Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles • Hacker News Board

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#271

Post by fsagx » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 11:46 AM UTC

marapuru wrote: post #47

Praise to Mazda for making this decision. As a User Experience Professional, I was never able to grasp the true user's need for touch screens in cars. For years I have been working on product interfaces (not just apps). Many studies I conducted actually told me that people favored analog controls over digital touch screens controls. It gives you tactile feedback, making it accessible for anyone with sense of touch. >…

Mazda (at least my Mazda6 from a few years ago) can do this because they have a great interface to the entertainment/info system. They have a joystick with a few mouse-like buttons on the center console just behind the gear shift. It's very easy to do common tasks like change volume, change station, skip to next in playlist without taking eyes off the road. My wife actually didn't realize for more than a year that the screen was a touch screen. She had never had to use it.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#272

Post by loudtieblahblah » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 11:48 AM UTC

marapuru wrote: post #47

Praise to Mazda for making this decision. As a User Experience Professional, I was never able to grasp the true user's need for touch screens in cars. For years I have been working on product interfaces (not just apps). Many studies I conducted actually told me that people favored analog controls over digital touch screens controls. It gives you tactile feedback, making it accessible for anyone with sense of touch. >…

public reason: safety.

Private reason: we want total voice controlled system so we can listen to everything you say & do in car, log it and get into the ad and analytics business. One step at a time well be here.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#273

Post by jacquesm » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 11:50 AM UTC

m_mueller wrote: post #248

jacquesm wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pronunciation of the names is the problem, spelling them should resolve that issue completely.

do these systems automatically pick up if I spell rather than pronounce, or do they need a special mode? I've never tried that...

I never tried the pronunciation, I'll give it a shot and see what it does. At a guess the results will be terrible :)

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#274

Post by jasonsync » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 11:56 AM UTC

The worst is the touchscreens on some Honda models (eg. 2016 Fit EX).

1. They removed the volume knob in favour of a volume slider on the touch screen. Very difficult to use, and even after a couple of years I have not been able to get used to it, and keep reaching for a physical input.

2. There's many UI quirks (bugs and ill conceived design flows) that make menu navigation, managing saved stations, switching from AM to FM, connecting a Bluetooth device etc. extremely difficult. RDS is even disabled by default, which defeats the purpose of having all the extra real estate of the touch screen.

Lots of complaints from users, taking them years to acknowledge it sucks.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#275

Post by pessimizer » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 11:57 AM UTC

Shivetya wrote: post #182

Well after owning a Tesla Model 3 I am of the opinion, why in the hell do we need forty plus buttons in cars? Seriously! (Go count your buttons, some cars are higher than that) First off with regards to the touch screen in the Tesla. In the vast majority of drives I never ever touch it. Not once. Why not? Well I have my temperature preference set, I usually play the music that is coming off my phone, and well, what e…

> First off with regards to the touch screen in the Tesla. In the vast majority of drives I never ever touch it. Not once. Why not? Well I have my temperature preference set, I usually play the music that is coming off my phone, and well, what else do I need to adjust in my car? I can do music volume, do next or previous song, and pause music, from the left steering wheel button. Wipers and headlamps are automatic. Navigation is voice controlled and works.

I promise that if you never need to adjust a UI consisting of buttons and knobs that it will do nothing just as well as a touchscreen. UI should be made for people who adjust their settings, though.

> Plus there are so many buttons. Buttons for functions you truly may never use!

They won't bite.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#276

Post by achenatx » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 11:58 AM UTC

I listen to XM radio. My toyota interface is a dial for volume, a dial for tuning, and 6 preset buttons (and 6 pages of presets).

I can easily tune through all 150+ stations very easily to find a particular station. I can switch up 20 stations with a single twist, without looking. Also since stations are grouped, I can set a preset for each type of station, then easily tune up or down to listen to other related stations.

My wife's XM is a honda touch screen. The presets work ok, except they are touch screen so you have to look at the screen to change presets. But if you want to manually go to another station, you have to hit 2 touch buttons to get to a tuning screen. Then you have to hit the up/down tuning button each time you want to go up or down a single station. It is pretty much impossible to try to find a station if you don't already know the number because it could be 100's of touches.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#277

Post by mc32 » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 11:59 AM UTC

matthewdgreen wrote: post #250

ehnto wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You shouldn't be doing anything like that while driving. Also if it's physical in any way you can build accurate muscle memory and know without looking that you have gone to the right spot. This is almost never the case with touch screens interfaces. There is no safe way to interface with a screen while driving. You are taking your eyes off the road, and your focus goes with it necessarily. The safest option is no sc…

It doesn’t matter what you “shouldn’t” do when it comes to mass-market consumer devices. It only matters what people will do, especially when you share a road with them. And when it comes to vehicle interfaces, you should assume 80% of drivers will adjust them during a drive, no matter how inconvenient and dangerous is. Any system that doesn’t recognize this reality — and try to minimize the harm if it — is just goin…

They can make most things non responsive while the car is in motion. This would inconvenience the shotgun passenger but typically the driver calls the shots on the radio (in-car entertainment system) anyhow.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#278

Post by msh » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 11:59 AM UTC

izacus wrote: post #139

msh wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

changing to a different album would be easier to a touchscreen.

What are you basing that on? It's pretty easy using Android Auto or Mazda CMU using the rotary controller. Easier than grabbing the phone while driving.

I have not tried on a mazda but on other cars I have found the rotary controllers very cumbersome.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#279

Post by Phillipharryt » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 12:00 PM UTC

ehnto wrote: post #266

Phillipharryt wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How you do design for this consumer who is controlling while driving without encouraging the activity by making it easier?

Remove the ability to control the screen while driving.

Well that's not really designing for those users then. Your original comment said there's no way to interface with a screen safely while driving, but the other user said designers need to design for those dangerous users. I was wondering how you could do that in a safe manner (I don't think you can personally, and agree with the no-control-while-moving idea).

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#280

Post by seszett » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 12:00 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #147

karavelov wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at the controls behind the gear shift stick - not much but still similar to what Mazda does with the audio controls. BTW, I have never used the hazard button while the car is in motion or at least driving very slowly.

> Look at the controls behind the gear shift stick - not much but still similar to what Mazda does with the audio controls. I don't think I've ever seen a car where these weren't on the center console. > BTW, I have never used the hazard button while the car is in motion or at least driving very slowly. 'round here it's common to use the hazards when in sight of or at the tail of a highway / freeway traffic jam.

The controls there are definitely not in the same place as most cars. Here they are to the right of the driver, between the gear shift stick and the handbrake.

Apart from some modern cars with a single dial and maybe a couple buttons there, most only have storage space there and the controls are in the front, not between the driver and passenger.