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Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

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Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#151

Post by natch »

wildrhythms wrote: post #116
colordrops wrote: post #94

This keeps coming up on Hacker News. It's not that drivers hate touch screens. It's that most of them are terribly implemented. People hated smartphones until Apple released the iPhone. Just think about smartphones before that. The UX was horrid. I suspect most people in this thread piling onto the hate don't own a recent model Tesla. I know that some owners aren't fans, but most are. There are three things that make…

Taking your eyes off the road to adjust the AC is a terrible UX. And as for 'voice commands' bless your heart to imagine every car doesn't have screaming kids in the back seat or a driver with a heavy accent. I want a knob.

Fortunately AC starts out on auto which works great even while your kids are screaming.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#152

Post by ninkendo »

derefr wrote: post #142
snow_mac wrote: post #113

I like a big display with buttons on the side. I like getting to see the song name, the station and some of that digital info, I like Apple Maps on Apple car play. Those are nice features. I love the back up camera display. But I have to have a button or knob to adjust temp, audio, next track, etc... because while those things are helpful, when I'm going down the highway and I need to adjust while paying attention ju…

Imagine an iPod-like scrubwheel positioned so that your thumb can scroll while your hands are at 10 and 2.

It’s the distraction of having to pay attention to where you are in the UI navigation that sucks… tactile buttons on the wheel wouldn’t fix this if you only get to use them as a proxy for the same UI navigation.

Physical buttons for common car features should be non-modal and not context dependent, and in a consistent location you can memorize without looking. You should be able to pause the music without having to navigate to some UI submenu first. Same with climate control, volume, etc.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#153

Post by DecoPerson »

Spinny-dial-based input, with the dial located just behind the shifter (just in front of where the cupholders usually are), is the best input method developed for cars so far.

The forces the UI to be a flat list in terms of navigation (rather than a 2d-space-filling UX mess). And being a flat 1d list, it encourages the list be short, which means more submenus, which is good!

If menus are consistent, you can mostly control without taking your eyes off the road.

Apple CarPlay already works with this input method.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#154

Post by nkrisc »

hunter2_ wrote: post #131
rdiddly wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah seems like physical controls for input, screen for output is the sweet spot.

It'll be interesting to see how Android Auto / Apple Car Play adopt physical controls, if at all. I guess at a basic level a rotary encoder could emulate a "tab" key when rotated and an "enter" key when pushed (keyboard support already exists in the mobile OS, of course). Until then, at least they have great voice input.

Car Play in my Mazda3 works just great with the knob control. I much prefer it than the touch-only controls in my Forester. In fact I’d go so far as to say it’s the best physical option.

For example, when I’m listening to a podcast I can turn the knob to highlight the skip forward button, and leave it there. Then when adds come on I can just feel for and press the knob without looking at the screen. In the Forester I have to awkwardly hold my arm out, breaking my hand with my thumb while I try to hit the right button. Usually I don’t bother because it feels too unsafe.

You can change what the forward/back buttons on the steering wheel do, such as changing them to skip, but then I’m In the same situation when I want to go to the next podcast or skip a few.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#155

Post by ghostpepper »

natch wrote: post #135
codegeek wrote: post #96

ADT the security company started doing touchscreens for their panels and I hate it so much even though I am a tech guy etc. Give me the old school physical keypad any day. I will never buy a Tesla because I sat in one with a friend and I was like no way I am relying on an entire computer/touch screen to run a car.

It doesn’t run the car at all. In fact you can reboot it while driving.

Are there any controls you can't access while it's rebooting? Hypothetically if it didn't come back up, what features would be inaccessible?

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#157

Post by kyralis »

hunter2_ wrote: post #131
rdiddly wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah seems like physical controls for input, screen for output is the sweet spot.

It'll be interesting to see how Android Auto / Apple Car Play adopt physical controls, if at all. I guess at a basic level a rotary encoder could emulate a "tab" key when rotated and an "enter" key when pushed (keyboard support already exists in the mobile OS, of course). Until then, at least they have great voice input.

Apple's Car Play has supported that from the beginning, since many of the first adopter cars didn't actually have touch screens, just screens.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#158

Post by midoridensha »

derefr wrote: post #142
snow_mac wrote: post #113

I like a big display with buttons on the side. I like getting to see the song name, the station and some of that digital info, I like Apple Maps on Apple car play. Those are nice features. I love the back up camera display. But I have to have a button or knob to adjust temp, audio, next track, etc... because while those things are helpful, when I'm going down the highway and I need to adjust while paying attention ju…

Imagine an iPod-like scrubwheel positioned so that your thumb can scroll while your hands are at 10 and 2.

Which is useless when you put your hands at 9 and 3 like you're supposed to.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#159

Post by DJBunnies »

JauntyHatAngle wrote: post #144
rdiddly wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah seems like physical controls for input, screen for output is the sweet spot.

I think you can go more detailed on that and say physical controls for common, quick inputs especially ones people use while they are driving and you don't want them to look down for. Touch screen is fine for setup screens, extra info, fine tuning stuff etc. Point is when I'm driving down the road I should be able to muscle memory/tactily skip song, change volume, change air-conditioning settings etc... But Bluetooth…

Just to offer a different opinion, I prefer inferior controls to a touchscreen for settings.

Wheels and buttons respond faster, it forces vendors to be concise, and it doesn’t gunk up my screen.

Muscle memory forms quickly for anything that’s a “one and done” setting.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#160

Post by nkrisc »

galangalalgol wrote: post #129
HomeDeLaPot wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be best not to change what the buttons do very much. It could add unnecessary levels of confusion. "OK, I think I hit the wrong button, and now I'm not sure what mode the system is in... better look down at the controls while I drive along at 60 MPH." Maybe I'm biased. My old car has a great UI. No touchscreen, just a panel of physical knobs and buttons for media and climate control. The phone integration co…

I think mazdas all donthis and always have. They had touchscreens for abwhile and then went back to buttons around a non touch screen.

My 2018 Mazda3 has the knob and a touchscreen. However the touchscreen is so poor I didn’t even know it was touch-sensitive for quite a while after I got it
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