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Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

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Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#51
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same way they've fought cheaper ICE brands: delivering higher quality materials, a fancy badge and a great driving experience. Currently the Chinese EVs are cheap, but far from Merc levels of refinement.

Are you sure about that last sentence? Plenty of Chinese EVs are as refined as luxury brands, such as seen here: https://youtu.be/xiFmuoBIyjQ

I'd love to have some of these cars in my local market, but at 3:15 this guy explicitly makes the comparison and says they're not up to Mercedes-Benz level.

Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#52

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!

Tesla does a great job not having buttons. I think the real issue is that other car companies have bad interfaces that make physical buttons necessary. Tesla just has a great UI that does not need physical buttons.

Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#53

I for one am quite happy that Mercedes is committed to a physical button for hazard lights, parking assist overrides, and the other controls that are used so very...rarely. Perhaps they'll do something about the less commonly used buttons like climate control for the next model redesigns in five to seven years. I really struggle to understand what's so damned difficult about this. They've admitted touchscreens annoy…

My guess is that people impulse buy things that look sleek and shiny then suffer through the consequences

And many stupid decisions have no direct impact on the driver, but instead on those around the car. Like red beltline lights that don’t function as brake lights, instead using red lamps near the road that are easy to be obscured/ignored because the giant red lights above them look like brake lights.

Or dashes that are fully lit at night even if the headlights aren’t on, so the driver doesn’t have an obvious visual indicator that their tail lights aren’t lit.

So many rules I’d enforce were I king of the automakers.

Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#54

Please bring back physical gauges, too. I don't want to stare at a lcd while I'm driving.

For 4x4 pickup trucks, bring back physical transfer case shifters and get rid of the idiotic menus for that. Also bring back transfer case Neutral mode so that flat towing again becomes commonplace. A Jeep Gladiator pickup is a great vehicle but doesn't replace larger pickup trucks that have lost those great transfer case features.

Or automatic transmission shifters that behave differently than every previous car you’ve driven. RIP Anton Yelchin.

Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#55

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…

> 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.

Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#56
post #42

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…

My 992.2 has AA/CarPlay, and an outstanding user interface, with a nice mix of configurable displays and physical buttons. Fairly certain it is a top 100 product in it's market.

The cup holder situation, on the other hand… (992.1 owner)

Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#58
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…

Thats what happens when you put engineers/programmers in charge of UI & UX development.

Engineers should be delegated to the worker-bee level and you should just get some gear heads and some soccer moms to design to UI.

Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#60

Please bring back physical gauges, too. I don't want to stare at a lcd while I'm driving.

My 2024 Sequoia has the heads up display and I really like it. Shows the mph, integrated turn directions with Apple CarPlay, and shows what song is playing without me having to take my eyes off the road. The only problem is since it’s a projector my wife and I have to use vastly different settings in order to see the HUD while driving. She didn’t realize it existed for nearly a year since we’re about a foot height difference and I’d set it up when we got the car.
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