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Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

autocar.co.uk

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Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#301

Post by seanmcdirmid »

vidanay wrote: post #212
thedance wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The backlit display on the Tesla 3 is wayyyyy too bright for night driving, even at its lowest backlight intensity and in night mode. It is like they intentionally ignored all available human factors research. Tesla is not alone here. Many automakers these days have too-bright interiors for night driving.

I've been turning the dash light intensity almost all the way down for 30+ years. They've always been too bright. If the Tesla is as bright as you say, it would literally be undriveable for me at night. (No screens or touch in either of my 18-20 year old vehicles)

They should probably switch to an AMOLED and go with a dark mode for night driving?

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#302

Post by agumonkey »

_bxg1 wrote: post #89
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

It's good on phones because it allows them to become multi-tools. You can't have physical buttons for every thing any app might want to do; with a touch screen they can make their own buttons. On cars it's silly. Cars are not multi-tools; they have a finite set of dedicated functions. Even for functions that benefit from a large high-res screen (maps, music library browsing, etc.), the actual input requirements are n…

that's a fair point but having 4 buttons would allow for generic physical input

humans can learn how to make most important and quick features easily

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#304

Post by TomVDB »

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.

Audi may be doing some things right (I love the location of the audio volume knob), it doesn't compensate for that ridiculous touch pad which you're supposed to use to enter street names by writing the characters one by one with your finger... and many other UI warts.

The best thing about Audi's console is that fact that they support Apple CarPlay.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#305

Post by dublin »

I've designed hardware and software for a number of touchscreen devices and applications. I even invented the double-sided touchscreen, which may show up in phones in another few years.) So I love touchscreens, BUT, he lack of feel makes knobs, buttons and switches a far better choice for moving environments - I hate most new cars that lack real controls for at least commonly used functions. It's hard to beat the knobs and sliders in most 50-60 year-old cars for easy work-by-feel operation.

(FWIW, I always thought it would have been cool if someone in StarTrek TNG/DS9/Voyager had sat down at one of those smooth glass LCARS interface panels and been surprised that they could "feel" 3D controls on them. That seems to be the sort of thing that would be done given the obvious capabilities of their holo/forcefield generators...)

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#306

Post by saiya-jin »

thoraway1010 wrote: post #272
vwcx wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. There are many moments during the operation of an aircraft where full attention is paramount. Yes, you see a pilot leaving the cockpit to use the lavatory while the co-pilot is monitoring the autopilot, but the margins are just as small as operating a motor vehicle.

Absolutely not true. In cruise, stabilized, especially with AP - the margins are MUCH MUCH higher. Pilots have fallen asleep (two of them) - overflown airports still landed etc.

I think major difference is commercial airliner vs say fighter jet. As a layman it still seems pretty wrong to make most of the screen highly dynamic. Maybe designated one on the side.

Back to the topic - in car, unless specifically intended for other passengers, driver should never stare on some stupid screen in a place way off the line of sight for driving. Whenever I do that even for a split second in my 15-year old bmw (checking if that knob is really for what I want), there can be an atomic blast in front of me and I wouldn't see it.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#307

Post by dole »

dron57 wrote: post #7

Funny coming from Honda. My parents own a 2017 (I think) Civic and the only way to adjust volume is by tapping +/- on the touchscreen. It's the most unusable volume adjustment I've ever experienced. It was completely unusable with a glove in the winter. So while most other companies only implemented touchscreen controls for secondary features Honda did it for the most widely used one. Now they are backtracking 100%,…

One of the major changes between the 2018 and 2019 Honda model years was the addition of a physical volume knob on the main touch screen. Evidently this was one of the biggest complaints and they actually listened.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#308

Post by dheera »

intlcaptain wrote: post #259
dheera wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a horrible idea. If you're trying to say, lower the landing gear, and the button malfunctions, you can probably smack the button a few times until it works, failing that, rip the switch out and short the wires inside the switch and get the plane landed. With a touch screen? What if the glass breaks and the capacitive layer fails? Or the software running the screen crashes? Or a bug prevents you from…

There are three redundant methods to lower the landing gear on my aircraft, depending on whether you still have hydraulic ability available or not. It is not unique. One is a big, fat lever that will not go away with a hypothetical touchscreen option, since we pilots tend to like physical backups for flight-critical systems like that (though I’m curious what pc86 is flying upthread, since even the G1000 aircraft I’ve…

> One is a big, fat lever that will not go away with a hypothetical touchscreen option

Thanks for the explanation -- This makes me feel much safer as a passenger if the touch screen is provided to you as a convenience instead of a replacement. Yep, I haven't flown an aircraft. I was thinking that it was like a car where they are getting rid of physical knobs and replacing them with touchscreen-only interfaces which I hate.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#309

Post by tomp »

Wow, this is easily the most annoying site I've come across recently. Not only does it block the whole page if I'm using adblock, but it doesn't even start working when I disable it (I'm using uBlock Origin).

We really need to figure out a proper anti-anti-adblock technology...

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#310

Post by rhizome »

CivBase wrote: post #162
hnarn wrote: 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…

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.

Touch screens for all purposes? Probably good to distinguish if some things, even at your company, should not be dynamic (are they dynamic?). Some life-critical thing that is vulnerable to an uncovered sneeze?
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