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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

#451

Post by lhorie »

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. >…

Have you tried inputting directions into a car GPS using rotary controls? It's reminiscent of old rotary phones and IMHO a terrible UX

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#452

Post by tolger »

I have a 2018 Mazda CX-9 with the touchscreen. I almost never use the touchscreen, because there's a much more convenient scroll-wheel positioned in the center console and within my right hand's reach. There are also controls in the steering wheel for audio, phone and cruise control.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#453

Post by justin66 »

galangalalgol wrote: post #437
justin66 wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Seriously? People will have the newest iPhone before they shell out for a car with a working air conditioner. The car is gone as a status symbol, the phone is now arrived.

We know that iPhone enjoys a minority of smartphone market share, and we know that Lexus is the luxury brand and Toyota is the everyday brand. One assumes iPhone will be overrepresented among Lexus buyers and underrepresented among Toyota buyers. Therefore it would make very little sense for the Toyota brand to abandon Android users in favor of iOS users in the design of its dashboard systems.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#454

Post by HeWhoLurksLate »

toyg wrote: post #428
lostjohnny wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The steering wheel is where most of this stuff should be all the time. The second you force me to reposition my hand, security levels drop off a cliff, since you get involuntary movement on the other side (as proven by this post) and likely take your eyes off the road, which is bad even for a split second. I know this for a fact, having crashed a car on a motorway as I was turning down the fan (controlled by an analo…

What about physical buttons for the more-used stuff (radio, AC, cruise control) and use voice control (along with physical buttons) for everything else?

Obviously, the voice control would need to havr some way to ignore the kids in the backseat, or can ask the driver / parent for permission for this to be a good idea.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#455

Post by uxp100 »

galangalalgol wrote: post #437
justin66 wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Seriously? People will have the newest iPhone before they shell out for a car with a working air conditioner. The car is gone as a status symbol, the phone is now arrived.

I think that the proportion of iphone owners who use toyotas is similar to that of the general population, so leaving out android is unlikely to happen.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#456

Post by tjoff »

inetknght wrote: post #438
ken wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CarPlay is amazingly good As someone who recently rode in a car with CarPlay and saw two young technology professionals try to use it, I disagree. One of them owned the system and drove it every day it still didn't seem like either one really understood it ("Why's it doing that?" "Maybe because ..."). I agree that all the built-in systems I've seen are terrible, but CarPlay seems like merely the "least bad" impleme…

> "Here's my 2006 iPod if you want music, or unplug it and plug in your phone if you want" Well, your 2006 iPod still uses a 3.5mm analog port. But that newfangled phone over there needs a new $400 Apple USB Thunderlightning Wireless Port. And your car doesn't seem to have an interface for that.

The solution is to not buy a phone without a 3.5mm jack.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#457

Post by natch »

Phillipharryt wrote: post #245
Shivetya wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, so how does any of this conflict with what I stated. Most vehicles with screens, touch or not, usually have audio controls copied to the steering wheel. How many buttons it takes is dependent on brand and even model. Plus you will take your focus off driving while reaching, muscle memory or not. Let alone a good driver is always looking around which includes glances left and right so as long as the task you are…

Well I got the impression you thought cars had too many buttons and that was confusing. I think because the buttons in my car don't move, I always know what they do when I touch them, so it's not really confusing. As another user pointed out muscle memory means I DON'T need to take my focus off driving. I just don't think there's the same level of muscle memory when it comes to a contextual touch screen. One method o…

>One method of turning on the wipers in a tesla involves pressing an on-screen button

That's just one method. There's also a dedicated physical button right on one of the stalks at the steering wheel. Why spread such information without pointing out there is a physical button?

And you're wrong about having to slide something on the screen to change the speed. That's not how it works. Why are you sharing opinions on things you are ignorant about?

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#458

Post by judge2020 »

gerbilly wrote: post #442
ken wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CarPlay is amazingly good As someone who recently rode in a car with CarPlay and saw two young technology professionals try to use it, I disagree. One of them owned the system and drove it every day it still didn't seem like either one really understood it ("Why's it doing that?" "Maybe because ..."). I agree that all the built-in systems I've seen are terrible, but CarPlay seems like merely the "least bad" impleme…

Why is carplay even a thing? Geez, can't people stop fiddling with their phones? They've become like a kind of soother, a techno nanny that people can't do without. The sooner people put those things down, the better off we'll be.

So you can use your preferred maps app in your car, so you can choose music using your favorite music app, so you can send and receive text messages without taking your eyes off the road. Without it, people would just be looking at their phones anyways.

Guess we should go back to paper maps and listening to AM radio.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#459

Post by ehnto »

zaroth wrote: post #375
ehnto wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I said people need to navigate while driving, which is almost a tautology. That is to say, while I’m driving I need to know where I’m going. Sometimes I already know from memory, sometimes I’m consulting an external source. Whether that external source is a sticky note on the steering wheel, a phone, audible prompts, or a big touchscreen in the center of the vehicle (TM3), the driver is going to decide which to use b…

The hope is that they have entered their navigation correctly before they left and from the time they leave 'til the time they arrive they don't need to look at the screen at all, it's all voice and smaller visual cues. I guess I just don't feel like it's a stretch to have the responsibility to figure these things out before embarking, instead of doing it on the fly which is more dangerous.

The absolutist stance could absolutely increase safety. If we ditched all screens cars could only be safer. Less convenient, but safer. I'm not saying ditch navigation or music though, but ditching off to the side navigation/media screens could only be a plus to safety. Implement navigation and media in a way that's more sympathetic to the need of remaining attentive. Any lapse in attention we can get rid of is a good one.

You haven't argued for how having screens could be safer than not having screens, only for how to improve the safety and convenience of screens we have. Your advice is probably going to be more useful, because in all likelihood we'll keep screens. But I wouldn't care if it took someone 45 minutes longer to get somewhere because they got lost, and had to pull over and ask a man sitting on a bench for directions. Driving is a privilege and we shouldn't trade safety for convenience. I think media/navigation screens could be replaced by better solutions that don't require a screen. Who says you need a full visual map at all? Who says you need to type in the address? These are problems that could be addressed, and I feel as though the screen is the lowest effort solution not the right one.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#460

Post by leevlad »

DanTheManPR wrote: post #434
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 would suggest taking it to the dealer, what you're describing sounds abnormal. Mine boots in about 10 seconds. I do definitely find it annoying that it defaults to playing whatever audio source you last used when you start up your car. Whenever I have a passenger, I have a slight moment of panic as I try to remember what's about to play through the speakers, and whether it's appropriate for them to hear.

The infotainment system in my 2017 CX-5 often freezes on cold startup. There is no way to dismiss the "Warning" screen (which takes up the whole screen), even by pressing the "Dismiss" button. Just have to wait for it to go away on its own. I've had the backup camera freeze fully, which seems like a safety hazard. A few times, the whole system failed to initialize too, which forced me to pull over at the next gas station, and "power cycle" it by fully turning my car off and starting it back up again.

Mazda punches far above its price in terms of driving dynamics and interior quality, but I think their infotainment system is plain garbage and they should be absolutely ashamed of such poor quality.

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