The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens • Hacker News Board

Re: The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens

#31

Post by HelloNurse » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 8:34 AM UTC

fipple wrote: post #10

On my old car I could both read and write any value to the car without looking at the controls. That's important -- if I was feeling cold, but the temperature was set to where I wanted it, I'd turn on the seat warmer, as I knew I'd need to feel warmer only temporarily. Now I have to look at the controls all the damn time. One important thing was that all of the controls were asymmetric -- the buttons were all differe…

I had an interesting UI failure in my car today, with the knob that directs air to the windshield, middle and feet levels, with many intermediate combinations. Uncommonly, the knob can turn full circle, but it is not directional; I noticed it was turned 180° from the intended position only when I noticed I was sweating.

Re: The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens

#32

Post by CoolGuySteve » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 8:35 AM UTC

Video games do this the best: you want a game pad like controller on the steering wheel with a HUD projected on the windshield.

You get the best of both worlds, a context-aware interface without losing focus on what’s in front of you.

Re: The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens

#33

Post by namdnay » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 8:36 AM UTC

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…

I don't think that's a lack of attention to detail from Mini. Just a decision made with the knowledge that people don't buy premium cars based on rational decisions. If they did, I'm not sure Mini (or BMW for that matter) would exist... I don't think this is the case for airplanes.

Re: The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens

#34

Post by etiam » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 8:42 AM UTC

charleyma wrote: post #3

Would also potentially add "voice control" to this list. It's amazing to me that by trying to be "innovative/modern", most car user interface designs have become increasingly user unfriendly. Case in point, the other day I spent 15 minutes trying to figure out how to connect my phone to a car via bluetooth (I'm still used to there just being a button for pairing). Ended up having to search online for the instruction…

A loud clatter of gunk music flooded through the Heart of Gold cabin as Zaphod searched the sub-etha radio wavebands for news of himself. The machine was rather difficult to operate. For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive - you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same programme

Douglas Adams (1979) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Re: The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens

#35

Post by namdnay » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 8:43 AM UTC

thiagocsf wrote: post #29

MrGilbert wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I think both these examples are quality UX. In fact I'd go so far as to bet that BMW has spent far more on UX than Cessna has. The difference is in the definition of "quality". In Cessna's case the objective is to make the plane safer and easier to pilot, so people decide to buy it. In BMW's case the objective is to make people want to buy the car. Two different objectives = Two different user experiences

Re: The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens

#36

Post by dzhiurgis » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 8:54 AM UTC

Gaelan wrote: post #14

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.

iPhones also let you use the volume buttons to take a picture

Press lock button, swipe left, press volume button - snap. It's somewhat fast actually.

Re: The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens

#37

Post by sharpercoder » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 9:38 AM UTC

namdnay wrote: post #35

thiagocsf wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I think both these examples are quality UX. In fact I'd go so far as to bet that BMW has spent far more on UX than Cessna has. The difference is in the definition of "quality". In Cessna's case the objective is to make the plane safer and easier to pilot, so people decide to buy it. In BMW's case the objective is to make people want to buy the car. Two different objectives = Two different user experiences

you confuse sales with UX.

Re: The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens

#38

Post by robocat » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 9:51 AM UTC

slobotron wrote: post #9

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.

Sony phones have dedicated button (hold down to enter camera app, by the time phone is out of pocket you are ready to press it again to take the photo). On Pixel 2, double press Power button to start the camera app; then use volume buttons to take the photo. Not as ergonomic as Sony, but still works. I'm sure other phones have something similar.

I would like a dedicated photo button.

Although physical buttons have a habit of failing (I have had multiple phones fail with button problems).

I have a Moto G3: double tap power to go into camera mode from the lock screen, or alternatively "waggle" it twice to get into camera mode (if screen turned off).

Both methods work, but I use them rarely enough that I still haven't learned to use either of them quickly when I actually need to take a photo quickly. And I am definitely a technically competent user.

Re: The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens

#39

Post by leejo » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 10:06 AM UTC

Touch screens and mixed user interfaces on things like cash machines, petrol pumps, etc kind of bother me - maybe later posts will go into this as the blog ends saying there will be a follow-up.

Just a couple of anecdotes - the first being cash machines where I input the PIN using the traditional buttons on the numeric pad, then i start using the touchscreen to make other choices. Pick one or the other, not a mixture of the two. Or self service petrol pumps that end up covered in grease and dirt, because they're in that kind of environment.

Once i was waiting in line at the Eurotunnel and the person in front of me was clearly struggling. It took them about five minutes to get through the registration process and they kept leaning over out of their car window, stabbing away at the touchscreen with their finger appearing somewhat frustrated. I assumed they must have had trouble finding their booking.

When I got to the booth myself I pressed the touchscreen and it was immediately clear that the calibration was off, by about a couple of finger widths - this was enough to cause the problems for the user before me, as they were trying to type in their booking reference but it would always choose the wrong digits. So when I typed in my booking reference I moved my finger a little to the side to account for the calibration error. Easy! Well, not so much if you're not technically inclined enough to recognise this kind of issue when you see it.

Re: The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens

#40

Post by kalleboo » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 10:13 AM UTC

I posted this comment 3 days ago on another article but it's just as relevant here. Touchscreens are great for people unfamiliar with an interface, but they seem to work poorly for experts.

---

One place I lived had train ticket machines from the 90's that were an analog of Teletext. If you knew the 3-digit zone code for your end station, you could just jam in the zone code, adult, buy ticket, pop in your magstripe card and have a ticket in 5 seconds flat. It was absolutely perfect.

They were then replaced with user-friendly Windows-powered machines where buying the most basic ticket took 2 minutes as you had to poke though pages of stations on a crap resistive display.