Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

autocar.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 770 posts

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#181

Post by basch »

closeparen wrote: post #125
woozyolliew wrote: post #23

Always seemed like a cargo cult: iphone good; touch good; buttons bad (steve said). Let’s hope it’s a new trend! I love that my Audi still has tactile buttons and wheels, and was a big factor in choosing it. My previous car had a touch screen and it was so dangerous having to brace my hand for accuracy and stare at my fingers while driving.

How do you feel about the MMI scroll wheel? I don’t feel safe using that either; it still requires eyes on the screen to see what you’re selecting. Even my passengers, who can give it their full attention, are routinely stymied by the process of pairing their phones for Bluetooth audio playback. At least I can get the volume and temperature knobs by feel.

Whats interesting about Honda going with a dial, is that they designed, what I thought, was a pretty brilliant absolutely positioned touchpad for Acura. Have peopled used these, what is there feedback. It seems much more natural, intuitive, and fast compared to a dial.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScWOFtlLCyI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcKa9apjOX8

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#182

Post by munificent »

KineticLensman wrote: post #152
munificent wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's too much selection bias for this analogy to be particularly strong. Digital cameras are increasingly a niche product that exist mainly to cater to people who specifically want a the "SLR" user experience. If you just want to take decent enough photos, your smartphone's camera today is better than most prosumer DSLRs from like five years ago. I don't think today's DSLRs have the form factor that they h…

> I don't think today's DSLRs have the form factor that they have because it's objectively more usable. It's just the form factor that their self-selected customers want. One piece of evidence in favor of that is that all DSLRs do have big LCD screens on the back and often require a lot of menu diving to access any functionality that didn't exist in cameras before the digital revolution. So on my seven year old Nikon…

> So on my seven year old Nikon D3s I can use buttons to focus and change the shutter speed, aperture, ISO, WB, focusing mode and focus selection point all the while keeping my eye to the viewfinder.

Sure, and you could do that with an SLR from the 90s too, as I recall.

Camera manufacturers are very innovative when it comes to capabilities and new features, but incredibly conservative when it comes to user experience and form factor.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#183

Post by jki275 »

thedance wrote: post #68
sneak wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only conclude from the situation you describe, as well as the fact that most cameras (as cameras, not phones) still lack GPS and sometimes Wi-Fi, that a great many industrial designers are trend-following, uncreative bores. Most modern car interior controls are horrible (Tesla’s giant laggy touchscreen included).

Why do I need my camera to have GPS? In what situation would I be equipped with a camera and not my phone, which certainly has a GPS? This seems like the same instinct that makes OEMs put mobile modems in laptops, as if I would ever have my laptop but not my phone to which to tether it.

Not everyone carries a phone, let alone a smartphone.

Not everyone wants to.

Geotagging pictures is a very important use case for a professional photographer, and relying on the user to provide GPS through another device is not advisable.

Also phone location services may not work very well without a cell signal, and not everyone takes photos only within range of a cell tower.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#184

Post by close04 »

gnicholas wrote: post #105
Shivetya wrote: post #92

I will defend the screen in the Tesla 3, the simple fact is that you really never have to use on your typical drive and yes muscle memory works for simple UIs like what the Tesla employs. Compared to 40+ buttons in my previous Volt AND a screen. Many cars have that many or more buttons and this is easier? Where screen's become distracting is when the UI is shit, having more than one or two clicks to do anything, and…

Touchscreens that are huge are somewhat less of an issue because tap targets are much bigger. But most non-luxury vehicles come with 7 or 8 inch screens, so tap targets are small/clustered. Layer on that the fact that many screens aren't capacitive (and instead require a certain amount of pressure from your finger/fingernail), and things get even more annoying/dangerous.

"Somewhat" is not really good enough given the stakes. You cannot "feel" your way through a touchscreen interface and you cannot rely on muscle memory. You will take your eyes off the road to see where the button is and "aim" at it. And a bumpy road just makes it worse because it only takes an accidental light touch to trigger some random function close by.

Even a 17" screen or great UI won't fix the problems, they will just ameliorate them.

The are functions that just fit better into a touchscreen experience, and some that should have physical buttons even if it takes regulation to make sure of this.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#185

Post by d_silin »

hnarn wrote: post #174
d_silin wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too late! Boeing 777-X will have touch screen interfaces for pilots. Personally, I think information display can and should use touch interface, but actions should be tied to physical switches or buttons.

The problem is not "having touch interfaces", the problem is "having touch interfaces for critical systems ".

I can assure you that PFD (primary flight display) interfaces are very much safety-critical. And they will be touch interfaces.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#186

Post by rconti »

Shivetya wrote: post #92

I will defend the screen in the Tesla 3, the simple fact is that you really never have to use on your typical drive and yes muscle memory works for simple UIs like what the Tesla employs. Compared to 40+ buttons in my previous Volt AND a screen. Many cars have that many or more buttons and this is easier? Where screen's become distracting is when the UI is shit, having more than one or two clicks to do anything, and…

The Volt had the worst of both worlds, though -- touch controls that weren't even a screen.

I own a Tesla 3 as well, and I mostly agree-- I have 0 need to adjust most controls manually, the auto stuff works really well.

But I don't think voice controls are a good 'fix'. I still wish the car had a physical glovebox button and physical wiper controls.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#187

Post by jki275 »

three_seagrass wrote: post #132
SilasX wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that’s what I hate about taking pictures with their iPhone, the lack of a tactile button for taking the shot. It’s especially bad when you have to photograph without a view of the screen. (So that you don’t guess, I mean when photographing the back of my head or the inside of a tight crawl space when my cat got inside.)

Does the iPhone not allow double-tap of the power button to start the camera? Volume buttons should work as a shutter button to take a photo.

I don't think it does anymore. You have to activate the screen and slide left to get the camera. The volume buttons still work for the shutter though, which I use all the time.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#188

Post by chc »

hnarn wrote: post #170
CivBase wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for an avionics manufacturer and I can assure you most of our upcoming comercial systems (and even a healthy portion of government ones) feature touch screen inputs.

What exact type of input is being grabbed by these screens? "Critical pilot systems"? Touchscreens already exist in airliners, for systems used by crew and passengers, but that's beside the point.

Critical driver systems (i.e. steering, signaling, acceleration and brakes) aren't controlled by touchscreen in any car I know of either, so if non-critical systems are beside the point, what is the criticism here? Or are you thinking of some particularly extreme cars that are even more reliant on touchscreen than the Model 3?

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#189

Post by pmontra »

Noumenon72 wrote: post #73
agumonkey wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

even on phones it's "bad", it requires high focus.. it's was only good in the theory that smartphones would be used for prolonged dedicated tasks. how i miss blind use of buttons on old dumbphones

I've been hanging onto my Galaxy S7 just because it has actual home and back buttons. Don't know if anyone else still does that.

I share your feelings. I had to buy a newer phone and I pinned the 3 buttons to the bottom of the screen where I used to have the buttons on the bezel. The screen is at least 2 cm / 1 inch too tall anyway. The alternative is swiping to go back, which is unusable.

Sometimes the buttons disappear but bringing them back is not as complicated as I feared. Of course it's worse than having them. I'd take a 3 cm shorter screen and 1 cm bottom bezel with buttons.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#190

Post by vincnetas »

Shivetya wrote: post #92

I will defend the screen in the Tesla 3, the simple fact is that you really never have to use on your typical drive and yes muscle memory works for simple UIs like what the Tesla employs. Compared to 40+ buttons in my previous Volt AND a screen. Many cars have that many or more buttons and this is easier? Where screen's become distracting is when the UI is shit, having more than one or two clicks to do anything, and…

I remember i have read this a year ago.

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/tesla-big-touchscreen/

A Case Study of Car-Dashboard User Interface

And it was discussed here before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19968970

Im curious, have any of these problems been fixed?

  - Soft Buttons That Demand Attention
  - Poor Target Design
  - Target Size
  - Accidental Touches
  - Map Always on Screen
Post reply on HN