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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

#181

Post by StillBored »

aardvarkr wrote: post #134
StillBored wrote: post #120

Its just bad UI, companies in the past tested their products and solicited feedback before casting it in stone. Be that OS vendors, or car manufactures. I'm not sure where to lay the blame, but maybe a lot of it has to do with modern CAD, etc which allows most of the design to be done virtually before anyone actually tries it out. So its not just an argument of touchscreens vs buttons, its how you interact with those…

Lay the blame on the buyer. These things get focus group tested out the wazoo. They don’t care as much about the actual user experience but they sure do care about what the buyer thinks about it at the time of purchase. Unfortunately these touchscreens look incredibly slick and hyper modern in the show room, even if their usability sucks. I can’t deny that the first time that I saw the Tesla touchscreen I was super i…

maybe they need a couple curmudgeons in their focus groups then.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#182

Post by tshaddox »

zeedude wrote: post #92
flyinghamster wrote: post #39

I think one of the most frustrating aspects of this whole kerfluffle is the automakers' longstanding willingness to ignore customers and double down at any pushback. It's downright stupid that it has taken this level of screaming from customers to roll back a design choice that should never have been made.

It’s all about the bottom line. Touch screens consolidate a ton of otherwise expensive switch gear. Going back to physical knobs and buttons means going back to paying for engineering, assembling, testing, etc.

If it was just about the bottom line, and consumers actually cared enough to be willing to pay for physical controls, then why wouldn’t there be plenty of options on the market?

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#183

Post by wand3r »

DecoPerson wrote: post #153

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 co…

i think this is subjective, i drove my moms car with this setup (mazda suv) to NY last weekend. I would NEVER buy a car like this. Touch screen for apple carplay is in my opinion the obvious best setup and the most intuitive interface. You can use your phone or the touch screen on the dashboard. Using a dial to navigate on the screen felt like 2003 UX on some hybrid palm pilot/blackberry. Extremely dangerous for me and even if I got used to it, I couldnt imagibe how poking the Map icon would be more dangerouss/slower than using a literal dial while staring at the screen for highlighting as I round robin search through 2-3 inputs...

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#184

Post by natch »

ghostpepper wrote: post #155
natch wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

A long list of non essential features. But pedals and steering and doors and windows still work fine in your scenario (which btw I’ve never heard of happening but of course it’s maybe possible). Not sure about wipers, haven’t tried the wiper button while rebooting, hmm now I’m really curious…

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#185

Post by danielvaughn »

It will always amuse me that anyone thought this was a good idea. Like everyone looked at the iPhone and thought "hey yeah let's put that _everywhere_". Put it on thermostats, put it in cars, heck let's put it on a friggin space shuttle. Absolute insanity.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#186

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

The cab company I use has a touchscreen and POS for use by passengers, as is customary.

Cab drivers often try to reach around back and manipulate the POS for me, which I detest. They are not supposed to be touching that, especially when I am deciding their tip for them.

Anyway, the touchscreen, upon flag drop, immediately invites you to tap it thrice if you are vision-impaired, to activate an accessible voice interface. I did this once, and it apparently disabled the POS and we could't figure out how to pay my fare. Never again!

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#187

Post by bullfightonmars »

wand3r wrote: post #183
DecoPerson wrote: post #153

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 co…

i think this is subjective, i drove my moms car with this setup (mazda suv) to NY last weekend. I would NEVER buy a car like this. Touch screen for apple carplay is in my opinion the obvious best setup and the most intuitive interface. You can use your phone or the touch screen on the dashboard. Using a dial to navigate on the screen felt like 2003 UX on some hybrid palm pilot/blackberry. Extremely dangerous for me a…

I think this is mostly a design problem for Carplay to solve support for dial and button controls could be much better.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#188

Post by webprofusion »

bloodyplonker22 wrote: post #36
ptelomere wrote: post #35

IMHO, don't blame touch screens, blame bad UI design. My touch screen annoyance: "oops, it detected a swipe instead of a press, because the car just went through a bump!". Or, "Oops! I accidentally pressed cancel instead of back button, now my map navigation is gone!!!". Design the UI well, so that drivers can't screw things up easily.

It's not about the UI. It's about the tactile feel and being able to reach and touch a knob while keeping your eyes on the road.

I agree some drivers prefer real buttons, I disagree that "Drivers hate touchscreens" as it implies 100%. I manage fine with just a touch screen and a few basic controls on the steering wheel.

If you're driving you shouldn't be fiddling with anything extraneous. Lights/windshield wipers should be automatic in 99% of circumstances and if they're not then that's what needs to be improved.

You shouldn't need to reach for anything because if you do that's already either a design fail or operator error.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#189

Post by andrewmcwatters »

I wouldn't mind touchscreens as long as these imbecile developers would strictly limit UI response time to under 16ms.

In no world where you're barrelling 3,000+ lbs of mass at tens of miles an hour should you be distracted by some moronic app or subsystem failing to respond in time because it was written by under-experienced software "engineers."

Any software running as a part of a motor vehicle should be federally regulated to not fail response time tests, and if they do, they should be deemed unlawful to be equipped by either the manufacturer or the owner.

It's absolutely ridiculous that this still happens today, and it doesn't have to.

So what? You've got physical buttons? Big whoop. That physical button that takes 500ms to respond is still as dangerous. You've just removed one problem.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#190

Post by IAmPym »

I don't think automakers ever thought drivers LIKED touch screens, it was just so much cheaper that someone saw the margins and decided to go for it.

When we design synthesizers, the MAJORITY of the cost is in the UI. People need the UI because our industry is all about gestures and mastery. You cannot master when you have a large screen that is not consistent and requires too much interaction.

Musicians would call this a feeling of 'menu-diving' which is almost the worst thing you can say to describe a synth.

There are actually some technological advances here where you can create buttons in a touch screen (convex or concave) which does help with some of the issues here, but it isn't cheap enough to be an alternative yet. I need to find the links for those

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