Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens
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Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens
#2I’m apparently unique in this, but I prefer touch screens. Not because I fail to realize the value of buttons, but I don’t find sitting in an airplane cockpit with a few hundred buttons that much better than a screen that is contextual. I like having a few buttons for common tasks like audio controls, and voice control for most else. The rest of the stuff can be on a touch screen for all I care. I get others prefer buttons - but it’s not monolithically preferred.
Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens
#3I’m apparently unique in this, but I prefer touch screens. Not because I fail to realize the value of buttons, but I don’t find sitting in an airplane cockpit with a few hundred buttons that much better than a screen that is contextual. I like having a few buttons for common tasks like audio controls, and voice control for most else. The rest of the stuff can be on a touch screen for all I care. I get others prefer b…
Concur, I am a minimalist and I for one love clean interfaces. If the argument is ergonomics, majority of stuff should be controllable with voice. I often set temperature / enable seat heaters using voice.
Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens
#4There was a company (Tactus Technology - now defunct) that had a "morphing" touch screen wherein the surface of the screen could be raised up to provide tactile feedback about "where" your fingers are on the screen (e.g. 'raised' keys for a keyboard [0]).
I recall this being "the next big thing" in touch screens about 10 years ago but the tech didn't seem to go anywhere. For small screens such as your phone it was probably overkill but cars seemed like the perfect use case if they could have gotten the technology right.
Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens
#5I’m apparently unique in this, but I prefer touch screens. Not because I fail to realize the value of buttons, but I don’t find sitting in an airplane cockpit with a few hundred buttons that much better than a screen that is contextual. I like having a few buttons for common tasks like audio controls, and voice control for most else. The rest of the stuff can be on a touch screen for all I care. I get others prefer b…
I think "airplane cockpit" is an exaggeration. Sure early 2000's Mercedeses even had a phone keypad[1], because, hey, everyone needed that front and center, but by around 2010 most manufacturers figured out iDrive-style interfaces (maybe a better name would be iPod-style menus with a scroll wheel you click to enter submenus)
[1] https://s1.cdn.autoevolution.com/images/gallery/MERCEDESBENZ...
Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens
#6Nothing wrong with touchscreens, just don't rely exclusively on them for basic vehicle operations! Thoughtless trend-following caused all these UX complaints in the first place, and it sounds like the automakers are hoping it will fix them as well. It won't.
Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens
#7I’m apparently unique in this, but I prefer touch screens. Not because I fail to realize the value of buttons, but I don’t find sitting in an airplane cockpit with a few hundred buttons that much better than a screen that is contextual. I like having a few buttons for common tasks like audio controls, and voice control for most else. The rest of the stuff can be on a touch screen for all I care. I get others prefer b…
I’ve never seen any car dash with more than a few dozen buttons.
Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens
#8I’m apparently unique in this, but I prefer touch screens. Not because I fail to realize the value of buttons, but I don’t find sitting in an airplane cockpit with a few hundred buttons that much better than a screen that is contextual. I like having a few buttons for common tasks like audio controls, and voice control for most else. The rest of the stuff can be on a touch screen for all I care. I get others prefer b…
If I’m fully engaged with a device a touch screen is great, especially when that device needs to do more things than you could reasonably make physical controls for.
But when I’m driving and need to adjust something, I don’t want to disconnect with driving to dive into a touch screen.
A physical control, in the same location means muscle memory can take over. And as we learnt decades ago, the controls themselves need to be physically distinct so that you can tell them apart without looking or thinking too hard.
I don’t think touchscreens need to disappear from cars, there’s a wealth of settings/config/etc they could be useful for.
But the core driving aids and temperature/volume control need to be physical.
Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens
#9I’m apparently unique in this, but I prefer touch screens. Not because I fail to realize the value of buttons, but I don’t find sitting in an airplane cockpit with a few hundred buttons that much better than a screen that is contextual. I like having a few buttons for common tasks like audio controls, and voice control for most else. The rest of the stuff can be on a touch screen for all I care. I get others prefer b…
Voice control is a bit of a nonstarter as the speech recognition (perhaps combined with the weird acoustics of a moving vehicle) has never worked for everyone; eg my father's accent never seems to work in his Honda. My car is from 2014 and definitely has more buttons than necessary. I don't mind infrequently used controls behind a touchscreen, like do the controls to set the time on the clock really need dedicated buttons? But the issue as I see it is that whats frequently used for some is infrequently used for others. For example, I never take my car's drive mode out of eco, but my sister switches to sport when she goes up big hills. Once you get out of the category of obviously frequently controlled things (gear selector, climate control, media controls), you really have to start making judgement calls and picking and choosing who you're going to make uncomfortable. For example, do you prioritize a radio selector? Some people never use the AM/FM radio on their car. Some people only listen to AM/FM radio and never connect their smartphone.
Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens
#10I’m apparently unique in this, but I prefer touch screens. Not because I fail to realize the value of buttons, but I don’t find sitting in an airplane cockpit with a few hundred buttons that much better than a screen that is contextual. I like having a few buttons for common tasks like audio controls, and voice control for most else. The rest of the stuff can be on a touch screen for all I care. I get others prefer b…
I think "airplane cockpit" is an exaggeration. Sure early 2000's Mercedeses even had a phone keypad[1], because, hey, everyone needed that front and center, but by around 2010 most manufacturers figured out iDrive-style interfaces (maybe a better name would be iPod-style menus with a scroll wheel you click to enter submenus) [1] https://s1.cdn.autoevolution.com/images/gallery/MERCEDESBENZ...
Love the Buick Cascada button explosion
https://bestride.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/2016-Buick-C...
