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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

#491

Post by JoeAltmaier »

cabinguy wrote: post #484

I remember when microwaves had one dial and no buttons, no digital touchscreens. You set the dial to the desired cook time in minutes/seconds, and it automatically started (as long as the door was closed). Same with an oven. Turn the dial to 350 and the oven was on and set to 350. It took a fraction of a second vs a touch screen. These new interfaces are often a terrible use of "technology" and are actually a step (o…

I remember those days - I liked our microwave with just a time knob and a start knob.

But it had its drawbacks. My young children couldn't set the time to heat their oatmeal. "Turn it to 1 minute". They'd twist the knob and say "Is that enough?" Without knowing enough about time they couldn't (yet) figure out to turn right or left to get to the right number.

With a digital one, they'd just poke 1,0,0 and hit start.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#493

Post by ryeguy_24 »

Removing touch screens from the driver is a good one but there are so many distracting UI patterns for drivers. The scary thing is that I would bet people have died because of poor patterns that exist. These are some that I have:

1. Using Apple iPhone for navigation. Phone rings. I pick it up using car controls. The navigation screen is now gone and is replaced with the phone screen. [scramble to swipe bottom of phone to get back to nav] 2. Audio routing. The car winds up acting like a Home theater receiver that I have to debug while driving. Why can’t I hear my music? Am I on AM/FM/IPhone USB/iPhone Bluetooth/Wife’s Bluetooth. So many options. 3. Every time I start driving my car, Christmas music starts automatically playing from my iPhone through the car speakers. It’s in my music library and for some reason it auto plays (Why apple?). I always have to do some mid-driving swipeage to get this to stop.

These are horrible patterns. I’d love to spend the rest of my life designing UI for simplifying the driving experience. If anyone wants to hire me, please do.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#494

Post by coryfklein »

Shivetya wrote: post #182

Well after owning a Tesla Model 3 I am of the opinion, why in the hell do we need forty plus buttons in cars? Seriously! (Go count your buttons, some cars are higher than that) First off with regards to the touch screen in the Tesla. In the vast majority of drives I never ever touch it. Not once. Why not? Well I have my temperature preference set, I usually play the music that is coming off my phone, and well, what e…

No! I don't want everything automatic!

What happens when the wiper sensor malfunctions - now you're scrambling to find the manual controls to shut the damn thing off (if you even can!) Maybe it wipes faster or slower than you prefer. Same thing goes for headlamps.

For every "automatic" system you add to a vehicle, that is just one more thing that can malfunction and I find car repairs to be the most gigantic waste of time and money.

Look, we've proved out the whole "button" concept, and it just works. It's super easy and cheap to replace when it breaks. My car is not a toy, it is a utility. I want the features from the expensive "toy" cars to stay the hell away from my vehicle.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#495

Post by frosted-flakes »

gonehome wrote: post #468
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…

The Tesla touchscreen interface is really good, partly I think because Tesla is just as much a software company as they are a car company. The other car manufacturers UIs are atrocious and their historical unwillingness to use car play has set them back. The tactile thing is one of those arguments that sounds good, but is just wrong. It’s like people arguing for the return of the blackberry form factor in smartphones…

> It’s like people arguing for the return of the blackberry form factor in smartphones.

Is there something wrong with that? The BlackBerry form factor is the best one, in my opinion. This reply was written from one.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#496

Post by jbigelow76 »

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. >…

> Audi, for instance has said that part of the reason it’s discontinuing its rotary controller is that a touchscreen better supports Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

This to me is insane reasoning. That is no way user centric. This decision is 100% business driven and has nothing to do with the end user.

That statement isn't true, Car Play support for me was a non-negotiable for the car I purchased two years ago. Another friend made Android Auto support a big factor in his decision and said he wouldn't buy another vehicle that didn't support it. From other conversations we don't seem to be outliers, that feature support is incredibly user(buyer) centric.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#497

Post by xedeon »

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 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.

This is a very common misconception. You CAN adjust the A/C via the steering wheel buttons, turn it off, control the fan speed etc. It's very intuitive.

In fact, you can this for most of the common controls. The settings on the touch screen are mostly for things that you only really bother with once like saving your seat-position and personal settings to your driver profile.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#498

Post by ad-hominem »

gerbilly wrote: post #464
judge2020 wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thanks, you're just making my point for me. I mean you said app twice in it. Ten years ago, nothing was mediated via an app, somehow we managed to survive. Now almost everyone has been turned into a phone zombie. You're wasting your lives people! FOMO is entirely backwards, you shouldn't be afraid of missing out on something in your phone, you should be afraid of missing out on your entire life.

Thanks, you're just making my point for me.

Thirty years ago, nothing was on the internet, somehow we managed to survive.

One hundred years ago, nobody took antibiotics, somehow we managed to survive.

Five hundred years ago, nobody read books, somehow we managed to survive.

Ten thousand years ago, nobody farmed grains, somehow we managed to survive.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#499

Post by boboguitar »

jbigelow76 wrote: post #496
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. >…

> Audi, for instance has said that part of the reason it’s discontinuing its rotary controller is that a touchscreen better supports Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. This to me is insane reasoning. That is no way user centric. This decision is 100% business driven and has nothing to do with the end user. That statement isn't true, Car Play support for me was a non-negotiable for the car I purchased two years ago. Anot…

> Car Play support for me was a non-negotiable for the car I purchased two years ago.

It's a big point in my car buying decision just for the navigation experience alone.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#500

Post by abakker »

leeoniya wrote: post #363
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.

I HATE that always on electric assist. It is both expensive and annoying. Gas springs cost $20.

IMO, only pickup trucks really know how to get this stuff right now, and that's mostly because there's so much space that the buttons can be giant.

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