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Bring Back Our Knobs: Analog vs. Digital (2009)

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Re: Bring Back Our Knobs: Analog vs. Digital (2009)

#141

Post by Aloha »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #80
SyzygistSix wrote: post #30

Seriously. Without a dedicated on/off/volume knob for the soundsystem, the driving experience is diminished drastically, no matter how nice the car. And of course touch is way better than eyesight when you are supposed to be paying attention to the road. As someone else said, rough motor skills are safer and more appropriate in a car then controls needing fine motor skills.

I know this makes me a clueless annoying boring techie nerd :), but I still cannot properly fathom how this is a minority opinion. NOBODY in my non-techie group of friends or family cares. Not.even.remotely. I watch them struggle with their touch screens, I even listen to them rant, but when asked about it afterwards, it's fine. Just fine. Sexy. Sleek. Desirable. Why do I have to go and ruin everything? Honestly, eve…

I've had good automatic AC in a car, where it gets what I want most of the time.

Most of the rentals I've driven get it too, but they work differently than what you have at home, insomuch as they control fan speed and temp, they should haves unload temp sensor too.

Incidentally, I adjust my manual AC about as often as I do my automatic one.

Re: Bring Back Our Knobs: Analog vs. Digital (2009)

#142

Post by Aloha »

at_compile_time wrote: post #43
bluedino wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take knobs over membrane buttons. Can't believe the entire appliance industry switched.

Appliances used to be way more reliable too. I grew up in the 90s with appliances from the 70s and 80s that still worked when they were replaced a few years ago. The new oven has already shit the bed and needs a new board. Everything is more complicated than it used to be, more likely to break as a result, and requires specialized parts to fix. And if the manufacturer doesn't sell that part anymore, your stuck buying…

While I don't really disagree with you, don't underestimate survivorship bias, how many of that old stuff died early and needed parts, yes the parts were cheaper, but the repairs took usually took more labor.

Re: Bring Back Our Knobs: Analog vs. Digital (2009)

#143

Post by bee_rider »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #123
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whereas with Auto, you literally never know what you're going to get. It's not on conscious level - everybody thinks their Auto A/C it's awesome. Until you watch their actual sub-conscious behaviour on a drive. Honest question: do you really see people touch the level of their ac during a drive? Auto is actual temperature control. The system tries to stay at the set temperature. It’s a lot more comfortable that hav…

>>Honest question: do you really see people touch the level of their ac during a drive? Honest answer, not fudged for sake of making a point - Yes. Absolutely. I don't know if hyper-expensive luxury vehicles do better, but I can vouch that my wife has been frequently changing in our 2012 Kia Sportage, 2016 RAV4, and now 2019 Honda Odyssey. I've observed others do so frequently in Toyota Corolla, Honda Civiv, Subaru C…

I very rarely meet an air conditioner that can keep the whole cabin cold enough for me. We all just point the things at our faces and enjoy the active cooled airflow, right? So I'm wondering what exactly these systems measure -- unless the thermometer is on my headrest I guess, it isn't measuring a variable that has anything to do with my experience.

Re: Bring Back Our Knobs: Analog vs. Digital (2009)

#144

Post by jdr23bc »

macNchz wrote: post #88
finnh wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh. When remodeling my kitchen in 2016 the highest priced ovens all had crappy touchscreens. I had to "downgrade" from Miele to Bosch to get knobs.

Yeah I have a relative who renovated their kitchen recently and got a fairly high end induction range with touch controls...it was quite expensive and has possibly the worst user experience of any appliance I've ever used. As the touch areas get wet or oily they start to act weird, and they're right next to the cooking surfaces so they always get wet and oily if you're actually cooking anything. You have to lock the…

That sounds like the appliance at my new place. It's got a wall mounted microwave / oven unit with touchscreen controls at the top. such a terrible design. whenever the appliance is in use and you open at door the controls get steamed up and become useless.

at least I can turn it on over WiFi (I have no idea what the use case for that feature is).

Re: Bring Back Our Knobs: Analog vs. Digital (2009)

#145

Post by bee_rider »

koolba wrote: post #109
wildrhythms wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't find it annoying having to override the 'intelligent' system? With manual control, I can immediately start or stop hot and cold air; with a climate system, I can merely propose some higher or lower temperature, and the system may or may not do what I want it to do. I temporarily drove a Buick that had such a system, and found myself constantly having to override what the 'intelligent' system thought I wante…

Automated climate control always reminds me of that Bane quote from Dark Knight, “ Do you feel like you are in control? ” The instant gratification of slamming an analog heater to full blast and knowing that hot air will immediately flow from the vents cannot be beat. It’s not efficient, it’s not optimized, it’s not regulated to a steady state, but it what I want. And I’m the user.

I actually wonder about the efficiency of these automatic systems.

These automatic systems are trying to, what, make the whole cabin achieve some set temperature? Who cares about the average cabin temperature? The airconditioner is pointed right at me. I care about the temperature of the air coming out of the vents and flowing over me. Assuming the back seat isn't populated, there's a whole volume of air back there being unnecessarily cooled..

Re: Bring Back Our Knobs: Analog vs. Digital (2009)

#146

Post by tshaddox »

blunte wrote: post #121
NikolaNovak wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this makes me a clueless annoying boring techie nerd :), but I still cannot properly fathom how this is a minority opinion. NOBODY in my non-techie group of friends or family cares. Not.even.remotely. I watch them struggle with their touch screens, I even listen to them rant, but when asked about it afterwards, it's fine. Just fine. Sexy. Sleek. Desirable. Why do I have to go and ruin everything? Honestly, eve…

It's because the layperson isn't constantly observing systems and thinking about how effective or efficient they are. Their minds just don't seem to work like that. (Perhaps there's some area of expertise they have which applies outside the realm of technology...) While fumbling with some poorly designed UI, they don't appear to get as angry and exclaim, "This user interface sucks! My previous car had a button to tur…

> It's because the layperson isn't constantly observing systems and thinking about how effective or efficient they are. Their minds just don't seem to work like that.

Probably because constantly observing systems and thinking about how effective or efficient they are is way less effective and efficient than just using the system.

Re: Bring Back Our Knobs: Analog vs. Digital (2009)

#147

Post by amonavis »

tuatoru wrote: post #16

> So what do product designers have against knobs? Several things. ... Then the piece omits the two overwhelmingly important reasons: cost and reliability. Knobs definitely are much better to use, but things with moving parts that stick out from the surface are not as reliable in population terms. Most people never have trouble, but that quintile that gives their stuff a hard time costs manufacturers a lot.

We own a car (Honda Accord), 1983 model. The light switches in our house date to the 1950's. Never has anything broken.

Re: Bring Back Our Knobs: Analog vs. Digital (2009)

#148

Post by rudian »

tshaddox wrote: post #146
blunte wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because the layperson isn't constantly observing systems and thinking about how effective or efficient they are. Their minds just don't seem to work like that. (Perhaps there's some area of expertise they have which applies outside the realm of technology...) While fumbling with some poorly designed UI, they don't appear to get as angry and exclaim, "This user interface sucks! My previous car had a button to tur…

> It's because the layperson isn't constantly observing systems and thinking about how effective or efficient they are. Their minds just don't seem to work like that. Probably because constantly observing systems and thinking about how effective or efficient they are is way less effective and efficient than just using the system.

Heh, that’s the damnation of the expert. The more I know about movies the less I enjoy them, for example. It’s easier when you don’t notice defects.

Re: Bring Back Our Knobs: Analog vs. Digital (2009)

#149

Post by BeefWellington »

smusamashah wrote: post #100

I recently found about "Aesthetic-usability Effect" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetic%E2%80%93usability_ef... People find sleek looking things more usable even when they are actually not. There are no visible left/right click buttons on modern laptop touchpads. You get a sleek looking touchpad. Tap bottom left side harder to left click, right side to right click. There are still buttons beneath, but no, to desi…

I think there's limits to these kinds of effects if it's actually a thing you interact with on what I'll call (for lack of a better term coming to mind) a blue collar basis.

My reasoning (story time): I got hired to fix up a piece of custom-built software that was essentially the core business function for a series of medical clinics. They'd spent quite a bit of money to replace an older DOS system with a fancy new .net app. It was flashy, sleek looking, but also slow, buggy, and hard to use for the staff who did 99% of the work within it. Part of my analysis involved looking at the software they were using before the new .net app they paid for, which was something they'd kept alive probably a decade past its best before date by running old versions of Windows or running it on Dosbox.

The staff loved the ancient thing and hated the new modern thing because the new modern thing made everything about their jobs harder, despite being much easier on the eyes and displaying a lot more information on-screen. The old DOS app was built to be used keyboard-only, so it was much faster than using a mouse for 99% of data entry things, which was the bulk of what people were doing with the app. By contrast, the development house that built the .net app to replace it didn't seem to even know what tabindex was for. Literally you couldn't tab around any screen in the app in any kind of sensible workflow way.

It took a while to fix it up but the thing that always stuck with me about that job was just how much one particular front office staff member thanked me profusely because she could now use the keyboard for everything again. There was a valuable lesson in it for me about the pitfalls of shiny vs functional.

Re: Bring Back Our Knobs: Analog vs. Digital (2009)

#150

Post by throwawayboise »

LegitShady wrote: post #136
w-ll wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why phones don't fit in peoples hands anymore. -Sent from my Iphone SE

thats a tradeoff rather than an error. Making the phone bigger makes it fit differently but is an overall user experience preferred by many.

It's a terrible tradeoff. Every time I need a new phone I search for the smallest one I can find, and it's always bigger than my last phone.
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