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The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars

theturnsignalblog.com

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Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars

#121

Post by ssl-3 »

gertlex wrote: post #105
residentraspber wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found one good solution to this problem (for AC, at least): go for a car with a good "auto" mode! I hardly ever touch my AC, I just leave it on auto and the car does the rest to get it to the right temperature as quickly as possible. I suspect this is what most automakers think the real solution should be, just make it easy enough to set a temp and leave the rest to the computer.

That's a reasonable point. Too bad an auto mode for my music and podcasts (of varying volume; also varying with whether I have a passenger) is probably not a thing... On the other hand, my sense with how I use temperature control in my car is that most of my interactions are (a) set mode at start of driving (b) incrementally turn the temperature dial a notch or two without looking at it.

My current daily vehicle does a pretty fine job of figuring out what mode I want for HVAC.

Sometimes, I do mash the defroster button when weather commands warm/dry air on the windshield and it's easy enough to find that with muscle memory.

Otherwise, in normal seasonal weather, it works well and I don't change modes or temperature. Windows up, down, hot, cold, sunny, cloudy, dark, whatever -- it all works about the same.

Previously, I drove an older version of the same vehicle. It also worked well until it forgot how to figure out what day it was due to a software issue. After that, it kind of had a mind of its own.

(Now, a sane person would ask why that would have to do anything to do with HVAC performance.

It gathered the current date, time, and position from GPS, the bearing from the nav's compass, and the solar intensity from a sensor on th dashboard.

A bit of math and/or an almanac lookup later, and it also knows the position and angle of the sun relative to the car.

So it knows when sunlight is streaming on through the driver's window, and adjusts automatically to compensate by providing relatively cool air from the dash vents only on that side. It also knows not to do this on a cloudy day as well as other things that seem obvious once a person starts thinking about them.

Which is a magical kind of automation -- until the calendar is off by both years and months because Honda broke the clock and its understanding of the sun broke with it: https://didhondafixtheclocks.com/ )

Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars

#122

Post by BytesAndGears »

majestik wrote: post #119
bityard wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget that almost every car made in the last 5 years reports telemetry (including vehicle speed, accelerometer data, and location) back to the manufacturer who shares that data with third parties, sometimes including insurance companies.

Source?

Here’s a decent one:

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/privacy-nightmare-on-...

Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars

#123

Post by insane_dreamer »

ggreer wrote: post #113
insane_dreamer wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’ve improved the wiper controls in the Tesla in a recent update. I haven’t found the “auto defogging” - will check for it.

The wipers are certainly better than when I got the car 5 years ago, but they still seem to go too slow or too fast in some conditions. I don't have much to compare them against, as my previous cars have all been from the early 1990s or cheap rentals. I don't remember a setting for auto defogging. My car just does it sometimes.

> they still seem to go too slow or too fast in some conditions

yeah, same here. Our Subaru does better in this regard.

Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars

#124

Post by d--b »

I take the opportunity to rant about cruise control / speed limit buttons, which have a much worse UX than climate control.

If someone in the auto industry reads this:

Can I get a button that says 50, one that says 80 and one that says 130. Right now, you have to hit “set” and then adjust the speed limit with some up and down arrows, which is really annoying and takes your eyes off the road.

99% of the time I need 50/80/130. Yes, those are French speed limits, so if you prefer, you do 1/2/3 where you can set the 3 speeds in the parameters.

Or at the very least, make the arrows adjust the speed in 5kph increments.

Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars

#125

Post by ssl-3 »

NegativeLatency wrote: post #75
DigitalSea wrote: post #68

I learned this lesson the hard way with my early 2000s BMW 5 Series (a 2004 model). It had a single joystick-style knob (iDrive, if I remember correctly) controlling a screen that handled everything—climate, settings, and more. The problem? It was an all-in-one system, completely integrated with vehicle functions, which meant you couldn’t swap it out for a newer or better OEM system. You were stuck with aging tech, a…

Having a standard DIN/double DIN slot for a head unit also makes upgrades/changes easier. With all the new cars having such bespoke and integrated systems, it makes stuff like changing out the head unit much harder. ex putting a new carplay double DIN head unit is much easier in older cars, and difficult/impossible in newer cars

New-enough passenger cars tend to have connectivity like Carplay as a built-in.

Old-enough passenger cars tend to have a standard-enough hole DIN-ish hole to fit a modern aftermarket unit with modern connectivity.

In between those two, there's a world of cars that have touch-screen controls but lack modern connectivity. This is a subset of vehicles that cannot do anything but shrink as they age out.

But there are some aftermarket solutions for these, too, which add modern connectivity while retaining the stock electronics and physical appearance. (There's actually quite a diverse array of these upgrades available, though the origin of these devices feels very strange to me compared to traditional car audio aftermarket, and it is also absolutely exclusively Chinese.)

Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars

#126

Post by aitchnyu »

hammock wrote: post #120
schiffern wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real luxury for me was four knobs (or often sliders). https://i.ytimg.com/vi/W9AjhGko2mA/maxresdefault.jpg The fourth one controls recirculate, and it allowed you to set in-between positions between 100% recirculate and 100% fresh air. To simultaneously optimize pollution/humidity/CO2 I find I prefer about 80% recirculate and 20% fresh air, but achieving this configuration is impossible in most (all?) modern cars…

It is achievable in every car by cracking the window

I used to do it in my former Skoda Fabia and the window just collapsed. Thank Indian roads. I noticed there is a subtle final movement from "cracked" to closed and I guess there is a big difference in vibrations related wear.

Toyota ran ads encouraging owners to crack windows in the rain and I noticed no final movement. But I'm not risking it.

Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars

#127

Post by Animats »

CRConrad wrote: post #85
Animats wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not infinitely rotatable, though, like some knobs are; TFA mentioned a 270° rotation range. So a pointer “beak” (or some other haptically recognisable asymmetry) should be easy to add.

It's infinitely rotatable unless the software tells the motor to push back. The encoder appears to be relative, rather than absolute, so the physical positioning at power-up is unknown. Thus, the physical knob can't have a physical pointer with consistent behavior.

I have an LG washing machine with a knob like that. After power up, you have to turn it one notch before it lights up to indicate the current position, which is the default Normal cycle. So the knob has to be symmetrical, with no tactile pointer.

Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars

#128

Post by rramadass »

Related: There is a domain of study named Cyber-Physical Systems (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber%E2%80%93physical_system) which is basically a inter-disciplinary approach combining mathematical theory, physical sensors/actuators/I/O devices, network communication and software architectures. I used to think it was just a buzzword for Embedded Systems but it is actually a distinct holistic view of looking at the whole entangled system.

This free book Introduction to Embedded Systems - A Cyber-Physical Systems Approach by Lee & Seshia gives a pretty good overview - https://ptolemy.berkeley.edu/books/leeseshia/

Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars

#129

Post by schiffern »

hammock wrote: post #120
schiffern wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real luxury for me was four knobs (or often sliders). https://i.ytimg.com/vi/W9AjhGko2mA/maxresdefault.jpg The fourth one controls recirculate, and it allowed you to set in-between positions between 100% recirculate and 100% fresh air. To simultaneously optimize pollution/humidity/CO2 I find I prefer about 80% recirculate and 20% fresh air, but achieving this configuration is impossible in most (all?) modern cars…

It is achievable in every car by cracking the window

That's the workaround I'm forced to use, but obviously the disadvantages are noise exposure and forgetting it's cracked resulting in rain entering the car. :-(

Yay for "progress" eh? I know the recirculate door servo can stop halfway, just let me control it...

Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars

#130

Post by InfinityByTen »

scottbez1 wrote: post #7

Oh, 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…

I am actually also enjoying the critical thinking about UX that is stemming from this design.

I'm starting to feel that full software modifiable screens are not the "new age" of in-car experience, but a v.01 of highly customizable, highly complicated settings control; a lazy first implementation. What we are seeing with your design is more of the refinement of the concept. So, kudos to you!

I concur with many people that this might still not completely cut for "eyes-free" usage which you need while driving a car. But for a lot of applications, it's a way more premium/refined interface. I'd limit the number of options on the main menu to 5 and already you've reduced the number of buttons from 10 to one knob.

On the note of just using the haptic feedback: did you compare things to the surface dial? I really expected that to gain more "mainstream" traction, but it seems to have fizzled out.

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