Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles • Hacker News Board

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#511

Post by electriclove » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 3:22 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. >…

You've got to be kidding? Yes, the touchscreens on many/most of the cars out there are a horrible user experience. I've shared in that frustration. But just look to how Tesla has handled this to see what can be possible. It isn't perfect by any means but it is such an improvement to the user experience (being able to add buttons via the UI to enable new features, maps that respond quickly, etc). They still have analog controls for volume and other things. Touchscreens are here to stay. The user experience just needs to improve.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#512

Post by closeparen » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 3:22 PM UTC

checker659 wrote: post #13

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.

> why you don't program on a tablet I dare you to go tell that to /r/apple :)

We already have popular IDEs guiding text input onto one of the few plausible symbols at a cursor; how long before a touchscreen app that gives your suggestions and snippets as touch targets, instead of a keyboard?

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#513

Post by xedeon » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 3:23 PM UTC

frosted-flakes wrote: post #495

gonehome wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What you're alluding to here is personal preference. If the Blackberry form factor is truly the best, people would still be buying them today.

One of Steve Jobs's famous argument on this is that you can make the UI better over time on touchscreen interfaces compared to QWERTY based ones.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#514

Post by mikestew » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 3:23 PM UTC

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.

You're wasting your lives people!

The fact that some just want some directions to where they're going, and to listen to some music along the way, hardly represents the downfall of civilization. I'll give you credit for avoiding the temptation to break out the ol' "wake up, sheeple!", though.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#515

Post by electriclove » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 3:25 PM UTC

_k8si wrote: post #424

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…

This Tesla argument is completely irrelevant. One company's managing to design a good touchscreen interface doesn't mean any other touchscreen is well-designed. Rich people who can afford Teslas may have a safe driving experience in isolation but the vast majority (who can't afford a Tesla) are stuck with a poorly designed touch interface, making road conditions less safe for everyone (even Tesla drivers with their p…

Rather, let's bring the good touchscreen interface to all cars.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#516

Post by ilikehurdles » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 3:26 PM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #482

antocv wrote: post #61

I assumed since 2001, that soon a car will be made, where all the functions can be accessed with eyes still on the road. Just from the wheel, like the paddles, and buttons for thumbs on the wheel. Anything extra, just place your hand slightly from the wheel and immediately feel what you are about to switch and adjust. Imagine to access any function of the car in complete darkness just by the feel. None of this bullsh…

Tesla indeed has a night mode. Color pallet of the whole UI changes. Day: https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/201... Night: https://cdn-vox--cdn-com.cdn.ampproject.org/i/s/cdn.vox-cdn....

The second link doesn't work at all on my computer. It downloads a 56kb .webp file which doesn't open. I tried to extract the non-AMP url here: https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/55955575/....

In my opinion, this screen still looks excessively bright, distracting, and the night-time photo really showcases the screen's inability to accurately display dark colors (black still looks washed-out or gray).

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#517

Post by JoeAltmaier » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 3:26 PM UTC

cabinguy wrote: post #509

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

By the time I had kids, the dial interface was long gone...but if I could teach my kids to push 1,0,0, start, I'd bet I could teach them what 1:00 looked like on the dial pretty quickly.

Not really. They have to be able to understand math, not just memorize digits.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#518

Post by CelestialTeapot » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 3:27 PM UTC

rco8786 wrote: post #413

CelestialTeapot wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Tesla’s can drive themselves a large portion of the time. Etc. Concerns about tactile feedback and such don’t really matter if you don’t have to pay attention to the road anymore. " And Teslas ALMOST never kill their driver or innocent bystanders when the driver is negligently ignoring -- or bored and not paying attention to -- the road. There have been low speed accidents where the operator is tasked with taking ov…

I wasn't commenting on the current state of self-driving car's safety...we can debate that endlessly so I won't. But the direction we're currently heading in is pretty darn clear.

Alright, but that's not how I read your comment. Regardless, until we as a society are so confident in autonomous vehicles that we eliminate manual control systems as outmoded and unnecessary, those systems should be designed to minimize cognitive load on the operator of the vehicle.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#519

Post by SECProto » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 3:27 PM UTC

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…

30ish buttons, 3 toggles, 2 twisty ends, 7 window toggles, and 5 knobs

The knobs are great - one for temperature, one for fan speed, one for outlet (crank to the right to defrost), a fourth for volume, and the fifth scrolls through a list which is less important but still better than buttons.

The toggles with twisty ends are great too. Intuitive control of lights, wipers, and cruise control, and standardized over almost every manufacturer. Window toggles, also great, I assume Tesla has them to raise and lower windows.

Buttons have a bit of a breakdown. 15 of them are for the stereo, and mostly rarely used. Each of the knobs has a button in the middle, they're very handy (turn AC/Recirculate/etc on and off). And the mirror adjust is the remaining buttons, sure it could be on a screen with the rarity with which I use it - but I prefer physical buttons.

So overall, you could cut out 15ish buttons on the media console and replace with a touch screen, and I would be quite happy. But if you took my knobs for adjusting temperature, volume, etc I would be quite unhappy. This means that most modern non-entry-level cars make me unhappy.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#520

Post by namdnay » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 3:28 PM UTC

coryfklein wrote: post #483

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…

I just had my first experience with CarPlay this weekend and it was not positive. What I want? An empty shelf just to the right of the steering wheel where I can charge my phone and connect it to car audio. I don't want to hand-off my navigation or music selection to the vehicle, just allow me to put my phone in a prominent visible location.

I'm a huge fan of Carplay. Instead of having to listen to FM radio or fiddle with a phone screen on a silly dashboard sticker things, I get a massive screen with my phone on it. I can listen to podcasts and Spotify, follow Waze, dictate messages, all without fiddling