The place where I feel this the most is cars.
I drove a Tesla Model 3 that belongs to a friend and had used a rented VW Golf mark 8. The touch screen and touch sensitive panels with haptic feedback were horrible. I now appreciate my VW Golf Mark 7 even more. It is glorious to have knobs, physical buttons, and levers for all things that needs to be controlled while driving. It's intuitive, and I can use them without looking at them(taking attention off of the road). I wish and hope that a modern car gets this "old fashioned" interface when I am in the market for a new car in a few years.
The benefits of “low tech” user interfaces
71–80 of 410 posts
Re: The benefits of “low tech” user interfaces
#72> During the recent home device project I mentioned earlier, one of the biggest supporters of a touchscreen-based solution was the team’s marketing specialist. Why am I not surprised?
I don't buy it tbh. Most home appliances are sufficiently complex that physical buttons are not intuitive. Ask someone to change the clock on their oven vs on their phone. Most could do it on the phone but not the oven. And there are countless more practical examples of this issue. My Breville coffee machine only has buttons and knobs, which works fine for the basic flow since everything has a dedicated button. But o…
> Ask someone to change the clock on their oven vs on their phone. Most could do it on the phone but not the oven.
I'd argue that's not an example of touch screens being better than buttons but rather the button interface in question being poorly laid out, and as for the phone, it's not the lack of physical buttons but rather the on-screen guidance that makes life easier. My grandparents' cooker is a button-free wonder and I couldn't work it out the first time I tried to turn it on.
Re: The benefits of “low tech” user interfaces
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the other hand, literally last night the physical knob for one of my stove burners came off in my hand leaving me having to use a pair of pliers to turn it off. So, your mileage may vary.
But you could put the knob back on, right? I mean, it slides off to make it easier to clean or replace, and you just need to slide it back on...?
or put a neighbour knob if you have already realised that you can dismount and mount them again.
Re: The benefits of “low tech” user interfaces
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having had one of these, I just want to say: “Never again.” Mine would turn itself on when you washed it and turn itself off when something splattered (like 50% of the time when I boiled water). It made me wonder if anyone actually tested the damn design before approval for mass production.
I think this is a safety function. You may not be able to turn off the stove yourself if something boils over, and the buttons get covered in hot liquid.
Sounds like these stoves could use an "oh shit" / "Big Red Button" that's easily accessible when this happens.
Re: The benefits of “low tech” user interfaces
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
The touch screens are the only thing keeping me on dino juice cars. I want to go electric, but they all have these awful touchscreens! I don’t want to navigate a menu to change the temperature or turn on a seat warmer. I’m just not buying an EV until there’s one that doesn’t rely on a giant touch screen for everything or I can’t buy an ICE vehicle anymore.
Some korean brand was moving to physical buttons again, but I can't find which.
I think Honda have returned to at least partial physical controls for heating, air, and music for the Honda e. But it still has a lot of screen.
Re: The benefits of “low tech” user interfaces
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the other hand they are extremely easy to clean. Just get some cloth and ceramic stove cleaner and you're good to go. The knobs are more convenient to operate, but they tend to accumulate grease in the joints and other parts where you cannot reach. And if you want to clean them thoroughly you need to disassemble the knobs and that's annoying as hell. For me being easier to clean compensates everything.
Every stove knob I've ever interacted with easily pulls / slides off its peg and can be hand washed if it gets too dirty. Changing a lightbulb is an order of magnitude harder.
Yeah...when cleaning I take off the knobs and soak them while cleaning the rest of the top. Then finish by hand washing the knobs and then putting it all back together.
The other thing is you can buy new knobs which can update/change/refresh the look of an older cooktop.
Re: The benefits of “low tech” user interfaces
#77To anyone designing low-tech user interfaces: I'm all for something simple but please, oh please, use something with a better feedback than the membrane "keyboard" shown in the article. Membrane keys are the absolute shittiest piece of shit ever produced. I use three everyday: my safe has one. My projector's remote control and my LED strip light (I use a LED strip to give a "home cinema" feel to the room) has one. The one on the safe, thankfully, at least emits a "beep" every time a press registers. Doesn't make it great by any means but there's that. On the projector there's a delay between any press and the projector giving you any feedback, so you don't know if a press registered or not.
I do honestly think, and I'm not a big smartphone fan, that a virtual keyboard on s smartphone's screen with haptic feeback (where the phone vibrates a bit when you "press" a key) is infinitely better than membrane keyboards.
Now I'm not saying everything should be replaced with screens+haptic feedback: what I'm saying is membrane keyboard are the worst piece of shit man ever invented.
On the other hand my alarm system has buttons (zero screen): one button, one function. And the feedback on these buttons is perfect. It's bliss. Same in my ultra high end, but thankfully nine years old, car: one button, one function. And when you press that button you know it's been pressed. Perfection. (I say "thankfully nine years old" because the very same car brand/model now uses screens everywhere instead of buttons).
So you can have two exactly identical looking user interface and, without trying, it's impossible to tell if it's a complete piece of shit or not (well, these membranes things: you kinda spot them from a mile): you need to actually press the buttons to know.
Membranes are the opposite of perfect user experience: they're mediocre turds.
Re: The benefits of “low tech” user interfaces
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having had one of these, I just want to say: “Never again.” Mine would turn itself on when you washed it and turn itself off when something splattered (like 50% of the time when I boiled water). It made me wonder if anyone actually tested the damn design before approval for mass production.
On the other hand they are extremely easy to clean. Just get some cloth and ceramic stove cleaner and you're good to go. The knobs are more convenient to operate, but they tend to accumulate grease in the joints and other parts where you cannot reach. And if you want to clean them thoroughly you need to disassemble the knobs and that's annoying as hell. For me being easier to clean compensates everything.
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Re: The benefits of “low tech” user interfaces
#79Interesting read, I certainly think there is a lot to be said for minimlism where a system can be controlled with physical controls/ buttons without an instruction manual, fancy screens and UI are often a complete overkill for a product. The Design of Everyday things is an essential read on these topics and generally a book I'd recommend to anyone working in tech or design.
Re: The benefits of “low tech” user interfaces
#80Humane Interface by J. Raskin had some interesting points about how to make low tech interfaces. You need essentially eliminate "modes" - like the clock/set time/radio mode buttons on your alarm clock. I'm not saying he's right - but he's worth reading.
That's a great point about "modes". Even 40 years people already joked about the alarm clock you mentioned: everyone knew how to use VCRs, but the damn clock was never adjusted. Since it was neither intuitive, nor something a user would memorize how to do, most VCRs just sat there saying 12:00 or 00:00 forever. For the alarm clock, of course, we had to learn since it was its main function. I see this in music equipme…
That's a great point about looking to music equipment for UX ideas. If you want to see what happens when a design team puts serious effort into building a satisfying and effective interface, look at electronic music devices.