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Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

motorauthority.com

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Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#281

Post by giancarlostoro »

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. >…

When my iPod Classic died it really stung especially since they discontinued them. I hate playing music on my phone. I cant skip songs or pause without looking properly if I am on an aux cable.

Sure Bluetooth is a thing but you dont always drive your own car and every car has their own convoluted way to do Bluetooth.

I wish Android or iPhones had multimedia related buttons somewhere on them (dont miss that lock button / slider thing Apple used to add in so you dont butt skip a song). It is much safer for me to feel out specific buttons while driving than looking down on my phone screen.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#283

Post by coleca »

Not ready to give Mazda any praise for their infotainment systems. I leased a 2019 CX-5 Grand Touring Reserve a couple months ago. Had I known how bad Mazda’s UX was I would have leased something else.

First off their system takes an eternity to cold boot. If I’m making a quick run to the store or dropping the kids off at a friends house the system isn’t available for most of the ride. While it’s booting, the radio remembers what it last did but all the controls including volume are locked. So if I was listening to one of the comedy channels on Sirius I have no way to mute it or turn down the volume of the often inappropriate content for a few minutes if my kids get in the car.

Second the system remembers very little of the settings between drives. For example the heated/ vented seats or the auto-hold braking feature have to be set every drive.

I just drove a brand new Ford Fusion rental this week and their system while much clunkier did boot up almost immediately upon starting the car. Of course nothings perfect and while Ford did include hard buttons for most of the HVAC controls you still had to go though the touchscreen menus to find the setting to change the vent control to head and feet.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#284

Post by hrktb »

achenatx wrote: post #276

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 stati…

I appreciate your point, and think it comes down to what use case most users will benefit from optimising.

My wife switches between Spotify, the Music app and a separated radio app. She does it on her phone's screen when at stop, she could do it on CarPlay or the android version, but I can't just imagine how it would work without a generic touch interface.

You use case (listening to radio) is in line with the current UI paradigm, other use cases (using apps) just won't work with it. That's where we could find a tradeoff I think.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#285

Post by SargeZT »

mc32 wrote: post #277
matthewdgreen wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Unless a law is passed restricting manufacturers from allowing responsive interfaces while driving then any disabling of them will be a significant market disadvantage. No sane car company would do it.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#286

Post by mxfh »

marvin wrote: post #181

When cars eventually go self-driving, not having a touchscreen will be a big competitive disadvantage. Over-the-air updates of car software will be essential to adapt the driving/transportation experience, also for the existing fleet of cars, as the product matures and manufacturers can use people's experiences to make improvements. This does require part of the car's user interface to be software driven, and touchsc…

Since autonomous in most cases also means car on demand, I think the car ceases to exist as seperate entity to configure, what's more import that there is a seamless transferable configuration based on your preferences once you rent any car, so that it becomes a nearly natural augmentation of your smartphone or whatever device you'll cary around with you sometime in the next 2 decades.

Meaning low friction in getting your audio/calls out over the speaker system and syncing of navigation with your other devices. And having car notifaction and interior lighting, audio EQ preferences synced too.

Any screens left in the car might be there purely for diagnostic or entertainment (think inflight entertainment and hopefully better) purposes, that need only minimal direct interaction.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#287

Post by TeMPOraL »

snaky wrote: post #200
TeMPOraL wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incidentally, that was the aspect of old feature phones I most miss today. I could operate them without looking by muscle memory - and it worked because the UI was fixed, but more importantly, it was soft-real time: the delays were predictable and you could learn them too. Today's touch devices tend to lag completely randomly.

There were green-and-black text UIs that allowed receptionist at hotel check you in blazingly fast, keeping an eye contact with you. No mouse, just keyboard shortcuts.

Yup. These are a source of a frequent disagreement between myself and some UI/UX folks. I believe interfaces like these were/are superior to modern ones, precisely because they allow one to work efficiently.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#289

Post by rockinghigh »

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. >…

I have used Audi’s version of CarPlay without a touchscreen and I hated it. Circling through icons that were designed for a touch interface made no sense. Tesla’s interface is not perfect but interacting with the map is so much better with its large touchscreen.
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