Car manufacturers, please hire this guy to build your interfaces. He gets it. Touch screens must not be used for controls you are going to frequently operate while driving the car, it's maximum unsafe.
The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars
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Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars
#12My Skoda Superb(2015) have very similar knobs for controlling temperature and when pressed it turns on seat heater.
From the first time I used it. It felt so natural and intuitive to use.
But unfortunately touch screen infotainment system is pure garbage.
Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars
#13Oh, hi, creator of the SmartKnob (mentioned in the article) here - I'm continually blown away by how much UX discussion it has generated over the years! One of the things I regret a bit about the prototype and demo I originally shared is that I used a press action and the screen as a modal/menu interface. The screen makes for a snazzy demo video, and works great for interfaces where you have the user's full attention…
The smart knob you made is genuinely one of the best hardware creations I have ever seen. I only wish that I was creative enough to think up good uses for it so that I could put it to work, lol.
Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars
#14Oh, hi, creator of the SmartKnob (mentioned in the article) here - I'm continually blown away by how much UX discussion it has generated over the years! One of the things I regret a bit about the prototype and demo I originally shared is that I used a press action and the screen as a modal/menu interface. The screen makes for a snazzy demo video, and works great for interfaces where you have the user's full attention…
The smart knob you made is genuinely one of the best hardware creations I have ever seen. I only wish that I was creative enough to think up good uses for it so that I could put it to work, lol.
Haha, I've built at least 5 of them and my problem is that I enjoy the hardware/design portion as a hobby, but writing the software to put them to use feels too much like my day job, so I haven't actually done anything too useful yet...
Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars
#15Mandatory XKCD.[1]
Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars
#16Kudos for to the author for the work put into this and the intelligence functions are interesting. I do have a couple concerns though.
A. Trying to design down to two knobs makes each knob multi-modal. This removes a lot of muscle memory benefits requiring a glance at a screen, a small screen that is now partially covered by your hand while operating the knob. Haptic feedback might be able to help you know what mode you're in without looking but now you have a lot more to memorize to use it while keeping your eyes on the road which may begin to defeat the simplicity benefits.
B. Haptic feedback... will this work with gloves on? (will you feel it, will it sense your touch)
A lot of manual systems now have 3 knobs, not much more than the 2 presented here, which will always do the same thing each time you reach for them. My concern would be how long it would take the user to be familar with the interface without looking. One quick thought, I would be inclined to think that feedback through a large screen not covered by your fingers might have advantages.
It's a great study on UI consistancy however, esp around how to program the detents, etc.
Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars
#17A very tangential note about this:
> Much like a door handle should communicate whether to pull or push a door,
For many common doors it's not the handle, it's the frame. Standing on one side of the frame we see that the door is free and we can pull it. On the other side we see that the door hits the frame and we must push it.
Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars
#18I wish car manufacturers would refocus from touchscreens (for reasons I will assume everyone understands) to a cost-cutting compromise of modular physical knobs and buttons.
Imagine if there was a standard form-factor, so manufacturers could install a 1x4 unit and then plug in a line of dials or button-clusters, where each section has its own tiny display that can be software-controlled to show what it does.
Yeah, it won't always match the exact lines and swoops designers want to use, but I want usability, I don't buy a car to show off the interior to others. The people who do do that are probably buying much more expensive cars and can easily afford to do things the classic way.
Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars
#19Car manufacturers, please hire this guy to build your interfaces. He gets it. Touch screens must not be used for controls you are going to frequently operate while driving the car, it's maximum unsafe.
I feel like car touch screens are designed like those 3D hologram interfaces in Minority Report: they look really cool and you want them, but they're entirely impractical in day-to-day operation. If car manufacturers are optimizing for cars looking cool in the dealership, whiz-bang touchscreens win over boring physical controls.
Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
The author is pretty clear that having more than two modes diminishes the usefulness of the interface. Three modes was complex enough that he redesigned it down. I've changed the channel tuner when I've reached for the volume knob. If the haptic feedback between the two is clearly different, that will help, no?
Controls that require a feedback loop have more cognitive overhead than controls you can just use “blindly” (this includes not having to check for haptic feedback to test what mode it’s in) and from pure muscle memory. For example, you learn that your preferred volume when driving on a highway is at (say) the two o’clock position, and with time you’ll blindly turn the knob to that position without even consciously th…
Right. This "smart" knob is symmetrical, with no pointer that you can feel before turning the knob. So it's hard to use without looking. This is inferior to a simple mechanical knob.