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The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens

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Re: The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens

#81
post #65
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can set auto-climate control and will be able to change climate with voice in the future: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/952750646406426624?s=21

They're solving a problem they introduced themselves eh? Voice command: shout at car to make it cooler. Car doesn't understand. Shout at car to turn off radio so your voice command is clearer. Car doesn't understand. Take eyes off road to turn off the damn radio with the touch screen. Crash! The button interfaces actually work 100% of the time. Voice command... lol...

It's fine because you can just turn on the Autopilot while you adjust the radio and everything will be fine.

Re: The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens

#82
post #15

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.

I love jog dials, too. They are fast, precise, and tactile. They should be used much more than they are.

Re: The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens

#83
post #28

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 l…

Phew, well at least they did switch back. We're probably going to see more of that where it makes sense, now that having a touchscreen isn't a big deal anymore.

Re: The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens

#84

I sometimes feel I am in a minority of one these days. Just about every car I've owned, I develop a muscle memory of where all the important switches are, and how far to turn to "hot enough" or "cool enough" etc. Same for most things around - I know fairly well how far to turn the oven for 180 +-10, no need to look. I might check if it's something especially sensitive (rare). Thanks to iPhone (I have one, and like it…

Porsche is still using a low of switches to maintain this aspect of UX.

Re: The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens

#85

I sometimes feel I am in a minority of one these days. Just about every car I've owned, I develop a muscle memory of where all the important switches are, and how far to turn to "hot enough" or "cool enough" etc. Same for most things around - I know fairly well how far to turn the oven for 180 +-10, no need to look. I might check if it's something especially sensitive (rare). Thanks to iPhone (I have one, and like it…

I just bought a car (with Carplay), but I was adamant that I would only have one that had physical buttons and volume knobs on the centre console. Sat in Tesla the other day and was really surprised about how awful the UI was in terms of information heirarchy. Everything seemed to have the same weight. A sea of clickable buttons.

Can I ask which brand you went with? I'm currently looking and have already tossed out several models I otherwise really wanted.

Re: The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens

#86
Working in industrial automation I can confirm that ugly color coded touch interfaces are optimal. Group functions by color and/or menus by color. Operators quickly know where to glance for data and which "buttons" to press.

Most of today's UI's are centered around web/mobile where form over function is the rule.

Re: The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the mixed mode works really well. Touchscreens are pretty natural and intuitive, especially for things like ATMs, but you can't have braille on ATM touch screens so you need the buttons no matter what. At least in the US they usually have headphone jacks to replace the information presented on the screen though, and since you have a screen you might as well make it a touch screen.

> Touchscreens are pretty natural and intuitive Try to watch someone in their 60s operate them and you will learn that the are anything but. My dad find them endlessly frustrating, as his first instinct when talking about something in an image or something is to put his finger on it. But that invariably triggers something on such a screen. He also struggles with things like Google Maps on a PC with a scroll mouse, as…

I've seen the 'super hybrid' a few times, at least in Australia, on both ATMs and credit card machines. A touch screen (with physical numpad) at but with positional buttons on the side so the choices can be both touched, or use the buttons. For me it creates a bit of cognitive overhead at first - I'm getting mixed messages as to how to interact - but then I make a random guess and its right. No matter which I tried, I would have been right.

Re: The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens

#88

I sometimes feel I am in a minority of one these days. Just about every car I've owned, I develop a muscle memory of where all the important switches are, and how far to turn to "hot enough" or "cool enough" etc. Same for most things around - I know fairly well how far to turn the oven for 180 +-10, no need to look. I might check if it's something especially sensitive (rare). Thanks to iPhone (I have one, and like it…

Hopefully we can go to mostly physical interfaces and voice (for nav input). Where is a touchscreen the best answer?

Re: The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens

#89
The term Style over substance often wins, when (uncommon) sense is thrown out the window. Just ‘cos you can doesn't mean you should. Beware false prophets bearing shiny pretty things that look like the come from the fantastic future.

Re: The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens

#90

I sometimes feel I am in a minority of one these days. Just about every car I've owned, I develop a muscle memory of where all the important switches are, and how far to turn to "hot enough" or "cool enough" etc. Same for most things around - I know fairly well how far to turn the oven for 180 +-10, no need to look. I might check if it's something especially sensitive (rare). Thanks to iPhone (I have one, and like it…

I still drive a 'dumb' car with actual buttons and knobs, because I loathe (with a passion) almost every car UI I have interacted with. I haven't been in a Tesla yet, but all the big makers (GM, Nissan, Audi, etc) get the interfaces so wrong, to the point where I assume it was their intention. I'd be interested to hear of any cars that get it right.

I thought I'd got enough of a balance. Next time around I'll be irritating dealers going through the UI much more carefully.

> to the point where I assume it was their intention

It really does feel that way sometimes. They must have special "Interfaces that almost work" courses. :)

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