After a few days, the user develops a muscle memory of sorts. User doesn't even have to look at the controller and all actions (and feedback) are executed through the tactile interface. From cockpits to nuclear power plants to home tv remote control, there is absolutely nothing that replaces physical buttons, encoders, sliders and toggles.
I haven't formally studied UI/UX, but these are important:
- Feedback for an action
- Predictable steps to take an action (Muscle memory)
- Fast response
- Expose current state (sliders, toggles do this)
There should be 0% ambiguity or the user gets frustrated. Any piece of technology that puts impedance in this process is no fucking good. User shouldn't have to "guess and wait" whether the device recognized their gesture to swipe. A physical button guarantees that the action was performed by the means of feedback. Nope, sound feedback or taptic stuff still isn't as good as the click of a button. It can be but no one engineers it well. For example MacBook Trackpad that "clicks" without moving is excellent. Seeing touch screens (one exception, phone), cap buttons, gesture controls, etc everywhere makes me sad because it has nothing to do with UX but everything to do with the bottom line (cost) and marketing, and in this case perhaps better ad tracking? I will put this in plain words - Don't trust a company that sells ads at the same time as building hardware. Either sell ads or sell hardware, not both. Google already serves software which relies on trading off privacy (even if it is anonymized). When it comes to hardware, I freak out and no way in hell this thing sits in my home.