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Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

ben.stolovitz.com

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Re: Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

#81

Post by AnatolySkuba »

bijowo1676 wrote: post #8

Voice interface is the future, just have voice assistant do everything without relying on knobs nor touch screen same way people just talk to claude code via whisper

Voice makes sense as a third input mode, but it seems like a poor replacement for the controls you need while stressed or time-constrained. In a car the real UX test isn't "can the system eventually understand me?", it's "can I do this eyes-free, in noise, with high confidence, in under a second?" That's why defrost, wipers, volume, and temperature feel fundamentally different from "navigate to X". Touch is fine for discoverability, voice is fine for occasional commands, but safety-critical/high-frequency actions still want dedicated hardware.

Re: Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

#82

Post by wkjagt »

kleiba2 wrote: post #3

I think there is a real market for modding news cars to have physical buttons again. Whenever this discussion pops up on the internet, there's plenty if people who prefer them (they're called "old folks" ;-)) so why not mod your dashboard to feature a - wait for it - volume button for your music!

I wonder how much can be controlled over some kind of bus. Would be cool to have all sorts of physical buttons and a micro controller to control radio, AC, heated seats etc etc so I can keep looking at the road while changing things.

Re: Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

#83

Post by scottyah »

prmoustache wrote: post #24
citelao wrote: post #2

OP here: I always disliked touchscreens in cars, so I didn't understand why automakers kept shoving them in. I always assumed I was weird in some way, and that most consumers preferred touchscreens or something (Reddit seems to argue this in circles all the time). I planned to keep buying Mazdas, with their lovely buttons and stuff. But when Mazda unveiled their button-lite 2026 CX-5 about a year ago, I started inves…

The reality is they want to serve us ads in the future. But they first need adoption.

Stellantis tried it already, had to back-pedal calling it a "glitch". I'm sure someone else will be bold enough to try again though.

Re: Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

#84

Post by ninalanyon »

kube-system wrote: post #73

My biggest issue with touchscreen controls is that they are not ergonomic. 1. Usually they are high on the dash, higher than where conventional controls would be 2. You cannot rest your hand on the surrounding panel to press them, because this will cause unintentional presses on other buttons Resulting in two problems: 1. Because of the above, you must activate more muscles to steady your hand and arm in a moving car…

Neither of those are a problem in my 2015 Tesla Model S for the buttons that control the climate control or media player.

It seems to me that many of the problems that people report related to touch controls are more to do with how they are laid out than the fact that they are touch controls.

Re: Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

#85

Post by max8539 »

Not sure why the command knob in Mazda scares new users: it’s an option and you still could use the touch screen, it’s just a nice alternative for it… Absolutely love the command knob, so much better than using the touch screen

Re: Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

#86

Post by kube-system »

> In contrast, touchscreens are, quite literally, free. All US cars have screens, since rear-view cameras have been mandatory here since 2018, and most of those will be touchscreens

Not quite true because automakers can satisfy the rear-view camera requirement with very cheap screens, e.g. integrated into the rear view mirror.

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/83QAAeSwizNpjhlB/s-l400.webp

Re: Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

#87

Post by scottyah »

t1234s wrote: post #74

I think its easier to develop muscle memory to certain buttons. For instance I had a similar 1DIN head unit to the one pictured in the article. I never needed to look at it to operate it.

On my last button car, I could control volume and turning on/off the radio without looking, but that was it. With the touchscreen, I do have to glance away but am way faster to get back looking at the road. Most things I just don't need to fiddle with anymore, before I'd need to redirect 3 fans, change a dial to put AC mode on/off, another two sliders to make driver and passenger the same (desired) temp (more or less- would have to change later), etc. Now I just adjust one smart "auto mode" a couple degree depending on what I feel like, then can get more granular in controls if I want in two taps.

With voice control I never have to take my eyes off the road at all.

Re: Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

#88

Post by 4fterd4rk »

The anti-screen crowd vastly overestimates people's competence with buttons. "You can hit them without taking your eyes off the road!" Please observe the typical driver as they attempt to change their climate control settings and report back.

Re: Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

#89

Post by scottyah »

helterskelter wrote: post #30

There was a study from a few years ago that associated almost all increase in traffic deaths in the past decade or so with in car displays. Almost all deaths were pedestrians being struck at or after twilight. The thinking is that infotainment systems are making drivers take their eyes off the road to adjust anything in their vehicles, and also ruining their nightvision. Not sure how they were able to separate this f…

Adjusting radios was the biggest cause of traffic incidents for a long time. IMO the super bright LED headlights from other vehicles is the worst thing for night vision.

Re: Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

#90

Post by max8539 »

anon7000 wrote: post #71
sedatk wrote: post #34

More importantly, car touchscreens are dangerous. It’s impossible to operate a touchscreen without moving your attention from the road to the touchscreen itself. That’s why I think it must be a legal requirement for any car with touchscreen controls to operate car functions must have driver assistance features enabled, no exceptions.

Mazda’s rotary knob also has safety issues. Let’s say I want to zoom the Google Maps in or out in CarPlay) at some point in my navigation. With the knob, you have a few issues: 1. iOS made the focus border on UI elements very faint. So it’s hard to tell where the knob is at rotating through all the UI elements. 2. Because zoom is kind of a sub feature, you have to rotate through like 10 buttons to get to the right th…

With a knob, you always could stop what you are doing and look back at the road and then continue. With a touch screen, you need to find a button and touch it without looking at the road, or you need to do it from the start again.
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