"Honda has done what no other car maker is doing" isn't correct. For the latest Mazda 3 (2019) Mazda has made the same decision. There's a non-touch screen which can only be controlled by a center knob for safety.
Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls
711–720 of 770 posts
Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls
#712Earlier quoted context omitted.
Too late! Boeing 777-X will have touch screen interfaces for pilots. Personally, I think information display can and should use touch interface, but actions should be tied to physical switches or buttons.
Well keyboards are an interesting one. Airliners have space to install hardware keyboards, light aircraft don't so they have touch displays. You could argue that an onscreen keyboard is significantly less mental load for the pilot than having to scroll letter by letter on a "dumb" interface. Where do accidents happen? It's fairly rare for a plane to just break. And even then, if your electronics fail there are usuall…
> You could argue that an onscreen keyboard is significantly less mental load for the pilot than having to scroll letter by letter on a "dumb" interface.
I don't buy that argument. What kind of keyboard? QWERTY or something else? What language? English is the language of aviation, but if you're not a native speaker who uses keyboards all the time then chances are you're going to have a LOT of mental load using a keyboard. Even something like the French or German keyboards, which use mostly the same letters, may be different enough to cause frustration -- and when you have an engine on fire you don't need to be struggling with those details.
Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls
#713Earlier quoted context omitted.
This past January, I rented an Audi Q7. It was brand new and had the Audi Virtual Cockpit which took me a full two days to grasp to the point where I could use it safely and required me to pull over several times to figure something out. Worse, the rental agency had removed the owner's manuals so I was without reference. One of the goofiest things was that the navigation moving map would mysteriously stop moving--all…
That keys-with-steel-cable thing car rental companies do is terrible. And there is absolutely no point in doing so. Either give me two separate keys so two drivers can use them, or just give me one key.
The two Audi smart key fobs together weighs too much for a pants or light jacket pocket, especially on that steel cable. A day or so after I removed the battery from one fob, I stopped at a Home Depot and used a bolt cutter to cut the cable and separate the fobs. I returned the keys to the rental agency on a large steel keyring. They didn't seem to mind.
Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls
#714Well done!
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I'm going to repeat a comment I made a few times before, as I think it's relevant:
In one of the talks at Google I/O a few years ago a VP from Audi (or Volvo?) spoke in a thick and lofty German accent about how "ve haf completely oferhauled ze driver exzperienze". He played a sexy video clip showcasing their new Android infotainment system (something like https://youtu.be/h_7_fKJ0PNs), and the first thing I noticed is how they'd taken away my traditional temperature knobs and replaced them with digital touchscreen ones. They looked just like physical ones, and were in the exact same place you would expect (https://9to5google.com/2017/05/15/android-cars-audi/). So, I've gained absolutely nothing, and now I have to take my eyes off the road and look down at the stupid console just to change the temperature.
TLDR: Tacticle feedback is a Good Thing(tm) and designers should cultivate - not fight - muscle memory.
Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls
#715Eminently sensible call by Honda. Knobs, dials and switches work well and do not demand that a driver takes their eyes off the road. I suppose that voice controls would be a reasonably safe tech option, but probably not cost-effective.
I drive a 2010 Honda Jazz (Honda Fit in the US I believe) and I love it. Not only does it indeed have buttons, but good buttons as well. Clicky where needed, rubbery where appropriate, with the righ amount of resistance etc. Just like the iPhone always has the nicest buttons of any phone. It's a little thing that makes using it a pleasure.
Our 2008 Honda Civic (EU-spec) was similarly well-designed. Controls you were likely to use while driving (temperature/windscreen-clearing, radio, hazard lights, etc.) were raised up closer to your eye-line[1]. It was a really ergonomic "cockpit"
[1] https://www.autocar.co.uk/sites/autocar.co.uk/files/styles/g...
Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls
#716Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you debouncing on tactile or is the hardware doing it for you?
In my own brief stint in (non-critical) hardware development, all debouncing was done manually in software.
It all depends on application.... and perspective...
Hardware debouncing works well for most applications but may not be financially rewarding at scale. With time and effort software debouncing can render sometimes better/good or good enough results as hardware..
Remember the saying, "When all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail..."
Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls
#717I will never understand how this trend started in the first place. If you look at e.g. digital cameras, they all have touch screens these days, but they also still have buttons and dials everywhere. The one in front of me has eight physical buttons, seven dials and a power switch. The reason is obvious: when you're taking photos, you don't want to be looking down at a screen; you want to be focused on the task at han…
It started with the iPhone and the software-ization of all buttons. Buttons were seen as the enemy, inflexible blackberry relics of the 1990s. Tesla took this trend and ran with it, and many other cars, like my 2008 Prius, had already begun with their incredibly crappy touch-screen. Mine broke years ago and the audio is ENTIRELY on the front-right speaker. It can not be changed ever because ONLY the touch screen can change sound balance and touch screen's broken. Welp, at least my co-pilot has ideal audio?
Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls
#718Eminently sensible call by Honda. Knobs, dials and switches work well and do not demand that a driver takes their eyes off the road. I suppose that voice controls would be a reasonably safe tech option, but probably not cost-effective.
This past January, I rented an Audi Q7. It was brand new and had the Audi Virtual Cockpit which took me a full two days to grasp to the point where I could use it safely and required me to pull over several times to figure something out. Worse, the rental agency had removed the owner's manuals so I was without reference. One of the goofiest things was that the navigation moving map would mysteriously stop moving--all…
You just gave me flashbacks to renting my first Audi and not being able to leave the lot for a good 15 minutes before I could figure out what the hell was going on. Audi sponsored the whole thing but it backfired because I would NEVER drive one again after that, or recommend to anyone - what happened to cars?
Newer Suburus are almost as bad. Tesla is too but at least it's all located on one panel.
Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls
#719Earlier quoted context omitted.
Kinda like trying to flip just the right toggle switch and avoid flipping the wrong one? Just because it's on a touchscreen doesn't mean it has to be tiny and hard to touch. A 17" touchscreen could have fewer controls than the same hardware panel. And the controls could be bigger on the touchscreen.
It’s not like trying to flip just the right toggle. You’ve flipped it thousands of times and memorized its exact location through haptic memory. You gently feel the surroundings to ensure your hand is in the right location and then you make the decisive motion with your fingers. You don’t need to look while doing this. This is how hands work. This is how you type. I wish people would stop pretending they don’t unders…
Thiss os how i typw somtimws.
Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls
#720Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well keyboards are an interesting one. Airliners have space to install hardware keyboards, light aircraft don't so they have touch displays. You could argue that an onscreen keyboard is significantly less mental load for the pilot than having to scroll letter by letter on a "dumb" interface. Where do accidents happen? It's fairly rare for a plane to just break. And even then, if your electronics fail there are usuall…
> You could argue that an onscreen keyboard is significantly less mental load for the pilot than having to scroll letter by letter on a "dumb" interface. I don't buy that argument. What kind of keyboard? QWERTY or something else? What language? English is the language of aviation, but if you're not a native speaker who uses keyboards all the time then chances are you're going to have a LOT of mental load using a keyb…
The ones I've seen are a-z, not qwerty:
https://www.simpits.org/articles/Boeing_simtour/simtour30.jp...
And English because anything you'd need to enter, like waypoints or airport IDs use roman/latin letters or numbers.