Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles • Hacker News Board

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#361

Post by dillonmckay » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 1:09 PM UTC

baybal2 wrote: post #330

agumonkey wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should be a company selling ergonomics improvement kits for cars.

The market already exists: car improvement stuff on taobao is sold by tonnes: from the same independent DC-DC, and ECU interfaces to projection huds, and complete dashboard revamps I still think the bash car dashboard was that of Honda Beat or Suzuki Cara — no dashboard, with just a motorcycle style gauge, and non-driving related controls almost wholely on steering wheel levers.

Any good links for projections HUDs?

My cousin had a Pontiac in the late 90s that would project the speed on the windshield.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#362

Post by Operyl » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 1:09 PM UTC

coleca wrote: post #283

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 r…

It sounds like something is funky with your infotainment system. I have the same year, the trim below but with CarPlay support. It boots within 15 seconds generally, but volume is available instantly. I test drove a car without CarPlay and the boot time was comparable.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#363

Post by leeoniya » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 1:10 PM UTC

blattimwind wrote: post #194

It's funny how the dashboard UI of lower-end cars tends to be consistently better than higher-end cars, because low end cars simply have a bunch of buttons that you can use without taking your eyes of the road. Sometimes even the location of controls is much better in low end cars; the VW up! comes to mind with all important controls located directly next to the steering wheel. Beautiful. In other cars just switching…

i bought a VW Golf Alltrack (vw golf sportwagon). instead of an Audi Allroad because of this. the audi controls were more clumsy and less useful despite the car being an extra $20k. the audi was also not available with a manual transmission and the hatch opened slowly, insisting on an always-on electronic assist. quite disappointing.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#364

Post by krab » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 1:11 PM UTC

lostjohnny wrote: post #242

blattimwind wrote: post #194

It's funny how the dashboard UI of lower-end cars tends to be consistently better than higher-end cars, because low end cars simply have a bunch of buttons that you can use without taking your eyes of the road. Sometimes even the location of controls is much better in low end cars; the VW up! comes to mind with all important controls located directly next to the steering wheel. Beautiful. In other cars just switching…

Renault have had controls on the steering wheel for at least 20 years now and it's still one of the best interfaces I've ever tried. The first car I bought with my own money was a Clio and the ability to control the integrated radio system without looking at it or having to take away the hands from the wheel made that car my favourite place to listen to music. As a matter of fact I miss it so much that nowadays I alm…

One thing that might not be obvious - this controller is just below the steering wheel and you press it from the back side. It's almost invisible and it feels very natural.

The Renault I have has a combination of buttons on steering wheel, that controller, physical buttons in the center panel, touchscreen and some touch elements outside of the screen.

If you want to call somebody, you have to use the touchscreen either on your phone or in the car and it's always a pain. Controlling other things in the car is fine - there are physical buttons.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#365

Post by TheHypnotist » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 1:12 PM UTC

coleca wrote: post #283

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 r…

I agree with a lot of your points, especially the one where the system picks up playing from where it left off and there is little you can do to stop it aside from mashing the volume or quickly choosing your audio source. However, sounds like you have a problem specific to your vehicle's computer, mine boots before I even leave the driveway.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#366

Post by throw0101a » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 1:16 PM UTC

sametmax wrote: post #10

Good. There is a reason you don't see apple like designed plane cockpit. When safety or productivity matters, you need more feedback, more options accessible and faster. That's also why you don't program on a tablet, even with a bt keyboard. Task switching is way to slow, not enough info directly accessible and multi tasking sucks.

> There is a reason you don't see apple like designed plane cockpit.

Umm, I guess you haven't see the FAA-approved Garmin G3X Touch:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8o0Nk8E0S4

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnuRFAAKdfg

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#367

Post by sureaboutthis » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 1:16 PM UTC

One thing that really bothers me about the screens in cars nowadays is that, to me, they always look like an iPad that was just screwed into the dashboard at the last minute as an afterthought to look high tech. In the high end Tesla that I drove a few years ago, it was molded into the center console and had the look and feel of forethought and intent.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#368

Post by ubermonkey » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 1:18 PM 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. >…

>As a User Experience Professional, I was never able to grasp the true user's need for touch screens in cars.

Before phone integration, I might've agreed with you, or at least had no opinion on the subject.

After watching many car companies, even high-end ones like BMW and Mercedes, fail utterly at producing reasonable phone integration systems or interfaces, though, I'm all-in on CarPlay.

>It basically means they have given up on developing a good branded interface between the driver and the car.

Correct. They have given up, and it's good that they have, because they've all proven they absolutely suck at it. In the meantime, Apple and Google (?) have done it for them, at least as far as the phone goes.

(I assume the Android equivalent is equally good; no reason it shouldn't be.)

>This to me is insane reasoning. That is no way user centric.

I think it really IS, though.

CarPlay is amazingly good, and only really works well with a touchscreen.

At this point, it would be very hard for me to buy a car that didn't have CarPlay integration with a touchscreen. I've seen implementations without touch, and they're much, much less useful.

I do agree, though, that touchscreens beyond phone interfaces should be used very sparingly. The Tesla's all-touchscreen situation in particular seems like a terrible idea. Most of us are used to being able to adjust the AC without looking, and that's only possible because there are physical controls we can feel.

But the phone interface is distinct from that, and needs to be a touchscreen. When it's not, or when it's not present, people just pick up their phones and use them, which is worse.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#369

Post by SECProto » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 1:20 PM UTC

nkozyra wrote: post #350

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For music and navigation, touchscreens are OK, as these are things you don't suddenly need to adjust if something happens. But for instance the defrost function on the AC can be something that you need to immediately control while driving 60 mph, e.g. if you enter a tunnel with moist microclimate (we have one of those nearby, it fogs up your windscreen in ~10sec at some conditions). Such things need to have physical…

> Volvo is perhaps the ultimate example in good UI for the AC: the buttons are shaped like a human, and you press the part of your body where you want air: It's nice, but it still a major issue: you need to look at it while pressing it to know state. If, instead, it's three stacked buttons top to bottom, you don't have to do that.

My car (and many older cars) simple has two knobs. One for temperature, one for location. If you entered a tunnel, you just crank the right hand knob all the way over to defrost. Better than buttons.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#370

Post by fatnoah » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 1:23 PM UTC

ubermonkey wrote: post #368

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. >…

>As a User Experience Professional, I was never able to grasp the true user's need for touch screens in cars. Before phone integration, I might've agreed with you, or at least had no opinion on the subject. After watching many car companies, even high-end ones like BMW and Mercedes, fail utterly at producing reasonable phone integration systems or interfaces, though, I'm all-in on CarPlay. >It basically means they ha…

>I've seen implementations without touch, and they're much, much less useful.

I have this. I never use it. Instead, I mount my phone next to the screen and use Android Auto on my phone. Using the rotary dial and other buttons is a) far more difficult and b) far more distracting while driving. An action that takes 1 second with a touch requires several seconds of fumbling with a knob and buttons w/out touch.