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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

#381

Post by jjav »

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…

> 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.

Yes, anything that could ever conceivably be needed to be used by the driver while driving must have a physical, mechanical control.

Things that can be configured while the car is parked and never need to be changed while driving, can be ok on a touch screen.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#383

Post by donalhunt »

CGamesPlay wrote: post #253
morkalork wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did back up cameras save that many lives?

No, but it's still the law. By 2054 (31 years from now), the NHSTA's estimates say it will save less than 2000 lives. https://www.extremetech.com/cars/179635-car-backup-cameras-a...

What's the serious injuries figure? Road safety initiatives care about preventing deaths AND serious injuries.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#384

Post by stonogo »

nyanpasu64 wrote: post #325
amluto wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm willing to credit this type of feature creep for some of the problem, but only some. Decades ago, we had hardware that was so much less capable than anything anyone has put in a car in ten years that the comparison is absurd. Nonetheless, those old systems were often very capable of doing useful things, and the UIs were often very, very fast by modern standards. And a lot of this was that the software stack was t…

Even as someone who believes in the indefensible bloat of modern software, I'd say TI-OS on my 84+ (from using it in high school and college several years ago) is not exactly the fastest to use: - Graphing a plot was slow due to slow CPU and high-precision math libraries (could take 3-10 seconds depending on function complexity and detail) - MathPrint mode slows down printing expressions to an extent, IIRC even movin…

I beat Doom on a TI-84. I'm not sure I buy this.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#385

Post by t-writescode »

ambicapter wrote: post #254
morkalork wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did back up cameras save that many lives?

I assume somebody's kid got ran over by a parent backing up into them and they then channeled their guilt and grief into lobbying for such a law.

Most vital and good laws are, sadly, written in blood.

People tend to have to die before there's enough political initiative for real change to happen.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#386

Post by klabb3 »

leghifla wrote: post #367
Fr0styMatt88 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worse than touch screens are those touch buttons (you know, where the thing is just printed on the outside of the TV). I have no idea why, I'm fluent with touchscreens in the usual way but something in my brain just.... I don't know. Theoretically it should be the same, right? Except it feels horrible and wrong and I even have trouble trying to find the button. Probably because I'm vision-impaired and an actual touch…

About touch buttons, I have seen once a lift with touch buttons for controls. For accessibility, the floor were also written in Braille. I thought to myself: "nice, they thought about vision impaired people". Then, a friend of mine, which has completely lost vision and can read Braille, jokingly said to me when he arrived: "Trying to find the right button, I probably send the lift to all floors!"

That’s funny. And sad. Vision impaired people have really been taken by a rollercoaster with modern tech. First the touch screen which is useless (not sure if that’s the case still?). But then tech companies invested massively in voice interfaces for completely unrelated reasons, which I assume, is a godsend.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#387

Post by eviks »

szundi wrote: post #379
ISO-morphism wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that the engineers are competent at developing software, and think that a lot of the quality issues are due to engineers abdicating authority over the software to managers and never saying "No, adding in that feature at this point in the timeline is going to make this a steaming pile of shit and I refuse to do it and still call myself a software engineer." I get that we have families to feed, but I've seen…

Those managers might be right from a sales point of view. Until we buy all this, they are right. Let’s see that Tesla can change this or not.

Nope, it's too crude a metric for such features

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#388

Post by the_overseer »

alkonaut wrote: post #375
the_overseer wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The industry works as follows: the OEM (Daimler, Toyota etc.) says they want a software spec implemented. Other companies (Tier 1 suppliers) bid to win the contract. The cheapest usually wins. If you have a company and refuse to take the crazy deadlines and low quality and low pay then don't worry, there is another Tier 1 supplier across the street who will do it for you. OEMs know that you need them more than they n…

That’s fine. But the worst case response time across the entire UI must be the first item on that spec! That spec is of course the responsibility of the OEM to create. Where this goes wrong I don’t know but competition, price sensitivity etc doesn’t explain it. Having soft and hard limits for response time seems obvious and someone either forgot, or they had a meeting where they (the OEM, after deciding on a solution…

It's not criminal so they will continue to lower the cost. 50ms quickly becomes 500ms response time when you realize that no tier 1 supplier can hit within your OEM budget and your boss is becoming impatient :)

Another thing that happens is when there is a 50ms response time mandated and at the start of the project you have 30ms and it slowly creeps up until you get to 55ms. Then the blame game starts. Like I said previously, each component is usually won by a different tier 1 supplier. So everybody puts the blame on somebody else. One tier 1 is building the linux distro, the other is making basic system libraries and the applications are written by another 20 tier 1 suppliers.

Then the deadline hits and the car needs to be sent to the showrooms. So whatever 50ms was chosen initially is changed to whatever it currently is so to say they are within spec and can ship the damned car.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#389

Post by jjav »

defrost wrote: post #176
midoridensha wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

... with the caveat that > 10 and 2 o’clock is no longer recommended because it can be dangerous in vehicles with smaller steering wheels and equipped with airbags. (Source: https://driving-tests.org/beginner-drivers/how-to-hold-a-ste... ) and the implication that otherwise the trad 10 and 2 position recommended for decades is still 100% A-OK.

9 & 3 is superior if you think about it, as it is symmetrical and thus gives you the optimal control regardless of how much you need to turn either way. It's what we teach for both street car control and track performance driving (been a performance driving instructor for over 20 years).

That said, if someone absolutely has their heart set on 10 & 2, that is still better than 98% of drivers out there with random single hand steering placement, so it's ok.

The absolute worst is single handed cross placement (e.g. right hand on 10'oclock). Please never do that, you stand zero chance of being able to do a controlled quick correction or emergency manouver if you have to.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#390

Post by robomartin »

Anyone who thinks touchscreens are a good idea for cars should somehow be given the task of driving an operating a car at 200 mph (320 kph) while messing with it. Maybe in a full aircraft-style motion simulator. Or, better yet, on the Nurburgring.

I can't think of a single racecar with a touchscreen for any control the driver must interact with while driving. And these are trained, experienced professional drivers. Auto makers want Grandma to keep the car on the road while messing with a touchscreen!?

Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes F1 cars would be a pile of smoldering carbon fiber almost instantly if the drivers had to use touchscreens. They would be impossible to drive.

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