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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

#321

Post by aembleton »

Conlectus wrote: post #231
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 thing that everyone always misses in these conversations is that screens over buttons is a cost cutting measure, not a first-principles design decision. It means the UI can be designed and developed mostly independently of the physical controls, which helps reduce rework. I also expect it reduces costs for manufacture and assembly. I’m in favour of more physical controls, but it surprises me that this rarely come…

Somehow, the Dacia Sandero has physical controls for climate control and physical buttons on the steering wheel. It manages to do that whilst being one of the cheapest cars you can buy.

Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#322

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

virtualritz wrote: post #55
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> VW? "No one needs Apple Car or Android. We are the world wide Nr. 1 in car business, what does a computer company know about cars? hahaha" VW was supporting CarPlay from launch and the VW MEB dash was on all pro material of Apple for ages.

Ever heard of CARIAD, the biggest trainwreck, er carwreck, of a software company south of the north pole? 6000 people to develop a software stack for VW. Go figure. The fact VW supported CarPlay early is footnote in this comedy.

Not sure how CARIAD is relevant here. That company was started years after carplay landed in VAG.

Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#323

Post by spockz »

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…

For what it is worth, you can turn the pop-up to navigate to the closest fuel station off. In my XC90 MY16 it is called something “Suggest navigation on low fuel.” I will check it when back in the car.

Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#324

Post by Silhouette »

satvikpendem wrote: post #318
_the_inflator wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite China, IT development is a complete disaster in Germany. All car so called German car manufacturers UX/UI is horrible to say the least. Dieter Rams is the only UX/UI designer, who became famous - outside of Germany. Hartmut Esslinger kind of popularized DR, what an irony, that two Germans made history, but of course not in Germany and even in Germany DR wasn't well known. Braun was a brand and statement, but…

> And to the haters: Show me any company or product from Germany in IT that is Top 100 globally. Only SAP is or has been featured somewhere below the bottom. Much as people seem to dislike when I say this, but, Europe simply cannot compete anymore in technology and tries to legislate away its problems, which, while sometimes something good does come out of it like the DMA, it does not help long term when there are no…

"Europe" is about 750,000,000 people in about 50 countries. There are huge differences in both culture and economics between one country and another and often even among different parts of the same country. It's probably not a great idea to generalise to "Europe simply cannot compete anymore in technology and tries to legislate away its problems".

One of the main reasons Europe doesn't have a lot of big tech companies is that a lot of its most innovative and successful companies get bought out by the giants in the US before they reach that scale themselves. I expect this is going to happen less in the future because of the recent shifts in opinions though.

Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#325

Post by Infinitesimus »

dotancohen wrote: post #262
NetMageSCW wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I think Porsche has a responsive excellent design with their infotainment / button combination though recent SUV / sedan models have moved to capacitive buttons and more touch screen controls and worsened the experience. To be fair, it is outsourced to Harmon/Kardon.

Last month I spoke to a woman driving a Porsche SUV. I was appalled to hear that she is trading it in for a Tesla model Y. I drive a Tesla, and I love it, but it is nowhere near the level of a Porsche. She claims that the model Y is quieter then the Porsche and she loves the self-driving. I advised her to take the Tesla for a long test drive before selling her Porshe, she said that her son in law has one.

That isn't surprising for most people. It is also hard to say without knowing which year and model Porsche she was driving. Someone with a Cayenne Turbo GT will have a different experience from someone with a 1st gen base Macan.

A juniper Model Y is very fast, no engine noise, can drive itself better than a lot of cars on the highway for a similar price, doesn't need gas - convenient if you have a fast charger at home/work, fewer moving parts to think about in your day to day and control.

I like knobs and AA and will never make that trade... but it makes perfect sense for many people who don't mind the interface.

I'm glad Genesis still has knobs and Lexus is getting back to that now. The German luxury cars can't rely on fantastic engines alone forever.

Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#326

Post by spockz »

aenis wrote: post #101
ryandrake wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am a big believer in keeping "product people" away from UI design for dangerous machinery. I mean, there are product people who can do UI design for dangerous machinery. Put them back in charge. It seems like in the last decade, these product people were replaced with product people from Internet Attention-Monetizing companies and Gacha games, where you are rewarded if your product "attracted eyeballs" and "fuele…

Yes, you are right. All my power tools (from Makita, Milwuakee, Festool) have absolutely phenomenal UI - so there are still corners of industrial design where the dark patterns/attention grabbing product people haven't ventured. They should be brought back to car companies.

Power tools are getting Bluetooth now. I saw a Festool battery operated sander where you could set the settings for the light on it and more via the app on your phone.

Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#327

Post by bluGill »

jval43 wrote: post #287
geodel wrote: post #258

Last time it was VW bringing it back, then Mazda bringing it back, and so on. Also luxury cars will not use touch controls, thats only for cheap cars . It appears wishful thinking that physical buttons are coming back. This would be an idea whose time has gone. It does not even matter companies that physical buttons are better, or they can offer as choice (at higher price) if someone wanted. Like remote working, offi…

Even Toyota is going touch now, with the 2026 models lacking climate control knobs. I don't know why. Every review always praised the previous models for the physical buttons, and literally nobody asked for them. The physical buttons were perfect, yet they've taken them away. There must be some grand anti-button conspiracy, it just doesn't make any sense.

A screen costs 75, a button is 1 each. You get a lot more that 100 buttons on a screen.

Not to mention the physical space a button takes.

Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#328

Post by spockz »

aenis wrote: post #121
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…

Call me old school, but I'd like a physical master switch to disable all of the systems you mentioned. I drive a lot, and often in rented cars, and in various countries. - automatic braking - i brake gently and then do a limousine stop. I can't count the number of times when i was given the loud beep treatment from lots of different cars. I never rear ended anyone in about 1.2m kms driven. - active lane keeping - aud…

This reminds me of the time where I was in a rental Ford S-Max. I had the cruise control turned on while approaching an Italian toll booth station. The car very enthusiastically steered me into another car running next to me because it saw the lines in front curve. Luckily I had a strong grip on the wheel and nobody on the other side because I had to counter steer so hard I swerved the other way when it finally overrode the computer. That was one scary moment.

Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#330

Post by grassfedgeek »

CrimsonRain wrote: post #302
grassfedgeek wrote: post #44

I hope Elon Musk can take a lesson from Mercedes. Tesla went in the other direction: there are barely any physical buttons to remove, so they removed the stalks for signaling and even for changing gear! You have to use the touch screen to shift gears!

They have enough physical buttons. Removing indicator stalks without steer by wire was a mistake. They fixed that by bringing back the stalks. Touch screen for great shifting works better than you think. It actually works better than traditional gear shifters especially when you enable auto shift. It changes gears as needed. It's ok to want to stick to the past; but don't drag others back who want to move towards the…

> It's ok to want to stick to the past; but don't drag others back who want to move towards the future.

Did you read the article about how Mercedes-Benz is bringing back physical controls? So in your opinion are they dragging their customers back to the past? Or are they correcting a mistake?

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