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Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

autocar.co.uk

41–50 of 770 posts

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#41
This is a great decision by Honda. Touchscreens are a terrible UX when driving. Its difficult to be accurate with the touchscreen in a car when its moving, even as the passenger. Physical controls are much easier to control, less distracting, and we develop muscle memory for knobs dials and switches easily.

As an example, I personally am not a fan of the extreme minimalism in Tesla cars. A fully touchscreen experience makes sense only after a car is capable of fully autonomous self driving. As long as a human is responsible for controlling/monitoring the car, physical controls are better than touch controls.

To be fair, touch screens are better for changing settings, monitoring the health of the car, and any other action that we do while the car is parked.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#42

Not all touchscreens are same. There are few touchscreens that are good. Most Honda touchscreens are bad.

As long as my fingertips cannot read touchscreens, touchscreens in cars are all inferior to physical dials and buttons.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#44

Unrelated, but this line stood out, and now I have a question: > Honda’s decision to return to physical controls will be popular with some - including, no doubt, its ageing owner base in the UK Ageing? Is there some stat showing Honda owners are older than owners of other models? Or that young people aren't buying Hondas?

I'm young and I love tech, but I'd rather feel for the volume control knob while I'm watching the road than stare at a touch screen and try to position my finger to hit an icon in a moving car. Those interfaces were just a terrible idea.

In my brother's old Prius it would randomly switch to a diagram showing how cool its power train system was/energy transfer etc. Just what I need while I'm driving - a useless distraction which I have to close before I get access to the controls I need!

(I don't remember exactly how it worked though because I haven't driven it in a while.)

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#45
The way my brains works, it’s hard for me to even read road signs when I’m driving (excepting simple ones like speed limits and one-word signs). Switching contexts is just really slow. If I try to use voice recognition I basically go blind for three seconds.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#47
post #15

I will never understand how this trend started in the first place. If you look at e.g. digital cameras, they all have touch screens these days, but they also still have buttons and dials everywhere. The one in front of me has eight physical buttons, seven dials and a power switch. The reason is obvious: when you're taking photos, you don't want to be looking down at a screen; you want to be focused on the task at han…

Touch screens are cheap and very easy to develop for. They also de-couple the software development from the device development.

It also allows updates and changes after the car is in production.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#48
What physical controls are an ABSOLUTE MUST for you?

Leaving aside Legally mandated: Wipers, Headlights, Gear Selector, Brake, Accelerator, Horn, Hazards.

Me: Required: Mute Music, HVAC temperature and fan speed. Strongly preferred: All audio controls, Cruise control.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#49
Not all touch controls are created equal.

I'm really happy with the interface in my Model 3 and I've found every other car interface I've used to be on the spectrum from terrible to okay (BMW, Mercedes, Mazda, VW, Porsche).

I think you can probably do either well, but it seems like the car companies (other than Tesla) just don't have this capability.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#50
Great! I may actually consider a newer car for the first time in a long while.

I rent regularly and the last decade or so of car UX has been pretty terrible.

Some features are compelling, but distraction limits their effective value.

Feels a lot like early smart TVs to me. Better experiences are had by turning all the crap off.

With a car, the stuff is just there, often does not stay off, requiring constant attention to push out of the way, etc...

An older vehicle, equipped with a bluetooth capable radio, smartphone with voice is better than just about all the new car goodies nearly always.

Frankly, the metrics, mpg, other performance data and sound processing where present are great! I use them when present.

The rest is just a mess.

My other quibble is LEDs. The flicker used to prolong LED life and power use is very seriously distracting both in car, and outside to other drivers.

In car, lots of bright things will often inhibit night vision. Displays, dash lighting, indicators all increasingly bright and many flicker.

As a driver, a quick glance to and fro results in a field of dots. I have asked others about that and have done a few tests when road conditions and traffic present an opportunity.

Older car dashes are not distracting much at all. Can run very dim too. Newer dashes distract far more. Won't always dim, or worse, will dim, sans for one bright thing, usually a little display.

The always on bulbs do leave a vision trail, compared to the dots from LED lights. For many, that trail appears to be processed in a less distracting way.

LED tail lights are the big offender here.

Over time, as I land in various airports, the conversion to LED has been completed. The pattern of speckles are crazy! Various colors, and modest duty cycle rates make for a mess.

Any pilots care to comment?

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