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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

#121

Post by yellowapple »

flyinghamster wrote: post #39

I think one of the most frustrating aspects of this whole kerfluffle is the automakers' longstanding willingness to ignore customers and double down at any pushback. It's downright stupid that it has taken this level of screaming from customers to roll back a design choice that should never have been made.

It ain't just cars. I can't think of very many people who genuinely enjoy the "smart" aspect of "smart TVs", for example; nearly everyone I know who owns a TV also owns some device that not only does everything the TV's "smarts" can do but does them consistently better and can be trivially replaced should that ever change.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#122

Post by sakras »

brenns10 wrote: post #98

I fully agree with ditching distracting screens for safety reasons, but this article focuses more on customers disliking the screens. Maybe my 2017 Civic is not new enough to experience that frustration? It has a touchscreen with Android Auto. All of my environment controls are on buttons and knobs beneath the screen. I'm comfortable adjusting with the smallest of glances. The only downside here is that the knob is j…

> All of my environment controls are on buttons and knobs beneath the screen.

Indeed people aren’t complaining about stuff like this. My friend just bought a new Subaru that has 0 buttons. It now takes two presses on the not-very-responsive touch screen to change the power of the seat warmer. Same with all of the other environmental controls. It’s not just less tactile, it’s much slower.

Personally I appreciate having a screen of some sort for music and navigation, but for things that I’ll be changing often while driving such as environmental controls buttons are the way to go.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#123

Post by xpe »

roland35 wrote: post #21
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #15

"Although they look fancy, Farah said that carmakers can purchase screens for less than $50, making them significantly less expensive than tactile controls."

Having designed electronics, I absolutely appreciate how much a pain in the butt buttons are (maybe that's why they are called buttons!). It isn't just the cost... Each button requires mechanical design and tooling, graphics, manufacturing, etc etc. Plus no one is ever satisfied with the "feel" or tactical properties. But as a driver I absolutely hate touchscreens! Funniest button story.. one time we were working on…

What do you mean by no one is satisfied with the feel?

I suppose you actually mean it is hard to get a strong majority?

One potential solution would be to make a modular system. You could even “sell” it as a “skinnable” DUI (driver user interface; why didn’t this acronym catch on???)

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#124

Post by yellowapple »

civilized wrote: post #103
zeedude wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s all about the bottom line. Touch screens consolidate a ton of otherwise expensive switch gear. Going back to physical knobs and buttons means going back to paying for engineering, assembling, testing, etc.

Profiting off of a less safe product that kills people could be seen as an egregious moral deficiency.

Corporations, being paperclip-maximizing automata, don't have morals in the first place, so no deficiency is possible.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#126

Post by elzbardico »

yellowapple wrote: post #115
Gigachad wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank god the touchbar is finally gone from the MacBook. It was such a strange delight to use the new model and have the media keys reliably work.

I didn't mind the touchbar as a concept, but the implementation was terrible and it should never have replaced any keys.

Yes, I'd love to have the touch bar as long as still had the function keys. It was not terribly useful, but it was very expedient for stuff like controlling volume.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#127

Post by HomeDeLaPot »

exabrial wrote: post #17

Pro Tip: So do ER Doctors and Insurance Companies. What would be best is something along the lines of a hybrid aircraft controls. See F/A-18 Hornet cockpit. Basically tactile buttons around the perimeter (maybe just side or bottom for consumer), but the options can change. Also for consumers, touchscreen should be a value-add to tactile controls, with hardware buttons as primary. So you could touch-scroll with a fing…

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 could be better, but that would really just mean a place to put my phone (without clipping it onto a vent) and a stereo that lets me play/pause/skip songs on my phone using the car's physical media controls.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#128

Post by rdiddly »

snow_mac wrote: post #113

I like a big display with buttons on the side. I like getting to see the song name, the station and some of that digital info, I like Apple Maps on Apple car play. Those are nice features. I love the back up camera display. But I have to have a button or knob to adjust temp, audio, next track, etc... because while those things are helpful, when I'm going down the highway and I need to adjust while paying attention ju…

Yeah seems like physical controls for input, screen for output is the sweet spot.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#129

Post by galangalalgol »

HomeDeLaPot wrote: post #127
exabrial wrote: post #17

Pro Tip: So do ER Doctors and Insurance Companies. What would be best is something along the lines of a hybrid aircraft controls. See F/A-18 Hornet cockpit. Basically tactile buttons around the perimeter (maybe just side or bottom for consumer), but the options can change. Also for consumers, touchscreen should be a value-add to tactile controls, with hardware buttons as primary. So you could touch-scroll with a fing…

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.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#130

Post by kshacker »

StillBored wrote: post #120

Its just bad UI, companies in the past tested their products and solicited feedback before casting it in stone. Be that OS vendors, or car manufactures. I'm not sure where to lay the blame, but maybe a lot of it has to do with modern CAD, etc which allows most of the design to be done virtually before anyone actually tries it out. So its not just an argument of touchscreens vs buttons, its how you interact with those…

> Its just bad UI, companies in the past tested their products and solicited feedback before casting it in stone.

I think touch screen has changed the landscape. The rapid development of touch user interfaces has put a tremendous pressure on car companies with time to market needs and they somehow got misled into thinking that they can do the same with "we can fix it in the software" mentality. Wish it was that easy.

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