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Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

slate.com

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Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#241

Post by berkle4455 »

sircastor wrote: post #229
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #189

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…

> because it was written by under-experienced software "engineers." I used to be an infotainment software engineer for an Auto maker. There’s this idea in the software industry that because the software behaves poorly on your car’s system, it must’ve been written poorly by someone who didn’t know what they were doing. In my experience it was almost always a matter of the hardware being stretched way past its limits.…

Dude Winamp was a clean, simple and wickedly responsive UI that allowed a multitude of real-time audio tweaks and supported playlists with thousands of files. This was in the late 90’s running on 166Mhz processors with maybe 16MB of system ram.

Are you saying modern car infotainment systems have fewer resources allocated to the UI?

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#242

Post by jkarneges »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #189

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…

> That physical button that takes 500ms to respond is still as dangerous.

My Volt's physical mute button seems to be software controlled. Normally it is very responsive, except when the car is starting up. It kills me whenever I start the car and the volume happened to be cranked up from earlier, music blasts, and the mute button is ineffective. Fortunately the volume knob seems to be hardware controlled and can be used to lower the volume when the car is starting. It's really unintuitive since both controls are physical.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#244

Post by ambicapter »

sircastor wrote: post #229
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #189

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…

> because it was written by under-experienced software "engineers." I used to be an infotainment software engineer for an Auto maker. There’s this idea in the software industry that because the software behaves poorly on your car’s system, it must’ve been written poorly by someone who didn’t know what they were doing. In my experience it was almost always a matter of the hardware being stretched way past its limits.…

There's a 0% chance 4 yr old hardware can't handle what GP is asking it to do.

> Product people have been picking at the design and asking for changes way too late

Sounds like classic everything-bolted-on-never-refactored-always-add-features you see in the vast majority of companies. Which is fine if you're making a social app or CRM but not okay when talking about heavy machinery. No company ever prioritizes making things snappy and it's ultimately always on the engineers to push back. Sorry, this one is still on the software developers to me.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#245

Post by nemo44x »

naikrovek wrote: post #208
hcknwscommenter wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. With a physical button, you know you pushed it because you feel it give and then stop giving. After the first couple of uses you can get used to any response time. With a touchscreen, there is no tactile feedback difference between a button press and a miss. So when you press it and it doesn't do anything, or behaves unexpectedly, you don't know if it is lagging or you missed. Touchscreens are much worse…

the apple Macbook trackpad proves that this tactile feedback could be done for touch screens also. touchscreens are worse but they don't have to be. manufacturers just don't care enough to make them better. they're too busy charging more for touchscreens while saving tons of money on buttons, which are expensive in comparison.

Touchscreens are 2d surfaces. I need my fingers to grip a thing in a static place in many cases.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#246

Post by colanderman »

hunter2_ wrote: post #231
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't how tactile buttons in modern cars work. You're doing the same thing as pushing keys on a keyboard. The software can still be slow. Turn the physical volume dial on a car with a slow Apple CarPlay interface and tell me how that works out for you. Oh, it's too loud? But it takes 2 seconds for the software to respond due to lag and now you're fiddling with the volume button trying to not make it worse? A phy…

You turn the physical dial, and regardless of the outcome, you know that your input was received by the HCI, so you don't need to wonder if you should try again. If it worked, great; if not, oh well; no need to look at it and try again though. That's the benefit.

The issue is, how far to turn it?

My Android phone has a similar issue while operating over Bluetooth. While holding "volume up", it takes several seconds for the volume change to register. So I have no feedback for how long I need to hold "volume up". If I wait until the volume is loud enough -- it keeps going up for another two seconds, to the point that it is painful and possibly damaging my hearing.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#247

Post by Dylan16807 »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #219
Dylan16807 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's because they talk about "hundreds of buttons" and then mention they don't actually use the touch screen, they use voice.

I do use the touch screen, but when doing complex driving tasks I don’t. I don’t think I specifically am advocating for touch screens as the singular interface. I’m advocating that buttons are a terrible singular interface. In fact, I use the steering wheel buttons extensively while driving. It’s only when I want something not core to the act of driving, like changing the song or some other ancillary function, do I g…

I'm not being obtuse when I say you'd have better odds if you stopped saying "hundred(s) of buttons".

My car has less than 25 buttons on the center console, plus three dials for climate control. If you removed the buttons dealing with CDs it would be more like 15.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#248

Post by piperswe »

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 have a BMW with chip shortage touch-screen delete, and I can confirm that CarPlay is a royal pain in the neck to operate with just a dial. I have a touch-screen part on order so I can do a retrofit. Just the dial is usually fine when driving, but when parked the keyboard interface is impossible to operate. Sometimes though, navigating CarPlay with the dial causes me to have to look at the screen more than I'd have to with a touch-screen, since the dial is rather unpredictable (trying to get it over to the dock on the left is far from intuitive).

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#249

Post by randerson »

sircastor wrote: post #229
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #189

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…

> because it was written by under-experienced software "engineers." I used to be an infotainment software engineer for an Auto maker. There’s this idea in the software industry that because the software behaves poorly on your car’s system, it must’ve been written poorly by someone who didn’t know what they were doing. In my experience it was almost always a matter of the hardware being stretched way past its limits.…

Even if the infotainment has been in development for 15 years, all new cars I've played with seem less responsive than a 1st-generation iPhone despite having a UI that is no more capable. Either the engineers aren't making the most of the hardware or the hardware is underpowered by a few decades.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#250

Post by tshaddox »

thfuran wrote: post #193
tshaddox wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Designing two different sets of controls costs even more.

Then are you still saying that, adjusted by willingness to pay, consumers actually tend to prefer touch controls?
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