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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

#391

Post by _Turk_ »

Ambroos wrote: post #163
Angostura wrote: post #106

I'm a heavy Apple CarPlay user and I am delighted that my car (a 2016 Seat) has analogue controls that work with it. I know that when I'm required to use the on screen controls for certain functions, I am a less safe driver.

Yeah, my daily driver was an Audi with a rotary dial for about a year (no touchscreen at all), and Android Auto was great on it. You get to know the structure of all menus and can take actions blindly after a while. It's been almost a year since I've driven that car and I still know exactly what to press to show alternative routes in Google Maps, for example. Later I had a bunch of rentals with touchscreen Android Au…

Yeah the rotary dial for Android auto is very intuitive, shame they are not keeping it around, touch screen just seems much more dangerous

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#392

Post by Devon64327 »

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 use Android Auto in my car, and the only complaint I have thus far is the occasional misinterpreted input.

Often, what I intend to be a tap will be interpreted as a swipe by the display. I suspect this can be attributed more to the cheap touchscreen hardware in my low trim model, than the software in Android or to the concept of touch screen interfaces.

Just as with the older analog controls, there will be good implementations and cheap implementations. It's not productive to compare well engineered, premium, apples to cheap, mass market, oranges.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#393

Post by mstade »

alistairSH wrote: post #376
ubermonkey wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 own two cars with CarPlay, one use a touchscreen (VW) and the other a rotary knob/button (BMW). I much prefer the knob - with the touchscreen, I have to focus on the screen for a longer period of time to make sure my finger hits the right spot. With the rotary knob, I still have to glance over, but only enough to ensure the correct "button" is highlighted. That feels less distracting to me. All that said, I try to…

This hits the sweet spot for me as well. I think CarPlay is the best all-screen interface I've seen, but having to touch the screen is borderline useless. Even the most minuscule bump in the road usually results in a miss-touch for me, whereas with a wheel as you say you can just glance at the screen, count the number of ticks you need to turn the wheel and be confident you'll get it right. When stopped I might use the touch screen because it's faster, but the wheel is still more convenient I find.

At this point I never use the car interface if there's CarPlay available (I usually rent cars.) The only exception is for changing car settings, which unfortunately is not exposed through in CarPlay it seems.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#394

Post by BanazirGalbasi »

CrazyStat wrote: post #390
ubermonkey wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Not sure if you're trying to support his point or refute it, but those scroll wheels are a great example of physical controls done right.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#395

Post by lostjohnny »

krab wrote: post #364
lostjohnny wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 eith…

> 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.

True.

Another thing that might not be obvious is that they are fixed on the steering wheel, so they are always in the same position relative the your hands, just like the gear levers in a modern Formula 1 car.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#396

Post by perch56 »

I own a 2014 Mazda 3, brilliant car. The touchscreen firmware is a pain to update every year while servicing it. When I bought the car it came it the GPS hardware pre-installed however I was supposed to buy the maps separately for about $500. I didn't see the point in this as for that money I could have bought a new iPhone at that time and have various navigation apps. I also praise Mazda for the decision. In the 5 years since I own the car I probably actually used the touchscreen 20 times as usually I change songs or radio channels from the steering wheel button. Buy a Mazda, you won't regret it :)

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#397

Post by vanderZwan »

zaroth wrote: post #333
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…

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…

You miss the point entirely: he acknowledges that touchscreens work. But he points out that they work by visual feedback only, and that this denies an enormous part of our tactile senses. In an ideal world, we would not have to choose between tactile and visual.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#398

Post by mikelward »

sundvor wrote: post #342
lloeki wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My current and favorite car is a '08 Euro Civic (Type-R). The whole design and layout of things there is pure genius, thoroughly designed from first principles. It takes many people aback but the hierarchy of information is very well thought out: critical up the wheel†† that you can read without taking eyes off the road (speed, turn signals, RPM limit, live cam profile (from ECU cam phasing/VTEC as an eco progress ba…

Nice! Honda have always put some great effort into their designs. I had an Accord Euro Luxury '05 some 14 years ago, and it was such a pleasure to drive around. Still regret selling it. It was the first semi affordable car on the Australian market to offer stability control and full set of airbags (as long as you got the luxury model). I'd love to read that article you proposed. As much as I'd love a Tesla, my last #…

Not in the CR-V they didn't. The entertainment system is an underpowered Android tablet.

Lots of questionable decisions like the keyless lock system not locking if the tailgate was closing as you walk away, there being no way to turn the car off but leave the radio or AC on, and the engine cutting out as you try to drive off if you started it via remote start.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#399

Post by acdha »

alkonaut wrote: post #384

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.

I like that approach for those reasons but it really needs care to prevent abuse – e.g. disabling inputs unless the car is in park. Too many manufacturers do the equivalent of putting a bowl of ice cream in front of a child and saying “we told them not to eat it”.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#400

Post by mstade »

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 think your assessment is spot on. CarPlay is the best all screen car interface I've used, and these days it's all I ever use if it's available in the car I'm driving. The only car interfaces I like that aren't CarPlay are all buttons and dials, i.e. pre smart phone era cars, and even then only a handful really made sense to me.
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