[HN Gopher] Touchscreens are out, and tactile controls are back
___________________________________________________________________
Touchscreens are out, and tactile controls are back
Author : pseudolus
Score : 654 points
Date : 2024-11-03 14:29 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (spectrum.ieee.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (spectrum.ieee.org)
| gatane wrote:
| Hell yeah, buttons are back baby
| andsoitis wrote:
| Conspiracy by button manufacturers!
|
| More seriously, there are tradeoffs either way. Physical knobs
| give great feedback, require less cognitive load, and remain
| fixed. The latter is also where touch screens shine - the UI can
| evolve over time.
|
| In some settings touch screens are superior to physical buttons
| and in other scenarios it is the reverse.
|
| Choose the right button for the job.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > Choose the right button for the job.
|
| I think that the problem comes with what the article mentions
| in the first paragraph--there are some places where UI might
| evolve with time, but my kitchen appliances, my washing
| machine, and much of my car are not places where I expect new
| UI paradigms, or want them if somebody dreams one up. Sure, the
| pendulum will eventually swing back again the other way to too
| much skeumorphism, but for now I'm going to push reflexively
| for physical buttons first, and ask questions later.
| ctoth wrote:
| Why would I ever want my oven or stove to evolve over time?
| alamortsubite wrote:
| Not you, your overlords.
| greenchair wrote:
| oven overlords
| drivers99 wrote:
| ovenshitification
| beezlewax wrote:
| How can you get your clients to pay an oven subscription
| otherwise?
| superposeur wrote:
| Truly a vision of dystopia.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| You don't want your oven to play ads for the latest
| peppermint and pineapple flavoured chicken tenders?
| xxr wrote:
| Cooks love the sense of pride and accomplishment they feel
| when they unlock new modes and temperatures, and they really
| go nuts over learning about exciting new products and
| services by the appliance's partners in a way that is
| uniquely targeted to them /s
| mmooss wrote:
| I think some people would like that. The first would have
| to be an opt-in option, of course. I wouldn't like the
| latter, but most of the world isn't on HN and accept ads
| everywhere. An ad for the right bottle of wine to accompany
| the meal, etc., might be appreciated.
| LocalH wrote:
| > The latter is also where touch screens shine - the UI can
| evolve over time.
|
| This is not necessarily a benefit. Such interfaces often break
| muscle memory when they change, often with no choice to the
| user. At least manufacturers can't come in when you have
| physical controls and suddenly replace your control panel
| without consent because they have a "better" one.
| frde_me wrote:
| Quite honestly, as long as the UX is _actually_ improving,
| I'm completely fine with having to adapt. I don't want to
| live in a world where things stay the same just because it's
| comfortable.
|
| Having said that, at least 50% of the time that people change
| the experience, it makes it worst. So I agree that for
| companies that don't know how to design interfaces, this is
| maybe a benefit.
| wannacboatmovie wrote:
| Evolve? Or let a faceless company disrupt my workflow when they
| bundle UI "enhancements" with security updates?
| Rygian wrote:
| s/my workflow/me driving down a highway at deadly speeds/
| BoingBoomTschak wrote:
| >The latter is also where touch screens shine - the UI can
| evolve over time.
|
| I think that also serves as a perverse incentive: no need to
| make it as perfect as possible the first time, you can always
| fix it later! Tech debt, coming to the controls of your moving
| 1~2 tons of metal, f yeah!
| meindnoch wrote:
| Touchscreens are a viable alternative to buttons only if the
| system can react to touches within at most 500ms. We have
| enough evidence now to conclude that only Apple and Google
| engineers are capable of such an undertaking. Everyone else
| should stick to physical buttons.
| lomase wrote:
| For context I did development with a Teensy board and the
| library I was using for physical buttons claims to have 20
| nanoseconds latency using the CPU interrupts.
| pdimitar wrote:
| UI can evolve over time -- for appliances that need it. Almost
| none of them need it, and always always the "UI enhancements"
| are stuff nobody asked for, like 24/7 telemetry to servers that
| are gods know where.
|
| No thanks.
|
| Another commenter beat me to it but I'll just join him to
| reinforce their point: UI changes also break muscle which is
| something extremely important to have in a car and in your home
| appliances. People just don't enjoy relearning their own
| machines when they expect the job to be done with minimal
| cognitive overhead.
| MiddleEndian wrote:
| >The latter is also where touch screens shine - the UI can
| evolve over time.
|
| Yeah no thanks.
| croisillon wrote:
| building kitchen appliances has been an incredible journey but
| we will be sunsetting all your appliances within 30 days,
| thanks for believing in us!
| snapcaster wrote:
| Can you point to a single instance where the UI scheme for _an
| appliance_ was evolved over time in a way consumers like? I
| understand what you're saying is theoretically possible I just
| can't think of any instance in which it happened
| parasubvert wrote:
| TVs evolved from knobs on the device to buttons on a remote
| (or touchscreen).
|
| Washing machines evolved from finicky one way turn relay
| knobs to tactile bidirectional digital knobs with buttons for
| options (like extra rinses, prewash, temperature, etc)
|
| VCRs used to be so unusable they'd blink 12:00 because no one
| knew how to set the time. BluRay players and PVRs put
| everything on screen accessible via remote or mobile app.
|
| Smart door locks make it very easy to lock/unlock a door via
| phone or watch vs futzing with keys that can be easily lost
| possibly requiring a new lock. Much better for guests or
| families.
|
| Old dial or even digital thermostats were nearly impossible
| to properly schedule, modern digital thermostats use phones
| or websites, much easier (and also visualizes all your HVAC
| stats!)
|
| Smart lights let you group lights together independent of
| power wiring, change colors, etc
|
| Japanese in-seat toilet bidets with dashboards or remote are
| masterful compared to traditional bidets with faucets.
|
| Single lever faucets vs separate dial faucets for hot/cold
| water
| snapcaster wrote:
| But those are all hardware changes right? besides the smart
| lock? Of course changing the hardware fundamentally will
| require a different UI but i meant for the same device
| JadeNB wrote:
| > home appliances like stoves and washing machines are returning
| to knobs
|
| It can't come a bit too soon. My oven has buttons that aren't
| actually raised from their surroundings, and presses are
| registered via some sort of presumably fancy processing that I
| guess sounded slick when it was being pitched, but in practice
| means that it's very, very difficult to be confident that a
| button press will do anything, especially when fingers are greasy
| from cooking.
|
| Oh, and sometimes whatever processor it's using gets frozen up,
| so I have to turn it off and back on again. But, since it's
| hardwired, this involves toggling a fuse. I'm sure that there are
| many ways that this is a better oven than the one in the many-
| decades-old apartment where I used to live, but I never had to
| re-boot that oven.
| jsheard wrote:
| > presumably fancy processing that I guess sounded slick
|
| I'm pretty sure that capacitive touch sensing is just cheaper
| than physical interfaces, it's more to do with corner cutting
| than being slick. All you need to create a capsense "button" is
| some traces on a PCB, they're essentially free if you're making
| a PCB anyway.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > I'm pretty sure that capacitive touch sensing is just
| cheaper than physical interfaces, it's more to do with corner
| cutting than being slick. All you need to create a capsense
| "button" is some traces on a PCB, they're essentially free if
| you're making a PCB anyway.
|
| That makes sense. Thanks!
| Zanfa wrote:
| I love how my stove's capacitive buttons sometimes don't
| register when I'm using one hand to stir with a conductive
| spatula while trying to turn down the temp with the other until
| I let go of the spatula.
| bitwize wrote:
| Dishwasher, same thing. Half the time it won't register a press
| when I need it to turn on. Yet the cat can start a cycle when
| he decides he wants to have a climb.
| brudgers wrote:
| Hardware is a useful abstraction.
| rkagerer wrote:
| Finally
| m348e912 wrote:
| One thing that would really get me to consider buying a Tesla is
| to add a few high quality _assignable_ knobs and controls that I
| could configure to control radio volume, heat, or whatever
| function I'd like. (within reason)
|
| Oh and real indicator stalks, that would be nice too.
| GenerWork wrote:
| Enhance Auto has intriguing products that may be right up your
| alley[0]. That being said, they're obviously aftermarket and
| not OEM. Last I heard they were working on aftermarket stalks,
| but I'm not sure where they're at on that project.
|
| [0] https://enhauto.com/knob
| amluto wrote:
| They lost me at:
|
| > The S3XY Knob comes with a Gen2 Commander, which adds
| unique automation to your Tesla, such as automatically
| restarting your Autopilot after a lane change and _turning
| off the wipers during AP drives_. [emphasis added]
|
| At what point should a company that builds products like that
| be liable for the damages they encourage?
|
| For that matter, reckless endangerment and involuntary
| manslaughter are crimes in many jurisdictions.
| modeless wrote:
| There are some third party buttons like that:
| https://www.google.com/search?q=tesla+buttons
| djaychela wrote:
| > Oh and real indicator stalks, that would be nice too.
|
| IMO that should be the law.
| electriclove wrote:
| Nah, let the market decide
| m463 wrote:
| People with older teslas don't want to get the new ones.
|
| They did away with all the stalks. The car guesses which
| direction you want to drive. Turn signals are buttons on the
| (rotating) steering wheel (or yoke).
|
| The worst is that the touchscreen has very tiny targets.
| There's nowhere to rest your hands, you have to stab at them
| from the driver's seat (in a moving car) sigh.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Tom Paris was right.
| lwn wrote:
| As a synthesizer enthusiast, I'm excited to read about this. A
| well-designed button layout on a synth sparks my creativity.
| Tweaking knobs on a touchscreen doesn't work for me because I
| constantly have to check the screen to make sure my fingers are
| on the right control.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| A poorly designed synth doesn't generally cause a car accident
| though, far less of a legislative impetus to stop softwaring
| everything in synth-land =)
| wigster wrote:
| i'd argue the interface on the old yamaha dx synths with FM
| synthesis was a bit of a car crash
|
| I certainly never got my brain round them.
|
| ;-)
| JodieBenitez wrote:
| Going full OT here but... Yamaha's DX synths had major
| impact on music. And there are lots of great FM synths
| nowadays with excellent interfaces. See
| https://www.twistedelectrons.com/twistfm and
| https://elektron.se/explore/digitone-ii
| motohagiography wrote:
| the obvious consequence of electric vehicles is live
| configurable filters and patches for performance tuning. I want
| an ADSR for my accelerator in different modes. give me an EQ
| for acceleration and braking, along with a feedback cycle for
| cruising, and the era of performance personalization will be
| huge.
|
| I would buy a tesla instantly if you gave me a eurorack
| dashboard insert!
|
| eurorack module designers have moved hardware interface design
| to where they can create intuitive design languages as well.
| Nition wrote:
| Plus of course, you'd be allowed to swap out the pedestrian-
| warning spacehip noise that EVs make at low speeds with a
| synth creation of your own.
| qwertox wrote:
| Its so great when you know where the buttons are located, that
| you can touch them in the darkness without them suddenly
| selecting anything. When you need to make sure "is this the
| second one from the left?", then apply some force to actually
| change its value.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Ah but have you tried the conductive touch pads on the Strega
| that make your body's conductive properties a human patch
| cable?
| cbzbc wrote:
| Similarly, I find mixing on a tablet slower than mixing on a
| console with tactile controls - because you can do things like
| change multiple things by different degrees at once (you don't
| have to look at both controls to ensure your fingers are
| tracking) and adjust a control while looking at the stafe.
| Dwedit wrote:
| The worst of both worlds is Touch Buttons. No screen, just a
| touch-sensitive surface that's divided into areas that activate
| upon any kind of skin contact, whether intentional or not.
|
| I always see my dishwasher having some bizarre setting active
| because of accidental contact with a touch button.
| schmidtleonard wrote:
| Don't forget to pair the Touch Button with a Minimalist design
| that gives no indication if a button has been pressed!
|
| Bonus points for a big long click buffer and strange multi-
| click semantics so that once the computer unfreezes your
| attempts at diagnostics are redirected into messing up the
| state in weird and wonderful ways that you will have to unpack
| over the next week.
| K0balt wrote:
| Don't forget the Uber-minimalist aesthetic, where there are
| no markings or textures to designate the touch regions, but
| instead you just touch or swipe different parts of the object
| for different functionality. That's my favourite, especially
| after you haven't used something for a few months.
|
| Bonus points if a firmware update changes the invisible
| control layout.
| schmidtleonard wrote:
| Hell yeah! Let's change the active region to the upper left
| corner of the hamburger symbol and make sure that the
| hieroglyph itself doesn't reflect this in any way.
|
| Dear Satan, I believe now would be a good time to discuss
| the subject of a raise!
| glenneroo wrote:
| Samsung used to do this for some of their cheaper monitors.
| I remember I bought a couple of them for one of my early
| dual-screen setups (15+ years ago) and every day I would
| slowly and gently run my finger along the entire length of
| the monitor until it would power on. It had to be slow
| otherwise there was a chance I would power it off again
| going back the other direction. Even more fun because after
| turning it on, I would slide past some other button,
| unintentionally opening some menu and changing some random
| settings (most commonly changing the input from DVI to
| something else). If I was lucky, I would power it off after
| changing something and wonder why it wasn't powering on
| again (note: it was powered on, but set to the wrong
| input). How that monitor got past Q&A I will never
| understand. IIRC the buttons had tiny, nearly invisible
| (light grey on black) icon labels... I used to keep a
| flashlight on my table so I could figure out which
| invisible button to press to get things working again.
| corytheboyd wrote:
| A tiny amount of water getting on these buttons can make them
| go nuts too... I absolutely hate the electric stove ranges with
| surface touch buttons... as if those never get water on them...
| lrasinen wrote:
| Or cats. Waking up in the middle of the night because the
| stove is beeping is not my favorite thing.
| fwip wrote:
| Not as dangerous as a stove, but the Xbox One had a
| capacitive on-off button. Turns out the dog could turn it
| off just by his fur touching it when walking by it.
| drivers99 wrote:
| Same with my apartment's smart lock. The deadbolt gets extended
| accidentally while the door is open when someone brushes
| against the panel from the outside and you have to reach around
| the door to retract it.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| The worst variation I've ever seen, courtesy of r/CrappyDesign:
| _My oven uses a touchscreen, so whenever I open it, steam gets
| on the touchscreen and messes with the settings._
|
| http://web.archive.org/web/20210509153031/https://www.reddit...
| qwertox wrote:
| Wow, this is definitely the worst example. At least it's not
| in a security sensitive context.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Makes you wonder if anyone at the company ever even tested
| it with food in the oven
| MaxikCZ wrote:
| I dont mind the fact that they havent tested it with
| food, but I cant understand how they never recalled every
| single unit after noticing it for the first time.
|
| Its like they see it, and be like "Ah, everyone who
| bought it got screwed over, and it will hurt our brand,
| but its still cheaper to quietly ignore it". Despisable
| arp242 wrote:
| Usually what happens is that it's tested under ideal "lab
| conditions", so this never happens. In real life ovens
| get a bit grimy and produce more smoke. Stuff like that.
| Still shoddy engineering of course.
|
| It's the same with designers doing their light-grey text
| on a white background with their 8K colour-perfect screen
| in optimal lighting conditions, and then when you point
| out this is difficult to read they go "I don't see the
| problem!"
| f1shy wrote:
| Oh yes... never buy a Miele oven with touch buttons
| vdvsvwvwvwvwv wrote:
| Same with Bosch.
|
| Two problems:
|
| Buttons stopped working after warranty expired so had to
| pay for a service call to have it fixed. Luckily no parts
| were needed. I don't recall the reason right now.
|
| It has a spinny disc, so like a potentiometer but not. It
| is a flat removable ring and behind it it uses a touch
| button of sorts
|
| You have to pull it off amd clean it before every use for
| it to work and when it does work it is very fiddly to use.
| vvpan wrote:
| Same for Smeg.
| lukeh wrote:
| We have a Smeg oven, not with touchscreen controls, but
| with two pushable knobs that are easily pressed (thus
| starting the oven) by brushing past them. This oven has
| the worst user experience of anything, hardware or
| software, I've even used.
| x3n0ph3n3 wrote:
| I have that same control panel, but on an oven/microwave
| combo. It's truly horrible.
| raydev wrote:
| Our new house came with a new Samsung dishwasher that had
| touch controls along the top lip of the door, and the door
| popped open at the end of every wash to let steam out.
| Imagine heated clouds of water passing over the panel every
| time. The panel started acting strangely/inconsistently
| within 3 years, and then by year 4 it was dead.
| ted_bunny wrote:
| Some of these flaws are crazy. Do companies release products
| without actually trying them out?
| rkuska wrote:
| I spent (5y ago) so much time searching for induction stove
| with physical knobs. The touch interface at my previous place
| was driving me crazy, a slight misalidgment and the stove would
| beep like it's end of the world. Luckily Miele produces some at
| the premium price (or was at the time) but I considered it an
| investment in my mental health.
| lolinder wrote:
| A touch interface on the stove seems like the canonical
| example of a straightforwardly bad idea. Sure, let's use a
| capacitive touch interface to control the most dangerous
| appliance in the kitchen, one which also happens to
| frequently be the most humid spot and also the most likely to
| feature splashed oil! What could possibly go wrong?
| scotty79 wrote:
| I actually love that I can easily wipe everything when it's
| dirty. I'd hate cleaning knobs and most of the tactile
| buttons.
|
| Some touch controls are incredibly good at filtering false
| inputs. Unfortunately you can't tell which.
| rrix2 wrote:
| > I actually love that I can easily wipe everything when
| it's dirty. I'd hate cleaning knobs and most of the
| tactile buttons.
|
| the knobs on my manually operated range pull right off
| their posts and go soak in the sink with some soap and
| hot water once a week while i spray the range's control
| surface with whatever spray cleaner and wipe it off with
| every other flat surface in my kitchen.
|
| after ten or fifteen minutes of soaking, anything left on
| the knobs fall off with a dry rag that goes in the cloth
| washer afterwards.
| lolinder wrote:
| Yep, every knob I've ever had on a stove works this way
| and makes them trivial to clean. In the meantime, during
| regular use they're guaranteed to never stop functioning
| because they got wet or oily.
| ninkendo wrote:
| I'm in full agreement with everyone here who hates touch
| screens, and I also spent a long time looking for
| induction ranges with physical knobs (IIRC there was only
| one model in the universe with them), and was so mad that
| I had to get one with touch buttons...
|
| But I gotta say, the ability to just simply wipe the
| whole stove surface with a towel and be done has more
| than made up for the touch buttons sucking.
|
| With physical knobs: Take knobs off and soak them, use a
| towel and wipe a circle around the nub that's left, try
| not to leave a circular streak pattern, put knobs back.
| Or just wipe the knobs with the towel and get close
| enough on the surface.
|
| Touch buttons: wipe the whole thing in big strokes,
| you're done.
|
| I clean the whole surface after every use now, because
| it's just so damned easy.
| masfuerte wrote:
| You can have both. My mother's induction cooker has a
| flat top and knobs on the front. It's easy to clean and
| easy to operate.
| ninkendo wrote:
| I think that was the one model in the universe I was
| referring to. I don't have the layout in my kitchen to
| put knobs in the front, my stovetop has to fit in a
| pretty well-defined area. Knobs in the front would have
| been totally ideal.
| Dwedit wrote:
| You can easily wipe a membrane keypad clean. Those
| require force to trigger the buttons, so they are not at
| all like touch buttons.
| redwall_hp wrote:
| My favorite design issue with those: capacitive burner
| controls on the cooking surface mean you can spill
| something on them and be unable to turn the heat off to
| clean the thing keeping you from turning the heat off.
| kubik369 wrote:
| Have you encountered any that work like this? In my small
| sample (n~5, Europe), all capacitive cooktops turn off
| whenever you spill something on the controls.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| Totally agree. The controllability of my Nef induction hobs
| was excellent, but the controls were horrendous. E.g. going
| from a level 9 rapid heat-up to a level 2 simmer is seven
| distinct touches. Each with an annoying beep. Related to this
| is the lack of a single-tap hob-off for an individual hob.
|
| For medical reasons [1] I had to transition from the
| induction hob to a ceramic hob, and had to choose the Nef
| equivalent because it had the same physical footprint. So now
| I have the same crap controls with much worse response time
| to the control inputs themselves. The ceramic hob also can't
| detect when a pan has been removed so will leave a hob
| dangerously hot but not glowing. I've got used to it now but
| it is very frustrating and still catches me out sometimes.
|
| [1] I have an implanted defibrillator whose sensor is nulled
| out by an inductions hob's magnetic fields.
| James_K wrote:
| A lot of people don't realise that you can push both the up
| and down button at the same time to set a hob ring to zero
| intensity. So level 9 to level 2 is actually just three
| presses.
| vdvsvwvwvwvwv wrote:
| On mine 2 back to 9 is 7 presses. Use case: adding more
| water to rice.
| tpxl wrote:
| Maybe yes, maybe no. Parents stove does that, mine does
| not. Getting a burner to 1 out of 9 takes a stupid amount
| of time (~15 seconds).
| KineticLensman wrote:
| Tried this, thanks, but unfortunately it just makes its
| error beep
| scotty79 wrote:
| I'm currently using Miele with touch controls but it's really
| good at filtering out false inputs. I have no problem
| whatsoever even with my messy cooking.
|
| Too bad you have no way of telling how good controls are in a
| product before you start using them.
| duckmysick wrote:
| What's your model?
| scotty79 wrote:
| I'm away for few days. When I'm back, I'll check.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Of all things, it's a novel kind of stove with the
| distinctive feature that you can place a piece of plastic
| just next to the food and it will work fine... Why no
| designer wants to exploit that feature?
| m463 wrote:
| The Breville Control Freak is pretty cool (but _horrendously_
| expensive)
| yurishimo wrote:
| Owning 4 of these would be untenable!
| notfed wrote:
| This has a touch screen?
| twobitshifter wrote:
| https://www.impulselabs.com/
|
| This is a cool one with knobs that can be removed. Never used
| one, but I liked the idea.
| computator wrote:
| Love it. Removable magnetic buttons with flat flush surface
| underneath that's just as easy to clean as a touch surface.
| The only downside is the possibility of losing the knobs.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| I raised this topic yesterday in another thread1 as well. I'm
| currently eyeing stoves like this:
|
| https://media.s-bol.com/qn6AyQBAxA33/lYREMLg/1198x1200.jpg
|
| (https://etna.nl/keukenapparatuur/fi590zwa/)
|
| As I'll be remodelling the kitchen in any case, going to a
| stand-alone appliance is fine by me.
|
| There are several models with knobs out there now. It seems
| to have been picked up as a premium feature.
|
| 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42025123#42025336
| r_klancer wrote:
| I had this criterion too.
|
| Fortunately by last year the this Cafe (GE) double oven
| induction range was available here in the US:
| https://www.cafeappliances.com/appliance/Cafe-30-Smart-
| Slide... I have a few quibbles (mainly, that only one of the
| burners is properly sized for a 12" skillet) but overall I
| like it.
|
| I don't mind the touch buttons for operating the oven and
| timers--in fact, they're nice and easy to clean (with a handy
| "lock screen" feature so you can spray and wipe down the
| front panel without everything going nuts) but I'm pretty
| sure trying to fine tune the burner settings using a touch
| slider while keeping an eye on multiple pans would have
| driven me nuts. I also have haven't had problems with the
| knobs getting dirty or being hard to wipe down if they do, to
| address a point raised in another reply.
|
| Price splits the difference between the entry level ranges
| and the snobby brands (Miele, Thermador, etc).
| walthamstow wrote:
| I think you'd have to get a plug-in one, which depending on
| your local voltage might not be ideal. The commercial ones
| made by Buffalo have one big knob but are pricey. Tefal make
| a PS100 domestic one with actual buttons.
| matsemann wrote:
| A peugeot (e308?) I rented for a few weeks had that. Absolutely
| bonkers. When driving I normally feel my way ("max heating to
| get rid of fog is the third button to the left"), but with this
| I would also activate all other kinds of stuff all the time.
|
| Recently changed offices at work. The new one has the same kind
| of buttons for the keypad. Just a flat surface with 9 numbers.
| I accidentally double press all the time, as it's hard to feel
| with no tactile feedback what you're doing and it's a bit
| delayed in the "beeps". So then you have to wait a few seconds
| and try again. Drives me mad.
| Moru wrote:
| A friends appartment building had had a keypad lock installed
| a few years ago. Nice physical buttons. I swear the lock
| opened before I pressed the last number of the code, that
| fast. Sadly they changed it to an even newer lock system a
| couple of months ago. Now it's still physical buttons but the
| unlocking takes a couple of seconds and is totaly quiet. So
| you try to open the door and nothing happens. And then you
| try again and then it works. The friend often gets calls from
| visitors asking what the code was again because they can't
| get in. UX seems to be hard even without mixing in touch-
| controls.
| jhickok wrote:
| See the Dell XPS https://imgur.com/KbOXGYa
| sedatk wrote:
| That's the only reason I didn't buy this otherwise a great
| laptop. I guess they're "testing the market" for new
| gimmicks.
| jhickok wrote:
| It's pretty much the perfect linux laptop for me, but I
| will never willingly a laptop with a function row like
| that. A non-tactile ESC key is especially head-scratching.
| m463 wrote:
| The worst is the dishwasher buttons/lights on the edge of the
| door so you can't look at them without opening it. What is this
| stupid trend?
| Dwedit wrote:
| While my dishwasher has the "buttons" at the top of the door,
| it puts the light on the bottom, so it shines on the floor.
| Little red dot. Cats like that dot.
| pants2 wrote:
| My dishwasher has buttons on the top like this, and during
| the heat dry cycle the steam will activate the buttons and
| I'll hear lots of random beeps from the kitchen. Ponce in a
| while it manages to cancel or restart itself, hilariously bad
| design.
| s0rce wrote:
| My induction cooktop has the worst touch buttons that constant
| beep and sense pots, tongs or other stuff as well. Very
| annoying.
| mmooss wrote:
| Easier to clean - no nooks or crannies.
| sedatk wrote:
| I hate my dishwasher's touch buttons (Bosch 800 series) because
| of that. The amount of pressure you need to press a button is
| always ambiguous, so sometimes you press it too short and you
| have to press it again. Sometimes, the button registers, but
| you think you need to press it again, so you effectively cancel
| it, and must do it again. Worst UX ever.
| marssaxman wrote:
| The security keypads at work use this terrible design: it's
| just a flat plastic panel with no moving parts. You have to
| push the numbers to enter your PIN, but with no buttons, and no
| mechanical feedback, you can't just _type_ the number in: you
| have to PRESS... EACH... SPOT... AND... HOLD... while the laggy
| touch system takes its time registering your input. A daily
| irritation!
| 6yyyyyy wrote:
| These capacitive buttons are actually super cheap, a lot of
| microcontrollers have this function built-in so the buttons are
| effectively free, just an extra pad on the PCB.
| josefrichter wrote:
| Interestingly, almost all designers know that touch screens in
| cars are bad idea. They always knew it. Bit for some reason, the
| designers in automotive industry were the only ones who didn't
| know. It's a mystery.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Cost. They put them in to save money. It's not a mystery at
| all. Plumbing wires for a bunch of analog switches is more
| expensive than one databus, and then there is the simplicity of
| turning your hardware problem into a software one.
| jsd1982 wrote:
| A touchscreen with an entire software engineering department
| behind its software is cheaper than buttons?
| MostlyStable wrote:
| Evidence suggests that their engineering teams are either
| not that big or not that good given how garbage most
| vehicle UI/software is, and it's a price you pay (mostly)
| once per touchscreen software design, which will span
| several models, where as the component + install cost needs
| to be paid for every vehicle in perpetuity.
| daniel_reetz wrote:
| It's a little deeper than this, software for each module
| is typically provided by a tier 1 or tier 2 supplier
| according to a spec provided by the OEM. Sometimes the
| tier 1 or tier 2 supplier is also subbing out the
| software or stuck with some system on chip that sucks.
|
| So for a made-up example, GM wants to build a smart dash
| in the latest SUV, maybe Bosch or Continental has one
| with a SoC inside and their own software hell. OEM works
| with supplier to integrate, bugfix, skin, and customize.
| But they don't write it from scratch.
| caskstrength wrote:
| Yes, and suppliers outsource the actual development and
| testing to cut costs even further.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| AFAIK, car manufacturers want to bring more software in
| house as a core competency, which is probably good
| because the "Tier 1"s are generally even worse at
| software than them and have worse aligned incentives.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| If you haven't been there, you cannot imagine how bad
| most car manufacturer's software departments are. They
| are big, expensive, and crawling with bad practices.
| Management usually doesn't have a clue about software, so
| there's a lot of maneuvering with goals being anything
| but producing good software quickly and cheaply.
| tikhonj wrote:
| The fact that software is _bad_ is not evidence that it
| was built by a small team or had a low budget. A
| depressing amount of high-budget, large-team software is
| awful.
| Gare wrote:
| Given economies of scale, yes
| lomase wrote:
| The hardware buttons need a system, microcontroller with
| software or whatever, to manage its state just like the
| screen.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| If there are enough buttons, yes.
|
| Toyota makes 10 million cars a year.
|
| Another angle is that you can add/remove/relabel software
| buttons later. Hardware decisions are much more final.
| dwelch91 wrote:
| When I worked at Toyota (well, NUMMI) in the '90s, the
| engineers from Toyota Japan that told me: "I'd kill my
| mother to save $1 on each car produced." Yes, at Toyota's
| scale, $1/car is a lot of money.
| izacus wrote:
| Remember that someone needs to manufacture those buttons,
| install them in the factory, stock them for replacement and
| keep them around several countries in the world in
| warehouses for when they break.
|
| Now replace all that with a single screen and suddenly
| costs savings everywhere \o/
| Triphibian wrote:
| Let's not forget you can charge a mint to replace the half-
| assed Ipad you have jammed into the dashboard when it goes
| bad.
| robocat wrote:
| Why do people think this?
|
| Can you find any annual report from a car manufacturer
| that shows parts sales contributing significantly to
| profit?
|
| Yes, dealerships make money from servicing and parts:
| "the service and parts department, which accounts for the
| other 49.6% of the dealership's gross profits".
|
| But a car manufacturer doesn't capture that, so a
| manufacturer has no financial incentive to increase
| profits for dealerships.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Yes.
|
| The buttons still need to be programmed to do something so
| the cost savings isn't really on the software team.
|
| Having a standard touchscreen that you can slap into any of
| your cars, and update OTA is huge.
| vel0city wrote:
| You make the software button once and it's there for the
| many millions of cars. You have to actually manufacture and
| stick in the many millions of buttons otherwise. Besides
| the actual action was going to be software on the bus
| anyways. Your window switch hasn't been directly connected
| to a motor in decades. It's sending a "window down" message
| to the bus that goes to the window actuator unit that then
| drives the motor. You're still paying someone to make it
| computerized anyways, you were going to pay a team of
| designers to draw it up and make the plans for the physical
| switch as well.
|
| The screen was going to be there anyways due to backup
| camera requirements and because consumers want AA/Carplay.
| collinmanderson wrote:
| > The screen was going to be there anyways due to backup
| camera requirements
|
| This. Backup camera requires a large screen leaving
| little room for buttons.
| zerd wrote:
| My car has buttons and a big enough screen for back up
| camera.
| nomel wrote:
| This makes the incorrect assumption that the infotainment
| system would be removed, reducing the cost of the
| engineering.
|
| Adding a virtual button in an infotainment system is much
| cheaper than a physical button. Especially since the most
| cost effective routing of those physical buttons would be
| _to_ the infotainment system that is going to be there
| regardless.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| Soft keys don't require any significant wire plumbing, the
| keys are less than an inch from the screen. And they've been
| used for decades in ATMs and gas pumps:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_key
| bob1029 wrote:
| Couldn't you still run a digital bus all the way and then
| have some conversion to/from analog controls at the end? Keep
| the computer but lose the screen?
|
| The interface is the problem, not the underlying information
| representation or communication.
| karaterobot wrote:
| That's a good idea, but I think at least part of the reason
| it's more complicated is that you have to design and
| fabricate a new face plate for the dashboard, and get a new
| set of controls every time you want to change something on
| it. Say you wanted to add a new button on a particular trim
| level only, because it has a feature that the other levels
| don't. You'd need to either redesign that whole part of the
| console for just that trim level, or else sell everyone at
| a lower trim level a console with an extra button that does
| nothing. Multiply that by N, for every tiny feature you
| want to sell on the higher trim levels. If you've got a
| digital display, of course, you can just go crazy and add
| all the UI elements (and features) you want.
| miki123211 wrote:
| This actually makes sense.
|
| If you want the car to be fully customer configurable,
| you basically need a custom dashboard for every single
| car. You also need to think about what happens when the
| customer does an upgrade.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Somebody could invent a device that creates plastic
| boards with custom-designed shapes.
| Rumudiez wrote:
| I have a couple 15-20 year old base trim level cars and
| they use the exact same dashboards as their premium
| siblings. The unused button spots are still there they
| just haven't been punched out yet
| kemiller wrote:
| There is truth to that, but it's also true that cars simply
| have way more functionality than they did 20 years ago and
| it's effectively impossible to assign a button to every
| thing.
| James_K wrote:
| I think the added complexity is in areas where it doesn't
| really matter. The stuff the driver actually cares about is
| still the same as it was then. You can just put the rest in
| a bluetooth phone app. If it is more complicated than a
| button press, people probably shouldn't be messing with it
| while driving anyway.
| tpmoney wrote:
| I definitely don't want my car controls tied to a phone
| app. No matter what I should be able to configure my
| car's functions long after the company stops distributing
| their app. But there's no reason why we can't have a
| "best of both worlds" sort of deal. I have a modern Mazda
| with a touch screen that comes with a center control knob
| and has physical controls for a good chunk of the
| settings you'd ever want to change while driving. So I
| don't have to go through menus to change my air
| conditioning from low to high, but I also don't have to
| use a tiny character led display and a "push 3 times,
| then hold for 5 seconds then pull twice and rotate 37.8
| degrees" multi function button to find and access
| settings outside of those physical controls. In fact, the
| touch screen disables touch input at speed, so the
| control cluster MUST be able to access any functionality
| without relying on the touch display. It works pretty
| darn well. In fact the only thing I'd argue it could do
| better is be more responsive and have a decent set of
| distinct tones for navigating the screens without sight.
| It's not often I want a setting in the menus while
| driving, but it would be a lot nicer if each menu screen
| had a distinct set of sounds so that by ear I could know
| where I am and memorize those controls if I needed to.
| James_K wrote:
| > long after the company stops distributing their app
|
| There is a cool idea called open source, but I suppose
| something as radical as giving users ownership of
| software for their car isn't something companies would be
| willing to consider. Much better when you get to charge a
| subscription for heated seats.
| tpmoney wrote:
| Even if its open source, I don't want to spend my own
| time or depend on other people deciding to keep the
| software working and building on newer devices just to
| configure car settings. There's no reason in the world to
| eschew a touch screen or other control interface in a car
| and instead put all the control in a phone app.
| James_K wrote:
| I would say safety is a big one. It's a lot easier for
| users to justify fiddling with a touch screen interface
| when it's a part of the car vs on their phone screen.
| Sometimes you want to make unsafe things harder to do.
| tpmoney wrote:
| If fiddling with the touch screen while driving is the
| issue, you can solve that with software lock-outs. The
| Mazda's touch screen stops responding to touches at
| faster than 5 MPH, and if necessary you could also lock
| out option and setting controls entirely while the car is
| in motion so that even the control knob couldn't be used
| to fiddle while driving. Moving control out of the
| already on board computer and control system and onto
| some external device is just plain over-engineering a
| worse solution.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| Do cars _really_ have that much more functionality that it
| requires everything to be thrown into a touch screen?
|
| I have a 2017 Chevy Sonic with a built in touchscreen and I
| basically never have to touch it other than to input an
| address into Android auto.
|
| I haven't found any pieces of the car functionality I
| cannot access through a button somewhere on the dash or
| steering wheel
|
| I doubt a 2024 car has that much more functionality than my
| 2017
| vel0city wrote:
| Both of my cars from different makers have a _ton_ of
| things which don 't have a physical button. Configuring
| the colors of the lights in the interior, setting
| restrictions on secondary keys, changing the doorpad
| settings, configuring navigation quick saves, configuring
| auto lock on walk away, whether the car moves the seats
| back for easier getting in and out, how much it moves the
| seats for that, toggling liftgate gestures, setting the
| default settings for ADAS systems, configuring if the
| mirrors automatically tuck in or not, configuring the
| puddle lights, configuring charging settings, configuring
| stereo equalizer and other deeper settings, rear occupant
| alert systems, configuring how long it waits to have the
| lights on, defaults for auto-high beam and its
| sensitivity, configuring remote start options, deeper
| setting options for drive modes, configuring cross
| traffic alerting, deeper route planning, etc. Probably
| still a hundred more options I haven't listed here.
| miltonlost wrote:
| And so you can have physical buttons (left, right, up,
| down, enter) and a screen with a menu for all those
| options.
| vel0city wrote:
| How is that better? Press press press press press press
| press press press press press press press press press
| cool just set one setting. Versus tap settings, flick
| scroll, tap to set.
| valval wrote:
| It's not. I think the people in this thread already have
| their minds made up.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| In terms of doing it while driving, I'll take the buttons
| instead of a touch screen. I can press a button without
| looking at a screen.
| robocat wrote:
| > left, right, up, down, enter
|
| Every UI using "simple" menu button navigation has been
| horrific in my experience. Remote controls, handsets, TV
| configuration menus, yadda yadda.
| NeoTar wrote:
| Discoverability is also an issue touch screens can help
| with - I enjoy that in the settings app on iPhone (I
| believe android is the same) one can search for a
| setting, rather than try to guess where a given setting
| has been placed.
| Crespyl wrote:
| Surely none of that requires a touchscreen though? Just
| basic generic navigation and selection buttons will work
| fine.
| vel0city wrote:
| It doesn't require it to be a touchscreen, sure, but it
| practically requires it to be _a_ screen. But I 'd _much_
| rather just quickly tap a checkbox instead of press,
| press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press,
| press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press,
| press, press, press, press, press, press navigating the
| giant array of settings.
|
| And then on top of that people want AA/CarPlay which is
| designed around touch inputs first, so you're going to
| have that screen be touch anyways.
|
| None of that should really be changed by the driver when
| the car is in motion, and you'd have to manage the deep
| navigation of a bunch of button presses on a screen
| anyways so arguing you'd be less distracted is a moot
| point.
| kreyenborgi wrote:
| But that's stuff you don't need to touch while driving.
|
| We only need knobs for crucial things like fog lights,
| turn signals and skipping podcast ads.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| How many settings does a typical TV have these days? You
| can modify all of those with a d-pad. What is happening in
| your car that actually needs touch?
| appplication wrote:
| I see your point, but I wouldn't exactly uphold TV menu
| navigation as a model of good user design.
| pnw wrote:
| Smart TV's effectively have touch-style interfaces as
| well now, where the remote is like using a mouse in free
| space versus the traditional D pad. The LG Freespace and
| Sony One Flick come to mind.
| xyst wrote:
| > more functionality
|
| The functionality you refer to is probably the creature
| comforts (ie, multi zone A/C, memory settings for front
| seats, ...). But the essentials of a car (ie, transmission,
| wheels, structural integrity, windshield wipers) haven't
| changed for decades.
|
| What has changed though is:
|
| - increasing size of vehicles due to increasing insecurity
| of American buyers
|
| - a large majority of class C holders largely unprepared
| for the size of these vehicles
|
| - this gives manufacturers the opportunity to stuff as much
| tech junk into these vehicles to give these less qualified
| drivers more assistance
|
| - coincidentally, all of this tech junk comes with a very
| high premium for manufacturers and dealerships
|
| Fear sells in this country. 9/11 changed the game.
| RunSet wrote:
| > increasing size of vehicles due to increasing
| insecurity of American buyers
|
| I understand the average vehicle size increased to
| exploit a loophole in emission reduction requirements.
|
| https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/24139147/suvs-trucks-
| popu...
| eloisant wrote:
| I don't mind having the extra functionality on the touch
| screen, just let me use the basic ones that already existed
| before touchscreens (A/C control, volume, etc.) on physical
| buttons.
| sedatk wrote:
| Exactly. They've just gone too far.
| lupire wrote:
| The touchscreen is in the same space the buttons were.
| tikhonj wrote:
| Right, it makes sense to have the long tail of your
| functionality on the touchscreen, unless you want your car
| to look like an airliner's cockpit. Which would actually be
| cool but it would be a pain to learn and, presumably, quite
| expensive.
| marssaxman wrote:
| I sure wish they wouldn't build so much functionality into
| the cars.
| deergomoo wrote:
| I'm not sure I buy this. My 2020 Civic has physical knobs
| and buttons for most+ of the climate functions, media/radio
| controls, answer/hangup a call, lights, wipers, cruise
| control (including speed limiter and follow distance),
| driver's display, brake hold, eco mode, stop/start on/off,
| dampers, gears (though it's a manual so goes without
| saying), windows, mirror folding, and then a few down by my
| knee that I never need to touch like collision detection,
| traction control etc. I've edited this post four times
| already because I keep remembering more buttons it has.
|
| With the regrettable exception of the couple of climate
| controls I detail below, the only functionality on the
| touch screen is stuff I shouldn't be fiddling with while in
| motion anyway: GPS, car settings, and anything that CarPlay
| displays. I know a Civic isn't a prime example of a "high
| tech" car, but it's a well-specced one and I'm struggling
| to think of much that substantially fancier cars have that
| would blow past a reasonable limit for physical controls.
|
| + on/off, temp, screen blower, seat heaters, and defrosters
| all have physical controls. The manual fan speed and
| direction controls are on the touch screen. I wish they
| weren't, and I believe the newer 11th gen has restored
| these as physical knobs and buttons.
| conductr wrote:
| I don't think that's what people want either. But there is
| a dozen or two features so commonly used that an analog
| control is the obvious choice.
|
| One of my newer cars has only one physical control and
| that's for volume. I never realized it before owning this
| car but I change the AC much more frequently than I change
| my audio volume.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| > Airplanes have entered the chat.
| AlexAndScripts wrote:
| And, really, wouldn't a car that had controls like a
| plane be awesome? Probably not everyone's cup of tea, but
| I'd adore a set of metal physical switches just above the
| windscreen. Add a HUD while you're at it...
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| My old head unit was all buttons and slipped into the
| dashboard in one piece with one plug too. In the custom
| stereo world having a touch screen interface always carried a
| premium over good old buttons. I'm not sure why that should
| change. Screens are much larger and full color on touch
| screen cars too compared to basic lcd alphanumeric screens.
| qwertox wrote:
| These buttons are usually located so close to each other,
| that one PCB can hold many of them. Then you need just one
| set of wires which connects the ECU to the controller on the
| PCB.
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| Cost and durability as well. Physical knobs wear out because
| of friction and dust.
| kragen wrote:
| You can connect a bunch of analog switches to one LINbus
| microcontroller; then you only need one databus.
| hyperadvanced wrote:
| That isn't really true when you factor in the cost of
| engineering new parts/systems compared to just doing it like
| you've always done.
|
| I know a guy who worked at GM and apparently they got bit by
| the "digital transformation" bug and decided that the army of
| iPhone app developers and ex Silicon Valley folks was what
| they needed to stay relevant. Hence the omnipresent touch
| screen.
| conductr wrote:
| It's cost for sure, but they were also able to sell the tech
| packages so it was also fulfilling a demand too.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Ya, cheaper design/production costs plus a tech feel for
| being new, but I bet in the future you'll be able to buy
| analog buttons as a premium upgrade.
| globular-toast wrote:
| This is it. I don't know why so many people think touch
| controls are a misguided attempt to be better. They are a
| definite attempt to be cheaper, that's all. This is why most
| electronics made in China these days have touch buttons. They
| are cheaper and they are almost always worse.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| I've been relatively convinced that it was a cost savings
| measure. Both in cost of components and, probably more
| importantly, cost in labor of install, since touchscreens are
| cheaper on both regards. Everyone knew it was worse, but it
| saved money, and, at least for a while, it could be marketed as
| "premium".
| layer8 wrote:
| The designers are not the ones who decided on that. It's cost
| reduction, feature flexibility (you can decide later what
| exactly to provide in the software), and the marketing
| semblance of a cool modern interface.
| amelius wrote:
| Of course they knew it. But they __also__ knew that buyers
| wouldn't figure it out until after buying the car.
|
| Fast forward a decade, and now buyers want buttons.
| xyst wrote:
| Probably cost and the rise of touch screen mobile phones (ie,
| og iPhone of 2007-2008)
| Laremere wrote:
| In addition to what others are saying, US law requires new cars
| to have back up cameras and the related screen. So everything
| else immediately becomes "so we add it to the screen we already
| have to have, or add a new physical control?"
|
| On another note, I do like my (getting older) Mazda's screen.
| It has touch, but I honestly forget it does because the control
| knob is so much better for use while driving. Nice and tactile.
| Additionally all of the important controls have physical
| buttons. Only major problem I have with it is that if it can't
| connect to Bluetooth (which is stupidly often), it decides to
| switch back to radio, blasting that at me. Then I have to sit
| there going through multiple menus to get Bluetooth
| reconnected.
| gaudystead wrote:
| One of the deciding factors for me going for a Mazda
| (currently being shipped!) over other brands is because they
| still use a real gearbox (and not a CVT), and because their
| media system controls are physical buttons and not a touch
| screen. I hate taking my eyes off the road and the Mazda
| seemed like the safest option to reduce that as much as
| possible.
| AlexAndScripts wrote:
| I'm new to cars - I haven't passed my test yet. I also live
| in the UK, where manuals are the norm (and that's what I'm
| learning on). What is it that you dislike about CVTs? When
| you say a real gearbox, is it manual or automatic?
| tikhonj wrote:
| I'm sure the _designers_ in the automotive industry knew. The
| move to touch screens just reeks of management and marketing
| interference: chasing trends and shiny technology as well as
| prioritizing cost savings /uniformity/flexibility/etc over the
| final product experience.
| StephenAmar wrote:
| I vividly remember a discussion with designer colleague in the
| early 2010s that used to work at BMW. They convinced me that
| touch buttons in car were awful.
|
| They totally knew.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| Now if only add physical keyboards yo phones again...
| mlhpdx wrote:
| Physical buttons don't require an ad blocker.
| gigatexal wrote:
| Yes I do prefer analog controls. Dials for heat. Open close flaps
| for vents. On off switches.
|
| Tangentially: the Tesla single giant glass console is in dire
| need of a UX designer to take the clutter out and make it far
| more usable. It's here I wish that Apple had bought Tesla many
| many years ago: CarPlay as they have it now where it takes over
| the whole screen would have been amazing.
| bhauer wrote:
| > _Yes I do prefer analog controls. Dials for heat. Open close
| flaps for vents. On off switches._
|
| Dials and switches can be fully digital (e.g., dials can be
| free-spinning, without locks at each end of a setting). So
| preferring dials and switches seems reasonable. But flaps for
| vents are very difficult to automate. Returning to manual flaps
| in cars would mean losing modern cars' ability to associate and
| restore HVAC vent preferences with driver profiles. It would
| mean returning to the time when it was actually necessary to
| adjust the HVAC vents every time you swapped drivers. While
| setting vent preferences on the screen may take a second or two
| longer than manually setting them, thanks to the setting being
| associated with my driver profile, it's a set-once-and-forget-
| forever setting. The net time and annoyance savings is large.
| finnh wrote:
| Thanks for explaining something I've never understood. I
| still think it is silly, tho - it makes sense only if each
| driver always wants vents pointing at the same place. my
| preferences change by season, by day, by hour, so needing to
| go through a screen is a time-loss and annoyance generator,
| not vice-versa.
| CrimsonRain wrote:
| Just tell (use voice) the car which direction you want your
| air...
| allears wrote:
| For me there's no set-and-forget-forever setting. Depending
| on the weather, how I'm dressed, how many other people in the
| car, whether there's a smelly diesel truck ahead, etc.,
| that's a setting I need to change all the time.
| bhauer wrote:
| I guess everyone is different, but what you described
| absolutely doesn't resonate with me. I never have adjusted
| my HVAC vents after their initial configuration. Winter,
| summer, whatever. I always want the air to flow the same
| way.
| deergomoo wrote:
| Surely climate controls change _far_ more based on the
| weather at the current moment than on the preference of the
| individual drivers? My wife and I have polar opposite
| preferences for cabin temperature and airflow, but even if
| the car remembered our preferred settings we would both be
| changing them frequently anyway.
|
| I would much rather retain the ability to quickly change temp
| or re-orient a blower without taking my eyes off the road
| than for the car to remember that I like it cool and breezy
| and she likes it like a furnace.
| m463 wrote:
| > Apple had bought Tesla
|
| lol. I think tesla was copying apple, relentlessly removing
| without knowing when to stop.
|
| Apple has lost its way too in this respect.
| TonyTrapp wrote:
| Just in time. Yesterday I had to use a touchscreen-based card
| reader for the first time to pay for something. What a jarring
| interaction. Impossible to use muscle memory, so I actually had
| to think what my PIN was and had to look at the screen the whole
| time, being stressed about pressing just a bit too much to the
| left or the right so that the wrong digit would be entered. I
| very much prefer classic card terminals, thank you very much.
| lifestyleguru wrote:
| Did it display an ad before displaying the keyboard? Because I
| encountered terminals which have physical keyboard but also
| display an ad on the screen. No physical keyboard? A perfect
| captive audience.
| TonyTrapp wrote:
| Luckily not. It was at a restaurant, and I hope that a waiter
| handing you a device to enter your PIN but first having to
| watch an ad is never going to be a thing.
| walthamstow wrote:
| I was in the Philippines last week. Not only do they have
| touchscreen card POS devices, they also randomise the order of
| the numbers. Turns out I know my PIN by the position of the
| numbers moreso than the numbers themselves.
| fragmede wrote:
| 2580 (straight down the number pad) is a popular PIN because
| of that.
|
| source: http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/september32012/index
| .html#g...
| fasteddie31003 wrote:
| I'll be the contrarian and say I prefer touchscreens. To get some
| system into a touchscreen you need to digitize the whole system
| which allows you to control it through automation which creates a
| more versatile system. The system could be digitized and then
| have a physical control to change the state, but then it's not
| necessary at that point.
| pdimitar wrote:
| "Could" being the keyword here. We're not there yet.
|
| Also the touchscreens break muscle memory habits and don't give
| any feedback. These things are actually extremely important
| f.ex. in a car.
| TomK32 wrote:
| There's a interesting middle ground, programmable button that
| is also a rotary button that gives feedback, the KeWheel by
| KEBA. I'm sure that are similar solutions from other
| manufacturers.
| jajko wrote:
| You probably meant other industry but this is a terrible
| mindset for cars for example. Touchscreens are so terrible
| premium manufacturers ignored them for a long time since its
| obvious downgrade in comfort and safety, yet people kept buying
| teslas despite this, even bragging how cool some cheap ipad is.
| vel0city wrote:
| I'm pretty pro touchscreen to a point. Any driving critical
| control should be physical. Lights, turn signals, horn,
| steering wheel controls, etc. Physical controls with physical
| feedback. Everything the driver should mess with should be
| either on the wheel or immediately around it and should be
| physical.
|
| Other than that, I really don't care. When I'm punching in the
| address on the navigation system, give me a massive screen.
| When I'm stopped and trying to look up something in my media
| collection, give me a massive touchscreen. When I'm trying to
| quickly glance at the map, make it a giant screen so I can see
| it all quickly. Or better yet a HUD or have it on the
| instrument cluster.
| purplethinking wrote:
| Also, when it comes to cars, and probably other
| devices/vehicles in the future, they are increasingly operating
| themselves. You can buy FSD for Tesla and drive for hours in
| mixed highway and city streets without having to intervene.
| When you do intervene you can take control for 15 seconds and
| then give back control to the system. At that point, why put in
| buttons to optimize the experience for human drivers? This is
| true for other cars as well, but to a lesser extent, but the
| direction is clear.
| mmooss wrote:
| > At that point, why put in buttons to optimize the
| experience for human drivers?
|
| Less optimization results in more accidents, injuries, and
| deaths.
| praptak wrote:
| Touchscreens are anti-accessibility.
|
| Lack of tactile feedback for the sight-impaired is the obvious
| part but there is another thing:
|
| Touchscreens just stop registering your touch when you get old.
| The older you get the less moisture there's in your skin, which
| at some point makes touch screens ignore you.
|
| https://www.gabefender.com/writing/touch-screens-dont-work-f...
| phrenq wrote:
| At a former company, we were all issued YubiKey Nanos, which
| just never worked for me. None of my coworkers had a problem,
| but I couldn't get the damn thing to register a touch no matter
| what I did, including swapping keys. Eventually I came across a
| thread on an internal list for employees over forty, with
| several other people who were all having the same problem. The
| solution? Lick your finger. Gross, but it did the trick. And
| I'm stuck licking my finger every time I need to make a YubiKey
| work.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| I wonder if that explains the stereotype of old people
| licking their fingers to turn pages
| phrenq wrote:
| That's funny, I hadn't thought of that. It very well might
| be true that turning pages is easier for people with more
| moisture in their skin.
| arccy wrote:
| so books are not accessible: kindles are better
| kibwen wrote:
| I'm unclear if this was intended to be sarcastic, but
| it's certainly possible for e-readers to be more
| accessible than books, at least for models that actually
| have physical buttons (and especially considering that
| e-readers can have zoomable text).
| dotancohen wrote:
| I am actually reading this on an e-reader. I find it more
| accessible than either my phone or my desktop. And easier
| on the eyes.
| freedomben wrote:
| Maybe not accessible in the a11y sense, but definitely
| accessible in the "can read without DRM" sense. I'll take
| a book I can keep and read whenever and however I want to
| one that has to phone home and ask a giant corporation if
| it's ok.
| zxexz wrote:
| Yes this is very much the reason. It gets dry where I am
| in the winter, and it never occurred to me to do this. An
| older gent in a coffee shop once watched me try to turn a
| page, and enlightened me. I've met more than a few people
| who have a dedicated finger glove for turning pages :)
| buran77 wrote:
| Wet sponges [0] for people counting money were a very
| common sight some decades ago before money counting
| machines and mostly electronic payments. Probably still
| being used just not so obvious anymore. Regardless of age
| fingertips will eventually get too dry as the paper
| absorbs all the moisture and flipping pages or separating
| banknotes becomes hard.
|
| For touchscreens dry fingers are also called "zombie
| finger" [1]. The screen registers the too minute change
| in electrical field as noise and rejects the touch event.
| Some sweat (but not too much) on the fingers makes all
| the difference.
|
| [0] https://image.shutterstock.com/image-photo/sponge-
| finger-wet...
|
| [1]
| https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2015/06/zombie-
| fing...
| freedomben wrote:
| I'm also in a dry climate, and even as a teenager I often
| had to lick my fingers in order to get the plastic bags
| at the grocery store open (I was a bagger so had to do it
| all day). Eventually we got smart and started putting wet
| sponges by the bags, which is also an amazing life hack
| if you have trouble turning pages.
| chgs wrote:
| Wet sponges were a common site in offices back before
| widespread computing and lots of cash.
| pndy wrote:
| That sounds more like a soft percussive maintenance
| kgwgk wrote:
| Old people?
| MikeTheGreat wrote:
| Yes, it does.
|
| Source: when I was 5 I saw my grandmother, RIP, doing that
| and asked her about it. She explained that as she got older
| her fingers got drier, and now it's just easier to flip
| pages that way.
| mrkstu wrote:
| Its also the only way I can open a plastic bag in the meat
| section of Costco.
| gessha wrote:
| I was shopping at a grocery store and a lady saw me
| visible distraught by not being able to open a clear bag
| and she told me to touch some of the produce I'm about to
| pick up or the moisture around them. Never had the
| problem again. Thank you, random lady!
| hn72774 wrote:
| Rubbing the opening side of the bag between your palms
| generates static and opens it too. Learned that from a
| meat department employee who saw me struggling one day.
| Moru wrote:
| I used to do that too. But now the plastic bags are gone
| and there is these paper bags with slightly offset edges
| att he opening. Really neat invention, why didn't we do
| that before? :-)
| Tagbert wrote:
| One of our local grocery stores has a different brand of
| plastic bag, This one has a small adhesive spot between
| the layers near the opening of the bags. As you pull the
| bag off, the adhesive pulls the next bag open a little
| bit. Each bag is slightly open when you pull it off. It
| works surprisingly well.
|
| I may try to suggest that the other grocery stores adopt
| this brand but they are big national chains and I doubt
| they would be interested.
|
| for reference, this bag says PULL-N-PAK(r) Titan Supreme
| 28-2024-11-2 www.crownpoly.com
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| I've seen several different solutions to this problem
| over the decades, and they all have one thing in common:
| they quickly get value-engineered out of existence.
|
| There's always a fraction of a cent to be saved by adding
| slightly less adhesive, using slightly cheaper plastic,
| replacing the perforating tool less often, etc.; couple
| iterations in, the solution stops working reliably.
| There's no back pressure, because it's not like anyone is
| choosing where they shop by whether the single-use
| plastic bags are easy to open.
| wruza wrote:
| There's a whole "fingertip moistener [pad]" thingy if you
| need it often. Cashiers and secretaries often use them at
| work.
| thih9 wrote:
| Off topic, a dog's wet nose also works. Surprisingly
| useful on walks, e.g. when a poop bag won't cooperate in
| a critical moment and licking your fingers is not an
| option.
| Arrath wrote:
| Well I'm filing this tip away for future use.
| coldtea wrote:
| It's not a stereotype and it's not really a mystery.
|
| Licking or wetting your fingers for this purpose has been a
| standard practice across the globe, when people are dealing
| with turning pages (e.g. for accounting), counting tickets,
| coupons, paper money, etc. It was never just something
| older people did (except in the sense that the practice is
| not as common now, as people in the US and Europe don't
| need to do it that much anymore, due to changes like
| reduced use of cash, etc.).
|
| So, you might not have seen it since the need is mostly
| obsolete in most of the west, but it's still a thing
| elsewhere, and was very much a thing in the US and Europe
| too until a few decades back.
|
| So much so, that there were office gadgets made for this,
| basically a base holding a small sponge, that you would add
| water to, and use it to wet your fingers for
| counting/changing pages. They're still very much sold:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/money-counting-
| sponge/s?k=money+count...
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| I'm not stranger to licking my fingers when dealing with
| cash, or licking stamps and envelopes, etc. but the way
| some old people do it was always a little mystery to me.
| I'd see them taking a second or three to quite
| conspicuously stick their tongue out and slowly lick
| their finger _every single time_ before turning a page or
| a banknote. I always figured it 's just a force of habit,
| but they're doing it in maximum power-save mode, and are
| way past giving a fuck about how gross it looks to
| everyone around them. I never considered that maybe they
| really need to do it this way to keep their fingers
| moist.
|
| (That realization scares me, as it means I too might
| become an obnoxious finger-licker in a few years.)
| justinclift wrote:
| Maybe a key chain instead with a moistened pad that
| doesn't easily go dry? :)
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Honestly, and in line with a reply upthread[0], fresh
| saliva may be more sanitary. I mean, it has some non-zero
| antimicrobial properties, plus it doesn't accumulate
| random stuff that could grow over time.
|
| Yeah, I'm starting to understand why old people may be
| past the point of giving a damn about the optics.
|
| --
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42036400
| Clamchop wrote:
| The "sanitary" replacement is a wax, I always just knew
| it as sortkwik (? It's been a while), that you dip your
| fingers in. I'm sure it's still a thing for literal paper
| pushers to this day.
|
| Sanitary in quotes since I'm not sure a pot of wax
| collecting stuff from your fingers for months or years is
| much better than licking.
| voidfunc wrote:
| Used wax all the time when I worked as a bank teller
| years and years ago
| BlandDuck wrote:
| I can also be used to poison people who read forbidden
| books: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Name_of_the_Rose
| denotational wrote:
| I just finished reading this last night at 01:30; what a
| book!
| Log_out_ wrote:
| User accounting the with the sibling system.lick the device
| to prove its your cake or you are thoroughly protected from
| being thoroughly grossed out by growing up with siblings .
| marcosdumay wrote:
| There exist some "artificial tongues" that people use to turn
| pages. It's a rosin-like substance that comes in a small can.
| deepsun wrote:
| There exist artificial fingers to tap smartphones, sold in
| cold climates, so you don't need to take off gloves.
| Regular sausages in their packaging work great.
| cbzbc wrote:
| You can effectively get these surfaces built into the
| glove, a number of companies sell such things.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| Why they don't need to be wet?
| cbzbc wrote:
| To activate a touchscreen they simply need to have
| capacitive properties.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| Interesting, it sounds like they should try to invent
| something that works in similar way to nerves on the skin
| as you can feel slightest touch regardless of moisture.
| eternityforest wrote:
| Maybe multiple accelerometers plus machines learning
| could improve tao detection?
| Reason077 wrote:
| I used to have some woollen winter gloves with built in
| touch-screen fingertips. They worked well, but also made
| things quite slippery when holding a phone. This once
| resulted in a shattered screen when the phone slipped out
| of my gloved hand and flew onto a cold, hard, London
| pavement...
| Moru wrote:
| How cold does it get with you? I have tried all sorts of
| touch-screen gloves and they all stop working below -5 C.
| The cheap touch-pencils still work though so carry one of
| those around my neck if I need the phone outdoors.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Carrots and cucumbers work as well. I suppose it's the
| high moisture content.
| xyst wrote:
| just apply some "hawk tuah", new tagline for yubikey nano
| willmadden wrote:
| Drink more water.
| vdvsvwvwvwvwv wrote:
| Moisturizer shoud help too?
| necovek wrote:
| I wouldn't drink just any moisturizer.
| miohtama wrote:
| Check under your eyelid that you are not an android
| pipes wrote:
| Great! I'm in my forties and my laptop finger print scanner
| seems really temperamental, I'll try licking my finger!
| joecool1029 wrote:
| I used to rub the side of my nose briefly to make
| fingerprint reader work on thinkpads, I think this coats
| the finger with enough oil to make it work reliably.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| It works for my phone's fingerprint scanner. I used to have
| issues with it, and eventually thought it might be caused
| by the extra "safety glass" glued on top of the screen.
| Then one day, after another failed fingerprint unlock
| attempt, I noticed a text on the screen suggesting to
| moisten my finger. It must have been added in some system
| update, and I'm very thankful for that, or else I'd have to
| wait until this HN thread to figure this out.
| Projectiboga wrote:
| Ah I'm 56, the touch screen on my phone has gotten finicky.
| I'll have to see if that would help in a pinch. I wouldn't
| want to rely on that all the time but under time pressure it
| is good to know about that.
| szszrk wrote:
| I'm almost 40, some years ago I noticed that at winter I
| get more frustrated with my phones and start thinking of
| changing them.
|
| It turned out each winter I make screens much more dirty
| and my fingers are drier. Touch gets more random,
| fingerprint readers success rate drops from 100% to more
| like 50%.
|
| Nowadays I make sure I clean the screen with actual
| dedicated products often, and make sure I keep hands
| moisturized. It works well, even if the latter contributes
| to the former.
|
| Haven't changed phone in over 2 years and still don't feel
| the need for change :)
| veunes wrote:
| Oils or dirt can interfere with touch sensitivity
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| i thought possibly bloodflow is less prevalent on the
| surface of your fingers in cold weather, and finger
| touches are harder to detect as a result, but i don't
| have data or proof.
| dotancohen wrote:
| You should really look at the S series by Samsung. I've
| been using Note devices since the Note 3, I would not give
| up the stylus for anything at this point.
| notpushkin wrote:
| Not sure if it's available on your phone, but look for a
| _High touch sensitivity_ option in display settings. Helps
| me a lot in winter.
| BobAliceInATree wrote:
| If you'd rather not lick your finger, you can get one of
| those old-school sponge stamp/envelope moisteners.
| Izkata wrote:
| I'm not as old as everyone else here is mentioning, but
| started having this issue a few years ago with my phone. My
| fix was to rub my hands together for a few seconds. Don't
| know why but it's always worked for me.
| mh- wrote:
| I'm curious if you have issues with pulse oximeters too.
| The thing they use to check your blood oxygen level when
| you go to the doctor.
|
| I don't tend to have the issues everyone here is talking
| about, but those things never work for me on the first
| try.
| TylerE wrote:
| Those work off light absorption, so different mechanism.
| DavideNL wrote:
| > _Lick your finger._
|
| Exactly, i do the same thing with my (new) Macbook Air, it
| makes the TouchID sensor work much more reliable (also, i use
| my middle finger by the way...)
| veunes wrote:
| I remember how my mom's Touch ID didn't work. Thank goodness
| they came up with Face ID
| hawski wrote:
| Would breathing on it (wide open mouth air blow, I'm not a
| native speaker) work as well but be contactless way of
| achieving it?
| lisper wrote:
| > I'm not a native speaker
|
| You got it (mostly) right :-) Just one minor mistake: a
| native would write, "Would breathing on it be _a_
| contactless way... " in order to indicate that this is only
| one of several possibilities. You could also say, "Would
| breathing on it be _the_ contactless way... " in order to
| indicate that this was the only possibility.
|
| The rule here is really weird. The qualifier is only
| required when there is a singular noun being used as an
| object. "Breathing is way of doing it" sounds weird, but
| "Breathing and licking are ways of doing it" does not.
|
| "English is super-weird" sounds right. "English is super-
| weird language" sound weird.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| real life verification can
|
| /s but not so much
|
| EDIT: back in the day cashiers had a thing to moisture your
| fingers flipping the bills/notes/papers
| planckscnst wrote:
| You can also use some other part of your body that has
| moisture. My nose and my scalp are really oily, so I can rub
| my finger on my nose and then do the touch controls and
| fingerprint sensors and have it work
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| Glad it didn't end with what where my imagination went.
| yazzku wrote:
| Even for non-impaired people, the lag on a touch screen is
| utterly miserable.
| bhauer wrote:
| Software lag isn't unique to touchscreens. Software lag is
| always a terrible thing, and developers who de-prioritize
| performance should be ashamed, but that is true regardless of
| what input is used.
| yazzku wrote:
| A touch screen imposes additional lag, though. Detecting
| finger swipes for left/right, for example, requires more
| processing than spinning a fucking dial or pressing on a
| button. But, like you said, performance doesn't matter
| anymore to the companies that design these interfaces. We
| should have criminal laws for this type of thing along with
| the return to proper hardware interfaces. Lack of
| performance should be a criminal offense.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| It's kinda bearable with buttons because you get feedback.
| The ATM I use isn't the speediest thing but the buttons
| have a very tactile feel and it beeps at you for every
| press. It might not be "impressive", but it does cause
| forty dollars to appear and that's really all I wanted from
| it.
|
| Now ask anyone with a touch screen in their car what their
| error rate on that thing is. Even the really good ones are
| pretty bad.
| praptak wrote:
| Touchscreens are also extra bad in the car. The hands have
| mass and the motion of a car is shaky due to bumpy roads,
| curves, braking, etc.
|
| This makes it hard to hit the desired area on a vertical
| touchscreen at near full extension of the arm.
| contravariant wrote:
| Accessibility problems just mean systems are a pain to use.
| So much so that we describe _easy_ to do things in terms of
| impairment. I could do it blindfolded, with one arm, two
| fingers in my nose, in my sleep etc.
|
| The ultimate form of accessibility is not 'designed for
| impaired people' it is a system that does what you want
| without having to think about it or lift a finger.
| dimal wrote:
| > She started getting frustrated, "it's my fault, I don't know
| how to use this thing properly."
|
| This is heartbreaking. The woman is being excluded through no
| fault of her own, and she blames herself. I find this to be a
| common for people who don't think of themselves as disabled but
| are made disabled by bad interfaces. They think there must be
| something wrong with themselves because everyone else has such
| an easy time, when really it's the technology.
| rubslopes wrote:
| I once saw an elderly woman trying to receive medical care at
| an urgent care clinic. She brought her documents and medical
| insurance card, but the receptionist told her she could only
| be checked in if she provided a two-factor authentication
| code from her insurance app. The woman was totally confused.
| It was heartbreaking to watch.
| MikeTheGreat wrote:
| Where do you live?
|
| And how is this supposed to work? Like, at all? Does the
| urgent care place have 2FA set up for every insurance
| company? Just the insurance companies they accept? What
| about folks that don't have their phone on them (which is
| reasonable to forget if you need medical care urgently,
| even if it's not ambulance-grade urgently).
|
| Plus, you've got the fact that the elderly are both a major
| market for medical services and famously techno-phobic....
| electricwire wrote:
| The cynical side of me wonders if its not intended to
| work well
| rubslopes wrote:
| I don't agree with the practice, but from what I
| understand, they're trying to prevent clinics from
| scamming insurance companies by faking clinical visits.
| I've heard that this is a thing that happens here.
| dylan604 wrote:
| When the attempt to stop bad actors stops/prevents others
| from using it, the system is bad. Insert baby/bathwater
| or nose/face comments here
| mh- wrote:
| That was a bit difficult to parse, but I think you're
| saying that (some) anti-fraud systems can't afford false
| positives. And I would agree, point-of-use healthcare is
| certainly one of those systems.
| jve wrote:
| Isn't a document (what you own) + showing up physically
| so you can be scanned by eyeballs already not 2FA? What
| better authentication you can get than that?
| Izkata wrote:
| Only if the document or their system has a photo of you.
| Usually driver's license is used for this.
| rubslopes wrote:
| Brazil. In my country, technology is growing rapidly, but
| in an unregulated way.
|
| On one hand, we have a modern banking system that allows
| instant money transfers to anyone at any time, and the
| government is developing its own cryptocurrency. With our
| electronic voting machines, the country knows election
| results within two hours after polls close.
|
| On the other hand, each company, including those
| providing essential services, creates its own solution
| without any regulatory oversight. This fragmentation
| extends even to official government services.
|
| In the case I mentioned, each private health insurance
| company freely determines its own procedures for patient
| check-in at affiliated clinics. With my insurance plan,
| my ID card is sufficient--for now.
| the_other wrote:
| > I find this to be a common for people who don't think of
| themselves as disabled but are made disabled by bad
| interfaces
|
| A lot of disabled people today subscribe to the "social model
| of disability" [0] rather than the "medical model". Under the
| social model, the obstacle is not some property of the
| individual experiencing an access issue, but are created by a
| system made by other people who didn't provide alternative
| access methods. Society and its inventions disable, rather
| than the individual's condition.
|
| Clearly, disabled people have mental or physiological
| conditions that produce non-mainstream access needs. None of
| them deny that... but the social model invites us to take a
| society-wide ownership of this, and to better support a wider
| range of access needs by default.
|
| In contrast, the medical model tends to situate the
| disability within the individual, based on their
| physiological condition. This tends to put the ownership on
| the individual (or their immediate carers), which in turn
| tends to perpetuate exclusion and access challenges.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_model_of_disability
| [1]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_model_of_disability
| carlosjobim wrote:
| That sounds like a lot of meaningless theories made up by
| somebody who got a high paying, cushy government job to
| "help" disabled people because he/she is related to a
| politician.
|
| Pretty typical of modern ideology: find somebody to blame -
| ideally "society", instead of helping your fellow human.
| tpxl wrote:
| Disagree. Mandatory access ramps exists because we have
| decided it's a problem to be fixed by society, not the
| individual. The result is far greater access for people
| with wheelchairs.
|
| It's not about who's at fault, it's who has to provide a
| solution. Society has far more means to provide a
| solution than each individual.
| rolph wrote:
| when you[society] create the problem in the first place,
| its on you to fix it.
|
| major problem that needs fixing is leave things alone
| when there is no problem.
|
| forcing new tech, standards and spec, into place so even
| more money,influence,control can be attained is not a
| solution to any problem, its a source.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Individuals exist, "society" has never existed and will
| never exist. It's only individuals who can take actions.
| "Society" does not have any means at all, because it's
| just a mirage within the imagination of some people.
|
| It's individuals mandating the building of wheelchair
| ramps, it is individuals who build them, and individuals
| who use them. You don't need to give your nephew or niece
| a high paying job to make some weird theories about
| "society". You can instead just state the truth that some
| people can't walk and if you have the power you can
| mandate that business owners need to make their places
| accessible for these people.
| afarviral wrote:
| Oh right. Yes, I agree that motivated individuals get the
| work done for themselves and others. It's just that some
| people don't acknowledge that we collectively own
| problems/solutions because they are structural (inherent
| to the structures of our systems /"society") and tend to
| blame individuals for their own problems. Of course
| individuals can be wholey responsible for things, e.g. a
| corrupt politician. But getting rid of corruption is up
| to other individuals (I.e. society). It's idealist to
| imagine that a corrupt politician should just stop being
| corrupt, it's realistic to overthrow them collectively
| with other individuals (society).
| fwip wrote:
| Atoms exist, "molecules" have never existed and will
| never exist.
| astrocat wrote:
| Your argument is essentially that emergent properties
| don't exist. It's like saying "there are no such things
| as waves in water, just individual water molecules."
| Individuals are the water molecules, and "society" is the
| blanket term for the emergent properties that happen when
| a lot of people are together. The phenomena are real and
| have real effects and impacts. Intrinsic and
| environmental factors affect the system: hydrogen bonds
| between water molecules (intrinsic) creates the emergent
| phenomenon we call "surface tension" and wind
| (environmental) creates waves. So too in people:
| intrinsic attributes of individuals and connections
| between them as well as environmental factors affecting
| entire populations create emergent effects that can be
| observed and studied.
|
| I suspect you mean to appeal to the recognition that,
| unlike water molecules, individual humans have free will
| and agency and the ability to make choices completely
| independently. I suspect you abhor the notion of
| 'groupthink' and excuses for behavior that are
| underpinned by concepts of culture and social constructs.
| And there is truth to these ideas, but as with most
| things, they are helpful as part of a broader model, and
| not as a totalitarian view of human behavior. We are
| complex creatures, in complex systems; to ignore the
| tendencies of our emergent behaviors is as risky as
| turning your back to a rough shorebreak, believing all
| the individual water molecules will simply be rational
| and choose not to hit you, only to be engulfed in a wave
| that really does exist.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| > Mandatory access ramps exists because we have decided
| it's a problem to be fixed by society, not the
| individual. The result is far greater access for people
| with wheelchairs.
|
| I think that was a bad call. Society should not shape
| itself for the sake of a minority of people. That's just
| silly.
| ifokiedoke wrote:
| I forget where I read it, but this isn't a very thought-
| out view. _Especially_ with the example of access ramps
| -- yes, the ramps were originally put in after activism
| for better wheelchair accessibility. But who ended up
| using them a whole lot and benefiting from them? Parents
| with strollers. Would we say that the needs of parents of
| young children, or young children are a minority? Do we
| not care about their experience even when we're having a
| population crisis?
|
| In hindsight, this is a pretty obvious conclusion if we
| would have taken a bit of extra time to consider why we
| might want accessibility ramps, but instead we get
| sidetracked by exactly the kind of thinking displayed by
| your comment.
|
| When people say "accessibility is good for everyone" it's
| not a naive feel-good comment. It's an acknowledgement
| that at some point all of us could use help with
| accessibility (e.g. when you become a parent, when you
| get old, etc)
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Everyone is or will be a minority at some point.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Wise comment.
| afarviral wrote:
| No. Everyone, instead of the affected person being
| blamed. Of course there are those in ivory towers doing a
| lot of waffling but the structural/societal view is
| always more productive than an individualist one which is
| ignoring the networked nature if reality in favour of
| optmistic idealism (bootstraps!).
| carlosjobim wrote:
| > Everyone, instead of the affected person being blamed.
|
| Who would ever blame a disabled person for their
| condition?
|
| Blaming people who have nothing to do with it is exactly
| the modern ideology that twists people into evil.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Just a small correction to your question, it's more like
| "who would ever say a disabled person is solely
| responsible for providing their own accommodations?"
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| > ignoring the networked nature if reality in favour of
| optmistic idealism (bootstraps!)
|
| From my perspective, bootstrapping _is_ reality. It is
| the people who deny that who are ignoring reality in
| favor of idealistic but false paradigms.
| dimal wrote:
| That sounds like a typically glib and dismissive comment
| made without really trying to understand the situation.
|
| Until relatively recently, I never thought of myself as
| disabled, but in the past year I found this model helpful
| in understanding how I'm excluded from many parts of
| society because I'm autistic, and autistic needs are
| never considered. In reality, there's nothing wrong with
| me, but many aspects of society are incompatible with me.
|
| Lucky you, that you don't have this problem!
| carlosjobim wrote:
| This is what I'm trying to explain. Society doesn't exist
| anywhere besides in your head. When you're somewhere
| being "confronted with society", it's just other people.
| Each one an individual like you. So what you're saying is
| that some other people are never considering your needs.
|
| Dividing the world into "me" and "society" is a
| simplistic perspective that is far from the truth. The
| same for "us" and "society". It's always people, and each
| bears an individual responsibility as to their behaviour.
| tokai wrote:
| Have seen laborers and blue collar workers, my father included,
| that have to use their knuckles because their finger tips are
| too callused and dry for touchsceens. Seems like many groups
| have these kind of issues.
| ainiriand wrote:
| Exactly, my brother works on power lines and wears many
| different types of gloves, all his computer tools are button
| actionated.
| analog31 wrote:
| That's me. I'm a double bassist, a kind of blue collar
| laborer. ;-) It's worst during the winter. It's a shame
| because I prefer to use a touch screen on my laptop.
| have_faith wrote:
| I'm not a labourer in the slightest, but I'm a rock climber
| though. Sometimes for up to two days after a strong session
| the finger print reader on my keyboard doesn't work. It
| always eventually starts working again :)
| mark_undoio wrote:
| Even indoor bouldering has had an effect for me - my
| thicker skin just doesn't always register well on my phone
| screen.
| miki123211 wrote:
| It's not touchscreens that are anti-accessibility, it's _touch
| controls_. That 's a very important distinction.
|
| I can use a proper touchscreen phone just fine, as its OS is
| advanced enough to run a screen reader, and its touch screen
| can precisely locate where it was touched and supports flicks,
| swipes and multi-finger gestures.
|
| Proper touch screens have some very important advantages,
| notably being able to show different controls at different
| times. You want to have a different button layout when you're
| typing a text than when you're watching a movie or playing a
| game. Physical buttons make this impossible.
|
| Even blind people benefit from this, modern phones have a mode
| where you can use a touch screen to input characters in
| Braille, treating different parts of the screen as keys on a
| brailler (think piano with 6 keys). Each combination of these
| keys, pressed or touched at once, inputs a specific
| character[1].
|
| Now touch controls, like those you can find on a washing
| machine / coffee maker, make no sense. There's no screen behind
| them, so they're not dynamic in any way, and the primitive
| software of such devices (as well as the need to seell them in
| multiple countries without providing specific support for any
| particular human language) make accessibility impossible to
| achieve.
| lozf wrote:
| > Physical buttons make this impossible.
|
| For many years now we've had various interfaces that use
| physical buttons whose function can change at different times
| during operation, the current function being indicated by the
| screen: Old fashioned ATMs with 4 buttons on each side of the
| screen, many business-class feature-phones had "soft-keys",
| even old DOS programs that used Function Keys are
| conceptually similar.
|
| There are differing degrees of compromise vs utility.
| valval wrote:
| You can't change the place of the buttons in any of your
| examples.
| lozf wrote:
| Correct - that's a feature. You can learn the pattern of
| key presses through a series of individual functions to
| execute more elaborate tasks quite quickly.
| aftbit wrote:
| I like the strategy used by multi-function displays in plane
| cockpits. They have physical buttons along the side that can
| trigger different actions, labelled by text and icons on the
| screen alongside the button. This allows you to find and
| press the button even if there is turbulence or engine
| vibrations making it hard to use a touchscreen.
| kragen wrote:
| Touchpads, you mean? Touchpads are waterproof and washable,
| like membrane keyboards, which is a real plus in the kitchen.
| Also they're cheap as fuck.
| eternityforest wrote:
| What about touch buttons recessed by a few millimeters to
| prevent accidents, with braille on the face plate?
|
| Touch controls have one really big advantage, they have no
| switch to wear out, and no opening to get water damaged.
| Touch might be a worse UX, at least to highly tactile people
| who are aware of their fingers often, but it can last decades
| with the cheapest imaginable hardware.
| ChumpGPT wrote:
| This is so interesting; thanks for sharing. I often see my
| father-in-law tapping his phone a dozen times to get a response
| (85), and then I was teaching my mother how to use an iPad and
| noticed it was not that responsive to her taps. I sometimes
| need to tap twice to get anything to happen (50+), this helps
| me understand why.
| praptak wrote:
| See also the linked article. You can mitigate that by getting
| a stylus.
| jsheard wrote:
| You should check if there's a system setting to adjust the
| touch sensitivity, it's usually billed as a way to compensate
| for screen protectors but it'll probably also help with dry
| fingers not being detected reliably.
| rralian wrote:
| Interesting. I've noticed this happening for me but I thought
| it was because my fingertips are calloused from playing guitar.
| But I'm also in my late forties. So it's probably a double
| whammy for me.
| galleywest200 wrote:
| I am the opposite, my hands get so sweaty that touchscreens
| register random inputs because of the residual salty moisture.
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| However, i thought touch screens in cars are pressure sensitive
| rather than measuring changes in capacity? If the press is not
| registered in my car, i press a little harder. You can also use
| it while wearing normal gloves.
|
| That said, i use the physical knobs a lot more often, since
| your finger position will easily follow any moving button and
| nudges in rotating or shifting knobs feel super satisfying.
| freedomben wrote:
| Those are actually different technologies, and I'm guessing
| you got used to the pressure sensitivity on older cars. They
| use resistive touchscreens which are cheaper. Cheap android
| tablets used to routinely use those instead of the capacitive
| touchscreens as well. It's been a while since I had to use a
| resistive touchscreen, and I'm glad for it.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| Our milking robot has a resistive touchscreen. In that case
| it's excellent - you can spray it clean, and it still works
| while it's wet.
| freedomben wrote:
| Great point, there are situations where resistive is a
| lot better. I've definitely cursed my phone screen when
| it's raining.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| It depends on the car. Mine is resistive (like yours I think)
| and I can just press harder, I also don't have to use my
| fingers, something like a capped pen works perfectly. Though
| these kinds of screens are considered low-end compared to
| capacitive touchscreens because they require a heavy touch
| and usually don't support multitouch, I think these are the
| best for cars (if you don't have physical controls).
|
| But many modern cars (ex: Teslas) use capacitive screens like
| on smartphones.
| ethagnawl wrote:
| I'm only 40 but have had this issue for years -- especially
| with Apple products -- and I think it's compounded by my
| fingers being pretty callused. Regardless, I'm just unable to
| reliably use my family's iPad, sign my kids out of daycare,
| etc.
|
| This is yet another example of accessibility being in
| everyone's interest.
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| If your iPad is plugged in, it's extremely finicky with
| regard to the type of both the charger and the cable. Touch
| ID is extremely sensitive to electrical currents near it, it
| seems, and on home button/Touch ID it's right near the
| charging socket. Oops. Unplug it, Touch ID works.
| wnevets wrote:
| > Touchscreens just stop registering your touch when you get
| old. The older you get the less moisture there's in your skin,
| which at some point makes touch screens ignore you.
|
| I had no idea that was a thing but it makes sense now that you
| said it. I will now be a lot more understanding when older
| folks have trouble using their phones, self-checkout, etc.
| sholladay wrote:
| I thought so too at first, but in hindsight this is a bad take.
|
| Pinch-to-zoom was revolutionary for people with low vision.
| VoiceOver was revolutionary for people with no vision. Blind
| people ended up being early adopters of iPhones because of how
| much better the UX is compared to phones with physical
| controls, where memorization of the controls and menus is much
| more necessary.
|
| The flexibility of UI enabled by touchscreens was revolutionary
| for people with dexterity and cognitive issues. See the
| Assistive Access feature, for example, which has made Jitterbug
| phones obsolete for many people.
|
| Touchscreens not responding to dry skin is a real problem,
| though I've only ever seen that on cheap hardware. Testing the
| device is obviously necessary.
|
| I still want physical controls for simple and common cases,
| such as the vents in my car. But I now think of them more in
| terms of convenience and safety rather than accessibility.
| croes wrote:
| Good for them, bad for everyone else.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| I'm a caregiver for a couple people with dexterity and
| cognitive issues and I'm pretty sure a physical button is the
| absolutely simplest thing for them as much as for anyone
| else. And sure, an Ipad definitely can solve some accessible
| issues for some things but my clients watch things on TVs and
| monitors rather than Ipads (even when they have them).
|
| But more to the point, I love my clients and friends with
| such issues but they don't drive and shouldn't drive.
| sholladay wrote:
| I wasn't suggesting anything about driving. I brought up
| the car as an example of where, yes, touchscreens have gone
| too far and physical controls are often preferable.
|
| TV remotes are among the most inaccessible consumer
| electronics devices. They can be made much better with a
| touchpad or a phone app or even a voice assistant. It's
| still nice to have physical volume controls, of course.
| skydhash wrote:
| The apple tv is a nightmare to use. First, the form
| factor with its sharp edges. Then, the swipable area,
| which I had to disable. In comparison, my AVR receiver is
| way better: soft keys with good travel, great tacticle
| recognition, fit well in the hand, and practically
| impossible to lose. It's not as beautiful, but it's very
| practical.
| saltcured wrote:
| I have a relative with dementia who still has enough
| volition to want to call people and chat. It's been eye
| opening to see how fluctuating abilities impact use of the
| smartphone UX.
|
| Periodically, I have to remind them to turn their volume up
| when they complain they cannot hear me. Their grip on the
| phone can inadvertently hold the "volume down" button.
|
| Their reduced motor control mixes up tap versus long press
| and accidentally triggers all kinds of functions. I've seen
| the home screen littered with shortcuts accidentally
| created in this manner.
|
| Somehow, they periodically managed to call me, put me on
| hold, and call me again. I'm sure this was not intentional,
| but the rapid replacement of on-screen buttons causes
| different functions to be activated without any real
| awareness of what is happening.
|
| The "Emergency" button on a locked phone screen can be
| misunderstood as a sign of danger.
|
| The random assignment of a color icon to names on a recent
| calls list, contact list, or favorites list can be
| misinterpreted as some kind of message about the health of
| that named individual.
|
| I tried to disable emergency alerts, but I fear the chaos
| at the care home if an emergency alert comes through and
| triggers that horrible alert siren.
| ho_schi wrote:
| I can confirm the troubles with age. Another problem are cold
| and hot environments (sweat).
|
| Anyway. Tactile input is generally better where an efficient
| placement of physical input controls is possible.
|
| Garmin is a seldom example of a company doing it right with the
| _Edge 840_. They merged the tactile _530_ and the touch _830_
| into one device. The best of both worlds. Guess what I prefer?
|
| It is the Edge 530. Better screen to body ratio :)
|
| The rise of the touchscreens are an accident. Because MBAs
| believe iPhone == touch == good. It isn't. The iPhone is just
| small, physical switches expensive (remember the slider
| smartphones) and you can merge output with input (this a pro
| and a con). Nice when you want to zoom a map. Horrible if
| _Okay_ changes the position, worse when the keyboard requires
| the half screen and interaction is generally ineffective.
|
| I recommend:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_of_Everyday_Things
| 1. Layout your tactile interface in a way that it allows the
| user to create a mental model of it. 2. In best case
| this model exists already. 3. Make it hard to use it
| wrong. 4. Make it easy to use it right. 5. Also
| applies to the output. If the turn indicator is ON, make it ON.
|
| PS: Right now I struggle to hide my touch keyboard. No ,,DONE"
| or ,,HIDE" and I cannot access my bookmarks for my
| recommendation.
|
| Can I express an wish?
|
| Dear device manufacturers. Please used high quality switches
| with travel, resistance and a click ,,BIPPITY-BUMP". Add a
| spring. Built in a indicator light within!
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| The rise of the touchscreens are an accident. Because MBAs
| believe iPhone == touch == good. It isn't.
|
| Amen! There so many flaws to touchscreens.
|
| With the most common touchscreen implementations:
|
| * user must hover hand above screen to avoid errant 'clicks'
| which is physically tiresome during prolonged use
|
| * user cannot locate button without looking at screen, and
| feedback, if any, is several ms delayed (ie: till audio
| 'click' sound plays)
|
| * user cannot easily control GUI on large, or multiple
| displays, since input-to-output scale is 1-to-1
|
| * user cannot view the content under the target without
| workarounds (eg: iOS's loop widget) since user's finger
| blocks part of screen, and a human finger is relatively large
| compared to screen
| meindnoch wrote:
| >iOS's loop widget
|
| You mean the magnifying glass during text selection?
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| Oops, maybe the spelling is 'loupe', but yes.
| bboygravity wrote:
| Amen, I use a Unihertz Titan for this reason.
| flyingcircus3 wrote:
| Perhaps there were multiple iterations of the Garmin Edge
| 530, and we're talking about two different interfaces, but
| this is the process for zooming and panning the map on my
| Edge 530:
|
| From the map screen, to change zoom, hold a button until a
| +/- appears next to other buttons. Use those other buttons to
| zoom in or out. To pan up or down, hold that same button
| again, until up/down arrows appear next to the other buttons.
| Use those other buttons to pan up or down. To pan left or
| right, repeat this process once more.
|
| The entire value proposition of a bike mounted map is to be
| able to navigate without stopping to use your phone. But if
| the interface to adjust the map is this cumbersome, stopping
| to look at a phone is the smart move, never mind the better
| user experience.
| II2II wrote:
| > The rise of the touchscreens are an accident. Because
| MBAs believe iPhone == touch == good.
|
| Which they are, given the application. It also goes beyond
| size and cost. How long will those tactile buttons last,
| particularly given that the device is meant to be used
| frequently and is frequently stuffed into a pocket?
|
| Don't get me wrong. I have an ereader with buttons because
| I like buttons. Yet those buttons are not going to endure
| the same amount of abuse as they would on a phone.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _How long will those tactile buttons last, particularly
| given that the device is meant to be used frequently and
| is frequently stuffed into a pocket?_
|
| Decades. Which I guess is too much for a world that's
| driven by "value engineering".
|
| I mean, we actually have hard data for this. "Dumb
| phones" (even those that would run J2ME and had apps and
| stuff) can easily last for decades, and their buttons
| work fine after 5+ years of intensive use[0]. In
| contrast, it's rare to find someone whose smartphone
| lasted more than a year without getting its screen
| cracked, or three years without at least one screen
| replacement job.
|
| --
|
| [0] - I would know - I graduated high school around when
| the first iPhone was released. If you weren't of similar
| age at that time, then believe me when I say it: there is
| no tougher test for durability of a phone keyboard than
| having been used by a teenager back then. There was no
| Messenger or WhatsApp, phone calls were expensive, and
| videocalls were the thing for super rich, so all the
| friendships and romance of that age meant texting 24/7,
| hammering the shit out of the keyboard, day in, day out,
| _for years_. Never once heard of anyone 's keyboard
| breaking under the load.
| eurleif wrote:
| In your personal experience, does no one use phone cases
| or what?
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Of course everyone is using phone cases - without them,
| hardly any smartphone would last _a month_ without
| needing a screen replacement.
|
| (It was better a decade ago, when smartphones were still
| thick and made of hard plastic. Now that they're all thin
| and metal, they're too slippery to handle safely.)
| justinclift wrote:
| > How long will those tactile buttons last
|
| Button manufacturers rate their products for this kind of
| thing. ie. "10k cycles" (not that high), "1M cycles"
| (better), etc.
|
| So it really depends upon the device manufacturer to pick
| something appropriate.
|
| Random examples:
|
| * https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/push-button-
| switches/1336473
|
| Datasheet for that has 10k cycles: https://docs.rs-
| online.com/512f/0900766b8137f3b1.pdf
|
| * https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/push-button-
| switches/1759621
|
| Datasheet for that lists 1M cycles: https://docs.rs-
| online.com/4ef8/0900766b81680212.pdf
| kanbankaren wrote:
| > Dear device manufacturers. Please used high quality
| switches with travel, resistance and a click ,,BIPPITY-BUMP".
| Add a spring. Built in a indicator light within!
|
| Essentially, you are asking what the avionics industry is
| already doing. Just look at the cockpit of a plane.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Unfortunately, if you then look at the price tag attached
| to that plane, you'll know why no one else is doing it :/.
| dan-0 wrote:
| The opposite side of this is unpredictable or unintended
| behavior from too much moisture, which in my experience has
| been an acknowledgement with touch screens for quite some time.
|
| As touch screens for applications started to become common,
| this naturally filtered into tactical and service work fields.
| There is an advantage in this as it allows a more compact
| interface that can change more easily based on what the user
| needs. However the down side is, in harsh fast paced
| environments where the user may be moving quickly and sweating,
| it's much harder to register intended user feedback to the
| interface.
|
| The problem is not just if touch screens should be used, but
| also how they should be implemented. Especially on the side of
| general consumer electronics, like mobile phones, iOS and
| Android have built in interfaces for accessibility. In some
| cases you can get built in accessibility out of the box with
| very little effort, but the reality is, it takes a decent
| effort in most cases to get it right and users who need this
| behavior are not a heavy majority. This results in a
| deprioritization of accessibility in many mobile applications.
|
| This gets much worse with more hardware centric devices like
| thermostats, ovens, refrigerators, etc which have a higher
| tendency to have user interfaces developed in house and lacking
| any accessibility. Compounding this problem, with the
| popularity of touch screen interfaces, and post COVID supply
| chain problems, many users who needed accessible functionally
| were (maybe still are) left without many options, likely either
| having to pay a heavy premium for something with usable
| accessibility features, but probably more realistically, just
| taking what they can get.
|
| Modern technology makes accessibility easier than ever now, and
| enables accessibility in places that didn't previously exist,
| but the lack of willingness to implement accessible features on
| the part of some corporations is not just providing terrible
| accessibility, it's taking accessibility away from places where
| it previously existed.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| Older people are already having problems with screens on voting
| machines which feeds into the conspiracy theories.
| m-p-3 wrote:
| And dangerous in cars.
|
| There are laws forbidding us from touching our phones, but
| touching the embedded display is fair game? Bring back buttons,
| knobs and dials please. I shouldn't have to try to aim my
| finger at something intangible to change a setting while
| driving a ton of steel at 60mph.
|
| Just knowing where the buttons are and feeling the surface of
| the buttons while I can keep my eyes and attention on the road
| is paramount.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Honestly, even without the danger factor it's a terrible
| interface. Last night I was trying to operate the touch
| screen in my wife's car, and the slight movement of the car
| as she drove meant that my hand kept missing the spot I was
| trying to hit. So even when you're a passenger and can focus
| on the screen, they _still_ are less effective than buttons!
| veunes wrote:
| It's one of those unexpected tech challenges with age
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| It's also inaccessible for able people of young age. I've
| noticed many car companies don't have a mindset for good
| design. So they make touch screen interfaces with very small
| targets. These are hard to hit when the car is in motion and
| require distraction. Core functions should be physical by law.
| Some companies with dial based controls like BMW's iDrive got
| it right.
| meindnoch wrote:
| Same thing happens if you play the guitar a lot and build up
| calluses on your fretting hand. Touchscreens stop registering
| certain parts of your fingertip where the skin is sufficiently
| thickened.
| jpc0 wrote:
| Ironically fingerprint sensors just don't work for my dad, hes
| been an artisan all his life so even when he needs to actually
| give fingerprints ( police or whatever) they actually struggle
| to get prints off his hands.
|
| Unrelated note, maybe Apple has this in mind when they
| implemented faceID...
| jstummbillig wrote:
| Let it be known that (good) designers are fully aware of how bad
| touchscreens are, with regards to UX and many other things.
|
| It's just that touchscreens have been the least bad option, when
| you really need/want (always arguable, of course) to iterate a
| lot on the software, that is inside an expensive and not
| cheaply/easily modifiable piece of hardware.
| Gasp0de wrote:
| No one can ever have believed that touchscreens are a good method
| of operating anything without looking at it.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| For cars
| surgical_fire wrote:
| I wish this was true for cellphones as well.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| My Treo with a physical keyboard was the last mobile device I
| had that typing wasn't a chore with. Touch screen primacy has
| turned mobile devices from content creation to content
| consumption devices.
| Reason077 wrote:
| If physical keys were the way to go in smartphones, we'd all
| still be using BlackBerrys. If it's a dumbphone you want,
| there's plenty of models available with physical keys.
| averageRoyalty wrote:
| > If physical keys were the way to go in smartphones, we'd
| all still be using BlackBerrys.
|
| That would be the dream, yes.
| frde_me wrote:
| I disagree with this. The touchscreen on my phone allows for so
| much versatile applications than is possible with physical
| buttons.
|
| I really don't miss the days where applications had to retrofit
| their controls onto a fixed physical setting.
|
| Sure, maybe for dialling a phone number or texting it was
| better. But for everything else I do on a phone, give me a
| touchscreen.
| kemiller wrote:
| There's a pre/trans fallacy at work in here. We are not returning
| to the buttons we had before, we are recreating the role of
| physical buttons in a world where the long tail of controls has
| somewhere to go. And I'm all for it.
| speakspokespok wrote:
| Please expand on this.
|
| You're saying the analog functionality behind a button, like an
| analog volume control is no longer a pontiometer, but rather a
| tactile UI element? That the focus has changed?
| wslh wrote:
| My first reaction after buying my Garmin watch was to disable the
| touchscreen since it already has buttons. For tracking different
| sports, the touchscreen adds a potential risk of accidental
| touches, which could affect measurements and performance. Plus,
| I'm not certain, but it may consume more battery. I chose this
| watch for its impressive battery life (including solar charging),
| so minimizing unnecessary battery use is important to me.
|
| On the other hand, I find it unnatural to have physical buttons
| on a tablet. My brain takes a moment to adjust to the fact that
| the volume up and volume down buttons on the iPad reverse their
| behavior based on the device's orientation. I would also prefer
| if fingerprint detection on the iPad were integrated into the
| display, as seen in some Samsung phones.
| James_K wrote:
| These stupid touchscreen controls are one of the main things that
| convinced me modern designers simply don't both testing and using
| the products they produce. If you take a touchscreen stove top
| and use it for more than about 5 minutes, you quickly find
| yourself wishing for the knobs back.
| dbg31415 wrote:
| Quick, get me my BlackBerry!
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| I'm into classic European cars and am horrified by the people
| replacing high end vintage german head units that integrate with
| the rest of the car, e.g. speed sensitive volume for shitty
| alibaba touch screens.
| ktosobcy wrote:
| Finally!
| 2099miles wrote:
| Especially in cars, especially in simple controls, touch screens
| are great for low screen real estate but cars are one of the
| dumbest places for them since there is so much real estate and so
| little need for a screen
| elwebmaster wrote:
| Touchscreens in cars should have been illegal to begin with it.
| How can it be that operating a cellphone is not allowed but
| operating a "tablet" is a necessity?
| vel0city wrote:
| I'm not playing Call of Duty mobile or watching YouTube on the
| screen on my head unit. I'm not scrolling TikTik or having a
| text message conversation on a head unit screen. If you think
| it's the same thing, you haven't actually driven a car with a
| screen before.
| electriclove wrote:
| No, it shouldn't be illegal. If it is inferior, they will lose
| sales and money.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| It's naive to think that cost cutting is leading to lost
| sales. People may in fact buy the inferior car because it's
| more affordable and then end up driving something dangerous.
| runeb wrote:
| I believe their comment was about safety, not usability
| CrimsonRain wrote:
| Because you're not thinking and blindly hating. Maybe try to
| learn and change how you use a car dash instead of trying to
| use a Tesla (or similar) like a car from 2005.. Teslas are best
| selling cars for many reasons and touchscreen dash is one of
| the most important ones.
| 7thpower wrote:
| I love Teslas but hate that feature.
|
| Why would you want the most used features to be on a
| touchscreen?
| Schiendelman wrote:
| The most used features aren't only on a touchscreen. I feel
| like most of the people who make these comments have just
| not driven one.
| HerbMcM wrote:
| Once upon a time I used Android Auto and things were good. Most
| controls were in the corners, you see, which allowed me to
| perform a couple of changes without looking at the touchscreen.
| One day, a GUI designer decided to put a horizontal bar going
| through the top of the display just to display a very tiny clock
| on the top right corner. The top left corner I used to bring up
| the menu and quickly select options no longer worked reliably as
| it was under that horizontal strip. I stopped using Android Auto
| after a couple of months.
| andybak wrote:
| This was one of the first lessons I learned about good UX
| design and was the canonical example when discussing what Mac
| OS classic did right and Windows did wrong.
|
| I think it was Norman Nielson thing or one of those old school
| gurus.
|
| How are people _allowed_ to work on UIs without learning the
| core syllabus? The basics of their trade? I grew up on this
| stuff and I 'm not even a UX specialist or a UI designer.
|
| Or are they getting overridden by bad product managers and
| other shitty stakeholders?
| internet101010 wrote:
| They are being overridden by people trying to justify their
| jobs by changing things for the sake of changing things.
| syncsynchalt wrote:
| See also Fitt's Law
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts%27s_law) and with
| regards to Apple OS design, Bruce "Tog" Tognazzini
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Tognazzini), now at
| Norman Nielson Group.
| lolinder wrote:
| This is why I may never upgrade to a vehicle newer than ~2010.
| I've dealt with too many consumer electronics that auto-update
| in ways that make them useless to me, and I'm not willing to
| make a car-sized purchase in the vague hope that _this_
| consumer electronic device will be the exception and will keep
| working for 10+ years (assuming I maintain it) in the same way
| as it did when I bought it.
|
| I develop and rely on muscle memory when driving, and I'm not
| going to invest in muscle memory that can be changed out from
| under me on the whims of some product manager somewhere.
| willmadden wrote:
| Good!
| voytec wrote:
| I need to dry my hands before clicking "no longer exercising" on
| my Apple Watch after swimming. It adds my steps through the beach
| to the towel as the distance swum but allows using the physical
| crown/button to eject water...
| scotty79 wrote:
| I think touchscreens could be fine, even in cars if they limited
| inputs to broad swipes. As for visuals it should rely on simple
| colors to encode functionality and provide feedback during
| operation.
|
| The problem is feature creep where they want user to have so many
| functions that they have no choice but to use buttons and
| detailed graphics.
|
| I think if the smallest buttons they used occupied at least
| quarter of the screen and if screen would have corners that you
| can physically grab onto when you are pressing they could be
| mostly fine-ish.
|
| UX designers that design console experiences for visually
| impaired people would be the best people to create UI for cars.
| Although still not perfect.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| While we're at it, let's come up with a tactile way to connect
| wireless things. I'm so tired of hunting down all of my devices
| and disabling Bluetooth just so that when I turn on my headphones
| they connect to the appropriate device.
|
| I'd love to just touch the two things together and hear a beep to
| know they're paired.
| Eavolution wrote:
| That's actually how my headphones (sony 1000xm3 I think they
| are) can be paired, there's an nfc chip on one of the sides
| which if you tap your phone to will turn on bluetooth, turn on
| the headphones, connect, and the headphones will beep and say
| bluetooth connected. It's the most seamless wireless connection
| I've had with bluetooth
| mrgoldenbrown wrote:
| Oh Thank God.
| grugagag wrote:
| Im surprised touchscreens ever passed compliance for automobiles,
| in some cases they're a downright danger.
| vdvsvwvwvwvwv wrote:
| To the point where if the touchscreen happens to be loose, and
| have it's own battery I could lose my license for touching it
| (unless maybe it is cradled).
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Could a pullback from flat design and a revival of skeuomorphism
| be far behind?
| AlienRobot wrote:
| >Plotnick is [...] the leading expert on buttons and how people
| interact with them.
|
| Something must be wrong with me. This sentence would sound so
| lame to the average person and yet it sounds fascinating to me. I
| wish I had the title of "the leading expert on buttons."
|
| I really LOVE how the WHOLE article is about BUTTONS BUTTONS
| BUTTONS. It really clears any doubt about her expertise. It's not
| an exaggeration. It's an actual leading expert on buttons!
|
| >The blind community had to fight for years to make touchscreens
| more accessible. It's always been funny to me that we call them
| touchscreens. We think about them as a touch modality, but a
| touchscreen prioritizes the visual.
|
| Really interesting observation. In order to press virtual
| buttons, you have to look at the screen to figure out whether the
| button is (unless it's a full-width button at the bottom).
| Physical buttons generally don't require this in order to be
| pushed. They may still require this if the action the button
| performs depends on a state that is indicated by a screen, e.g. a
| menu where you have directional buttons to change the selected
| item.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| I've got a new car. I got the giant touchscreen because the model
| with the advanced safety features only came with the touchscreen.
| However, thanks to all the buttons on the steering wheel (which
| are the same on all models), I have to touch the screen
| approximately zero times while driving. It might as well just be
| a display.
|
| That said, I am appreciative of people coming to their senses
| over this. Maybe not every car maker thought this out as much.
| anonymous344 wrote:
| these idiots does not understand that in the car your hand is
| moving up and down because road is uneven. Touch screen sucks in
| car if the car is moving
| jordanmorgan10 wrote:
| I seem to be in the minority. I love the whole screen approach in
| my model 3. I can customize the bottom shortcuts how I like, the
| screen adapts to the context and things don't feel more than 1
| tap away. I'd take that over plasticy looking car buttons for the
| most part.
| internet101010 wrote:
| They've been back. One of the main reasons I went with the car I
| ended up buying was because it had buttons. And it's fast. And it
| has carplay. And I don't have to press the (A) button every time
| I turn on the car to disable the engine off at red light thing.
| maleldil wrote:
| > disable the engine off at red light thing.
|
| Why do you do that? I find that it barely impacts my driving
| experience, and it's an easy way to decrease emissions.
| esskay wrote:
| Touchscreens are perfectly fine on phones, tablets etc. But for
| something like a car it takes a special kind of idiot to
| implement a touch only way of controlling things like heating/ac,
| volume, etc.
|
| Even for certain audio controls it makes no sense. My (fairly old
| now) Toyota's touch screen is needed for switch between radio and
| usb (no carplay/android auto), even thats annoying to use.
| m463 wrote:
| Tesla is the worst.
|
| why would you want to select your gear on the touchscreen?
|
| I wonder how many sales they lose on the new models because the
| turn signal stalks are gone? (all stalks)
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| A coworker told me a story where they drove a Tesla to Tahoe
| Lake and it started snowing. The Tesla sensors did not pick
| up the snow so the windshield wipers never came on. After
| nearly crashing the car because they couldn't see, they
| pulled over and it took them a long time to find out how to
| turn on the wipers through the touch UI.
|
| I hate hate hate non-analog controls in cars.
| m463 wrote:
| I rented a model 3 from hertz a while back. First time in a
| model 3, and I couldn't figure out how to lock the car. I
| finally figured out how to lock it on the touchscreen, but
| then I would open the door and get out and it would unlock
| again.
|
| I finally figured out two ways to lock the car, but it took
| a bunch of web searches to get it.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| I press the button on the turn signal stalk to turn on the
| wipers on my Tesla.
| nilkn wrote:
| At the risk of sounding snarkier than I actually intend,
| this is great example of why so much Tesla criticism online
| should be ignored or at least taken with a huge grain of
| salt.
|
| I could criticize your coworker for driving a vehicle off
| into nature and dangerous weather conditions without taking
| a few moments to learn how to operate its most basic
| functions. But I don't need to, because all I really need
| to point out is that they could've just clicked the button
| on the turn stalk to turn on the wipers. No touchscreen
| needed.
|
| In all seriousness, though, they need to be a more careful
| driver. Driving a vehicle without knowing how to drive it
| is the fault of the driver and puts other people in danger.
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| Turn stalk controls have been standardized over the past
| 60+ years. Why change something which works for everyone
| already?
|
| Maybe telsa should switch the brake pedal and the
| accelerator next.
|
| Maybe cocacola should switch which way you twist the
| bottle cap to get it off? Surely it is the user's fault
| if they cannot open the bottle.
| nilkn wrote:
| 1. Operating a heavy, dangerous piece of machinery in the
| field without learning how to operate it first is most
| certainly the operator's fault. That's careless,
| irresponsible, and endangers others. If they had hurt or
| killed someone, they would've been prosecuted and would
| possibly be in jail right now.
|
| 2. Taking a few moments to learn to click a button in a
| car you bought is far from unreasonable, especially when
| everyone knows going in that a Tesla is not a completely
| standardized vehicle. The risk posed by this change is
| orders of magnitude less than the risk imposed by
| swapping the brake and accelerator pedals, so that is far
| from a fair or reasonable comparison.
|
| 3. You may not appreciate the benefits of the changes
| that Tesla made, as these things are ultimately
| subjective, but those changes contributed to the Model Y
| becoming the best selling vehicle on the planet.
|
| Now, if your coworker had rented a car and unexpectedly
| received a Tesla, I could sympathize more. A car rental
| company should not rent out non-standard vehicles
| unexpectedly. However, it's always the responsibility of
| the driver to learn to operate the vehicle first before
| getting on the road and endangering others.
| ktosobcy wrote:
| > 1. Operating a heavy, dangerous piece of machinery in
| the field without learning how to operate it first is
| most certainly the operator's fault. That's careless,
| irresponsible, and endangers others. If they had hurt or
| killed someone, they would've been prosecuted and would
| possibly be in jail right now.
|
| Yet I can switch between very different cars and "it just
| works" and I dont' have to go through the darn manual
| each time... weird inni't?
|
| > 3. You may not appreciate the benefits of the changes
| that Tesla made, as these things are ultimately
| subjective, but those changes contributed to the Model Y
| becoming the best selling vehicle on the planet.
|
| _Something something correlation something something
| causation_
|
| Have you considered that Tesla mayb got to that point
| because it was 1) very efficient and 2) Musk has a cult-
| like following (something akin Apple users making
| pointless decissions) even _DESPITE_ dumb solution like
| tablet stuck in the middle of the dashboard or stupid
| changes like this one?
| elzbardico wrote:
| You shouldn't have to read the documentation for basic
| usage of a vehicle. Basic things like turning signals,
| lights, windshield wipers, locking and unlocking, windows
| work basically the same in most vehicles.
|
| You are with a friend, and they are not feeling well,
| with most cars you can just take the wheel and drive as
| long as needed without having to look at the manual to
| figure out how to operate basic safety features.
|
| I don't hate Elon, neither I hate Tesla, but I don't
| fucking want an "opinionated" car. Those changes bring no
| benefit other than saving a few minutes of assembly time
| and a few parts on the Bill of Materials, and all those
| benefits are for Tesla, not for me as a customer or a
| driver.
| elzbardico wrote:
| > Operating a heavy, dangerous piece of machinery in the
| field without learning how to operate it first is most
| certainly the operator's fault. That's careless,
| irresponsible, and endangers others. If they had hurt or
| killed someone, they would've been prosecuted and would
| possibly be in jail right now.
|
| I think I've got a driver's license that allows me to
| drive from Toyotas to VW, from Dodges to BYD without
| having to read the manual for basic usage.
|
| And yes, I usually do read the manual even on rented
| cars, but not because I need to figure out how to operate
| the turn signals or windshield wipers.
|
| If Tesla wants do things their way, we should do like an
| aviation and require type certification as we do for
| pilots to be able to operate more complex planes. Let'see
| how Tesla's marketing would like this.
| newZWhoDis wrote:
| Funny, because teslas (even without stalks) have physical
| buttons for the wipers (either on the wheel, or the left
| stalk push button).
|
| Even outside of that, one of the most basic things any
| driver in a new car should do is familiarize themselves
| with standard controls (wipers, defrost, backup camera,
| turn signals, etc) before shifting into drive.
|
| Sounds like your friends were danger to themselves and
| others on the road.
| valval wrote:
| Their products are amazing and sales keep going up, so I bet
| they're doing alright there.
| CrimsonRain wrote:
| The question should be how many sales they gained because of
| it.
| deergomoo wrote:
| The indicators/turn signals are the most egregious omissions
| in a Tesla for me. Evidently no-one who made that decision
| has ever driven in the UK. I cross 8 roundabouts on my quick
| 20 minute commute into the office, good luck trying to find
| the right touch target to signal your exit when your steering
| wheel is at a quarter or half lock.
| newZWhoDis wrote:
| The new stalkless models are great. All the controls are on
| the steering wheel it's very convenient.
| frant-hartm wrote:
| You probably don't have many roundabouts where you live,
| right?
| alejohausner wrote:
| What I really would like to see is a car with a full command-line
| interface with a qwerty keyboard built into the steering wheel.
| Then you could type > setgear r ENTER
|
| To put the car in reverse. Of course people on hn could just
| abbreviate that to > r ENTER
|
| using a ksh macro! But for newbie users we could have a 3 button
| mouse instead.
|
| /s
| cheesycod wrote:
| You joke but there actually may be merit to it. Of course,
| you'd still need a GUI on top but you technically could put a
| full command-line interface with limited commands and actually
| sell it as a differentiating feature at this point.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Automobiles not so much, but modern airliner cockpits have this
| to a limited extent, notably navigation computer.
| liendolucas wrote:
| Finally, also note that an LCD screen is not needed at all in the
| driver's console. Analog indicators for speed, rpms and simple
| lights are just fine. What I would really really like to have on
| all vehicles is an error LCD screen that describes with full and
| clear details any type of malfunction. We're still stuck with
| error codes but hey we give owners all these fancy and
| unnecessary digital toys and when a problem araises we need to
| plug a scanner to decode what's going on with our vehicles.
| squidgedcricket wrote:
| Do any modern cars have OBD readers integrated into the
| infotainment system?
|
| It seems like a no brainer to show the error code w/ a
| description. Though that might decrease the number of dealer
| visits compared to a non-descriptive check engine light.
| alexbock wrote:
| Tesla vehicles display error descriptions prominently
| whenever an error code is presented, and detailed error
| diagnostics are available for anyone to browse in the service
| mode menu on the touchscreen. (Service mode is publicly
| accessible but does require looking up online how to open
| it.)
| deergomoo wrote:
| I actually don't mind the driver's display being a screen,
| because it has no controls and I don't have to interact with it
| besides looking at it. The most important things it displays
| (speed and revs) are mimicking dials anyway, but it's nice to
| be able to see things that most lower-cost manufacturers would
| never bother making a dial or numeric display for (primarily
| economy and remaining range, for me).
| shrx wrote:
| I don't understand why I get a warning that tire pressure is
| low but no indication which tire is problematic.
| EMCymatics wrote:
| I can't believe they didn't get immediately cancelled after they
| put a hole in a navy destroyer.
| teatro wrote:
| Oof, I'm about to buy our new family car which has not a single
| knob anywhere, they all were replaced by those sensitive switches
| and sliders.
| gaudystead wrote:
| Consider looking at Mazda. They all seem to retain physical
| controls in addition to (optional) touch controls. Probably
| other brands out there too though.
| m463 wrote:
| I kind of wonder if touchscreens and apps are a way of firing
| customers. Get compliant customers that won't complain and will
| rent autopilot or buy range upgrades their cars already had the
| hardware for.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| I think it's mostly cost-cutting, but also a prompt for both
| designers and customers to expect less interaction. It fits in
| with the push for automation.
|
| For cost cutting it might be going according to plan: Tesla is
| making a good profit on their cars.
|
| The success of their automation efforts remains to be seen.
| valval wrote:
| Yes -- in a world of sheep, you're the wolf.
| mmooss wrote:
| > if we look at the 1800s, people were sending messages via
| telegraph about what the future would look like if we all had
| this dashboard of buttons at our command where we could
| communicate with anyone and shop for anything.
|
| I've read a bunch of history of computers and related technology,
| and I've never seen that. Where can I find it? (I don't doubt it;
| I want to read it!)
|
| It shouldn't surprise me: The telegraph made immediate, cost-
| effective wide-area communication possible, and of course people
| then weren't idiots (or we're not so smart) - some of them
| imagined future development and applications.
| taylodl wrote:
| Sanity prevails!
| electriclove wrote:
| The touchscreen in Tesla cars is amazing. And there are a few
| tactile controls on the steering wheel.
| patrickhogan1 wrote:
| The Sony WH-1000XM5 (newest version) headphones have both touch
| and voice controls, but they can be frustrating to use. The touch
| controls are meant to be easy, but they're often too sensitive or
| don't respond well. For instance, a small accidental swipe can
| pause or skip a song, which interrupts my music. The voice
| feature, "Speak-to-Chat," stops the music if it hears you talking
| or even singing along, which can be annoying. I usually turn off
| these controls because they're more hassle than help--it's
| actually easier to adjust the volume on my iPhone when I'm on a
| run. These controls are 10x worse than the much older versions
| that had volume and pause buttons on the headphones.
| averageRoyalty wrote:
| > These controls are 10x worse than the much older versions
| that had volume and pause buttons on the headphones.
|
| I have the WH-1000XM2s and they do not have volume or pause
| buttons. Double tap to pause, slide up and down for volume. I
| can't comment on them compared to yours, but the touch element
| works extremely well on them.
| dalmo3 wrote:
| I had to disable touch control on mine (gen 4) as it would
| detect touches from the pillow I was resting my head on.
|
| The most annoying part is there are some buttons already on the
| phones for connectivity so the could have added more for basic
| functions.
| pigbearpig wrote:
| This vid talks about how the MD-80 has different types of
| switches for different functions. Not sure if intentional, but
| the ability to know if you have the wrong switch by feel seems
| like a great benefit.
|
| https://youtu.be/7R0CViDUBFs?t=429
|
| Moment I question is at 7:09, but whole vid is quite interesting.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Tesla, for all the flack it gets for removing buttons, "almost"
| has enough buttons.
|
| It's fine to bury options / settings that you don't touch often,
| or ever, under a menu.
|
| When driving, the steering wheel controls to change the audio /
| autopilot speed are "good enough."
|
| What's missing?
|
| I should be able to adjust the wiper speed with a dial on the
| stalk. (The automatic wipers are lousy, and if there was a dial
| on the stalk, I really wouldn't care.)
|
| I should be able to adjust the heated seat with a dial, and maybe
| adjust the climate control temperature with a dial.
|
| That's it. Just a few more buttons.
| Schiendelman wrote:
| You can adjust the wiper speed with the left wheel after
| tapping the wiper button.
| balls187 wrote:
| Worst aspect of the 2023 vw id4 is the capacitive touch controls.
|
| I like the swipe to raise volume and temp, but the mirror and
| window controls are atrocious.
|
| Side note: having window lock and child safety lock be a single
| control is a huge miss.
| nenadg wrote:
| Finally.
| carabiner wrote:
| Love my 2015 Tacoma.
| thrownaway561 wrote:
| with buttons, you can close your eyes and navigate the "map" of
| the device. I know that the top button of my tv remote is the
| power and the cross in the middle is for navigating the
| directional of the on screen display of the tv. I can find the
| middle button of the remote and 2 middle buttons down from the
| cross is the play/pause button.
|
| You can't do this with a touch screen. There is no indication of
| surface or depth of feedback. True that you can have a "bump"
| feedback, but that is for basically ever "button" on the
| touchscreen so they all feel the same.
|
| There is nothing to distinguish one button "area" from the other
| on a touchscreen. Now this isn't a big deal if you can look at
| the control, but what about blind people, trying to navigate in
| the dark or even worst... while driving???
|
| Touchscreens have their place but they don't need to replace
| everything.
| Animats wrote:
| The article is mostly about buttons.
|
| Buttons with a screen you have to look at are no better than a
| touchscreen. For cars, everything important should be do-able
| without looking. At least until Waymo's technology filters down
| to most cars.
| numerative wrote:
| I nearly crashed my car into the divider because I had to look
| away to adjust the car AC which has touch buttons instead of
| tactile.
|
| As for my car, that's the only touch interface; all else is old
| school tactile button and knobs.
|
| I am starting to wonder how drivers of the modern teslas and
| similar feel about all touch interface in their cars.
| stargrazer wrote:
| Probably why Tesla's have auto-drive. Car has to drive it self
| while you focus your attention on the screen to decode how it
| works.
| m12k wrote:
| I'm glad the pendulum is swinging back with this one. With UI
| paradigms, we seem to have this tendency to throw out the baby
| with the bathwater, or be so intrigued with the possible new
| benefits we can get (buttons can change according to context!)
| that we forget what current benefits we would give up to get them
| (learnability and muscle-memory because the button always does
| the same thing, being able to feel your way to a button without
| looking at it)
|
| It reminds me of what happened with the flat UI/anti-
| skeuomorphism wave a bit over a decade ago. It seemed like
| someone got so incensed by the faux leather in the iPhone's Find
| My Friends app (supposedly made to look like it had the same
| stitching as the leather upholstery in Steve Jobs' private jet)
| that they went on a crusade against anything "needlessly physical
| looking" in UI. We got the Metro design language from Microsoft
| as the fullest expression of it, with Apple somewhat following
| suit in iOS (but later walking back some things too) and later
| Google's Material Design walking it back a bit further (drop
| shadows making a big comeback).
|
| But for a while there, it was genuinely hard to tell which bit of
| text was a label and which was a button, because it was all just
| bits of black or monocolor text floating on a flat white
| background. It's like whoever came up with the flat UI fad didn't
| realize how much hierarchy and structure was being conveyed by
| the lines, shadows and gradients that had suddenly gone out of
| vogue. All of a sudden we needed a ton of whitespace between
| elements to understand which worked together and which were
| unrelated. Which is ironic, because the whole thing started as a
| crusade against designers putting their own desire for artistic
| expression above their users' needs by wasting UI space on
| showing off their artistic skill with useless ornaments, but it
| led to designers putting their own philosophical purity above
| their users' needs, by wasting UI space on unnecessary whitespace
| and forcing low information density on everyone.
| dmix wrote:
| Plenty of UI designers just follow trends because everyone just
| copies the current popular things, especially when their
| competition starts doing it too. They don't really put a ton of
| thought into it or don't do it as part of a wider cohesive
| strategy where it makes sense for what they are building.
|
| Really shows the power of UI designers at big organizations
| like Apple, Google, and Tesla.
| brikym wrote:
| It's due to fashion. New tech trend comes in and companies want
| to use it to differentiate their products as newer so they seem
| more valuable. When the tech ages and becomes just another
| commodity the usage settles down. When blue LEDs came out every
| hardware company put blue LEDs everywhere but that's no longer
| the case as they're not fashionable. Another example is glass-
| look UI buttons from the first iPhones.
| AlexAndScripts wrote:
| I got an email from Microsoft recently with that funny thin
| font used for headers. It reminded me that that was a trend
| around 2016 or so. The headers would have thinner font
| strokes than the body text, despite being substantially
| larger.
|
| I remember that around that time (I was quite young) I was
| putting it in all my attempts at websites (all hideous, even
| at the time) and I thought it looked really cool. Funny the
| way trends go.
|
| In the case of the email it was clear that it just hadn't
| been updated with the times.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I remember the EE Doc Smith Lensman series, when the characters
| "pressed a stud" rather than "pushed a button".
|
| "Every firing officer in every Patrol ship touched his stud in
| the same split second." -- First Lensman
|
| "before a firing-stud could be pressed, the enemy craft almost
| disappeared again",
|
| "The Boskonian touched a stud and spoke." -- Gray Lensman
| dredmorbius wrote:
| [delayed]
| WalterBright wrote:
| I'm waiting for people to realize that icons are a horrible step
| backwards from language.
|
| I defy anyone to come up with an icon that is better than
| "PRINT".
| BobbyTables2 wrote:
| About damn time!
| sharkweek wrote:
| I drive a 2000 4Runner.
|
| You know what I love?
|
| Physical controls for heat/radio/shifting etc.
|
| It feels precise and tactile.
|
| My wife refuses to drive it, she much prefers the modern luxuries
| in cars, but there is something so satisfying about FEELING the
| interaction with a control.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| I've an aughts vehicle myself, and yes, the _lack_ of screens
| is one reason I plan to hang on to that as long as possible.
| sfmz wrote:
| I also welcome the return of physical media (incl. videogames);
| manually pushing in the cart/cartridge is a form of tactile
| control. That and a wired controller so I don't need to manage
| batteries and bluetooth when my nephews want to play videogames.
| speakspokespok wrote:
| Somewhat tangential to the topic but the picture at the top
| there, of the center console, how is the lettering applied? Is
| that a silk screening process of some kind that I can duplicate?
|
| Asking because I want to duplicate the look of an OEM vehicle
| setup for a personal project.
|
| "Guy Who Stares at Vehicle Buttons"
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| I think I speak for literally every car owner when I say "about
| damn time."
| OnlyMortal wrote:
| In a car they're a distraction from driving. You have to look at
| the iPad stuck to the dash and not on the road - where the
| driver's focus must be.
|
| With knobs and buttons, you can feel for them whilst still having
| your vision in the road.
|
| This _must_ make it safer to drive.
|
| As a MX5 (ND) driver, even having a knob to scroll around the
| screen is a poor design choice. Touch would have been better (you
| can hack that) whilst driving but, frankly, this kind of car
| shouldn't have a screen at all. It's a driving car, not a home
| entertainment system.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Very happy with my Braun BC21B alarm clock
| AzzyHN wrote:
| Give me a big screen for music info, maps, settings, that kind of
| stuff. Give me buttons for everything else.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Export all of that to a separate device which can be updated
| and/or replaced with time.
|
| A friend was considering various auto options in the mid-aughts
| and described to me their realisation that the "navigation
| package" (a US$1500 option) would be an obsolete-on-delivery
| system that would only get worse with time. Its functionality
| has been provided by a series of ever-improving smartphones and
| tablets, not to mention published paper maps and highway
| atlases, which have excellent resolution, response, high- and
| low-light readability, and are utterly immune to networking
| glitches or WiFi deserts.
|
| Music and/or podcasts can be delivered from your tablet or
| smartphone. Over local FM broadcast if no other options exist
| (and that's far less glitchy and frustrating than Bluetooth
| IME).
| everdimension wrote:
| Title sounds like a dream, but I don't really see it happening
| yet. I honestly think you have to be retarded to put a
| touchscreen into a car. But they don't seem to be making less of
| those
| chikere232 wrote:
| Finally!
| zzo38computer wrote:
| I dislike touch screen; physical keyboards and controls are
| better, in my opinion. So, it is good that they are doing these
| things, in cars and in other devices.
|
| There is the consideration of what buttons to have. I think that
| for many kind of devices, numeric keypads will be useful. This
| can include the time and power of microwaves, frequency of
| radios, telephone numbers, date/time to schedule something,
| numbered menu items, etc. Stuff such as CD and DVD players and
| VCRs might also have controls such as play, pause, stop, rewind,
| fast-forward, record, previous-track, next-track, etc. Anything
| with audio will also have high volume, low volume, and mute (use
| a dial might be used to control volume instead, on some devices).
|
| Additionally, a remote control should not be required. The
| controls should be directly on the device itself, although remote
| controls (e.g. with IR) might also be available.
| karmakaze wrote:
| They aren't mutually exclusive. Sometimes it's easier to pinch to
| zoom/rotate, other times it's easier to adjust volume with a
| physical knob/buttons without looking. It's either marketing
| 'something different' or cost cutting that leads to these
| exaggerated non-optimal fads.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| I'm fine with my Tesla touchscreen. It's well designed and works
| better than Toyota or Nissans nightmare button layout.
|
| There's tons of third party buttons you can add. They don't seem
| to be super popular.
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