Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles • Hacker News Board

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#381

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 1:35 PM UTC

ehnto wrote: post #339

zaroth wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the thought, but in the real world this is counterproductive and dangerous. Some interfaces it’s pretty clear that they are best served by physical buttons, toggles, switched, etc. Blinkers, gear selector, volume, windows, for example. Some interfaces it’s equally clear that they are best served by touch. Text input through an on screen keyboard obviously beats a scroll wheel to select individual letters…

I think we have pretty similar views while talking about the tech and usability itself. It is just that I fundamentally disagree that you need to touch or look at anything while driving. You say people need to interact with navigation while driving, which is simply not true. People want to interact with navigation while driving. They could cope without it. We didn't even have navigation all that long ago, to say we n…

> We didn't even have navigation all that long ago

Yes we did, even if it wasn't an electronic system built into the car, and it wasn't unheard of for people to pull out physical maps and reference them while driving, or pull over and stop in unsafe locations to reference maps. N Electronic navigation systems are what make people less likely to do those things. There's a difference between introducing a digital tool and introducing the activity it supports.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#382

Post by noitsnot » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 1:36 PM UTC

mszkoda wrote: post #373

My Alfa Romeo (and all recent Alfa Romeos in the US) don't have touchscreens. The screens are in touch range and they have CarPlay and Android Auto, but you have to use the wheel with them. I got used to it pretty quickly and after a week or two I don't really have to look at the screen to do 99% of things I need to do. It seems much safer to me, though it was annoying at first.

My Rolls doesn't have a touch screen, which is nice because it helps from distracting my driver during trips to the yacht club or the occasional polo match.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#383

Post by pier25 » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 1:38 PM UTC

I hate the touchscreen on my Honda SUV. It's not even Apple/Android but something Honda half baked a couple of years back. I have been working on UIs for a long time and it's just a disgrace of UX, design, and performance.

Plus it's pretty useless. Other that Bluetooth pairing it serves no real purpose. 99% of the time we control the music player and volume from the remote on the wheel. That's it.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#384

Post by alkonaut » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 1:38 PM UTC

There is nothing inherently wrong with touch screens. Just use physical knobs and buttons for anything you want when driving (heat, for example) then use touch screen for everything you use when not driving. Entering a navigation target, setting the clock, doing any car setup etc. Typing in a destination with voice or a knob and button interface is infuriating.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#385

Post by imran3740 » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 1:38 PM UTC

kevinconroy wrote: post #355

zaroth wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, every single phone today is nothing but a “picture under glass” and, far from a paradigm of permanent numbness, humans are intimately connected to these devices they carry with them everywhere. Rant is the right way to describe this. Do you remember the first time you used a map on a smooth multi-touch screen? The joy of panning and zooming around, tapping to learn more about any particular point! I remember…

Even if it's a rant, it doesn't mean it's wrong. At CES a decade ago, I got to play with a touchscreen prototype that offered tactile feedback. Press a button and the screen would push back and/or buzz (it's been a while, hard to remember). What I do know is that it _felt_ like I was pushing on something, not just glass. At the time, it required a big area around it. Think ATM sized. For an ATM, it'd be awesome. I'd…

> Press a button and the screen would push back and/or buzz

What do you mean by "press"?

"Pressing" a button (ie. pressing down on it) requires a bit more force than just touching it, so this seems like bad UX to me.

Even if you only were to have the device buzz as you touch any interactive control, I feel like that would start to feel real gimmicky real fast. There's probably a reason that technology didn't make it past CES.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#386

Post by justin66 » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 1:40 PM UTC

jforman wrote: post #358

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. >…

> It basically means they have given up on developing a good branded interface between the driver and the car. The one piece of feedback I gave Toyota in their post-purchase survey is: please replace the hot mess that is Entune with CarPlay. They absolutely should give up. You can't compete with an OS and ecosystem into which billions of dollars have been sunk. I agree, for what it's worth, that analog controls are s…

Isn't CarPlay exclusive to iOS devices? If so, what you're describing might be viable with Lexus. It'd be somewhat pointless with the Toyota brand, where iOS users are a rather small minority.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#387

Post by aerophilic » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 1:40 PM UTC

ImaCake wrote: post #304

aerophilic wrote: post #300

I am reminded of a quote I read lately referring to now Ford CEO’s Jim Hackett’s research in understanding the automotive industry (he came from outside the industry). Specifically: when it comes to cars, people LOVE their cars. Someone’s relationship with their car is very intimate and personal, in many ways more so then a house. Much of the discussion I am seeing in this thread is very passionate, which confirms th…

Just to offer a counter anecdote, I am passionate about this topic because it involves life and death. I care about my car in so far as it gets me places. If I didn't need it in my car centric city I wouldn't have one. But, as other people drive, and I walk or cycle, I want those people to have car GUIs that do not distract them.

Completely agree, not everyone is as passionate as others (I am much like you). But there is a large community that IS very much passionate. I still recall a fellow classmate at school who if given half the chance will talk about cars till the next morning.

But as they always say, to each their own. But especially in non-utility cars, there very much a level of passion associated with owning a car.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#388

Post by pier25 » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 1:41 PM UTC

vanderZwan wrote: post #316

Bret Victor's "A Brief Rant On The Future Of Interaction Design" is just as relevant now as it was back in 2011: > There's a reason that our fingertips have some of the densest areas of nerve endings on the body. This is how we experience the world close-up. This is how our tools talk to us. The sense of touch is essential to everything that humans have called "work" for millions of years. > Now, take out your favori…

He has a point in some contexts.

Touchscreens will never replace real keyboards for people who make their living typing but can easily replace a scroll wheel for mindless browsing.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#389

Post by joking » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 1:41 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…

>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.

Well, maybe the solution is to make apple carplay and android auto to work well with a dpad and buttons configuration, those interfaces have been working perfectly for videoconsoles and tvs, and a car system is more similar to that than to a phone.

Actually the system works well, and it's designed for that, And as the test confirm, using the touchscreen while driving is dangerous. The same that you can't use a video app while driving, the touchscreen should be disables while the car is moving.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#390

Post by CrazyStat » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 1:41 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…

>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.

My Tesla allows me to adjust the AC without looking, using the scroll wheels built into the steering wheel.