The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars
theturnsignalblog.com
The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars
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Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars
#21. Cars should have physical controls.
2. The smart knob is a clever device.
3? Smart knob somehow addresses cars no longer having physical controls.
Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars
#3I applaud the author for putting thought into how to design digital controls, in contrast to the "just put whatever garbage on a touch screen" strategy most carmakers do today.
However, I still question the benefit of this complex, modal control (you have to press a single knob to "cycle between" multiple modes). My ancient, 2016 car features three knobs. This luxury allows me to, without looking, adjust any of three settings (temp, fan, air location), as well as a button which does each seat heater, without any "check what mode it's in, tap, look at the tiny screen, tap again if necessary" step.
True, in this trim, my car does not have a thermostat mode, which in theory is useful, but it is so trivial to modulate the temperature based on "do I feel cold, hot or comfortable right now" and reaching over to twist one of the controls anyway, and even in the other car I have which has this mode, I frequently need to adjust things anyway, except in that car some of the functions require multiple mode changes on the touch screen and looking away from the road.
Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars
#4I applaud the author for putting thought into how to design digital controls, in contrast to the "just put whatever garbage on a touch screen" strategy most carmakers do today. However, I still question the benefit of this complex, modal control (you have to press a single knob to "cycle between" multiple modes). My ancient, 2016 car features three knobs. This luxury allows me to, without looking, adjust any of three…
The author is pretty clear that having more than two modes diminishes the usefulness of the interface. Three modes was complex enough that he redesigned it down.
I've changed the channel tuner when I've reached for the volume knob. If the haptic feedback between the two is clearly different, that will help, no?
Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars
#5I applaud the author for putting thought into how to design digital controls, in contrast to the "just put whatever garbage on a touch screen" strategy most carmakers do today. However, I still question the benefit of this complex, modal control (you have to press a single knob to "cycle between" multiple modes). My ancient, 2016 car features three knobs. This luxury allows me to, without looking, adjust any of three…
I agree. I don't want a "smart" knob. I'm dreading going car shopping sometime this next year. I anticipate having to rule out a large pool of cars to keep my controls navigable without looking.
Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars
#6I applaud the author for putting thought into how to design digital controls, in contrast to the "just put whatever garbage on a touch screen" strategy most carmakers do today. However, I still question the benefit of this complex, modal control (you have to press a single knob to "cycle between" multiple modes). My ancient, 2016 car features three knobs. This luxury allows me to, without looking, adjust any of three…
The author is pretty clear that having more than two modes diminishes the usefulness of the interface. Three modes was complex enough that he redesigned it down. I've changed the channel tuner when I've reached for the volume knob. If the haptic feedback between the two is clearly different, that will help, no?
Controls that require a feedback loop have more cognitive overhead than controls you can just use “blindly” (this includes not having to check for haptic feedback to test what mode it’s in) and from pure muscle memory. For example, you learn that your preferred volume when driving on a highway is at (say) the two o’clock position, and with time you’ll blindly turn the knob to that position without even consciously thinking about it. If, on the other hand, you “know” that the knob could be in a wrong mode, you’ll tend to hesitate when operating it because of that anticipation, having to check back whether the knob is indeed in the correct mode.
Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars
#7Oh, hi, creator of the SmartKnob (mentioned in the article) here - I'm continually blown away by how much UX discussion it has generated over the years!
One of the things I regret a bit about the prototype and demo I originally shared is that I used a press action and the screen as a modal/menu interface. The screen makes for a snazzy demo video, and works great for interfaces where you have the user's full attention (like a smart home control panel) but I think there's a lot more potential for just the haptics, paired with other dedicated buttons to switch to specific (i.e. not a menu of) modes, like this later demo I built using the haptic feedback for a video timeline jog tool: https://youtu.be/J9192DfZplk
Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars
#8That's pretty cool! Thanks for sharing.
Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars
#9should read, "the lost art of designing physical controls..."
Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars
#10This is a solved problem. My 2009 4Runner has the perfect temp control. I couldn't tell you how it works. But my hand knows. Which is perfect tool design.