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Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

autocar.co.uk

241–250 of 770 posts

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#242
post #206
post #138

Look at the cockpit of any modern airliner and you will see screens, but they are never interactive. There are hardware buttons, dials and lights all over the place. A tactile interface is both more obvious, sturdy and more stable, and therefore safer. The problem that touch interfaces solve, ever since the advent of the first smart phone, is that the interface is now dynamic. You can change it without having to repl…

> The problem that touch interfaces solve, ever since the advent of the first smart phone, is that the interface is now dynamic. You can change it without having to replace the hardware. I mean, the other point of a dynamic interface is that you can now have more controls than would fit on a static interface. Touchscreen fit-to-purpose controls might suck more than hardware fit-to-purpose controls, but either option…

> I mean, the other point of a dynamic interface is that you can now have more controls than would fit on a static interface.

I think this point is lost sometimes, but is also useful. My car has a lot of physical controls. Some of the ones that are useful during driving are tucked inconveniently below my left knee!

Moving some less frequently used controls to a touch screen might actually benefit some of these designs.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#243

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.

No offense intended, but the sector as a whole has been doing all sorts of dumb sh*t recently when it comes on-board electronics (787 batteries, 737max MCAS, A380 wiring, F35 ... everything). This doesn't exactly refute OP's point, is all I'm saying. Maybe airspace firms shouldn't be taking their design cues from Cupertino.

OP was making an appeal to authority, that avionics manufacturers know what they're doing and decided against touchscreens. So IMO it does strongly refute OP's argument.

(That's not to say that OP is wrong, of course, just that their argument isn't really a valid one. My belief is that touch screens would suck for flying a plane, but I'm not a pilot.)

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#244
post #138

Look at the cockpit of any modern airliner and you will see screens, but they are never interactive. There are hardware buttons, dials and lights all over the place. A tactile interface is both more obvious, sturdy and more stable, and therefore safer. The problem that touch interfaces solve, ever since the advent of the first smart phone, is that the interface is now dynamic. You can change it without having to repl…

This comment is off-topic: the article is about physical buttons for non-safety-critical systems. E.g. the article explicitly mentions climate control.

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear enough about this but I was more trying to make a point that physical input is safer, and that the trend towards touchscreens in general worries me. So a return to "normal", which I guess is not so normal these days, is for me very welcome. Touchscreens in cars cause safety issues for other reasons, namely those of distraction, but my concern is what the future will look like if touchscreen normality takes the upper hand over safety concerns.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#246
post #138

Look at the cockpit of any modern airliner and you will see screens, but they are never interactive. There are hardware buttons, dials and lights all over the place. A tactile interface is both more obvious, sturdy and more stable, and therefore safer. The problem that touch interfaces solve, ever since the advent of the first smart phone, is that the interface is now dynamic. You can change it without having to repl…

This comment is off-topic: the article is about physical buttons for non-safety-critical systems. E.g. the article explicitly mentions climate control.

I am really sorry but foggy windshield is definitely safety critical.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#247

Last year I bought a motorcycle (Honda CB300R) and it was a revelation. No touch screens. No stereo. No GPS. No Bluetooth. No automatic transmission. No cupholders. Basically no "modern car features". And it's a much, much better road experience than any car I've ever been able to afford to drive. Get rid of all the distractions at a price point under $30k with an engine that doesn't feel sluggish and maybe I'll cons…

"You lost me at 'under $30k', I'm trying to figure out how to credibly raise prices, not lower them", Head of Strategy, Automaker XYZ.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#248
A friend bought a Tesla and he was very pleased with it. He insisted I drive it. I couldn't stand it. It was obviously designed to not have a human drive it. My friend doesn't care for driving, but I love it.

I think that's where the touch screen comes in. The driver is secondary. They have to let the driver access things, but they don't have to make it safe or convenient.

Now that the self driving hype is dying down, perhaps the driver will be put first again.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#249
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You (or maybe the market) are misinterpreting Steve Jobs. In a phone context, he is correct.

Still loved all my physical buttons which made input a breeze and didnt require constantly correcting my dang text, in a phone context, nah, he's still wrong; maybe a hybrid is even better, but amorphous movement and inferring intent is not a great user experience as things get more complex.

My nieces and nephews seem to have zero problems navigating a touch screen and type faster than I can.

Might not be intuitive to us, but it definitely is to them.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#250
post #138

Look at the cockpit of any modern airliner and you will see screens, but they are never interactive. There are hardware buttons, dials and lights all over the place. A tactile interface is both more obvious, sturdy and more stable, and therefore safer. The problem that touch interfaces solve, ever since the advent of the first smart phone, is that the interface is now dynamic. You can change it without having to repl…

An airplane cockpit has two pilots and literally several hundred physical buttons. No one wants to drive that car.

In cars we're mainly talking about the volume and fan speed. Personally I much prefer knobs for those. But I wouldn't call those critical safety systems.

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