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Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

drive.com.au

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Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#201

Post by rsync »

The questions are not "are touchscreens performant" or "are touchscreens dangerous" ... we already knew the answers to those questions and there was no reason to run this multiple model generations experiment.

The question is: who was in charge of these design decisions and what kind of respect and esteem did these people command as leaders at these large companies ?

A followup question: what professional consequences accompany terrible design decisions in an arena where such decisions are life threatening ?

Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#202

Post by singleshot_ »

aenis wrote: post #47

'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…

> if you want to connect, you have to make the magic work behind the screen.

What if you don't want to connect? What if you just want to go somewhere? Why would a car be tasked with connecting?

Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#203

Post by mechanicalpulse »

maxvij wrote: post #178
aenis wrote: post #47

'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…

It seems almost as if the car manufacturers don’t have guardrails in place to check for the implications of any software design change. I agree with you here… It’s frustrating.

The solution is A/B testing and then looking at the resulting crash statistics. Weekly reports produced by the connected BI system should use excrutiatingly precise language like "number of {people,children,dogs,expectant mothers} {killed,saved} under 's ". A real Trolley Web Problem 2.0. /s

Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#204

Post by Zak »

userbinator wrote: post #197
hnlmorg wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the fsck possessed manufacturers to come up with that stupid recessed door handle? I think I might actually hate that more than touch screen climate controls.

Chasing very tiny fuel (or battery) efficiency gains.

Airplanes have had fully manual flush door/hatch handles for decades, and a handful of cars have imitated them. The electric retracting handles are pure gimmick.

Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#205

Post by djleni »

hephaes7us wrote: post #114
georgeecollins wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree but at the same time cars are requiring less of our attention. Forget autonomous driving for a moment and consider lane change alerts for cars in your blind side, automatic braking if you come up too fast on the car ahead, active lane keeping, smart cruise control. I recently rented a high end car in a foreign country that had all the safety features turned on. Before I arrived I was worried about driving in…

When the car actually drives itself completely, I think they will be safer than human drivers. All of these half measures are pretty concerning to me. I think they let drivers feel more comfortable, despite paying less attention, and I think their failure modes may often be much worse than the (human-driven) crashes they purport to prevent. Anecdote: I once had a rental car with alane-keeping assistance system that w…

Maybe different manufacturers have very different implementations?

My partner’s Hyundai has a lane keep assist and it will always use the commanded input over what the computer thinks.

The computer only takes over if you have very loose grip on the wheel and you drift.

Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#206

Post by bilbo0s »

cuu508 wrote: post #194
hackerlytest wrote: post #9

I really like what Jony Ive did with Ferrari. It’s the perfect blend of digital and analog instruments. High quality material and finishing. Many of these German car companies are following what sells well in Chinese markets, more and more screens. IMO, nothing beats the feeling and assurance of tactile buttons/toggles/knobs.

Fingers crossed the Chinese eventually figure out the screens are the mark of cheapness, and start demanding 100% physical controls.

I'm a bit confused.

Were you aware there is actually a law in China requiring physical buttons?

I think from next year it applies to everyone. Not only Chinese makers.

What were the other physical controls you were thinking of?

Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#207

Post by mihaelm »

aenis wrote: post #167
nottorp wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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'd say he doesn't drive himself.

Likely. What does this sentence even mean? "if you want to connect, you have to make the magic work behind the screen". It crashes my parser. Good thing I am not reading hacker news while driving :-)

I read it as finding a happy medium between analog and digital i.e. people will love the big screen if they still have physical buttons for all the functions they use often while driving. If you force them to fiddle around with touch screen for everything, they'll hate the big screen alltogether because the experience frustrates them.

Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#208

Post by kshacker »

Barbing wrote: post #74
aenis wrote: post #47

'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…

The low fuel, low wiper fluid, and forward collision warnings sound like they were all implemented a little clumsily. What do you think the best implementation would look like? Seems it would still have to strike a balance. It's dangerous to tell the driver they're low on fuel if we distract them. But it's also dangerous for a driver to run out of fuel on the highway if we didn't catch their attention. Also guessing…

> What do you think the best implementation would look like? Seems it would still have to strike a balance

Others have explained how the old tech worked well. But let's assume new tech (touch screens), and see what can be done.

There are urgent messages and non urgent messages.

Non urgent messages can be shown when starting the car and requiring the driver to acknowledge them. low wiper fluid - non urgent. This could be a list requiring ack for everything. Recently on my BMW they got the smog check year wrong, and it kept warning me for months before I realized I could change the date for the alerts - same should be possible for low fluid - Ok, I acknowledge, but stop warning for next 14 days (or 2 months).

Urgent messages have to be blocking.

Low gas would be non urgent when you have 50 miles of gas left, but could become semi-urgent (more prominent) when you have less than 50. Also, this is where the tech could be useful. If the car has internet and knows there are no gas stations within 50 miles, or whatever the current range is .... it should make it super prominent. That knowledge processing, aka AI in modern era, would be so awesome.

But it requires design for usability, not one catch all solution.

Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#209

Post by m_fayer »

singleshot_ wrote: post #202
aenis wrote: post #47

'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…

> if you want to connect, you have to make the magic work behind the screen. What if you don't want to connect? What if you just want to go somewhere? Why would a car be tasked with connecting?

Might sound hyperbolic but this is clearly the softly smiling fascist menace of the corporate regime.

A gentle friendly assumption that we are all eager to partake in “euphemism for platform-serfdom”. Our desire to “connect/share/express/etc” is simply taken for granted.

And what if you just don’t want to? We’re sorry, but that’s simply not an option.

Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#210

Post by mihaelm »

nokeya wrote: post #6

I’m quite suspicious that they do that not because they understood or learned something, but because China requires physical buttons starting next year. And they simply don’t want to lose one of their biggest markets.

Dunno, people hate the all-touch trend so much (I've never come across someone who likes it), it surprised me it took them so long to reverse course.
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