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Study finds that buttons in cars are safer and quicker to use than touchscreens

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Re: Study finds that buttons in cars are safer and quicker to use than touchscreens

#382
post #67
post #18

The actual "study" (really, an unscientific test) is here: https://www.vibilagare.se/english/physical-buttons-outperfor... At home we have both traditional vehicles with lots of knobs, and vehicles (Tesla) with mainly touchscreen buttons and voice commands. My personal experience: * It takes at least a few weeks to become familiar enough with the touchscreen buttons and voice commands that they become second-nature.…

I understand your points. I will add one more thing, touchscreens have the ability to allow you to customise location of "knobs and dials", according to your own idea of "what makes sense". However, having one car with both, I cannot understate the fact that you can touch physical buttons and correct yourself without activating them or looking. Haptic feedback on touchscreens, while allowing you to sense without acti…

My guess: that's because even with haptic feedback you only get a binary response to inform you that something was indeed touched. But with a physical button, you can feel the texture of material, its edges, its geometry, when is fully pressed, when is up again, etc.

When you have several touchscreen buttons/controls (or whatever) near enough haptic feedback is kind of confusing without looking at the screen. IMO, this can be easily checked in any mobile game with haptic feedback, the feeling is subpar to a physical controller.

Maybe the technology for a haptic feedback that can accurately give different stimuli to different parts of a touchscreen already exist, but never seen it before.

Re: Study finds that buttons in cars are safer and quicker to use than touchscreens

#383
post #240
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When we bought our last car we specifically avoided touchscreen-heavy interfaces. Worst we looked at was Peugeot, which not only had framerate stuttering _on the actual digital dashboard_, the radio turned on loud for us and although the digital volume button was large, you couldn’t just hold it down - you needed to repeatedly tap/lift/tap/lift/… to move it more than just one volume notch. We bought a (non-peugeot) c…

Which brand of car did you end up buying? I've heard Mazda and Toyota were pretty good at keeping essential command controls as physical buttons.

Ford Focus, recent enough to have the Sync3+ software (2018+). Except for the Carplay interface, everything has physical buttons, and even then - the physical media controls (and on-steering-wheel buttons, including a physical "activate siri voice control" button) will do what you expect with the connected device. It has both digital speedometer (as an optional page in the dashboard) and physical speedometer.

However, I haven't looked to see if this is continues with the more recent models/focus line alternatives.

Re: Study finds that buttons in cars are safer and quicker to use than touchscreens

#384
post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which brand of car did you end up buying? I've heard Mazda and Toyota were pretty good at keeping essential command controls as physical buttons.

Ford Focus, recent enough to have the Sync3+ software (2018+). Except for the Carplay interface, everything has physical buttons, and even then - the physical media controls (and on-steering-wheel buttons, including a physical "activate siri voice control" button) will do what you expect with the connected device. It has both digital speedometer (as an optional page in the dashboard) and physical speedometer. However…

Interesting. Last time I rented a car, I had a choice of multiple SUV brands, and I ended up picking the Ford one because it wasn't too big, had Carplay, and had lots of physical buttons. It was a pleasurable experience.

However, we've owned several Fords in the past 30 years (Sierra, Mondeo, and Fiesta) and they all have had a few reliability issues, mostly electric. I'm not sure I would buy another Ford today. I hope you have better luck. But I must say that in terms of driving comfort and driver experience, they've all been great.

Re: Study finds that buttons in cars are safer and quicker to use than touchscreens

#385
post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a lot of times they just give you a bigger touch screen, as though it were a status symbol for some people. The big screen in the Tesla is very useful for the map. In the olden times, I used pretty large map books, and the screens are about the page size of those books. I use it to search for locations, get a list of results, select one, choose a navigation path, etc. When the car isn't moving, it is quite useful a…

The steering wheel should be the primary interface for the driver. Controls volume, cruise control, etc. The only dashboard options are A/C, which you could technically get on a steering wheel too. The hazard lights could be a single button as well, doesn't need to be on the dashboard either. Otherwise everything else can be on a big touch screen. You could also have an Alexa style system for when you're driving and…

In my Tesla, temperature adjustment is also on the steering wheel.

Re: Study finds that buttons in cars are safer and quicker to use than touchscreens

#386
I recently had to rent a car, and oh boy. I knew I need to set up mirrors etc for safety. But I did not foresee the need to familiarize myself with a radio. And when it started blasting a little too loud, finding a volume option on the touchscreen was an adventure when driving on a road i couldn't immediately stop on.

I'm never buying touchscreen car...

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