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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

#661

Post by hasmolo »

acapybara wrote: post #647
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…

Our Subaru has a physical volume knob. Its position is only a "gentle suggestion" to the software to move volume up or down. At times, especially when starting the vehicle, there is major latency in the software processing the knob movement.. Also, if the knob is moved too fast, the sw gets the wrong reading. This results in volume being way too high for serveral seconds as well as many other frustrating, dangerous s…

i'm dropping my subaru for this among other reasons.

1. throttle response, move your foot to 20% and experience between no throttle and wide open as the 'turbos' kick in in my outback

2. every time we get near an intersection with bollards, it thinks it's a kid and slams on the brakes

3. you're not allowed to persist auto start disabling

4. you will be nagged for looking anywhere other than dead straight, especially if looking around a curve, you'll get beeped at

5. sometimes when driving the main 'touchscreen' just dies, takes about 5 minutes to reboot, and the entire time i have no climate or audio control, luckily the adaptive cruise control seems to stay working, you just can't reenable it...

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#662

Post by nicky0 »

phpisthebest wrote: post #620
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The judgement should have been against tesla, not the customer. Wipers are essential and should not require fiddling

Sounds like the driver was attempting to adjust non-critical features of wipers not turning them off and on We should be very careful not to include the kitchen sink in with "essential" items. Turning the wipers off and on, is critical, adjusting delay timings is not

If you're in a rainstorm and the wipers are set to "minimum speed" then turning the speed up would be critical.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#663

Post by quacksilver »

itsoktocry wrote: post #638
tp34 wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you need to look at your computer mouse to "click" the button(s)? Assuming you possess this basic competence, I find myself wondering how you managed to purchase a vehicle with such absurd ergonomics. You have a strange, poorly designed vehicle This "big dashboard full of buttons." Please provide a picture. Is this a custom design? "For me, when things get dangerous, its [sic] when pressing the button (physical or…

> What actions are you referring to? Changing the audio volume? The interior fan speed? This entire thread has me wondering the same thing. I've owned many cars and drive far more than average. What are y'all adjusting so much that's causing issues here? If we exclude infotainment, which even the best have lousy driving ergonomics, you need to be able to turn wipers on/off (most are automatic now), turn the HVAC up o…

Some things that I personally have have had to do include adjusting the HVAC to have full output on the windscreen on a hot setting, enable the rear demister / mirror heaters or turn the hazard lights on. The windows or mirrors steaming up is a visibility issue and is dangerous if you allow it to occur.

This may not be needed at the start of the drive if people's breath gradually steams up the windows or the weather changes. I have noticed that passengers from warmer climates probably don't have the same problems as they didn't understand this and were complaining at me to turn the fan off.

Though I always buy cars with physical buttons that are in ergonomic places and wouldn't buy something with a touch screen. I am also not sure how a touch screen would work with the thin gloves that I wear in winter when driving to work in the early morning.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#664

Post by acapybara »

DonHopkins wrote: post #528
PetitPrince wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For things that you do regularly the button should be optimized to not be in the middle of a cluster I found that I was using the wheel warmer button way more than I through I would. It's located right in middle of a cluster on the central console, in an awkward place to look at (right next to my hips in a blind spot). I devised a nice and cheap fix for this UI problem that wouldn't be applicable on a touch screen:…

Brilliant: You've reinvented Braille with googly eyeballs for sighted drivers! It illustrates the point that accessibility isn't only for disabled people. It benefits everyone, and if you're lucky to live long enough, you'll need it more and more as you get older. Unless you're planning to die young, you're not just abled, but predisabled. https://twitter.com/BeingCharisBlog/status/14558902395205877...

Everyone is just predisabled?

I suppose we're all just pre-dead as well?

What a depressing way to look at life.

You may want to seek out help from a counselor.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#665

Post by dsfyu404ed »

morkalork wrote: post #228
munificent wrote: post #214

I'm surprised the article didn't mention one of the key regulations that led to this as an unintended consequence: By law, cars in the US must now have a back-up camera. That means every car must have a screen. Given that, automakers figured they may as well use the damn thing for everything else too and cut costs. It wasn't just that they wanted to take away tactile controls to save money. It was that they had to ma…

Did back up cameras save that many lives?

Few that wouldn't have been saved by Suburbans and Excursions going out of vogue with the upper middle class in favor of 4Runner, Pilots and a myriad of crossovers.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#666

Post by steveBK123 »

It's not just the touch screens, it's the contextual menus & moving buttons from version to version (ahem, Tesla). It completely breaks your muscle memory.

I had to take my car to the dealer for service and they gave me a loaner. Both my car & the loaner had physical buttons, knobs and dials in addition to touch screen (BMW iDrive). However they were different model years / models / iDrive versions so all the buttons/dials were in slightly different places.

It felt like driving my Tesla again where the muscle memory is lost for adjusting HVAC/wipers/radio since suddenly moved on me. It is noticeably more distracting and less safe since you need to take eyes off the road more often, for longer.

The ultimate for me is the on-wheel controls & HUD for some basic radio, nav, ADAS, speed, etc so you barely even need to look at your dashboard, let alone center touch screen.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#667

Post by ridgered4 »

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…

Touchscreens were always just a horrible interface. Their only advantages were portability and recently cheapness. That made them the best choice for mobile devices but due to fad chasing and cost cutting they have been bolted onto every device where they have no business being in some cases with outright dangerous results.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#668

Post by rlpb »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #576
TheFragenTaken wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This obviously depends on the jurisdiction. Here in the UK: There is a specific ban on using phones while driving. There is an obligation to drive with "due care and attention" so taking your eyes and attention off the road to spend time fiddling with a computer screen can be an offence as well.

In practice the bar for "due care and attention" is low (ie. you have had to be really, really careless or really, really inattentive to be convicted). The courts in the UK hold drivers only to a pretty low standard in general. That's why they had to pass a separate law to ban handheld use of mobile phones.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#669

Post by alliao »

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…

have I got the knob for you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4d9Yu2pvOg
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