I don't own an EV yet, but if I ever do, I don't want a single screen. I don't even want electric windows.
Electric seats and windows are always the first thing to go in an old car. And they're so unnecessary.
Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons
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Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons
#82Never understood any appeal of a screen inside a car:
1. Reflections make you tilt, just to make some pesky highlights go away. Even if they are angled properly, there's always something (like a sun reflected by a watche's face) what causes nuissance at any angle
2. Car can go from a tunnel to a sunny valley in few seconds. That's 5 to 8 stops of dynamic range difference, that a human eye is easily designed to handle. Auto adjusting screen brigtness is never as bright as necessary in sunny conditions. Even if it were, it would be a significant battery drain and an element, that heats the cars interior already unnecessarily.
3. You don't have pure blacks in many of them, so that annoying halo at the corner of the eye is often present. You can solve it with an OLED, but those are even worse in bright daylight
4. All of the usually mentioned tactile feedback facts - you can reach with your hand to a AC knob, feel it's current set by finding the bulge with a finger and gently turn exactly how you want them. Zero lag, no eye contact necessary at all (keep that on the road!), instant feedback. Nothing that any screen can ever give.
5. Biggest gripe of all - modality. I think that there were some high ranking studies done early in design exactly against this type of input for high risk applications. Modality is the biggest enemy of discoverability and throws extra delays into otherwise instant input.
6. If you use a LCD variant, they interact with sunglasses polarity filter and, at some orientations, can be blocked altogeter. As you often use sunglasses exactly, because you want to see the road the best, it's contrary to the main objective of the control again.
7. Refocusing. If you can use a tactile control, with a good feedback, you're freeing your eyes from the need to adjust it's lens to focus from far to near to far again. Not many people are aware, that this is even happening, and can lead to overestimating your ability to keep engaged attention on the road.
I'd pay extra for a zero screen variant in a jiffy. Had I ever need to use a screen, I would've put my phone in a holder instead.
Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons
#83Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons
#84it wont matter how many physical buttons you apparently have, if its not physical all the way through, that "button function" can be redefined, or taken away at any time.
That's not the problem they're trying to solve
Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
That was my first thought. How did they go all screen if they ran the study groups?
You don’t know what the group was presented and how. Remember you have the stupid stuff that Tesla pushed hard during the peak Elon reality distortion field time. I regularly are in a Toyota, BMW and Honda, and all of these have well thought out touch/knob implementations.
It's pretty straightforward to structure and conduct a focus group to give you the feedback that you want to hear. If the money guys told you "touchscreens save us 1% on the BOM, make it happen," then you could design your demos and question wording to ensure that your report said "customers love this shit."
Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hadn't heard of this china regulation. Perhaps we will have a "Beijing regulatory effect" positively impacting the world like the Bruxelles and California ones.
Already happening, best example is worldwide grounding of Boeing 737 MAX. It was China who triggered it, not US authorities (protecting US corporation). Similar thing with batteries on airplanes, tube trains, ferries and underground garages. China cares about fire hazard, other countries care about ideology.
China, famous for never putting ideology over policy.
Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons
#87I hope Elon Musk can take a lesson from Mercedes. Tesla went in the other direction: there are barely any physical buttons to remove, so they removed the stalks for signaling and even for changing gear! You have to use the touch screen to shift gears!
Tesla does a great job not having buttons. I think the real issue is that other car companies have bad interfaces that make physical buttons necessary. Tesla just has a great UI that does not need physical buttons.
I disagree, taking my eyes off the road to change climate controls is bad UI/UX
Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons
#88'He also explained that "I'm a big believer in screens, because I really believe if you want to connect, you have to make the magic work behind the screen." ' I am a big believer in keeping "product people" away from UI design for dangerous machinery. The eyes and the attention of the driver should be on the road. All the audio visual noise from the car is just plain dangerous. I don't want my car to draw my attentio…
Thats what happens when you put engineers/programmers in charge of UI & UX development. Engineers should be delegated to the worker-bee level and you should just get some gear heads and some soccer moms to design to UI.
> you should just get some gear heads and some soccer moms to design to UI.
the_homer.jpg
Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons
#89Laudable. But I'd rather read about how they plan to fight Chinese EVs.
The same way they've fought cheaper ICE brands: delivering higher quality materials, a fancy badge and a great driving experience. Currently the Chinese EVs are cheap, but far from Merc levels of refinement.
I really don't know about that. Mercedes used to mean high, tactile, audible mechanical quality. You'd hear it while closing the doors, you'd see it when looking at perfectly assembled dash, you'd hear it while driving and you'd be happy with it when clocking 500k miles with just regular maintenance. I remember those cars - I think the quality started tanking around late 1990s.
Right now its just ok. My friends S class has visibly mis-aligned buttons (a 200k car). My other friends electric S-class bean-thingy has squeaking doors (a 2 year old, 120k-when-new car) and feels surprisingly cheap to touch and drive. Sure, small sample and all of that but I don't think those are exceptions.
I only drove one Chinese car, and it was just a normal experience - what I'd expect from a volvo, bmw, or audi. Good UI on the infotainment, was below average annoying. No big difference vs. a merc. For sure not a qualitative difference in levels of refinement.
Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons
#90I hope Elon Musk can take a lesson from Mercedes. Tesla went in the other direction: there are barely any physical buttons to remove, so they removed the stalks for signaling and even for changing gear! You have to use the touch screen to shift gears!
Tesla does a great job not having buttons. I think the real issue is that other car companies have bad interfaces that make physical buttons necessary. Tesla just has a great UI that does not need physical buttons.
“great UI” and “burned to death because the door handle wasn’t” is a bold juxtaposition