The difference between a car company with a software department and a software company with a car department.
Hyundai promises to keep buttons in cars
41–50 of 491 posts
Re: Hyundai promises to keep buttons in cars
#421) Nobody ever provides any evidence that touchscreen based car interfaces are less safe. You might imagine having to briefly glance at a screen is less safe, but that's not evidence. The only thing I've ever seen people cite is some unscientific magazine article that claimed touchscreens take slightly longer to operate for certain strangely-chosen controls, which is not at all the same thing as measuring safety. 2)…
Here you go:
https://exchange.aaa.com/safety/distracted-driving/
Re: Hyundai promises to keep buttons in cars
#43Wow, talk about missing the point. Four grids of uniform buttons, they think that's an improvement over a touchscreen? There is zero practical distinction between taking your eyes off the road to see which button you're pushing vs taking your eyes of the road to see which part of the screen you're touching. GOOD HVAC/radio design means you can perform ALL essential functions WITHOUT taking your eyes off the road AT A…
> There is zero practical distinction between taking your eyes off the road to see which button you're pushing vs taking your eyes of the road to see which part of the screen you're touching.
Practically, I don't need to take my eyes off the road to press an analog button, that I am familiar with, having a small chance to fail (to register the interaction). Touchscreens are notorious for not registering interaction, which is why using a touchscreen keyboard is inferior.
> Give us knobs and sliders!
Ironic ask.
Re: Hyundai promises to keep buttons in cars
#44Wow, talk about missing the point. Four grids of uniform buttons, they think that's an improvement over a touchscreen? There is zero practical distinction between taking your eyes off the road to see which button you're pushing vs taking your eyes of the road to see which part of the screen you're touching. GOOD HVAC/radio design means you can perform ALL essential functions WITHOUT taking your eyes off the road AT A…
I agree entirely; this is lazy design. Cars are the most dangerous machines we’ve invented, by orders of magnitude nothing else causes as much unintended harm. It’s really, really worth doing the best possible job in the control surfaces for these machines.
They’ve prioritized visual consistency over usability. For example, why do the Volume and Tuner knobs look identical? They’re for different purposes, used in different ways and in different contexts. They’re even usually used by different _people_ — the volume knob is more likely to be used by the passenger, for instance.
And yet, they’re more related to each other than they are to the buttons placed between them, like Search and Map. All those buttons seem essentially arbitrary to me. Are Seek and Track really as important as Setup? Why have a rarely-used and interruptive feature like Setup right next to an often-used and non-destructive feature like Favorite (I’m guess that’s what the star means)?
I’m still glad they’re real buttons rather than a touchscreen. But you’re totally right — this is exceptionally lazy design and implementation of physical buttons.
And if I may — I’ve seen replies already to the effect that the usability of this interface doesn’t matter, either because it’s not a big deal to begin with, or because drivers will get used to anything, or for another reason. That’s missing the point — usability is for everyone, all the time. Even exports make mistakes with unusable controls.
Re: Hyundai promises to keep buttons in cars
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not identical: they typically have raised markers on two of the home row keys precisely to help with orientation. And, well, your hands are already positioned over them much of the time, so relative identification is much easier. Not so with these buttons.
I am 37 and have felt for these raised markers precisely zero times.
I’m 33 and was the mostly the same until I switched from QWERTY to Colemak. Now my index fingers practically live on the f and j keys.
Re: Hyundai promises to keep buttons in cars
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m pretty sure you regularly use a piece of plastic with 104 near identical buttons without looking at any of them.
Not identical: they typically have raised markers on two of the home row keys precisely to help with orientation. And, well, your hands are already positioned over them much of the time, so relative identification is much easier. Not so with these buttons.
These are in 4 different blocks with only 4 each, I don't think this is terribly hard without looking. And it's not like these are functions like windshield wipers that would typically go somewhere else. Looks more or less like typical buttons to me.
Re: Hyundai promises to keep buttons in cars
#471) Nobody ever provides any evidence that touchscreen based car interfaces are less safe. You might imagine having to briefly glance at a screen is less safe, but that's not evidence. The only thing I've ever seen people cite is some unscientific magazine article that claimed touchscreens take slightly longer to operate for certain strangely-chosen controls, which is not at all the same thing as measuring safety. 2)…
> Nobody ever provides any evidence that touchscreen based car interfaces are less safe.
That's a bit like the old joke that the efficacy of parachutes at preventing free-fall deaths has never been proven scientifically. (Well, until this 2003 study[1])
Some chains of causality are so obvious that we don't need to prove them scientifically: Many people find touchscreens hard to use without taking their eyes off the road. Taking your eyes off the road can lead to crashes.
Re: Hyundai promises to keep buttons in cars
#48For long time I wondered why UI in spacecrafts is so inconvenient. Apollo computer UI seems to be lacking. Soyuz UI, while seems to improve over years (ha, it would be strange, over so many years...), still looks clunky. And then - Crew Dragon comes with touch screens. Don't they understand it's a big step back? There are benefits of "fluid" interfaces, but where is the attention to important features, ability to use "main" tools without re-learning where they are and how they look like, while having the tactile feedback?
Re: Hyundai promises to keep buttons in cars
#49I've never owned a Hyundai, but stuff like this makes me want to look at them. I recently bought what I thought was a car, only to find it is a tech-ridden abomination. I want a vehicle that is reliable. I want a vehicle that is simple. I do not want a rolling AI/touchscreen. Even just from a security standpoint I want minimal software in my car.
I can’t speak for their EV line, but no media is talking about how crappy their engines are. I won’t touch a KIA or Hyundai and I have zero qualms speaking up about it. My brother and I both needed new engines after 50,000 miles with normal wear and maintenance. If you read up on oil consumption you will discover they have had problem’s continually since 2014. Last I checked the 2021 +models are still affected. Getti…
The wildest part for me is that the turbo variants they're selling in Europe seem to be perfectly fine. In the N cars there only seem to be clutch issues (and other stuff that's only relevant if you track them). My family has driven Korean cars since 2008 without ANY issues and I'm perfectly happy with my i30N.
Re: Hyundai promises to keep buttons in cars
#50The cabin controls are okay on Hyundais, I guess. I remember having to use the touchscreen to set the rear temperature controls. This is confusing when the main screen is occupied by Android auto. So it isn't like you have button control over everything.
I'd recommend Mazda for getting pushbutton controls right.