111–120 of 410 posts
Curious, because I thought the reason nobody did buttons anymore was that printing a pattern on a touch capacitive surface was dirty cheap.
Whereas I assume tactile buttons require a lot work when mounting/building the product.
Am I wrong?
I guess an 8 digit display is still cheaper than a touch screen :)
Modern cars seem to be moving towards all controls on a touch screen somewhere. I suppose this allows for more frequent updates, but in my experience it just leads to more bugs and more painful factory updates. Not to mention using a touchscreen to adjust the temperature while driving is incredibly dangerous compared to a dial you can feel for without taking your eyes off the road.
I really wonder if the possibility of updates alone can make software worse. Because you don't have to "get it right" on the first try. And the updates always contain something more than bug and security fixes, which often help keeping the quality of the experience low, despite fixed bugs. All the smart TVs I ever had lasted a long long time physically, but after a couple years they invariably started being noticeabl…
Does anybody have sources they want to share for getting components for classic interfaces like these today? I'd imagine production has plummeted since the glory days, but there ought to be stock of some things around still and people salvaging nice parts? I don't do any hardware work worth mentioning, but I hope to get around to amending that soon, and I'd find it attractive to use interfaces appropriate to the task…
You shouldn't need to salvage unless you really want some vintage pot knob or slider that you can't find elsewhere. Industrial hardware usually needs to be tactile (eg operated with gloves).
Some modern stuff is better anyway, like mono OLED displays which are far more readable than LCDs.
Maybe it just costs less to build LED screen cars than those with knobs ?
I like to claim the development the last few decades seems to be going from specialized tools that performed their task beautifully to generic tools that performed that task (or some semblance thereof) at all.
Case in point: "Desktop evolution"
Reminds me of modern stoves. All of them have touch controls which means every time a friend of mine is presenting me their new kitchen, I have no idea how to use the stove. They always say "No, no, it's really easy to get used to" but it's still frustrating because the touch controls never bring any new features to the table. They are just knobs abstracted into separated buttons and sliders, of which the latter you…
Same for office phones (which have a plethora of buttons e.g. for conference calls that are not useful in many contexts).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also home appliances love to use icons without any seeming standardisation. On one oven, the fan icon means fan assisted cooking and is basically the one you want 90% of the time, and then on another it means turn the fan on without applying heat. Also various half open rectangles with squiggly lines which may or may not have anything to do with grill modes depending on your specoific oven.
As I've gotten older I've become very anti-icon. Just use text!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also home appliances love to use icons without any seeming standardisation. On one oven, the fan icon means fan assisted cooking and is basically the one you want 90% of the time, and then on another it means turn the fan on without applying heat. Also various half open rectangles with squiggly lines which may or may not have anything to do with grill modes depending on your specoific oven.
As I've gotten older I've become very anti-icon. Just use text!
And it's not just that, but words with the same meaning can have vastly different lengths depending on language, which may or may not fit in your original design. To name an example: If you have an fan-assisted oven, you can have a small round button labeled 'fan'. In Dutch, however, the word is 'ventilator', which would require much more space.
Earlier 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.
These ideas aren't born in the actual product design teams, where "don't put touch control near things that get hot" or "no unprotected touch controls on surfaces where spilling can occur" are not concepts that need to be explained. The way this usually happens is that product management hands down the requirement from down top, either on their own or after contracting some expensive industrial design agency (i.e. a…
Reminds me of modern stoves. All of them have touch controls which means every time a friend of mine is presenting me their new kitchen, I have no idea how to use the stove. They always say "No, no, it's really easy to get used to" but it's still frustrating because the touch controls never bring any new features to the table. They are just knobs abstracted into separated buttons and sliders, of which the latter you…
None of my friends say their stove touch buttons are great. They are not just unintuitive, most implementations are painfully slow. (my own pet peeve though are microwaves - they are a positive monstrosity of horrible interface bearing no connection to actual typical usage. I'd like one with a massive "add 30s and start button", and anything else is a nice optional extra for me :-D
I have no idea why domestic microwaves come with a maze of buttons when such vastly superior knob technology exists.