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The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens

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Re: The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens

#21

Post by WalterBright »

sliken wrote: post #6

Seems like all the car manufactures are failing to learn all the lessons that Google and Apple have learned about touch screens and voice interfaces. What's worse is whatever your phone of choice is, it's likely to know a HUGE amount more about your. Your contact list, what you searched on recently, tickets you bought, public transit research, etc. So instead of say "Navigate to Joe Random" you end up hunting and pec…

I have a patent on using morse code to text people on the phone rather than a keyboard. The idea is so you can text without looking at the phone.

A rocker switch is added to the edge of the phone, up is dit and down is dah.

I coulda been a billionaire! :-)

Re: The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens

#22

Post by AstralStorm »

ctack wrote: post #15
lowkeyokay wrote: post #7

I still miss a physical button on my phone to take a picture. Haven’t had it since my Nokia Windows Phone.

I don't get how jog dials aren't more popular for every interface. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jog_dial There is a 5 direction one from Sony. One or two of these and a small black and white screen near the gauges should be all you'd ever need.

Small jog dials are pretty bad. They require enough precision to force mistakes, while not giving actual precise input.

Might as well swipe the touchscreen (or a touchpad) with some haptic feedback.

At small sizes, well shaped buttons with all chosen stiffness and press depth are unbeatable. Not even a lever comes close. (think gamepads and analog sticks or hat controllers)

For analog input, levers are best, but they have to be big enough (joystick) though steering wheel comes close.

There is a good reason most vehicles use either a steering wheel, potentially multiaxis, or a joystick, augmented with buttons and levers. Stepped knobs are also good.

Re: The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens

#24

Post by oftenwrong »

WalterBright wrote: post #12
omeid2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am learning to fly and know a fair few in aviation, most pilots actually detest touchscreen and much prefer physical controls that are tactile and gives hard-realtime feedback. If you have payed attention to the controls in a cockpit, you will see that all the switches, knobs, and levers have different sizes, shapes, texture, and tilt. That is not accidental. It helps with muscle memory and when you have to alter m…

I love that the landing gear levers have little tires on the top. It's perfect tactile feedback. The flap controls have little airfoils on the top. The cockpit is full of things like that, all learned the hard way. People are very bad at inventing intuitive interfaces. For example, aviation has standard phrases for things. Like "takeoff power" is maximum power, as that's what you use for takeoff. One day, a pilot was…

An ambiguous use of the phrase "take off" was a key cause of the Tenerife Airport Disaster.

>As a consequence of the accident, sweeping changes were made to international airline regulations and to aircraft. Aviation authorities around the world introduced requirements for standard phrases and a greater emphasis on English as a common working language.[13]

>Air traffic instruction should not be acknowledged solely with a colloquial phrase such as "OK" or even "Roger" (which simply means the last transmission was received[58]), but with a readback of the key parts of the instruction, to show mutual understanding. The phrase "take off" is now spoken only when the actual takeoff clearance is given or when cancelling that same clearance (i.e. "cleared for take-off" or "cancel take-off clearance"). Up until that point, aircrew and controllers should use the phrase "departure" in its place, e.g. "ready for departure". Additionally, an ATC clearance given to an aircraft already lined-up on the runway must be prefixed with the instruction "hold position".[59]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster

https://web.archive.org/web/20170218144312/http://lessonslea...

Re: The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens

#25

Post by WalterBright »

oftenwrong wrote: post #24
WalterBright wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love that the landing gear levers have little tires on the top. It's perfect tactile feedback. The flap controls have little airfoils on the top. The cockpit is full of things like that, all learned the hard way. People are very bad at inventing intuitive interfaces. For example, aviation has standard phrases for things. Like "takeoff power" is maximum power, as that's what you use for takeoff. One day, a pilot was…

An ambiguous use of the phrase "take off" was a key cause of the Tenerife Airport Disaster. >As a consequence of the accident, sweeping changes were made to international airline regulations and to aircraft. Aviation authorities around the world introduced requirements for standard phrases and a greater emphasis on English as a common working language.[13] >Air traffic instruction should not be acknowledged solely wi…

My source for the anecdote was my father, who was a jet pilot for the Air Force, and spent some duty as an accident investigator. I wouldn't be surprised if the AF and civil aviation both had to learn that lesson the hard way.

Re: The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens

#26

Post by phlo »

This makes you appreciate the attention to detail, and the countless painfully learnt lessons, that goes into user interface design for airplanes.

Compare a Cessna 400's cockpit [1] to a switch cluster in a recent Mini [2]. The car still has physical switches, which is better than a touchscreen. It's also styled to resemble an airplane cockpit. But all the switches look the same, and some of them have two positions while others have three; some of them disable things while others turn them on.

In the Cessna, each control has a different color, and a different surface texture. The flap lever is styled to resemble an actual flap. The same goes for gear levers on planes with retractable landing gears: they are styled as little wheels. As the pilot, if you touch the wrong lever, you'll immediately feel the difference, avoiding dangerous mistakes.

In the Mini, all switches have the same color and they feel the same. Their status is indicated with a little LED on the switch itself. You neither feel the current status from touching the switch, nor is there any tactile feedback of whether you are touching the right switch. With a touchscreen, that remains true, but additionally the location of the switches changes too.

[1] https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-f37712d0cd771d5aee97ac...

[2] https://www.gunaxin.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/2017-MINI...

Re: The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens

#27

Post by MrGilbert »

phlo wrote: post #26

This makes you appreciate the attention to detail, and the countless painfully learnt lessons, that goes into user interface design for airplanes. Compare a Cessna 400's cockpit [1] to a switch cluster in a recent Mini [2]. The car still has physical switches, which is better than a touchscreen. It's also styled to resemble an airplane cockpit. But all the switches look the same, and some of them have two positions w…

There is a subtile difference in terms of consequences between blindly picking the wrong button on a car vs plane, though...

Re: The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens

#28

Post by spondyl »

A coworker of mine often refers to his time of working on a CT scanner which this reminded me of. One story was around how a new model was released that used a touchscreen instead of tactile buttons.

As you can imagine, a doctor could previously fully focus on the patient as they were able to feel the feedback of physical buttons.

With the introduction of a touchscreen, they would have to continually switch between looking at the positioning of the patient, and looking to their right at the LCD panel in the CT scanner itself.

A quick look at the website of the large company in question seems to indicate that they reverted back to a non-touch screen display. I should hope so given that we're talking about hospital patients here!

Re: The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens

#29

Post by thiagocsf »

MrGilbert wrote: post #27
phlo wrote: post #26

This makes you appreciate the attention to detail, and the countless painfully learnt lessons, that goes into user interface design for airplanes. Compare a Cessna 400's cockpit [1] to a switch cluster in a recent Mini [2]. The car still has physical switches, which is better than a touchscreen. It's also styled to resemble an airplane cockpit. But all the switches look the same, and some of them have two positions w…

There is a subtile difference in terms of consequences between blindly picking the wrong button on a car vs plane, though...

Obviously but OP’s point still stands. Quality UX takes time and careful thinking (which is why it’s worth doing it for a plane but not for a car).
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