How much of this is generational? In 10 years we will have buyers that have only known touch screens as an interface.
The issue is that we have to solve high-speed touch screens that behave well in vehicles that sit outside.
Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles
781–790 of 974 posts
Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles
#782Praise to Mazda for making this decision. As a User Experience Professional, I was never able to grasp the true user's need for touch screens in cars. For years I have been working on product interfaces (not just apps). Many studies I conducted actually told me that people favored analog controls over digital touch screens controls. It gives you tactile feedback, making it accessible for anyone with sense of touch. >…
> As a User Experience Professional, I was never able to grasp the true user's need for touch screens in cars. You are viewing the 'need' from the end user perspective. That is likely not the driving force that is causing touch screen proliferation. The likely driving force that is causing it is the manufacturers BOM costs. A single, rectangular, touch screen, that can swallow up a bunch of different knobs and button…
Not to mention that touchscreens rated for passenger vehicles and the extreme environmental changes their interiors go through are not cheap. Look at how many screens Tesla has had to replace in their cars.
Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles
#783Is the outcome of this going to be voice-activated everything (down to the cup-holders)?
Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles
#784Bret Victor's "A Brief Rant On The Future Of Interaction Design" is just as relevant now as it was back in 2011: > There's a reason that our fingertips have some of the densest areas of nerve endings on the body. This is how we experience the world close-up. This is how our tools talk to us. The sense of touch is essential to everything that humans have called "work" for millions of years. > Now, take out your favori…
now that I think of it, this might be the reason I actually decided to go for a blackberry key 2. I knew the keyboard was better for me somehow, just couldn't really pinpoint why.
Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles
#785Earlier quoted context omitted.
Better than touchscreen, though, especially when moving (only doing it as a passenger, of course!)
Having used both, I vastly prefer the touchscreen. The rotary input takes way longer to navigate to the next letter, and it's easier to make mistakes (e.g. accidentally switching modes) and it's harder to fix them (need to cycle all the way to the end to hit backspace, sometimes having to start from scratch if your mistake was "jump out of input mode")
I've tried Android Auto in a Sonata with touch screen, and Passat and a Q5 with rotary controller. The latter were far easier to use, once you've spent 5 minutes making sure you understand how it works.
Maybe if the touch screen were Tesla-sized it would have been easier to use, but on a regular sized screen, even switching modes takes much more attention with a touch screen, because you need to look at it, move your hand to it, make sure you're hitting the correct location, wait until it registers,m make sure you've actually hit the right spot. With a rotary it was "slide down, no need to look because it clicks, click or two clockwise (still no need to look), push down, q
Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles
#786Earlier quoted context omitted.
>As a User Experience Professional, I was never able to grasp the true user's need for touch screens in cars. Before phone integration, I might've agreed with you, or at least had no opinion on the subject. After watching many car companies, even high-end ones like BMW and Mercedes, fail utterly at producing reasonable phone integration systems or interfaces, though, I'm all-in on CarPlay. >It basically means they ha…
I own two cars with CarPlay, one use a touchscreen (VW) and the other a rotary knob/button (BMW). I much prefer the knob - with the touchscreen, I have to focus on the screen for a longer period of time to make sure my finger hits the right spot. With the rotary knob, I still have to glance over, but only enough to ensure the correct "button" is highlighted. That feels less distracting to me. All that said, I try to…
With touchscreens, there's always the balance of putting the screen in line-of-sight while driving while keeping it close enough to be touchable. I like the touchpad system in the new Acura RDX the most as a compromise, has most of the accuracy of a touchscreen (still lets you draw letters and stuff) while retaining the haptic nature of the knob/buttons (position on the touchpad is absolute -- tapping the top left corner of the touchpad means you're tapping the top left corner of the screen). Plus it has the advantage of not having your hand block the screen when you're trying to touch it.
Otherwise, the Mazda knob works well enough. I think most of the power user complaints could be addressed by better default behavior or customization on what a scroll/click does on certain screens.
Android Auto/CarPlay is easily the most distracting system I've used. The only benefit is if I choose to be distracted while driving, it's less distracting than using my phone. Being distracted while driving is a _choice_ and sadly one that many drivers want to have.
Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles
#787Kudos to Mazda for saying no to this insanity. Not only is it unsafe, it's a horrible user interface. I'm not able to drive and hold my outstretched arm steady enough to select an item with a finger. For next car purchase I'll definitely test drive a Mazda.
Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles
#788If you don’t have a touch screens users will still continue to fiddle but with an even tinier more dangerous phone screen.
Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles
#789Earlier quoted context omitted.
If people really do vastly prefer touch screens, I would expect to see different control mechanisms moving in this direction (steering, shifting, etc.) The fact that they aren't going this way in the systems that __really__ matter seems to indicate that people don't really prefer touch screens.
I was thinking the other day that there isn't really a good reason why I couldn't control my car with a PS4 controller. I wouldn't advocate for that as an industry wide change, but I'm willing to move beyond huge steering wheels and gear shifts
I think we take for granted that the modern car layout has always been the same way, but it's interesting to learn how it evolved. Some of the original designs were using tillers instead of steering wheels, for example.
Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles
#790Bret Victor's "A Brief Rant On The Future Of Interaction Design" is just as relevant now as it was back in 2011: > There's a reason that our fingertips have some of the densest areas of nerve endings on the body. This is how we experience the world close-up. This is how our tools talk to us. The sense of touch is essential to everything that humans have called "work" for millions of years. > Now, take out your favori…
now that I think of it, this might be the reason I actually decided to go for a blackberry key 2. I knew the keyboard was better for me somehow, just couldn't really pinpoint why.
My current phone is a Key2. Before that, I had 3 Privs, a handful of Curves, and several Palms.
For me, it has always been about tactile feedback: I habitually text and drive, so a physical keyboard that allows for high accuracy without looking at the screen is an absolute imperative...everything else is a secondary consideration.