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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

#531

Post by tomatocracy »

bjarneh wrote: post #417
checkyoursudo wrote: post #393

With. A. Passion. Other touch screens (or similar things) I dislike: - the controls on my stove top - the controls on my monitor - the controls on my tv - the controls on my thermostat - probably more All of these should have physical buttons for the limited number of functions required. Or, at a minimum, for navigation and confirmation. Touch screens there suck. My wife's car has a touch screen on the control/infota…

> - the controls on my stove top How were these stove-top touch-buttons ever considered an upgrade to their predecessor? They always have no feedback, or that annoyingly high "beep" feedback. They are always slow to respond. They typically use only two or three buttons to control the actual temperature, forcing you to select location first, which is typically slow and terrible as well. Nobody in their right mind can…

Speaking of stove tops - Neff's "TwistPadFire" somehow manages what I previously thought was impossible - it actually takes touch buttons and makes them even worse. The control is a a magnetic circular thing you stick on a specific area on the stove top. It comes off the stove top so first of all you have to manage not to lose it / you have to find it before you can use the stove. Then when you try to use it you have to press down then turn it without using too much force. If you use too much force, or fail to turn it in just the right way, it will pull it off the magnetic area and the whole thing stops responding to any input until you do some magic incantation to unlock it.

The problem is that you don't realise any of this until it's too late and your only option is to rip the stove top out and replace it with another brand.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#532

Post by kwhitefoot »

I don't. My Model S has a good combination of physical and virtual controls, all the things I need to control the car are on the steering column, the less frequently used things are on the touch screen and voice recognition. The latency is also good.

But from what I have heard about many other vehicles with touch interfaces not all cars are so well designed

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#533

Post by TheFragenTaken »

jjav wrote: post #371
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…

> So what? You've got physical buttons? Big whoop. That physical button that takes 500ms to respond is still as dangerous. No, that's wrong. Problem with touchscreens is that (1) you need to look at them and (2) there is no tactile feedback of whether you pressed it or not and (3) you need to hover your arm in a moving car at just the right spot. Physical buttons cleanly resolve all of these major problems. If the ac…

The fact that these cars pass safety certification, makes me question certifiers. It's illegal to look at your phone while driving, for good reason, but it's legal to fiddle with a damn computer screen, because it's part of the car.

I predict it's a matter of time before we'll see a correlation between number of crashes, and cars with touchscreens.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#534

Post by atoav »

As an hardware guy with a love for good interfaces I can only say: told ya so (ca. 5 years ago).

Touch screens can be nice for a lot of things, but sometimes actual haptic feedback and positional consistency is worth more than the flexibility gained. Especially in devices or machines we interact with multiple hours a day, where flexibility isn't the point. E.g. a tablet using a touch screen makes a lot of sense, as that flexibility makes sense here. But it makes less sense in a car, except maybe for the entertainment system and even there actual physical switches, dials and levers can be superiour in terms of usability.

What I love are really nice things like motor faders on upper class mixing desks. You have a physical interface that can follow whatever digital state you have stored, it is just perfect.

There is a future in devices that combine screens, physical dials, levers and latches with haptic feedback, e.g. like this amazing project: https://github.com/scottbez1/smartknob

(A dial with a motor and a screen, which allows for virtual "limits" and dedents)

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#535

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #431
speeder wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a 2 month old baby, and got fired from my last job after 6 months of unpaid overtime... I am currently trying (again) to get into embedded development. I would gladly take the job of the guy that refused to make shitty software, if that means I can keep feeding my baby. Unless it would be too unethical. (I refuse to do work that will kill people, for example I won't work for Palantir, companies that make sketc…

We completely understand - and we would all make the same decision. Which is why (in the UK) I view the rise of strikes and unions positively - workers need to hang together - set standards that they won't go below, and also ensure the spoils are fairly shared out. Recently the deputy governor of the bank of england said "inflation has made everyone poorer - get used to it not ask for wage increases". Which tone deaf…

>"inflation has made everyone poorer - get used to it not ask for wage increases"

Which is absolutely horseshit, because the European countries that had the least amount of inflation (besides the super wealthy Switzerland and Luxembourg), were the countries where salaries are automatically indexed with inflation, like Belgium.

So it turns out that forcing companies to increase wages by inflation is a very effective deterrent against price gouging and inflation, yet those in charge try to convince us otherwise, that we should accept lower wages for our own sake lol.

Can you believe the nerve of these people? It's disgusting, but we get what we vote for. You want better, then vote better.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#536

Post by zamnos »

bradgessler wrote: post #413
jjav wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what? You've got physical buttons? Big whoop. That physical button that takes 500ms to respond is still as dangerous. No, that's wrong. Problem with touchscreens is that (1) you need to look at them and (2) there is no tactile feedback of whether you pressed it or not and (3) you need to hover your arm in a moving car at just the right spot. Physical buttons cleanly resolve all of these major problems. If the ac…

> Physical buttons cleanly resolve all of these major problems > Given that with a physical button you didn't have to take your eyes off the road and given the tactile feedback you know for sure you activated/pressed/moved the control I never understand the "you don't have to look at buttons" argument—my car has lots of physical buttons and to push them, I briefly have to look at the console, find the button, and pre…

If you want to get better at manipulating your car's buttons without looking, practice doing various tasks with your eyes closed while stopped at a light. If that sounds ridiculous, just own the same car for 15 years instead. Realistically unless it's a rental car you're unfamiliar with so you don't know where you're going, you should be able to move your hand to the approximate area and feel your way to the right button without activating all the buttons you come across.

Touch screens have no such luxury - a graze is a press, the same as an actual press, and because it's a smooth surface, so even if you know the button you want is the second from the bottom, you can't find the bottom button and then go up one.

Ultimately the problem with the touch screen interface is that it has to be looked at, in order for the user to know what mode it's in. Is it in climate control? Is it in radio mode? Is it in Carplay navigation mode or deep in settings? Who knows! Let's find out by not looking at the road where the cars and people are.

As a pedestrian, this does not fill me with joy.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#537

Post by liendolucas »

Screens in cars are completely unnecessary, we have been driving without them for 80 or 90 years. You don't really want to get distracted when driving. Car makers are putting entertainment systems in front of drivers.

I'm shocked that no government hasn't stepped in and regulated its push. People are already looking at mobile phones while driving despite being told that is extremely dangerous to do so and on top of that we also now have theaters on 4 wheels.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#538

Post by atoav »

Xelbair wrote: post #478
jjav wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what? You've got physical buttons? Big whoop. That physical button that takes 500ms to respond is still as dangerous. No, that's wrong. Problem with touchscreens is that (1) you need to look at them and (2) there is no tactile feedback of whether you pressed it or not and (3) you need to hover your arm in a moving car at just the right spot. Physical buttons cleanly resolve all of these major problems. If the ac…

It is not about 'looking and pushing' the button. It's about stateful UI. physical layout of buttons is usually stateless - press button thing turns on, press it again it turns off. You don't need to think in which menu you are, and where to press, while driving.

> physical layout of buttons is usually stateless - press button thing turns on, press it again it turns off

Not to be pedantic, but that is a state. But I get what you mean: the button has a fixed place. Know your car well enough and you won't even need to look there to turn the thing off or on.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#539

Post by rockinghigh »

izacus wrote: post #304
joppy wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Mazda software works ok with the wheel, but using something like CarPlay with it is almost impossible without taking your eyes off the road for a long time. It’s worse than touch-screens in that respect: what will the spinning knob select next on a screen which has three separate panes?

Is CarPlay really that terrible? I don't have issues using Android Auto easily with my Mazda, it all takes a few very learnable clicks.

Yes, it's terrible, CarPlay was designed to with touch in mind. You spend more time looking at the screen to figure out where your "cursor" is. I found the Tesla touch screen to be much safer to use.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#540

Post by timbaboon »

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.

Yeah, my cx-3 has this. I love it. I wouldn't want to go back to a normal touchscreen in my car.
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