 wrote:
| Or they know what they're doing, hate it but decide for it
| anyway due to some sort of FOMO (the competition does it
| also!) Maybe it's comparable to the glossy laptop screen
| fad some years ago.
| gwd wrote:
| According to the tests:
|
| * The one and only physical button car took 10 seconds
| total to complete their tasks
|
| * Two touch-screen cars (Volvo C40 and Dacia Sandero) took
| only 13 seconds to complete the tasks
|
| * Most touch-screen cars take 20-40 seconds
|
| These results are certainly consistent with the hypothesis,
| "A moderately well-designed physical interface is likely to
| be better than an extremely well-designed touch-screen
| interface". But it's not really enough data to support the
| hypothesis that _all_ physical interfaces are better than
| _all_ touch-screen interfaces. You 'd want to see what the
| curve looks like -- with it so close, it's quite possible
| that some, or even many, physical interfaces would take
| longer than 13 seconds for their benchmark.
|
| And if you slow people down by 30% but reduce costs by a
| significant fraction, I think that's probably worth it.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| > _Using modal displays to cover multiple controls saves
| dashboard real estate, and eases design constraints_
|
| This makes a ton of sense for _displaying_ state.
|
| For _manipulating_ state I need tactile physical controls.
|
| This is how computers work, and for good reason. I have a big
| screen to show state, and keyboard + mouse to manipulate it.
| sli wrote:
| > Those displays may seem expensive, until you actually price
| out the panels they are using.
|
| Doesn't stop Toyota for wanting a solid $1000 to replace the
| display in my 2014 Corolla. Someone's pocketing a lot of
| money.
| moss2 wrote:
| 5. The manufacturer can change functionality and user interface
| with a simple software update.
|
| If Toyota half-way through shipping their latest car realize
| it's better to have two knobs on the dashboard, they can very
| easily add one if the dashboard is just one big touch screen.
| vincnetas wrote:
| What this "we can change it later" option creates is designs
| that are not very well thought out. When you have physical
| buttons you must be double sure that this is the best layout
| that you can come up. You need to commit and double (triple)
| check with multiple people. Allocate resources for
| manufacturing/tooling. But you are forced to think about it
| really really hard.
|
| With touch screen and OTA updates, you can skip the hard part
| and leave it for future you to improve if needed. But as we
| all know, when it's already sold there is no motivation to
| spend money to improve. So touch UI stays half baked. And
| only gets improved with future models.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| In some way that's even worse though. Everything should stay
| put. When driving a car, all this stuff is a secondary
| activity. I need to be able to develop muscle memory to
| ideally perform these finds blind while giving my main
| attention to the road. Buttons help doing this without
| looking. I might be able to do navigate a touch screen
| quickly if everything is in the same place all the time.
| Moving things around is just another opportunity to force
| more attention to the secondary activity
| fortran77 wrote:
| I think it's in poor taste that you refer to older people as
| "fossils"
| slothtrop wrote:
| I would have gone for antiques.
| wikfwikf wrote:
| I think the trend towards touchscreens has to do with the halo
| effect of the iphone. The fully touchscreen phone was much more
| modern-feeling, and also better and easier to use than previous
| phones with buttons.
|
| The irony is of course that the decision to have very few
| buttons (not one, not zero, but very few) with almost all input
| via the screen was made very carefully by Apple with very
| specific justification based on understanding of how phones
| were used and could be used. This is clear from Jobs' iphone
| keynote.
|
| If Steve Jobs, Jony Ives etc were redesigning car interfaces
| it's far from obvious that they would have made similar
| decisions.
| hulitu wrote:
| Physical buttons: 1. Are expensive 2. Need space on the PCB
| 3. Need ICT 4. Need special soldering sometimes 5. need a
| dedicated interrupt interface on the microcontroller ( that's
| why are more responsive) 6. Need software both at "kernel"
| (BSW) level and at userspace (application) level. A
| touchscreen "button" needs only a callback to a routine and a
| lot of patience from the user.
| jstummbillig wrote:
| You are missing the actual real value. It's flexibility. A
| modern car is software and gets updates. With a touchscreen you
| are least constraint by your previous assumptions and can
| change direction any way you like.
| hulitu wrote:
| > You are missing the actual real value. It's flexibility. A
| modern car is software and gets updates.
|
| The updates are only for bug fixing.Maybe this will change
| with SaaS but today i never heard of any Car company which
| does this. And no, i don't consider Tesla a car company.
| chestervonwinch wrote:
| I believe you could have made your point without the "fossil"
| insults.
| woliveirajr wrote:
| You shouldn't use your smartphone while driving because you
| might cause an accident while you are looking away from the
| road and not using both hands to hold the sterring wheel.
|
| But that's ok with touchscreens.
| april_22 wrote:
| I even think the only way to drive new Teslas in reverse is
| by swiping a button on the touchscreen. That's such a huge
| security risk.
| ryanbrunner wrote:
| To be fair, while I agree that touchscreens are far worse for
| distraction than physical controls, they're far, far better
| than a smartphone. Phones are designed to hold your
| attention, have small text sizes and interface elements,
| require actually holding the phone vs just using the
| touchscreen, and a lot of distracted driving comes from
| wildly inappropriate activities like texting vs advancing to
| the next song on Spotify or something.
| ghaff wrote:
| And the reality is that fiddling with the radio, fiddling
| with climate controls, looking at physical maps and written
| directions, etc. were all things long before touchscreens.
| (To say nothing of mobile phones, including before they got
| "smart.) Let's not pretend that distractions weren't a
| thing before touchscreens in cars came along.
| fluidcruft wrote:
| I can see voice control being useful and far cheaper (modulo
| the issue of how to deal with jackass passengers, but that's
| pretty easily dealt with using a push-to-talk button on the
| steering wheel).
|
| In a previous discussion someone mentioned that part of this
| trend toward screens in cars is that new cars are now required
| to have rear-view camera. So once you are required to have the
| screen, it's really almost nothing to waltz over to touch
| screens. Of note: the "winning" car is so old it doesn't have
| rear-view cameras.
| throwawaylinux wrote:
| > Touch screens are just their 60+ year old fossils deciding
| "that's hip, that's what kids want!"
|
| Do you have any evidence for this? Seems pretty outlandish to
| me.
|
| > 1. It's cheaper to produce; 2. It looks more expensive, so
| the price goes up; 3. Testing audiences respond positively to
| shiny lights; 4. Fossils decided that this is what the young
| people want.
|
| What does 4 even mean? If we took 1-3 as fact, then should
| businesses have disregarded them and instead made something
| more expensive to produce that looked cheaper and sold for less
| because people don't respond so positively?
| StevenWaterman wrote:
| There is one benefit - you can update the UI of a car with a
| touchscreen but not one with buttons. Tesla's first touchscreen
| [1] now looks slightly dated, but they're able to just update
| the entire fleet.
|
| No doubt it'll get to the point where you can't update it any
| more - either due to hardware incompatibility, lack of
| processing power, or some new technology being added. But it
| has meant that a 2013 Model S looks more modern today than it
| would have otherwise.
|
| Equally, tech tends to look dated much faster than physical
| buttons do. It's too early to really say which has more long-
| lasting appeal.
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/TZ0HsN-tblo?t=124
| Silhouette wrote:
| _There is one benefit - you can update the UI of a car with a
| touchscreen but not one with buttons._
|
| This is a bug, not a feature.
|
| If I'm driving then I'm driving. I want any non-driving
| controls to be as simple, consistent and reliable as
| possible. I don't want any non-essential controls at all. I
| don't want anything I might want to use while driving that
| requires me to take my eyes off the road at all. I couldn't
| care less what some flashy touchscreen UI looks like _because
| I should never have to look at it_.
|
| The physical controls on the dash of every vehicle I drive
| regularly still work as well and feel as comfortable to use
| as they ever did. In some cases those vehicles are over a
| decade old. I'll take that over the modern touchscreen junk
| any day.
| kylecordes wrote:
| It's interesting to see a parade of people object to the
| updatability.
|
| Sure, on a minute-to-minute timescale, anyone must obviously
| agree.
|
| But over the long term of owning a car, it is an immensely
| valuable feature. My 2018 car still feels quite new and fresh
| - much less reason to replace it than if it were falling
| behind.
| darkwater wrote:
| I'm with you on this, I do understand people not wanting
| the extra cognitive load to learn new changes in the UX
| _but_ as a tinkerer I really love that my car can get OTA
| updates that add /changes features. Actually many (most
| of?) Tesla owners have a Tesla also for this reason.
| Source: lurking in Tesla owners forums/groups.
| gjm11 wrote:
| You'd _buy a new car_ because the UI feels a bit dated?
| kylecordes wrote:
| Not with any urgency of course; it's one factor among
| many. We have a 2015 car that feels like 2005, and a 2018
| car that feels like 2022. The terrible map/etc.
| experience will certainly be a motivator when replacing -
| and makes old car worth much less on the used market than
| one that updates.
| nordsieck wrote:
| > You'd buy a new car because the UI feels a bit dated?
|
| There's a substantial group of people who lease cars, and
| just get a new car after the lease is up. For that group
| of people, that's probably a substantial reason along
| with the exterior styling.
| lupire wrote:
| bsagdiyev wrote:
| It absolutely is not. I do not want my 2 ton moving vehicle
| updated on a whim. My 2019 has a screen I can never really
| turn off that is bright at night, my 2008 has a slow laggy
| UI that an update will never fix. The 2000 Miata sitting in
| my garage has the best interface of them all. Push buttons
| and dials for climate control, two window switches in the
| middle tombstone area and that's really it outside the
| typical steering wheel controls for signals, lights and
| windshield wipers. It's amazingly simple and should
| continue working even when my newer cars are dead and gone.
| ajconway wrote:
| > I do not want my 2 ton moving vehicle updated on a
| whim.
|
| The car won't update itself, so:
|
| 1. Ignore any updates as they become available.
|
| 2. Problem solved.
| MereInterest wrote:
| For devices that connect to the internet, such as for
| updating maps and real-time traffic data, does the lack
| of security updates mean that your 2-ton moving vehicle
| is now somebody else's 2-ton moving vehicle?
| pjmorris wrote:
| Which is actually an argument for non-updatability.
| bsagdiyev wrote:
| Since I cannot directly reply to you (ajconway) -- this
| is thoroughly untrue. Tesla does it at the very least and
| I'm aware that is becoming a "feature" offered in other
| vehicles now too.
| macintux wrote:
| If you click/tap on the time stamp next to a message you
| reach a dedicated page where you can reply (same thing I
| had to do to reply to yours at this conversation depth).
| bsagdiyev wrote:
| Well what do you know, TIL. Thank you!
| datavirtue wrote:
| I always marveled at the competence and refinement of
| automotive interfaces...they killed that shit.
| mizzack wrote:
| Just waiting for the day some enterprising MBA decides it's a
| good idea to add ads.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I've seen ads show up on a (analog) radio's display a long
| time ago already, it'll be coming soon enough.
| datavirtue wrote:
| Already in the works.
| dncornholio wrote:
| I've never been in my car and thought the buttons could use
| an update.. It's hardly something that you should trade
| safety for.
| grishka wrote:
| Updatability is not a good thing. I want my UIs to never
| change without a good reason, and there can't be a good
| reason to change car controls.
| jrockway wrote:
| The change is important during product development, though.
| I think touch screens are a reaction to PMs at car
| companies wanting to make last-minute changes, and being
| told "no, we already spent 10 million dollars on the
| injection molds". Put it in software, then your lazy
| engineers just have to stay late for a month. And if they
| don't finish in time, hey, just fake it in Photoshop for
| the ads and update the UI later!
| grishka wrote:
| I feel like the contribution of project managers to the
| humanity is net negative. UIs, whether on screens or as
| hardware controls, need to be built to suit the human
| body and to not require thinking to operate once one
| develops muscle memory. Every other concern -- including
| aesthetics -- is secondary. Touchscreens in cars are very
| contrary to that because they require visual feedback.
| twic wrote:
| > there can't be a good reason to change car controls
|
| "UI revision 1.23: move the Passenger Seat Blender switch
| further away from the air conditioning controls"
| HidyBush wrote:
| >you can update the UI of a car with a touchscreen but not
| one with buttons
|
| A car is a dependable tool. Changing the UI during a car's
| lifetime is dangerous and unprofessional. I'd say the same is
| true for smartphones and computers but I guess the majority
| of people think of them as simple "cool entertainment
| devices"
| jen20 wrote:
| Speak for yourself. My car gained the ability to display
| directions from CarPlay in the heads-up display overnight,
| while parked in my garage, increasing the value to me
| massively.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| A feature has been added. Has anything changed, though...
| jen20 wrote:
| Sure, lots of things. No regressions I've noticed...
| throwaway98797 wrote:
| let's never improve, let's bifurcate development to support
| old systems
|
| this is a unproductive conservative attitude
|
| no I won't get off your lawn
|
| I've been burned by changing UIs but it's the price we pay
| for progress
| donatj wrote:
| Progress for progress sake is worse than worthless, and
| in the case here it's distracting and dangerous. If it
| ain't broke don't fix it.
| HidyBush wrote:
| >unproductive
|
| tell me more about how updating your car's UI overnight
| can make you more productive
| WickyNilliams wrote:
| Not all movement is progress
| [deleted]
| kottapar wrote:
| > What was even more surprising, to me, is that Mercedes had
| this amazing nice center console unit to control things with
| your arm in a rested position. They removed that piece of
| brilliance!
|
| Mazda also has this beautiful dial-joystick which we can
| operate in a rested position. It is so intuitive that I stopped
| using the touchscreen console itself. On the other hand even
| when we operate using a dial and buttons we take our eyes for
| an instant to look at the screen to check the changes. Now
| imagine looking away at a touchscreen just to see what
| operation to perform etc. This is a major distraction.
| ModernMech wrote:
| Mazda has actually been going in the opposite direction by
| removing their touchscreens; 2016 Mazdas came with
| touchscreens, but the newest models go without. Personally,
| owning a 2016 Mazda I never actually used the touch screen
| once, due to as you note, the great dial interface.
| spcebar wrote:
| BMW at one point had (and may still have) a dial joystick,
| but I found it really unintuitive. Maybe it was poor software
| design, but it was never clear to me when I needed to turn
| the dial vs move the stick to navigate menus. Did you find it
| easier to use the control in the Mazda? Was the UX better?
| tommyderami wrote:
| I think points 1-3 are valid and certainly contribute to the
| decision, but many manufacturers believe that the future of the
| interface is a mixture of voice control (environmental, cabin
| lighting, navigation etc) and manipulation of steering wheel
| controls with HUD feedback (infotainment and everything else).
| Failure to embrace voice interfaces and demanding a button for
| everything is making 'fossils' out of 20-100 year olds. Source:
| I work at one of the big German car manufacturers and have
| mostly drank the 'use voice, don't look off the road' koolaid.
| mrtksn wrote:
| The cars with a lot of buttons simply look outdated and people
| feel bad on choosing a car with a small screen.
|
| The whole marketing is built on it, you get a small screen and
| lots of buttons if you get the basic version of the car and you
| get giant touchscreen if you buy the premium package.
|
| If your new car has a large touchscreen your friends who own 5+
| y.o. car compliment your choice and express jealousy(at the
| time of purchase, most people don't have real world experience
| with touch screens on cars and touch screens are in these
| cutting edge electronics that are expensive, so they must be
| good). If your new car has a small screen you need to explain
| why this was the logical choice and how much you saved.
|
| It's even the same with the iPhone 13 mini. That device is
| amazing, you can use it with one hand and fits in every pocket
| and the screen is actually larger than the first large screen
| iPhone(the iPhone 6) but people will try to understand why you
| bought that one. Are you poor? Why would you buy a tiny phone?
|
| It's very strange, the word on the street is that the larger
| the screen the better. If your $30K product instantly becomes
| much easier to sell when you replace buttons with touchscreens
| without increasing the costs wouldn't you do that? I guess you
| need to have a niche, snobby traditionalist brand to be able to
| reject that demand from the consumers.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| > you need to explain why
|
| You really don't, and the fact that people consider it a
| given that you do says some very bad things about society.
| You should be buying the things that work the best for _you_,
| not the ones that will impress your friends.
| [deleted]
| workingon wrote:
| maybe stop hanging out with narcissistic rich people, no one
| i talk to would ever make comments like that
| mrtksn wrote:
| On the contrary, rich narcissistic people already have the
| touchscreens in their cars. Those who wish their cars had a
| large touchscreen are people who can buy a new car every 5
| to 10 years and they bough 2-3 years ago and didn't pay for
| a touchscreen upgrade.
|
| But maybe the jealousy is a too strong of a word.
| bluGill wrote:
| I have a touchscreen on my 10 year old minivan. 10 years
| old and mini-van both loudly scream that this is not a
| vehicle that you buy to show off. 15 years ago a
| touchscreen was a novelty to show off, but now everyone
| has them.
| badpun wrote:
| > people will try to understand why you bought that one. Are
| you poor? Why would you buy a tiny phone?
|
| I mean, fsck them. If I had people in my life who though like
| that (I don't), I'd get rid of them. If they're family and
| cannot be simply cut off, I'd minimise the contact.
| pc86 wrote:
| The only thing sillier than judging people based on the
| size of their phone is cutting them off or "minimizing
| contact" rather than just explaining to them why they're
| wrong and moving on.
| badpun wrote:
| Have fun explaining to someone why the foundations of
| their life philosopy are wrong/stupid/harmful.
|
| I much prefer to just stick to like-minded people and not
| try to be friends with people where our fundamentals are
| completely at odds.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Sure, my laptop looks outdated with a keyboard. But compared
| to touch screen I'm more productive, faster, make less
| mistake, can wear gloves, don't have to look, can use it in
| sunlight, and it was never unresponsive.
| duncan-donuts wrote:
| Heh funny you mentioned the iPhone 13 mini. I just got a new
| phone and picked the iPhone mini. It's by far my favorite
| phone since the iPhone 5. It's also one of the cheapest new
| iPhones you can get. Like buttons on a dashboard the iPhone
| 13 mini is far and away a better product (for me).
| mrtksn wrote:
| And sells poorly, you can have hard time finding
| accessories for it because it sells poorly. Unfortunately,
| according to the leaks so far, it appears that there won't
| be iPhone 14 mini.
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| > sells poorly...
|
| Relative to other iPhones, yes. I read that it accounts
| for 3% of iphone 13 (Pro, Pro Max, mini, standard) sales.
| The 13 line itself accounts for about 75% of sales. If
| Apple sold 40M phones per quarter, that 120M of the 13
| line, so 3.6M of the 13 Mini. At 699, that's a 2.5BN
| business. Not too shabby.
| thesuitonym wrote:
| Bogus. I love my 12 mini. First phone I've been excited
| about since the Blackberry Priv.
| Silhouette wrote:
| _If your new car has a large touchscreen your friends who own
| 5+ y.o. car compliment your choice and express jealousy_
|
| Does this ever happen? I've never heard anyone express
| jealousy regarding not having a big enough touchscreen in
| their car. I've heard several owners of modern cars with
| touchscreens bemoan how complicated and slow to use they are.
| In my experience _literally no-one_ who actually buys and
| drives cars thinks they are a good idea and many people -
| including myself - are deterred from buying a new model
| specifically because of the technology.
| datavirtue wrote:
| I started buying base versions of cars to get away from the
| trend of shoddy touchscreens with bad software. Even if
| everything is done perfectly I get lost in them...which is
| not a safe feeling.
|
| Honda has features they implemented in some attempt to
| streamline the experience but you still get lost easily.
|
| After having a few vehicles with large touchscreens and
| then buying an F-150 XL to simplify, I can't even describe
| the elated feeling of operating a vehicle where the screen
| does what it's supposed to do with the vital controls all
| being physical. Yeah, I look like peasant but I get to keep
| my sanity.
| alehlopeh wrote:
| I am jealous of people with larger touchscreens in their
| car.
| mrtksn wrote:
| It definitely happens(I know from experience).
|
| The thing is, it's actually really hard to judge quality of
| a design(takes a bachelor degree in Industrial Design and
| masters in related field and a few studies like the one in
| question to objectively evaluate a design). Most people
| like the new trendy one and unfortunately in cars that's a
| large touchscreen.
|
| Don't think of car enthusiast, think people who like the
| car because of the shade of its color and feel of the
| leather - which is most people.
| Silhouette wrote:
| _Don 't think of car enthusiast, think people who like
| the car because of the shade of its color and feel of the
| leather - which is most people._
|
| Those are exactly the people I'm talking about though.
| I'm in the UK - maybe the current culture is different
| here to some other places?
|
| Of course it's also possible that my own experience
| hasn't been representative but I've heard the same story
| so many times for so long now that it's hard to believe
| I've encountered some freak sample of outliers.
| mrtksn wrote:
| I don't know for sure but on most brands you literally
| have to pay more to get the large touchscreen. Don't you
| think that the car manufacturers would put desirable
| features to convince the customer for an upsell?
| parrellel wrote:
| Put in cheap features and then try to make them desirable
| definitely seems to be closer to the reality. Bonus sized
| cheap features definitely goes into that.
|
| Also, chalk me up as someone who has never heard a
| positive thing about car touch screens after a week or so
| of interaction.
| vwcx wrote:
| > Don't think of car enthusiast, think people who like
| the car because of the shade of its color and feel of the
| leather - which is most people.
|
| Precisely. Millions of people (intelligent, rational,
| highly-educated) still buy cars with specific color/trim
| as their primary motivator. Until the trend reverses, a
| screen will continue to be a value-add to any vehicle
| because of the "modern" association.
| salawat wrote:
| >The thing is, it's actually really hard to judge quality
| of a design(takes a bachelor degree in Industrial Design
| and masters in related field and a few studies like the
| one in question to objectively evaluate a design).
|
| Horse hockey. Spend a couple years in Quality Assurance
| with your eyes open. It:s trivial to seperate wheat from
| chaff. The key that your Industrial Design might give you
| insight on is the fact that Industry has decided
| unilaterally that cost to produce > joy of end user in
| use. I.e. if it's cheaper to make and sell, it's higher
| Quality, rather than it's damn good, now lets streamline
| it.
|
| Yes, your process weighs into it, but I assure you, the
| cognitive load of a haptic interface vs a touchscreen is
| so much lower it's absurd to even try to compare. If you
| really care about the end user, you take the time to get
| them buttons, and don't distract them with touchscreen
| finicky BS.
| ryanbrunner wrote:
| I wonder if there's a way to make physical controls feel more
| premium via materials / design. In other consumer goods,
| there's definitely a market for physical design that feels
| more well-engineered with things like using metal and
| thoughtful trim. It's not surprising that people find black
| plastic buttons not particularly premium looking.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Definitely, I believe BMW for example had a big knob that
| just feels padded and luxurious. Same with car interiors;
| thicker padding, better noise insulation (e.g. when closing
| a door) makes things feel more premium.
| fluidcruft wrote:
| It's somewhat interesting because I'm finding that I don't
| find touchscreens particularly "premium" looking. Touch
| screens and LCD screens seem to be everywhere nowadays in
| low-class places and look like obvious cost-cutting like
| Walmart and fast food drive-thru.
|
| Back in the day, you could easily tell the difference
| between an expensive high-quality amplifier and a molded
| piece-of-plastic mass-produced boombox.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| I think the way is to make them configurable. When you
| first setup the car you decide which controls will be
| "exposed" to the hardware knobs. In the winter time you may
| configure a knob to give you heated seats, during the
| summer you reconfigure it to provide max AC in one touch.
|
| Car companies are already kind of doing this, usually just
| a button or two on the steering wheel. But IMO the entire
| dash should be a bunch of blank configurable buttons.
| fluidcruft wrote:
| That might be pretty cool, but a complete nightmare for
| shared/rental cars.
| ghaff wrote:
| The complexity of modern car interfaces--including those
| that use random buttons--is already a massive pain in
| rentals. At least for nav, things like CarPlay
| standardize to some degree. But I frequently find myself
| hunting for all sorts of things on a rental.
| t0mas88 wrote:
| BMW did this in the 7 series and I think some 5 series. A
| row of buttons in the center console that you can choose
| what they do. Unlike old style "preset" buttons they have
| a sensor in them to detect your finger being on the
| button before pressing it, and then it shows at the top
| of the iDrive screen what that button is programmed to
| do. I thought that was quite an elegant way to fix the
| "can't remember what I made this one do" issue you get
| with programmable buttons.
| garaetjjte wrote:
| You could place small e-ink displays on programmable
| buttons.
| lajosbacs wrote:
| I think all of them from the 2010's had this, at least my
| 3 series does.
| lmpdev wrote:
| I see this occuring through material choice, see:
| https://www.busterandpunch.com/
| mrtksn wrote:
| European, especially the German brands are very good at
| that. The sound and the feel of buttons and switches are
| known to feel premium.
|
| Actually, Porsche Taycan apparently has an amazing knob.
| MKBHD was very impressed by it[0].
|
| [0] https://youtu.be/BAZX9p2oGOg?t=631
| eps wrote:
| Top of the line S6 comes with glossy plastic buttons on
| the steering wheel. Extremely cheap look and feel. No
| idea what they were thinking.
| croes wrote:
| So instead of the whiteness and type of your business card
| it's now the size of your touchscreen.
| croes wrote:
| If you need to showboat you are not rich
| mrtksn wrote:
| Most people are not rich and car companies want to sell as
| many cars as possible, which means they need to sell it to
| the most people who are not rich.
| 734129837261 wrote:
| Most people who aren't rich are poor because they showboat.
| DrBazza wrote:
| > What was even more surprising, to me, is that Mercedes had
| this amazing nice center console unit to control things with
| your arm in a rested position. They removed that piece of
| brilliance!
|
| My MB is a UX disaster.
|
| Have a guess how many controls there are in the car for
| navigating the (non-touch!) screen?
|
| 1? Nope. 2? Nope. 3? Yes 3. A touch surface in the centre
| console, a spinning wheel in the centre console (which is also
| a joystick), and finally a little joystick thing on the
| steering wheel.
|
| Volume controllers? 2.
|
| And don't get me started on how dangerously absurd it is trying
| to switch between MB's own system and Apple Carplay/Google Auto
| whilst driving.
| emiliobumachar wrote:
| 5. Backup cameras. They're legally required in some
| jurisdictions (so I heard), and genuinely contribute to safety,
| but they require a screen. Once the screen is there, there's
| both less space for buttons and a virtual hook for features.
| ModernMech wrote:
| These days the instrument cluster is being displayed with an
| lcd. It could be used for the backup camera and wouldn't be
| practical to be a touchscreen.
| badwolf wrote:
| in addition, my Volvo does a "360" view, which is pretty darn
| useful for parking.
| Sander_Marechal wrote:
| My Nissan Qashqai has it too. I absolutely love that 360
| view and will never buy another car without it. It makes
| parking sooo much easier.
| benj111 wrote:
| You can just use the screen for infotainment and satnav
| though.
|
| I already have a screen showing what radio station is
| playing, and one on the dash telling me where to go. If a
| screen is required for a backup camera, just combine it. If
| I'm reversing I probably don't need the satnav anyway,
| whereas if I'm reversing or using satnav I probably do need
| other functions which just means you need an even bigger
| screen so you can fit everything on.
| emiliobumachar wrote:
| You're absolutely right, but my point is that the minimum
| number of screens is no longer zero.
| bluGill wrote:
| Sure, but the screen need not have any touch
| capabilities. It doesn't need to be large either. A 2
| inch screen is large enough for the camera functions.
| kylecordes wrote:
| I have been surprised to learn that regulations only require
| that the backup camera turn on when you go into reverse; not
| that it stay on while you are in reverse. Some cars let you
| navigate away from the backup view even while moving
| backward.
|
| There is so much opportunity for _better_ regulation, without
| making more numerous regulations.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Are you telling me you don't need to find the exact right
| backing up tune?
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| _Don't Look Back_ , Boston
| rohansingh wrote:
| I've seen the backup camera integrated into the rearview
| mirror in some vehicles. That doesn't have either of those
| drawbacks.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| All cool until there's a wall or something like that
| starting right at the height of the roof. Can't see it in
| the camera but can in the mirror. Most cars with rear view
| cameras even warn: don't reverse by relying on camera only.
| donkeyd wrote:
| This is true for many things, but mostly the ones you use often
| while driving. Windscreen wipers, temperature, volume, yes. Much
| of that, however, can be done on the steering wheel already.
|
| What annoys me is that many manufacturers are still adding as
| many buttons as possible as some form of luxury. Seat memory
| buttons in the door that you only use once per drive max, can
| easily be added to a screen (or smart, through key recognition).
| This adds a much larger number of options too. There are other
| options like this too that would be much better suited for
| screens than buttons.
|
| I wish that, in stead of picking 'buttons or screens' as the
| options for cars, manufacturers will start looking at the best
| choice for specific functionality in stead of continuing how they
| are right now.
| jen20 wrote:
| Seat adjusters need to be available from the OUTSIDE, not from
| the screen... otherwise a tall person cannot physically get
| into the far to adjust the seat after a short person has been
| driving, unless they remember to reset it.
| tzs wrote:
| That's easy to fix. Just add a camera that looks at the
| person who is trying to get in, estimate their height and
| perhaps other things like their body shape and arm lengths
| from the image, and automatically adjust the seat. On the
| luxury models also add a weight sensor on the floor in front
| of the driver, and as they step in estimate their weight and
| adjust seat firmness.
|
| I am of course joking, but sadly I would not be surprised if
| at least one manufacturer actually tried something like that
| if they decided to fix the problem of the previous driver not
| resetting the seat.
| jen20 wrote:
| Many of them make the seat position selectable based on the
| key fob used to unlock the car - this is order qualifying
| in anything I buy these days.
| andrewla wrote:
| Agree strongly. For things like vehicle status or
| configuration, the touchscreens are far superior to the old
| method of strange things like holding down the "unlock" button
| on the driver door for ten seconds and then pressing lock twice
| to enable flashing headlights when remote locking the car, or
| messing with the fuse panel for the same purposes.
|
| Configuration settings like "always try bluetooth first for
| audio and just wait for it to connect instead of falling back
| to FM radio" are too subtle to be done by switches, and seat
| adjustments seem like another easy one where better UI would
| make a big difference.
|
| At the same time, I think if it could be done securely [1] then
| having an app-based configuration would be much better; like
| configuring a consumer router or similar. You just use an app
| or a browser on your phone to make all the necessary static
| settings for your car, and the car then needs very little
| interactive UI.
|
| [1] Although most likely it cannot be done securely. Cars are
| too mission-critical to move very far down the
| security/usability tradeoff curve.
| titzer wrote:
| I have nothing against an interface with menus, but nothing
| can beat physical buttons for input, IMHO. Put 4 pushbuttons
| down each side of a screen, have a set of hierarchical menu
| options that I can memorize, and that's the best of both
| worlds. Those buttons near the screen are fine to have
| overloaded functionality.
|
| For critical things like all the normal vehicle functions,
| they should have dedicated controls that aren't overloaded.
|
| Oh, and a big damn volume knob that shuts off the
| radio/entertainment system.
| lttlrck wrote:
| Seats controls need to be accessible from outside the car,
| before it is started.
|
| Key recognition is great, unless you took the wrong key, or
| swap drivers...
| dusted wrote:
| Water wetter than air, test finds
| spotlesstofu wrote:
| The automotive industry is moving to self driving cars. Screens
| will be needed for entertainment and trip planning. You won't
| need simple physical buttons to quickly actuate while you're
| driving, since you won't be driving. The car will drive. You'll
| be a passenger like on a plane for most of the time.
|
| I like physical buttons and dislike cars :)
| masswerk wrote:
| I don't believe the mantra. Not every road is in the US and
| there are more driving scenarios than highways. There's a long
| way to go until self driving cars will be able to master the
| tiny streets and complex (behavioral) patterns fond, say, in a
| medieval Italian town. And there is more to driving and the car
| as a product than just commute. Will BMW change the slogan from
| "aus Freude am Fahren" to "play Solitaire while being bored?" I
| think, manual driving will be always at least an option. And,
| if self driving really becomes a sorted thing, it's the manual
| driving option that will define a car as a product.
| spotlesstofu wrote:
| Cars are being banned from towns and city centres. You
| shouldn't listen to car slogans/commercials, they sell a
| reality that can't exist.
| masswerk wrote:
| Not so sure about those medieval towns: you can't navigate
| them by bus, anything rail-related is out of question for
| the terrain, but transport is still essential. It won't be
| internal combustion engines, but still cars.
| spotlesstofu wrote:
| Could you make an example? In any town I know that
| stepped away from cars, you can easily go around on
| foot/bike/wheelchair. I don't see how the same wouldn't
| be feasible on other towns too
| reader_x wrote:
| Re:long term costs for maintenance, seems like there should be a
| secondary market for 3D-printing replacement knobs, buttons, and
| related parts. No inventory needed. Especially if the knob
| designers had that in mind at the outset.
| chestervonwinch wrote:
| I would love what you describe. Producers would have to design
| and manufacture like this from the outset (like you said) but
| also open source their CAD files.
|
| There's already a market for these things. But the prices are
| often crazy high because the supply is limited to the parts
| that people are able to get from scrapped vehicles. For
| example, see this $200 plastic radio bezel for a 1995 Toyota:
| https://www.ebay.com/itm/264805497008
| nebulous1 wrote:
| Toughts on touch screens aside, I think they needed to include
| more than one button-only car if they wanted to title the article
| like that. Mostly they were just testing different touch screen
| cars against each other.
| nakedrobot2 wrote:
| Sorry but my only reaction to this can possibly be, "No Shit!"
| mirkodrummer wrote:
| Not a surprise to me! I resonate a lot with the study findings,
| sometimes I just dream of a world with high precision physical
| devices(buttons, high precision geared wheels) for using
| productivity apps but also for filling out forms of everyday
| life. Being mostly a UI developer I believe touch screen
| interfaces need to be researched better, we can't just produce
| nicer and nicer animations to give some feedback, they still feel
| annoying and every ui is designed and developed by different
| thinkers and everyone has its quirks. I don't know as I user I
| just have the feeling that a geared wheel or a big pushy button
| could let me feel more productive. As a developer I would love to
| just listen to the click event of a button I haven't designed
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