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The Capacitive Button Cult Must Be Stopped

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Re: The Capacitive Button Cult Must Be Stopped

#81

Post by Dylan16807 »

georgieporgie wrote: post #68

I absolutely despise the touch-sensitive 'wheel' on my iPod Classic. It's useless if I'm working in the garage with nitrile gloves on. I've resorted to using my elbow or nose at times. It's even pretty useless without gloves, if I've been doing anything that gets my hands dry, or had the iPod in my pocket so that it became relatively moist. I often have to breathe on my fingers before changing the volume!

I can tell you that that's the specific device's fault. My phone's capacitive screen works wet or with nitrile gloves.

Re: The Capacitive Button Cult Must Be Stopped

#83

Post by dvdhsu »

tomrod wrote: post #82

What is a capacitive button? EDIT: Oh, I see now. They are buttons that respond to electric impulse from the fingers on touchscreens. The solution the author seems to be seeking is: everyone should use the old Nokia bricks?

The iPhone doesn't look like a Nokia brick, yet it has a hardware home button.

Similarly, the Nexus One had hardware buttons below the screen. On the other hand, the Nexus S uses capacitive buttons.

Hardware buttons are typically easier to press, have better feedback (even when compared to haptic feedback), and easier to find when your eyes are closed. Hardware buttons do not imply "Nokia bricks".

Re: The Capacitive Button Cult Must Be Stopped

#84

Post by dvdhsu »

mkr-hn wrote: post #3
blantonl wrote: post #2

what is a capacitive button?

A button that works on the same principle as the trackpad on your laptop.

Just to clarify, I believe mkr-hn means the trackpad itself, not the buttons on the trackpad. Most trackpad buttons these days are physical. The trackpad itself, however, is capacitive.

Re: The Capacitive Button Cult Must Be Stopped

#85

Post by digikata »

Sidnicious wrote: post #60
digikata wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, on my oven they work great. No worries about grease or flour on your hands to setup a temperature or timer. It all wipes off later.

Just to be clear, I think that the article is about touch-sensitive buttons that provide no feedback — not about the more-common kitchen appliance buttons which live behind a plastic sheet but actually click when you push them.

Those membrane buttons are more common on ovens, but I did mean capacitive buttons on my oven.

Honestly, I think there are companies and products lines which take the time and care to do the human factors engineering whatever interface is selected for the design, and there are products which don't have that attention paid to htem - blaming the button technology itself is sort of a side show to the actual focus on user experience which may lead you to optimize the interaction - tune the buttons, or speed up the software, whatever. Physical buttons can be just as bad if the user experience is ignored.

Re: The Capacitive Button Cult Must Be Stopped

#86

Post by icebraining »

underwater wrote: post #74
Shenglong wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly feel that as an intelligent human being, our first response to meeting an inconvinence problem should be to think of a solution, rather than complain. All the things I've mentioned are by no means difficult to think of, or implement. iPhone comes with buttoned headphones. Thin Leather gloves serve other purposes and are decently cheap. To me, this sounds like: "I've opted to close my eyes, and I can't see…

I never walk around wearing headphones. I simply don't understand people who think that every waking moment of their life needs a soundtrack.

They don't need to be playing music, you know? I got a cheap ($10) bluetooth headset and I walk around with it in my ear all the time just to answer calls.

Re: The Capacitive Button Cult Must Be Stopped

#87

Post by heyimfromreddit »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #57
harshpotatoes wrote: post #22

Another issue people don't bring up: the weather. Living in Seattle I frequently wore mittens. With the physical buttons it would not be a problem to operate the phone, with the touchscreen there is this long ordeal of pulling off the mitten to answer the phone. If it is raining (or rather, when is it not raining?), the rain will mess with the touchscreen, making it sometimes impossible to answer a call. You might sa…

I've been thinking about getting some of these ( http://WWW.THUMBDOGS.COM/ ) to deal with my phone while I'm on my motorcycle. There are also solutions based on sewing conductive thread through the ends of the gloves. I have no idea how well they would work for the evil called capavitive buttons. I am consistently fighting with every electronic item I own that has those damnable things. I guess my fingertips just don…

>phone while I'm on my motorcycle

Probably not a good idea...

Re: The Capacitive Button Cult Must Be Stopped

#88

Post by heyimfromreddit »

Tharkun wrote: post #66

Anything that vaguely pretends it's a button without being one deserves to burn in hell for all eternity. This includes touch screens, capacitive or otherwise, and any other such nonsense. If I'm meant to press it, make it obvious and use a button. If I'm meant to slide it, give me a slider. Turn? Give me a knob. How hard can it be, seriously? As for engineers moaning about the life time of switches, puh-please. Show…

Can anyone type 150WPM on a non-touch screen phone?

Re: The Capacitive Button Cult Must Be Stopped

#89

Post by Groxx »

StavrosK wrote: post #31
harshpotatoes wrote: post #22

Another issue people don't bring up: the weather. Living in Seattle I frequently wore mittens. With the physical buttons it would not be a problem to operate the phone, with the touchscreen there is this long ordeal of pulling off the mitten to answer the phone. If it is raining (or rather, when is it not raining?), the rain will mess with the touchscreen, making it sometimes impossible to answer a call. You might sa…

I use my nose, it works well if you can aim it.

My wife and I just discussed this solution, less than a minute before seeing this, with walk signals in the winter while wearing gloves. We found a problem: what if you get stuck? A cold, runny nose is almost as bad as a tongue (yet another solution).

Re: The Capacitive Button Cult Must Be Stopped

#90

Post by afiler »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #30

Its interesting to hear designers on a rant about capacitive buttons. Switches are the bane of most electrical engineers because they cost a lot and they have a finite lifetime. So generally they are thing that is going to 'kill' the product. And because they are both mechanical and have moving parts (in the non-capacitive variant) when they break the users just push harder trying to get them to work and that can cra…

I'm sure my neighbor, who's blind, would appreciate piezo buttons. I had to help her deduce why her screen reader would "die" on her Dell laptop periodically. It turns out that it has capacitive buttons for Mute/Volume, and the only feedback from them is an LED. She would occasionally brush her fingers over the buttons and end up inadvertently muting the laptop.
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