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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

#461

Post by concordDance »

the_overseer wrote: post #312
prng2021 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's great to get your perspective on this. Aside from the GPS/navigation features, aren't car infotainment systems extremely basic? We've been controlling heating, cooling, audio source, and audio volume since the dawn of time. How are technical requirements related to these basic functions changing such that their UIs haven't been absolutely perfected by now? Is the entire infotainment code being rewritten all the…

Yes. The infotainment code is rewritten every time. By different devs. Because that is how automotive industry works. This time BMW wants infotainment and a third party wins the contract (because it's the cheapest usually). For the next BMW car another company wins the contract. Everything is rebuilt from scratch. The components that make up the infotainment a lot of times are actually developed by different companie…

> It's not the devs, it's the way the automotive industry works outsourcing every little button on the dash to another (cheapest) company.

One thing Tesla did well was inhousing a lot of this.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#462

Post by calmoo »

bjarneh wrote: post #417
checkyoursudo wrote: post #393

With. A. Passion. Other touch screens (or similar things) I dislike: - the controls on my stove top - the controls on my monitor - the controls on my tv - the controls on my thermostat - probably more All of these should have physical buttons for the limited number of functions required. Or, at a minimum, for navigation and confirmation. Touch screens there suck. My wife's car has a touch screen on the control/infota…

> - the controls on my stove top How were these stove-top touch-buttons ever considered an upgrade to their predecessor? They always have no feedback, or that annoyingly high "beep" feedback. They are always slow to respond. They typically use only two or three buttons to control the actual temperature, forcing you to select location first, which is typically slow and terrible as well. Nobody in their right mind can…

On my particular electric stovetop if I spill a tiny bit of liquid from cooking onto the buttons, the whole stove goes into protection shutdown mode, and I have to thoroughly dry the buttons to get it to work again. I hate that something that is so simple has such a terrible design flaw.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#463

Post by looperhacks »

bjarneh wrote: post #417
checkyoursudo wrote: post #393

With. A. Passion. Other touch screens (or similar things) I dislike: - the controls on my stove top - the controls on my monitor - the controls on my tv - the controls on my thermostat - probably more All of these should have physical buttons for the limited number of functions required. Or, at a minimum, for navigation and confirmation. Touch screens there suck. My wife's car has a touch screen on the control/infota…

> - the controls on my stove top How were these stove-top touch-buttons ever considered an upgrade to their predecessor? They always have no feedback, or that annoyingly high "beep" feedback. They are always slow to respond. They typically use only two or three buttons to control the actual temperature, forcing you to select location first, which is typically slow and terrible as well. Nobody in their right mind can…

It's because they're easy to clean. No crevices or edges where oil and grime can accumulate. Sure, you can still clean buttons, but to have them look "as new" takes more work than touch controls, especially in an environment like a stove, where "accidents" can happen regularly.

I still prefer physical buttons though.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#464

Post by Fezzik »

bradgessler wrote: post #413
jjav wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what? You've got physical buttons? Big whoop. That physical button that takes 500ms to respond is still as dangerous. No, that's wrong. Problem with touchscreens is that (1) you need to look at them and (2) there is no tactile feedback of whether you pressed it or not and (3) you need to hover your arm in a moving car at just the right spot. Physical buttons cleanly resolve all of these major problems. If the ac…

> Physical buttons cleanly resolve all of these major problems > Given that with a physical button you didn't have to take your eyes off the road and given the tactile feedback you know for sure you activated/pressed/moved the control I never understand the "you don't have to look at buttons" argument—my car has lots of physical buttons and to push them, I briefly have to look at the console, find the button, and pre…

Car UIs are just overly complex, poorly oriented, and full of cruft these days. Look up the UI of ‘96 Toyota Camry and you’ll see the pinnacle of efficiency. I could manipulate everything I needed to without taking my eyes off the road after a few months of owning the car. It was dead simply and each system was unique enough to distinguish by touch and interpret what the setting was by the knob orientation.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#465

Post by tilsammans »

duckmysick wrote: post #457
bjarneh wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - the controls on my stove top How were these stove-top touch-buttons ever considered an upgrade to their predecessor? They always have no feedback, or that annoyingly high "beep" feedback. They are always slow to respond. They typically use only two or three buttons to control the actual temperature, forcing you to select location first, which is typically slow and terrible as well. Nobody in their right mind can…

Is that induction? The product page says "Elektrisk platetopp" and not "Induksjonstopper". I'm looking for an induction top or an oven combo with knobs and it's difficult.

Gaggenau has this, we have the Vario 400 series. Physical buttons, crazy fast, reliable and beautiful. The downside: it cost us the same as a small second hand car...

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#466

Post by ascorbic »

gonehome wrote: post #266
adrr wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know that would be helpful. I hate digging through my Tesla’s menus to control the wipers even though it is very responsive.

You can put the wipers icon at the bottom bar now, that makes it much better.

I'm not sure how they got the idea that it's ever acceptable to need to press a button to open a menu in order to turn wipers on. Particularly when the rain sensor is so bad that auto is basically useless.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#467

Post by dmonitor »

Poppys wrote: post #405
checkyoursudo wrote: post #393

With. A. Passion. Other touch screens (or similar things) I dislike: - the controls on my stove top - the controls on my monitor - the controls on my tv - the controls on my thermostat - probably more All of these should have physical buttons for the limited number of functions required. Or, at a minimum, for navigation and confirmation. Touch screens there suck. My wife's car has a touch screen on the control/infota…

How often are you changing the clock?

at least twice a year. more often if traveling across time zones.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#468

Post by bomewish »

emodendroket wrote: post #445
hilbert42 wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"My civil engineer friends face losing their licenses, fines or jail time if they are found professionally negligent." These standards ought to be applied more widely and done in conjunction with tightened consumer law. In many cases the quality of electronics equipment has gone to the dogs. I could give instances of appliances I use that can only be used in a hobbled mode—numbers of published functions simply don't…

I don't think jail time for making software too bloated and slow for your liking is a serious proposal.

You don't find the idea both kinda hilarious and somehow vaguely appealing even though it's a bit nonserious at the same time? I love it as a thought experiment.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#469

Post by m463 »

bradgessler wrote: post #413
jjav wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what? You've got physical buttons? Big whoop. That physical button that takes 500ms to respond is still as dangerous. No, that's wrong. Problem with touchscreens is that (1) you need to look at them and (2) there is no tactile feedback of whether you pressed it or not and (3) you need to hover your arm in a moving car at just the right spot. Physical buttons cleanly resolve all of these major problems. If the ac…

> Physical buttons cleanly resolve all of these major problems > Given that with a physical button you didn't have to take your eyes off the road and given the tactile feedback you know for sure you activated/pressed/moved the control I never understand the "you don't have to look at buttons" argument—my car has lots of physical buttons and to push them, I briefly have to look at the console, find the button, and pre…

> I never understand the "you don't have to look at buttons" argument—my car has lots of physical buttons and to push them, I briefly have to look at the console, find the button, and press it

You don't realize just how MUCH worse doing it on a touchscreen is.

A touchscreen button is in a specific region of space, yet that region jumps and jostles around because the car and the touchscreen are moving and your arm is moving (usually in a different direction).

If you bump or drag your knuckles on the touchscreen, you accidentally engage some other control.

It's not as bad if the control is at the edge, is a large enough target and the touchscreen has a raised bezel around it to rest your knuckles on, but you still have to use your eyes to locate the button.

It's really annoying with tesla - the targets have gotten smaller over time, they've adopted apple's ios 7 mess of buttons that don't look like buttons, and now the buttons move around due to context, or passenger in seat, or other nonsense. Some buttons have state, but it times out. Some buttons can be moved. Some buttons change depending on what you used last. lots of map stuff auto-hides. Buttons along the edge are good, but they made them smaller and left lots of unused space. many buttons are in the middle with no good reason. ugh.

My suspicion? I suspect the model S/X touchscreen was designed by people who don't drive a model S/X and test it at their desk with a crappy dell monitor and a mouse.

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