[HN Gopher] Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen c...
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Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls
Author : trenning
Score : 1236 points
Date : 2020-03-31 15:25 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.autocar.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.autocar.co.uk)
| nateburke wrote:
| This is fantastic news. Reminds me of this GREAT READ:
| https://www.amazon.com/Hand-Shapes-Brain-Language-Culture/dp...
|
| I would not be surprised if this decision resulted in even
| greater brand loyalty, e.g. drivers becoming attached to the
| "feel" of a Honda.
| solidist wrote:
| Larry Tesler would be pleased today.
| user-asdfgh wrote:
| Appeal to authority is a fallacy of logic. It's NOT valid logic
| hnarn wrote:
| Look at the cockpit of any modern airliner and you will see
| screens, but they are never interactive. There are hardware
| buttons, dials and lights all over the place. A tactile interface
| is both more obvious, sturdy and more stable, and therefore
| safer. The problem that touch interfaces solve, ever since the
| advent of the first smart phone, is that the interface is now
| dynamic. You can change it without having to replace the
| hardware. Here's the catch: for safety critical interfaces, YOU
| DO NOT want the interface to change. The point is moot.
|
| Touch screens will hopefully never make it into any critical
| pilot systems, because safety and stability matters to airline
| manufacturers, current ongoing scandals notwithstanding. I only
| wish automobile manufacturers took their job equally seriously.
| sgustard wrote:
| An airplane cockpit has two pilots and literally several
| hundred physical buttons. No one wants to drive that car.
|
| In cars we're mainly talking about the volume and fan speed.
| Personally I much prefer knobs for those. But I wouldn't call
| those critical safety systems.
| bialpio wrote:
| Someone already mentioned this: climate control becomes
| safety critical when your windshield fogs up. Good luck
| finding that goddamn touch button then... Additionally, I
| sometimes hear radio ads that have honk or siren sounds in
| them that immensely piss me off and cause me to immediately
| turn the radio off just to be able to hear if something's
| actually happening or not.
| ciconia wrote:
| Pilots already use iPads for checklists.
| dewey wrote:
| That's a different ballpark though as you can fall back to
| the paper version at any time.
| jrockway wrote:
| I don't think this is entirely true. The GA glass panels love
| touchscreens, and they are just as FAA-certified as their non-
| touchscreen counterparts.
|
| You are right that they are flaky. Here's Martin Pauly (great
| YouTube channel!) using his touchscreen transponder and it just
| stops working: https://youtu.be/bopcQSJKcD8?t=732
| rurounijones wrote:
| > Touch screens will hopefully never make it into any critical
| pilot systems
|
| The F-35 Fighter Jet has basically only touch-screens (apart
| from Hands-on-throttle-and-stick controls for when you are busy
| pulling Gs)
|
| Depends on your definition of "critical" but I don't think this
| is a great example.
| Dahoon wrote:
| And the F-35 is a great example of how not to do things, so
| of course it has touchscreens.
| derefr wrote:
| > The problem that touch interfaces solve, ever since the
| advent of the first smart phone, is that the interface is now
| dynamic. You can change it without having to replace the
| hardware.
|
| I mean, the _other_ point of a dynamic interface is that you
| can now have _more_ controls than would fit on a static
| interface. Touchscreen fit-to-purpose controls might suck more
| than hardware fit-to-purpose controls, but either option is
| better than a single set of _generic_ controls that control
| multiple systems that "should" have different control
| paradigms, translating to the generic controls being a
| compromised bad fit for any use-case.
|
| E.g. a hardware English-language keyboard is _probably_ better
| than a touchscreen English-language keyboard (though people
| with modern Blackberries might dispute this); but both are
| better than entering English text through T9 on a dial pad. And
| the touchscreen has the benefit of allowing you to have _more_
| keyboards (for e.g. the multiple native languages you type that
| use different alphabets), which wouldn 't even fit on the phone
| as hardware keyboards.
|
| I bring this up, because eventually you run out of space to
| stuff additional controls. As airplanes become ever-more
| advanced, their cockpits will approach that point. At that
| point, dynamic affordances may be necessary, just so you can
| have some kind of "pagination" allowing you to squeeze more
| controls in. (Hopefully it'd just be for the non-time-critical
| switches to flip.)
| mywittyname wrote:
| There's always the possibility for hybrid UIs. Something with
| physical inputs with a dynamic display based on context, like
| a screen above a series of buttons and maybe a dial at the
| end ( think ATMs) or even buttons with OLED displays.
|
| It's the best or worst of both worlds depending on your
| perspective, but they do offer superior hands-free operation
| over a pure touch device, but at the sacrifice of interface
| flexibility.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| >Something with physical inputs with a dynamic display
| based on context, like a screen above a series of buttons
| and maybe a dial at the end
|
| BMW's iDrive is, I think, the canonical early example of
| this in the automotive world.
| hnarn wrote:
| I'm not disagreeing with anything you're saying and despite
| my somewhat ranting comment I am not completely opposed to a
| mix of touchscreens and hardware interfaces: but I think
| you'll agree that there needs to be a decision made in terms
| of safety when you decide to use a touchpad for input. If
| you're adjusting the screen brightness on your smart phone,
| that slider doesn't have to be perfect, and maybe adjusting
| the cabin lights for an airliner doesn't have to be either:
| I'm just dreading the day when things like navigational
| headings and airspeed creeps into a touch interface because
| of "convenience". But if my observation about this trend is
| wrong, which I hope, that separation of concerns will stay in
| future designs as well.
| jsight wrote:
| > I mean, the other point of a dynamic interface is that you
| can now have more controls than would fit on a static
| interface.
|
| I think this point is lost sometimes, but is also useful. My
| car has a lot of physical controls. Some of the ones that are
| useful during driving are tucked inconveniently below my left
| knee!
|
| Moving some less frequently used controls to a touch screen
| might actually benefit some of these designs.
| [deleted]
| johnflan wrote:
| While not touch many Airbus aircraft feature a full keyboard
| and trackball for operating those screens.
| friendly_fren wrote:
| The f35 has a large touch screen that pilots use. Maybe the $1m
| helmet has a way to interact without touching.
| squaresmile wrote:
| For some more info: https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comment
| s/cmypjd/the_finger... It's fun thread. You can catch some
| actual military pilots there.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > Touch screens will hopefully never make it into any critical
| pilot systems
|
| Touch screens in the cockpit seem like madness to me. Cockpits
| sometimes fill with smoke and the pilot has to be able to find
| and operate the controls.
|
| Ever notice that the flap levers have little flaps on top of
| them? The nosewheel steering control has a little tire on the
| top? That's so the pilot knows without looking what his hands
| are on. These designs were not the result of some study group
| following fashion, but were the result of accidents.
| astrodust wrote:
| Not just smoke. During explosive decompression the air turns
| to thick fog, and that's when you'll need to fumble around
| for the correct controls the most.
| cbhl wrote:
| Sure, but there are still tons of touchscreens in the cabin --
| controlling the climate, the lighting, and the playback of the
| safety video.
| hnarn wrote:
| Yes, and I have no problem with that. I don't imagine that an
| imprecise control of the climate, lighting or video playback
| will bring the plane down. I mean, I sure hope not.
| [deleted]
| jread wrote:
| Perhaps, but on many pilot's knees will be a digital
| touchscreen kneeboard which having learned with paper approach
| plates and map books myself was a godsend.
| jchw wrote:
| Dynamic interface can still be useful in some cases. Cars do
| require the driver's active attention, but certainly not the
| passenger's, who can operate the touchscreen. Further,
| undoubtably part of what makes controls intuitive is
| familiarity, and thanks to smartphones, tablets, and to some
| degree even modern laptops, it's hard to argue against it from
| a familiarity standpoint. I'm sure it's been attempted but,
| It's hard to imagine a good mapping interface in a car with no
| touchscreen at all.
|
| I'm still glad for what Honda is actually doing, which is not
| unilaterally removing touch screen controls but instead moving
| climate control back to physical buttons. These are things a
| driver ought to be able to operate safely while in motion, and
| touch controls only ever made them more complicated I think.
| jariel wrote:
| Great points.
|
| BUT - touch screens can be used if people are trained, the
| layout is rational, the device is responsive.
|
| There are two underlying things:
|
| 1) Tactile. As you spelled out.
|
| 2) Changing interfaces. This is the real killer. 100 screens,
| don't know what's what, supposed to be driving.
|
| These UIs need some thinking but I suggest that the 'knobs and
| buttons' can possibly be mapped to different functions
| depending on.
| jasondclinton wrote:
| This comment is off-topic: the article is about physical
| buttons for non-safety-critical systems. E.g. the article
| explicitly mentions climate control.
| daotoad wrote:
| You can still die if the driver spends too long messing with
| air conditioner settings instead of focusing on the road.
|
| CarPlay and Android Auto make this problem worse, IMO. Now
| you have app publishers writing arbitrarily complex UIs for
| cars. Spotify is a bitch to use while driving and because of
| Apple's reluctance to enable Siri support for third party
| apps, it's not very controllable by voice.
| diydsp wrote:
| yup, just rented a cool modern car and was distraught at
| how much menu-diving there was. and even if you memorize
| it, the lag was still huge vs. real-time controls!
| hinkley wrote:
| The ergonomics in question here are not about the driver
| being able to operate controls in a critical situation.
| They're about operating the controls without _causing_ a
| critical situation.
|
| If you want, you might think of radio, climate controls, etc
| as having negative values on the safety axis. You still want
| to shift them to the right as far as you can.
| masklinn wrote:
| Climate control is something you will want to adjust while
| driving, so it should be as eyes-free as possible once the
| basics have been acquired.
|
| I can't think of a car I've driven where the climate control
| was not physical though, that seems pretty insane.
| jasondclinton wrote:
| All Tesla climate is non-physical. All newer Volvos are
| except for the defrost controls, as well.
| hnarn wrote:
| I'm sorry if I wasn't clear enough about this but I was more
| trying to make a point that physical input is safer, and that
| the trend towards touchscreens in general worries me. So a
| return to "normal", which I guess is not so normal these
| days, is for me very welcome. Touchscreens in cars cause
| safety issues for other reasons, namely those of distraction,
| but my concern is what the future will look like if
| touchscreen normality takes the upper hand over safety
| concerns.
| KotlinFan554001 wrote:
| I am really sorry but foggy windshield is definitely safety
| critical.
| hinkley wrote:
| Electronic Flight Bag is one of the biggest screens, right? And
| that's used for navigation, which is largely strategic, not
| tactical.
| hnarn wrote:
| I'd love for someone who's in the industry or an actual pilot
| to comment on this because I'm frankly not sure about what
| common scope AFBs have on commercial airliners, and what the
| backup procedures are if they fail. For private pilots, I
| know bringing an iPad up is common these days, but I think
| (and sure hope) commercial flight is a lot more risk averse
| and slow to adopt these things without thorough procedure.
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| 80 to 90% of airlines worldwide use EFBs, based on iPad or
| Microsoft Surface.
| viklove wrote:
| I think you're missing something pretty major -- a touchscreen
| can support multiple UIs, menus, and controls, with minimal
| hardware. If I have 20 user adjustable inputs, I would need 20
| dials/buttons scattered around the cockpit. On the other hand,
| with a screen, I can display 5 on each page and allow the user
| to swap between pages.
| CivBase wrote:
| I work for an avionics manufacturer and I can assure you most
| of our upcoming comercial systems (and even a healthy portion
| of government ones) feature touch screen inputs.
| squarefoot wrote:
| Touch screens add multiple points of failure to a device
| that, if properly built, would last decades. A single glitch
| in a software driving a screen could render useless all touch
| inputs displayed on it, information loss aside. I'm all for
| mechanical switches everywhere. As for potentiometers,
| sliders etc, we already have optical and mechanical encoders
| that hardly fail, or if/when they do, it happens gracefully
| leaving enough time for replacement. To me, the reason for
| touch screens is either cost or aesthetics, or both.
| GuiA wrote:
| There are plenty of individual use cases where touch
| screens make sense. The interactive map as it is enabled by
| the multitouch screen, with arbitrary rescale and
| repositioning and display of arbitrary layers of data, all
| handled at the speed of thought, is something unmatched by
| any other object or interface, for one example amongst
| many.
| vel0city wrote:
| In many of the newer systems, all those physical dials and
| switches are just inputs to the computer system which
| ultimately decides to do what the user is requesting. A bug
| which would prevent inputs from working right on a
| touchscreen could also happen on reading inputs on other
| systems. Not that I'm arguing for touchscreen controls,
| just that these days having a physical knob does not mean
| you're directly manipulating things. Software glitches can
| still muck up physical controls.
| im3w1l wrote:
| > In many of the newer systems, all those physical dials
| and switches are just inputs to the computer system which
| ultimately decides to do what the user is requesting.
|
| Even so, a program for processing a switch or dial can be
| really short and simple. You can print it out on a sheet
| and check and double check every line of code for to make
| sure it's correct and all possibilities are accounted
| for.
|
| A program handling a touchscreen will be complicated.
| Millions of lines of code. Maybe even billions. The best
| you can hope for is empirically verifying it's mostly
| correct most of the time.
| twomoretime wrote:
| Is this a good place for redundant microservices?
|
| Each service handles data from a handful of physical of
| physical knobs.
|
| At least that way you don't have the UI as a single point
| of failure.
| mattmanser wrote:
| There is no good point for "redundant" microservices.
|
| They are, by very definition, an additional point of
| failure as you're _always_ adding an additional
| interface. They 're good for scaling, not for redundancy,
| and even that's wishful thinking for most applications.
|
| EDIT: You could argue that microservices might free up
| the UI thread from locking mistakes, but if your team is
| going to make locking mistakes, you're also going to make
| mistakes in the microservice interfaces, so what's the
| point?
| robocat wrote:
| Multiple physical knobs and buttons add multiple points of
| failure: moving parts fail and even worse, they often fail
| intermittently. We all have that experience. Even optical
| encoders fail (I've had one fail on an engine, and
| obviously consumer mice, or the connectors fail).
|
| A modern touch screen is superbly reliable because it has
| no moving parts, and it can be tested. The (consumer grade)
| iPad touchscreen is very reliable.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Anecdotaly, my touch screen devices's screens are less
| durable than my mechanical keyboard, but I agree with
| your overall points, touch screens can be made incredibly
| durable.
| deskamess wrote:
| Very interesting... I wonder what it would take for a
| touchscreen keyboard to be as reliable or live as long as
| a mechanical keyboard. Maybe it already does, but my
| mental picture and experience of phone screens getting
| flaky, and taking secondary+ swipes does not give me the
| confidence a mechanical keyboard does.
| bregma wrote:
| If they can make a durable touchscreen keyboard with a
| good click sound and feel and reasonable key travel and
| resistance, and that doesn't get crudded up with skin
| oils and food film, I'm willing to pay big bucks for it.
| krebs_liebhaber wrote:
| > If they can make a durable touchscreen keyboard ...
| that doesn't get crudded up with skin oils and food film
|
| You can already get one of those. Just go to the
| bathroom, turn on the sink, and put your hands under the
| stream of water. If you're a touch-screen power user, you
| can even put water on the screen - and then wipe it off!
| JensRex wrote:
| A mechanical switch is easy and cheap to fix or replace.
| A touch screen is the opposite. It cannot be repaired,
| only replaced. A switch can usually be cleaned easily, to
| restore its function. And proper quality switches can be
| actuated millions of times before failure.
| robocat wrote:
| > A mechanical switch is easy and cheap to fix or
| replace.
|
| Not if it is in an airplane. Think of all the QC steps
| required to track the production, storage, shipping,
| installation, testing, etcetera for the replacement of a
| single switch. If a switch has failed it needs to be
| inspected to understand the reason for failure (no switch
| should fail; tracked to understand if it is a batch
| failure, plus other steps). I am only making an educated
| guess here.
|
| > A switch can usually be cleaned easily, to restore its
| function.
|
| Ummm, you think they put known failed parts back in
| planes? I think not. They do fix major parts, but the QC
| for that would be insane. You would make a switch to be
| hermetic and add anti-tampering - a manufacturer of any
| safety related device doesn't want it to be "fixed".
| Items are designed to be maintained (with proper
| schedules), or replaced.
|
| > And proper quality switches can be actuated millions of
| times before failure.
|
| On average? Or does it have a bathtub curve? Yes, quality
| switches are insanely reliable, but so are touchscreens.
|
| If you have a variety of 50 switches and knobs, then the
| reliability is worse than 50x worse, because every item
| has it's own reliability curve, and it only takes one
| failure to muck up your day.
| JackRabbitSlim wrote:
| Point of fact; A touch interface digitizer and the LCD
| screen are two separate components just often glued and
| sold as a single unit. Replacing a digitizer, or a screen
| should be no more difficult than swapping out an analog
| component with a proper modular physical layout and
| connectors.
|
| A cheap phone or tablet hardly represent best of breed
| for the technology as a whole.
| mcsb4 wrote:
| I had a smartphone that at some point started to randomly
| create touch events. Kind of like if you put it in your
| pocket while the screen is unlocked.
|
| I don't remember any physical light switch that ever
| switch on or off by itself.
|
| In an aircraft flying through turbulences I'd feel a lot
| more comfortable knowing that all switches are pyhsical.
| Try to use your smartphone while jogging...
| hyperbovine wrote:
| No offense intended, but the sector as a whole has been doing
| all sorts of dumb sh*t recently when it comes on-board
| electronics (787 batteries, 737max MCAS, A380 wiring, F35 ...
| everything). This doesn't exactly refute OP's point, is all
| I'm saying. Maybe airspace firms shouldn't be taking their
| design cues from Cupertino.
| arcticfox wrote:
| OP was making an appeal to authority, that avionics
| manufacturers know what they're doing and decided against
| touchscreens. So IMO it does strongly refute OP's argument.
|
| (That's not to say that OP is wrong, of course, just that
| their argument isn't really a valid one. My belief is that
| touch screens would suck for flying a plane, but I'm not a
| pilot.)
| hnarn wrote:
| What I was trying to say was more that avionics are by
| nature risk averse, so if they're doing something it's
| probably worth understanding why. So it's not so much
| "it's safe because it's in an airplane", I was more going
| for "consider why this very safety-focused environment
| looks different". So sure, I might be in the wrong if
| what I said was interpreted as a simple appeal to
| authority, but I was trying to get a point across that
| people spent a lot of time trying to make and _keep_
| these systems secure, so let 's try to learn from that
| instead of invalidate it as being simply old or outdated
| (which Boeing themselves ironically seem to be guilty
| of).
| barkingcat wrote:
| It is very clear that the aviation industry is NOT risk
| averse. They are averse to losing money (via needing to
| spend money to redesign systems, recertify interfaces,
| re-train pilots, rebuy new equipment and simulators, all
| of those reduce risk but are capital intensive). But they
| are no longer risk averse. They might never have been
| risk averse at all - the roots of the aviation industry
| is exceedingly risk seeking in the first place (to fly is
| itself a risk seeking activity - and that's something
| understood by all pilots and all aviation and aerospace
| engineers on day 1 of wanting to fly)
|
| You can say the civilian oversight groups that seek to
| regulate the industry are risk averse, but the companies
| that build the planes themselves, if they had their say,
| we'd be flying mach 3 upside down all day.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > They are averse to losing money (via needing to spend
| money to redesign systems, recertify interfaces, re-train
| pilots, rebuy new equipment and simulators, all of those
| reduce risk but are capital intensive).
|
| Re-designing systems introduces risk and uncertainty.
| Being able to leverage existing pilot training reduces
| risk (because crashes have resulted from pilots
| forgetting they were flying X and applied training for
| Y). Buying new equipment introduces risk of manufacturing
| defects that wasn't present in the working one.
| [deleted]
| user-asdfgh wrote:
| Appeal to authority is an informal fallacy of logic. It
| can/should never be used to prove an argument.
| the_jeremy wrote:
| Sure, if everyone is an expert on the subject, or is
| willing to spend the time to become one, you should never
| appeal to authority.
|
| That's not most people on most subjects. If someone
| appeals to authority and says "climate change is real,
| here's 100 scientists with PhDs who agree" I accept that.
| I am not willing to become an expert on the subject to be
| able to spend the time to review the facts for myself.
| Citing sources in a paper is essentially appealing to
| authority (I understand I could read those papers and the
| ones they cite, all the way down, but for most things,
| I'm not going to do that).
| tehjoker wrote:
| For what it's worth, for a specialist in a field, they'll
| have already read most of the papers that are cited and
| will be looking for new or missing ones to find gems or
| flaws in the argumentation.
| the_jeremy wrote:
| That's fair. Most papers are probably written with
| specialists in mind, so I guess that wouldn't be a good
| example of appeal to authority.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Big mistake, imnsho. It will work fantastic right up to the
| point where you actually need that control in an emergency
| and then it will fail you because it is impossible to hit the
| right area consistently in a bucking aircraft. It also
| requires visual confirmation rather than tactile
| confirmation, which requires you to take away your attention
| from the surroundings, something you do at your peril in
| aircraft.
| sizzle wrote:
| function (buttons) > form (touch screen)
|
| Usable inputs save lives.
| est31 wrote:
| In airplanes touchscreens are less of an issue than in cars.
| In cars you have to have a hand on the wheel 99% of the time,
| and your gaze on the road. You can't afford interaction with
| a complicated non-haptic touch screen menu.
|
| In airplanes it's different. Here, outside of takeoff and
| landing, it's OK to look at a screen for 10 seconds while
| interacting with it with a hand.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| > it's OK to look at a screen for 10 seconds
|
| Not really. Pilots are supposed to be visually looking for
| traffic 90% of the time, and the rest scanning instruments.
|
| So to be heads-down for 10 seconds, the non-flying pilot
| would have to arrange that with the flying pilot.
| criley2 wrote:
| Under VFR sure, obviously under IFR they are looking at
| the instruments as much as 100% of the time, including
| the instruments which inform them if planes are nearby,
| and instruments which inform them of their location,
| direction, and all of the variables therein.
|
| It would be madness if pilots had to rely solely on their
| eyes to locate other planes nearby. There is thankfully
| instruments which do this as well.
| zig wrote:
| In VMC you still have a responsibility to see and avoid,
| regardless of whether you're on an instrument flight plan
| or not. (Ref: Regulation 14 CFR Part 91.113 (b))
|
| Radar coverage has become ubiquitous in most places, but
| there's not universal coverage. Heads-up time is very
| important unless you're flying in actual IMC.
| innocenat wrote:
| Can't find equivalent rule from ICAO, is this regulation
| US only?
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| Refer to ICAO Annex 11 - it's not the exact point being
| made by the GP, but note that traffic separation for IFR
| traffic from VFR traffic is only provided in Class A, B
| and C airspace.
| blattimwind wrote:
| I think what GP is trying to say is that because your
| average airlines has around 10+ km of altitude to loose
| before rapid disassembly commences, which takes a non-
| trivial amoun of time, compared to a car, which can go on
| a short and unintentional offroad trip within a few
| seconds or less.
| vwcx wrote:
| Not necessarily. There are many moments during the
| operation of an aircraft where full attention is paramount.
| Yes, you see a pilot leaving the cockpit to use the
| lavatory while the co-pilot is monitoring the autopilot,
| but the margins are just as small as operating a motor
| vehicle.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Modern airliners are just short of autonomous. Even if
| they aren't, unless you are landing or on initial ascent,
| you are generally minutes away from catastrophic outcomes
| regardless of your control inputs. In fact, most of the
| time, if something bad is happening, simply letting go of
| the controls will lead to the issue resolving itself.
|
| A car is very often fractions of a second away from a
| serious accident.
|
| A plane at cruise altitude is rarely less than minutes
| away (unless, in some planes, you are actively trying to
| crash the plane/make the wings fall off)
| drewmol wrote:
| Indian Road Congress specifications recommend 3.5m
| minimum lane width for multi lane roads, 1.06m minimum
| center margin. Airplanes complex enough for touchscreen
| interfaces would be awful tight in those margins ;)
| cmckn wrote:
| My partner is a first officer, and frequently describes
| his job as being a glorified babysitter outside of
| takeoff and landing.
|
| Worth noting that a significant amount of the information
| pilots use in the cockpit (at major US carriers, at
| least), things like flight plans, are on an iPad.
| hiram112 wrote:
| Just out of curiosity, do pilots still manually take off
| and land fully, or does auto-pilot / computer do this too
| nowadays?
| andrecarini wrote:
| The technology exists, but autoland functionality depends
| on the plane model and the airport. Usually, most of the
| approach is done with ILS with the final moments being
| manual.
| BrandonMarc wrote:
| ... until something goes wrong. Then a touch screen is
| the _last_ thing you want. An airliner moving
| uncontrollably is no time to try touching just the right
| spot of the screen, and avoid touching the wrong spot.
| raziel2p wrote:
| I can just as easily make the argument the other way
| around: An airliner moving uncontrollably is no time to
| try touching just the right knob (of which there are like
| a hundred), and avoid touching the wrong one.
| WalterBright wrote:
| You'd be wrong. The critical controls are uniquely shaped
| so that the pilot can put his hands quickly on the
| correct one and know it's correct.
|
| Part of pilot training (at least in my dad's day in the
| AF) was blindfolding the pilot and the instructor names a
| control, and the student must put his hands on it. Or he
| flunks.
| olnluis wrote:
| I don't believe this is equivalent though. With hardware
| controls, most (if not all) of them are immediately
| accessible at all times. With proper training, body
| movement and tactile feedback will train your muscle
| memory which will help you find the right control without
| much of a hassle.
| freeopinion wrote:
| 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.
| akamaozu wrote:
| Was team screen til this point.
|
| In critical systems, you want to make sure inputs are
| easy to use in the worst case scenario.
|
| Even the best of touchscreens can't compare to physical
| controls in tough times.
| thoraway1010 wrote:
| Absolutely not true. In cruise, stabilized, especially
| with AP - the margins are MUCH MUCH higher. Pilots have
| fallen asleep (two of them) - overflown airports still
| landed etc.
| 205guy wrote:
| I remember when that happened, pretty shocking: https://e
| n.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go!_(airline)#2008_incident_an...
| saiya-jin wrote:
| I think major difference is commercial airliner vs say
| fighter jet. As a layman it still seems pretty wrong to
| make most of the screen highly dynamic. Maybe designated
| one on the side.
|
| Back to the topic - in car, unless specifically intended
| for other passengers, driver should never stare on some
| stupid screen in a place way off the line of sight for
| driving. Whenever I do that even for a split second in my
| 15-year old bmw (checking if that knob is really for what
| I want), there can be an atomic blast in front of me and
| I wouldn't see it.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Fighter jets are starting to use touchscreens, too.
| mcguire wrote:
| Because fancy, advanced UIs work so well for Navy ships.
| hnarn wrote:
| What exact type of input is being grabbed by these screens?
| "Critical pilot systems"? Touchscreens already exist in
| airliners, for systems used by crew and passengers, but
| that's beside the point.
| pc86 wrote:
| I fly recreationally and all the higher end gear has touch
| screens. Some of them are redundant with paths using
| hardware controls or not. But that's definitely the
| minority. There are a slew of critical operations that I
| simply cannot complete without interacting with a touch
| screen.
|
| Not saying it's right or wrong but your original post is
| 100% incorrect.
| WalterBright wrote:
| My iphone touch screen won't work if my fingers aren't
| clean and dry.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Are these things certified?
|
| Many recreational pilots fly with uncertified gear (GPS
| in particular), and even regular smartphone/tablet apps.
| They also have the required paper documentation and
| certified instrument but that's just to cover themselves,
| and as a backup.
| andrewg wrote:
| Garmin has quite a few certified touchscreens these days,
| some intended for panel upgrades (e.g.
| https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/67886) and even some in
| new light jets (e.g. https://buy.garmin.com/en-
| US/US/p/66916).
|
| Also, some airlines now have officially certified iPads
| as EFBs, meaning pilots no longer need to carry paper
| backups.
| chc wrote:
| Critical driver systems (i.e. steering, signaling,
| acceleration and brakes) aren't controlled by touchscreen
| in any car I know of either, so if non-critical systems are
| beside the point, what is the criticism here? Or are you
| thinking of some particularly extreme cars that are even
| more reliant on touchscreen than the Model 3?
| hnarn wrote:
| I was just trying to make an illustrative example of why
| I think static interfaces are safer and therefore better,
| at the end of the day it comes down to subjectivity for
| the part of a positive user experience, but when it comes
| to safety the trend is, to me, worrying.
|
| I also imagine that there are other reasons for both
| airliners and cars to replace buttons with touchscreens,
| namely that of cost instead of prioritizing safety and
| stability, and in general I am not a fan of that trade-
| off. But I'm also not claiming to be representative of
| the automobile market in general.
| light_hue_1 wrote:
| If you believe that aviation not having touch screens
| means that cars should not either, then evidence to the
| opposite should change your mind. The A350 and 777X both
| have touch screens now.
|
| It's not just Boeing, who you accused of being backwards
| who are doing this, Airbus is too, along with every other
| manufacturer. Garmin and BendixKing now offer touch
| screens and it's clearly the future of GA as well not
| just commercial aviation.
|
| Everyone believes that this will increase safety. That
| showing only the relevant information in a tunable and
| interactive way will decrease distractions and help focus
| on what matters.
|
| The idea that this is to save money is totally absurd! A
| 777X is $350 million dollars. Any accident would cost an
| astronomical amount compared to the cost of switches.
| Even leaving that aside. The touchscreens are actually
| far more expensive than the old instruments.
|
| This is just a way for Honda to cover up the fact that
| they can't write software, can't design a reasonable UX,
| don't want to spend money on it, and want to live as if
| it's 1999 forever.
| Retric wrote:
| I have seen side mirrors controlled by touch screen, as
| well as some headlight functions. Which is are critical
| safety systems, though rarely an issue.
|
| Still, if you're borrowing your wife's car it's easy to
| realize you don't have great blindspot visibility at
| which point looking at a touch screen is very
| distracting.
| gcb0 wrote:
| I guess you work for garmin.
|
| Garmin have ZERO experience with avionics. They just sell
| large screen GPS that everyone want because GPS is an output
| device. The fact that you can zoom/etc with touch is just
| because garmin have ZERO experience with avionics, and even
| then, there are some few hardware buttons there already. My
| guess is that the second or third version will have many
| more.
|
| Another consequence is that the large GPS screen have to
| replace many components on the dashboard of a 2 seater plane,
| because they originally didn't have space for a large screen
| (most private planes flown today were made in the 70s!). by
| consequence, everyone gives up their radio etc with decent
| buttons because they really, really want a GPS with a huge
| screen, and garmin knowing this have to include a crappy
| radio etc in their unit. But given the option, everyone would
| want a bigger/modern dashboard instead and dedicated devices.
|
| Just because something is selling it is not because it is
| good. See the "doctor killer" planes.
| jdmg94 wrote:
| I wouldn't fly on a touchscreen plane, imagine Boeing going
| corporate with their airplane screens, nope, nope, nope.
| boznz wrote:
| and all SCADA systems
| astrodust wrote:
| Adding "touch screen calibration failure" to the list of
| things that can kill you.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| A plane isn't a good analogy for a car.
|
| Airplanes have keypads that control complex functions on a
| screen, going from that kind of keypad to a touchscreen is
| logical.
|
| In the case of cars, a touchpad is overkill for controlling
| the cabin temperature, stereo volume, etc.
| yason wrote:
| I wonder about the temperature settings. I have manual
| dials but I basically set them to 21C for winter and 19C
| for summer. Other than that, I don't readily touch the hvac
| panel at all: I could certainly do those rare adjustments
| over a touchscreen.
|
| I can imagine people would need to tune a radio panel more
| often, so at least basic functionality would be good to
| have as physical inputs. But even then basic radio
| functions are usually accessible via steering wheel
| buttons.
| astrodust wrote:
| It's logical? It's absurd. You can usually pull over a car
| and get out in the case of a critical hardware failure.
| There is rarely such a luxury in a plane.
| prox wrote:
| I pray you all read the ux bible About Face on interaction
| design.
| mc32 wrote:
| That's too bad. Imagine unresponsive touchscreen due to dry
| skin or wearing gloves, or hands are too sweaty.... or the
| controller goes out, etc.
|
| Flight plans is one thing but controls are all together a
| different sort of thing.
|
| Why ask for trouble?
| joyj2nd wrote:
| Touchpads can't even be operated by a cat
| https://ask.metafilter.com/91541/Why-cant-Godfrey-work-
| the-t...
| robocat wrote:
| Actually the thread showed they can.
|
| The theory I thought was reasonable for why the OP had
| troubles, was that Mac touch pads are sensitive enough to
| treat the separate pads of the paws as multitouch.
|
| Testable: try with individual pad of paw on a Mac
| touchpad.
| klibertp wrote:
| I have no idea how, but my smartwatch touchscreen remains
| responsive _underwater_ , in a bathtub or swimming pool. It
| was with on every workout, and it both endured the
| energetic movements and sweaty hands were not an issue. The
| thing has more RAM and CPU power than my desktop in first
| half of the 90s, runs Linux, and is programmed with JS
| (well, there's gotta be some faulty part in every design).
| Anyway, if I can buy such a thing for a few hundred
| dollars, then - unless there are some physical limitations
| I'm not aware of - it should be possible for people who
| build the planes.
| xt00 wrote:
| The sad but real reason a ton of this is happening is one
| very big word that is typically not present in things like
| car / airplane design: flexibility... flexibility to change
| the user controls, flexibility to fix problems, flexibility
| to let the SW team work up until the last minute to get stuff
| working, and the second part that goes with this is cost.
| Touchscreens mean increased flexibility for the design and
| better control over cost to deliver features. Unfortunately,
| if the display dies and you can't see anything, then the car
| or plane may crash... so sadly it will probably take a couple
| of those events happening for this to be changed to have some
| kind of redundant systems that the pilot can use when the
| display dies suddenly.
| clSTophEjUdRanu wrote:
| You'll often see screens surrounded on all sides by
| physical buttons. The screen can be updated and changed
| over time but the interaction is still physical.
| dirtyid wrote:
| Planes have multiple screens which provides more redundancy
| vs broke physical switches.
| rhizome wrote:
| Touch screens for all purposes? Probably good to distinguish
| if some things, even at your company, should not be dynamic
| (are they dynamic?). Some life-critical thing that is
| vulnerable to an uncovered sneeze?
| nimrody wrote:
| I am not a pilot, but it seems like MFD (multi-function
| displays, a sort of touch screen with touch points at the edge
| of the screen) are very common even in fighter planes.
|
| Yes, the basic controls do not change. But more advanced
| functionality is easier presented through menus and screens
| which guide you through a process -- instead of adding tons of
| switches for every possible function.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-function_display
| gok wrote:
| I suppose you don't include the flight manuals as a critical
| system, since those have been touch screens for almost a
| decade?
| d_silin wrote:
| 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.
| hnarn wrote:
| The problem is not "having touch interfaces", the problem is
| "having touch interfaces for _critical systems_ ".
| d_silin wrote:
| I can assure you that PFD (primary flight display)
| interfaces are very much safety-critical. And they will be
| touch interfaces.
| hnarn wrote:
| Personally I think it's an awful idea. I just watched the
| promotional video that I expected to give some answers as
| to why this design decision was made and I frankly ended
| up even more worried.[1] I can accept that I'm somewhat
| of a luddite when it comes to this and I might be wrong,
| I just hope these are thoroughly tested and actually
| solve real world problems, and aren't just a way for
| Boeing to save money or solve the problem of "hey why
| aren't there any cool touchscreens in here".
|
| [1]: https://www.boeing.com/777x/reveal/touchscreens-
| come-to-777x...
| spaceandshit wrote:
| You would have a difficult time finding an airborne
| system that does not already do this:
|
| > I just hope these are thoroughly tested and actually
| solve real world problems
|
| Changing from a legacy style to a new one is not cheap,
| and aerospace companies are not the type to spend money
| on useless, less reliable technology.
| [deleted]
| dheera wrote:
| That sounds like a horrible idea.
|
| If you're trying to say, lower the landing gear, and the
| button malfunctions, you can probably smack the button a few
| times until it works, failing that, rip the switch out and
| short the wires inside the switch and get the plane landed.
|
| With a touch screen? What if the glass breaks and the
| capacitive layer fails? Or the software running the screen
| crashes? Or a bug prevents you from switching from the
| "Climate control" tab to the "Landing gear" tab?
| intlcaptain wrote:
| There are three redundant methods to lower the landing gear
| on my aircraft, depending on whether you still have
| hydraulic ability available or not. It is not unique. One
| is a big, fat lever that will not go away with a
| hypothetical touchscreen option, since we pilots tend to
| like physical backups for flight-critical systems like that
| (though I'm curious what pc86 is flying upthread, since
| even the G1000 aircraft I've flown have usually had
| airspeed dials).
|
| It is even totally possible to gravity drop landing gear on
| nearly all commercial airliners, I would expect, though I
| can only speak on the types I've rated on. I don't see you
| asking "what happens if the landing gear lever fails?"
| which is actually a totally reasonable question, and one
| manufacturers have thought of. Touchscreens aren't magic
| devices, they're just another type of input to build
| redundancy behind.
|
| It sounds like a horrible idea because you probably haven't
| flown an aircraft and don't know this. That isn't an
| indictment of you, just a request to not judge so soon. I
| like the idea of screens that adjust to phase of flight so
| what I need is where I need it, because pilot workload is a
| real problem that automation has addressed for decades.
| dheera wrote:
| > One is a big, fat lever that will not go away with a
| hypothetical touchscreen option
|
| Thanks for the explanation -- This makes me feel much
| safer as a passenger if the touch screen is provided to
| you as a convenience instead of a replacement. Yep, I
| haven't flown an aircraft. I was thinking that it was
| like a car where they are getting rid of physical knobs
| and replacing them with touchscreen-only interfaces which
| I hate.
| cesarb wrote:
| > If you're trying to say, lower the landing gear, and the
| button malfunctions
|
| If you're trying to lower the landing gear, and the button
| malfunctions, you use the gravity gear extension handle,
| which is a completely independent system. You can also land
| without the landing gear in the worst case.
|
| > What if the glass breaks and the capacitive layer fails?
| Or the software running the screen crashes? [...]
|
| You use the other screen, which is controlled by the other
| computer. There are also knobs to switch which computer
| controls each screen. In the worst case, there are the
| standby instruments.
|
| Airplanes have a lot of redundancy.
| outworlder wrote:
| > Personally, I think information display can and should use
| touch interface, but actions should be tied to physical
| switches or buttons.
|
| Underrated comment!
|
| Information - the user is _already_ looking at the screen, so
| they can touch virtual buttons. And that is probably the best
| approach, as they are manipulating information that is being
| displayed and they can see.
|
| For actions, you won't necessarily have your attention on the
| screen. The information may not even be displayed in the
| screen yet, so now you have to divert attention and
| manipulate the system to get it to a state you can then
| change(eg, moving to the climate control screen).
| danbolt wrote:
| I think that's partially why the market for handheld game
| devices didn't get crowded out by smartphones. Tactile inputs
| let the player's muscle memory work as a more direct shorthand
| into the product for a lot of video games. It helps the
| repeated interactions of a video game be more accessible over a
| "look, then touch" method of input.
| pascalxus wrote:
| well said. I for one don't like all those touchscreen buttons.
| Screens should be for maps and other non-interactive stuff.
| cosmotic wrote:
| > The problem that touch interfaces solve, ever since the
| advent of the first smart phone, is that the interface is now
| dynamic. You can change it without having to replace the
| hardware.
|
| They also enable the completion of hardware design before the
| interface design is completed. While the plastic molds and
| mechanical designs are worked out, the interface and software
| development can continue.
| downerending wrote:
| That sounds good, but for some reason, design of "virtual"
| controls always seems to end up far inferior to physical
| ones. Perhaps the thought is "We'll just toss something out
| there and we can fix it later", as opposed to "We only have
| one shot at this so we better get it right".
|
| I'm reminded as well of web "app" interfaces. In the early
| days, with relatively fixed controls, one could often
| navigate sites more easily since there just weren't that many
| ways they could work. Now, with a blizzard of JS UI kits and
| an oh-so-wonderful variety of ways of doing everything, each
| site works differently. And it's not an improvement.
| TheKarateKid wrote:
| The problem here is not with the technology - it's from the
| people implementing it. Instead of leaving the design and
| software to tech companies, we have car companies trying to do
| it on their own.
|
| The result is terribly designed software that looks like it's
| from 2000.
| stevehawk wrote:
| The arrogance of that statement is amazing. I recently bought
| an iPad for the first time in 5+(?) years.. before multi
| touch and pressure sensitive screens. I have no f'n clue what
| I'm doing anymore. I accidentally had Safari running two
| windows side by side with no idea how to stop that. I'm still
| not sure what I did to make it go back to one window..
|
| My friends and I decided to try out a (new to us) game which
| required Microsoft Store / Xbox PC Game Console or whatever
| the shit it is. 4 of us cannot figure out how to add someone
| as a friend. It's not in any menu anywhere. I can follow, I
| can favorite.. I have no idea how to "friend".. which means
| we can't figure out how to invite people to games.
|
| I'm convinced if Silicon Valley were to design car interfaces
| I'd be stuck in some sort of pay per action dark pattern
| captivity hell.
|
| And as a student pilot nothing scares me more than touch
| screen controls. Maybe I spend too much time down low in the
| thermals but it's so much easier to hold on to a knob and
| turn it, while counting clicks, than trying to press a touch
| screen and hope you hit the right finger sized button the
| right number of times to change radio frequencies. Different
| story on heavy planes since they don't bounce around as much
| as GA planes but it sucks to fight the fight while trying to
| maintain control/coordination.
| spaceandshit wrote:
| Unfortunately, that kind of arrogance is common on this
| forum.
| perl4ever wrote:
| While working from home, I was trying to figure out how to
| mute my Android phone on a conference call the other day. I
| eventually did, but the sequence of actions to get to the
| menu was very strange. I'm pretty sure it was more
| intuitive just a few years ago, but of course, you don't
| control whether you update software anymore. Interface
| design is accelerating downhill, and it's amazing how
| things have regressed since Apple and Microsoft published
| guidelines for good design in the 80s and 90s.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| Didn't the US Navy try this and end up crashing a destroyer or
| something?
| heymijo wrote:
| You are correct.
|
| > _The US Navy is replacing touch screen controls on
| destroyers, after the displays were implicated in collisions.
|
| Unfamiliarity with the touch screens contributed to two
| accidents that caused the deaths of 17 sailors, said incident
| reports.
|
| Poor training meant sailors did not know how to use the
| complex systems in emergencies, they said.
|
| Sailors "overwhelmingly" preferred to control ships with
| wheels and throttles, surveys of crew found._
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49319450
| SAI_Peregrinus wrote:
| The thing I'd like to see more of is OLED buttons (Optimus
| Keyboard style). Physical, clicky, mechanical buttons, but each
| button is a screen. MFD buttons already change their function
| depending on what mode the screen is in, having the button also
| be an icon of what it will do can be very nice.
|
| Otherwise I agree. You need the use of the interface to be as
| automatic as possible, and exploiting muscle memory & tactile
| feedback are very important for that. Touch screens fail there.
| fitzn wrote:
| I was about to ask if there are any pilots on this thread who
| could weigh in because this was my intuition as a non-pilot.
| Just to drive one of your points home further, you don't want
| the interface to change because that could confuse the pilot.
| Toyota's braking fiasco is an example where unfamiliarity led
| to mis-operation even though the hardware or the device itself
| was functioning "to spec".
| clSTophEjUdRanu wrote:
| I'd argue that humans have evolved to physically manipulate
| their environment. Safety critical systems are the last place
| you want UI variation. Things need to be predictable and
| tactile to build muscle memory.
| parsimo2010 wrote:
| > Touch screens will hopefully never make it into any critical
| pilot systems
|
| For one, you're too late, touchscreens are prevalent in modern
| avionics, and unlabeled buttons on the border of a screen that
| change function depending on what screen you're viewing are the
| second most common. The more relevant part to the Honda
| discussion is that there are different considerations for a car
| and airplane interfaces, and they are so different it's not a
| good argument to say "planes don't/shouldn't do this so cars
| shouldn't either."
|
| The issue with a car isn't the interface, it's the fact that
| people look inside their vehicle for too long to fiddle with
| the radio. Even if the buttons/knobs could be operated entirely
| without looking, most people would still stare at their radio
| while they are doing it. Pilots learning to fly are trained to
| look outside after pretty much any action, they shouldn't ever
| stare inside the plane. They do a quick instrument scan and
| look outside. They glance at their chart and look outside. If
| they need to change frequency they do it and then look back
| outside. It's kind of hard to break the habit of looking
| outside when you start instrument training.
|
| But most car drivers don't have the same amount of training and
| fixate on things inside the car, like the radio or climate
| controls. TBH, pilots still get fixated on things, it's just
| that they usually snap out of it and regain situational
| awareness before anything bad happens because the skies are
| pretty spacious. But car drivers don't have spacious roads.
| There's another car right next to you going 75 mph and if you
| drift out of your lane you'll cause an accident.
|
| The issue isn't the design of the buttons at all. That matters
| to a fighter pilot, but the issue for a car driver is the fact
| that the screen is even on and the radio is accessible while
| driving down the road. The real critical safety feature would
| be disabling the screen while driving, and either locking out
| controls or only allowing voice control. But people would never
| buy a car that doesn't let them fiddle with the radio or stare
| at their little screen, so the actual safety feature that needs
| to be implemented won't happen.
|
| Edit: When I say "fiddle with the radio" I'm including all
| activities that take place in a car's center stack- audio,
| navigation, climate control, etc. I'm also a pilot, have
| designed tests for avionics upgrades for multiple fighter jets,
| and own my own plane. I have lamented the introduction of
| touchscreens into modern avionics at a professional level and
| the personal level. I own three cars with varying levels of
| touchscreen invasion. So I've thought about the issues
| surrounding touchscreen quite a bit, and have concluded that
| the interfaces in a car are so simple that the issue isn't
| whether you can operate it without looking, it's the fact that
| people aren't trained to do so.
| [deleted]
| didibus wrote:
| What you need is both. The screen should still be a touch screen,
| and there should be buttons and toggles around it.
|
| For example, I hate it when I can't pan/scroll through the map on
| the car screen for lack of touch screen. But I also hate it when
| I have to use touch buttons to change the music that's playing.
| leptoniscool wrote:
| The trend towards a touchscreen interface seems like a nod to
| startrek and the LCARS OS.
| anderspitman wrote:
| I work in data visualization. Every programmer who gets into
| datavis goes through a "3D all the things" phase where they look
| around and realize that 3D visualizations aren't used in a lot of
| areas where it seems like they should. Eventually you realize
| that there are big tradeoffs and 3D is very difficult to get
| right for the human brain.
|
| Touchscreens are similar. The appeal is obvious. Screens are
| space efficient, customizable, upgradeable, flashy, etc. But they
| simply aren't as nice as physical controls with tactile feedback.
| Not only should we not be forcing touchscreens into every HCI
| situation, I think we should be moving the other direction,
| adding more physical buttons, dials, sliders etc to our computers
| and smartphones. In school a couple years back I worked on a
| project[0] for adding generic bluetooth buttons on a wrist
| device.
|
| Imagine if you had 4 extra physical buttons, a scroll wheel, and
| a slider all sitting on your wrist, and your phone and apps were
| designed in such a way that you could map these to whatever you
| wanted.
|
| [0]:
| https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lTOxHxHFjwJXeCLROAPf6OJD...
| audunw wrote:
| > Imagine if you had 4 extra physical buttons, a scroll wheel,
| and a slider all sitting on your wrist, and your phone and apps
| were designed in such a way that you could map these to
| whatever you wanted.
|
| Well this is kind of what Tesla is doing isn't it? You have
| some general purpose scroll-wheels/buttons on the steering
| wheel
| anderspitman wrote:
| I've never driven a Tesla, but if so that's cool.
| fossuser wrote:
| Not all touch controls are created equal.
|
| I'm really happy with the interface in my Model 3 and I've found
| every other car interface I've used to be on the spectrum from
| terrible to okay (BMW, Mercedes, Mazda, VW, Porsche).
|
| I think you can probably do either well, but it seems like the
| car companies (other than Tesla) just don't have this capability.
| woodpanel wrote:
| If Honda is "bucking a trend" here it just shows how much
| professionals, experts and decision-makers can be fooled by
| trends.
|
| I speculate that Tesla made it something other luxury brands
| wanted too, and then those brands went bezerk: E.g. the newest
| Range Rover models feature multiple touch screens, they turned
| your AC-control-knobs into touch-screens as well, and even the
| once-handy controls on your steering wheel. What's the point then
| of still having a phisical gear shift?
|
| I applaud Honda for making common sense an official statement
| again. I ditched the newest lineups of all new premium brands
| (also) because of that touch-screen nonsense and choosed a
| cheaper brand instead where it's at least just _one_ touch
| device.
|
| Premium brands still don't seem to get how un-premium a dashboard
| full of thumbprints and smudges looks like, even less if
| everything else has a piano finish.
| fastball wrote:
| I thought TSLA was doing it because they want self-driving now
| and this makes it easier.
| woodpanel wrote:
| I didn't meant TSLA as a part of premium brands. Rather that
| TSLA using those large touch screens in their Model S, I
| think, to a large part drove premium brands into buying into
| touch screens as a trend.
|
| BTW installing a large touch-screen under the premise of
| soon-to-be fully self-driving vehicles in 2013's Model S has
| to be a _loooong_ waiting for " _making it easier_ " ;-)
|
| But I guess the car-makers touch screen folly might be even
| more attributable to the impact the iPhone made at that time.
| emilfihlman wrote:
| Physical devices are far superior to touch controls. Not only can
| you operate them much more reliably under movement and vibration,
| you can reliably control them without looking.
|
| Or would you replace your (_mechanical_) keyboard with a touch
| keyboard of current tech?
|
| Anyone pushing touch screens to replace physical input devices in
| situations where you need to be doing other things at the same
| time is just insane.
| grillvogel wrote:
| honda generally gets called out for having some of the most touch
| heavy interface of any cars in their reviews, im not sure if
| finally responding to that feedback counts as "bucking the trend"
| WalterBright wrote:
| Yay for Honda and common sense! Touchscreens are no good when you
| gotta keep your eyes on the road.
| ddingus wrote:
| Great! I may actually consider a newer car for the first time in
| a long while.
|
| I rent regularly and the last decade or so of car UX has been
| pretty terrible.
|
| Some features are compelling, but distraction limits their
| effective value.
|
| Feels a lot like early smart TVs to me. Better experiences are
| had by turning all the crap off.
|
| With a car, the stuff is just there, often does not stay off,
| requiring constant attention to push out of the way, etc...
|
| An older vehicle, equipped with a bluetooth capable radio,
| smartphone with voice is better than just about all the new car
| goodies nearly always.
|
| Frankly, the metrics, mpg, other performance data and sound
| processing where present are great! I use them when present.
|
| The rest is just a mess.
|
| My other quibble is LEDs. The flicker used to prolong LED life
| and power use is very seriously distracting both in car, and
| outside to other drivers.
|
| In car, lots of bright things will often inhibit night vision.
| Displays, dash lighting, indicators all increasingly bright and
| many flicker.
|
| As a driver, a quick glance to and fro results in a field of
| dots. I have asked others about that and have done a few tests
| when road conditions and traffic present an opportunity.
|
| Older car dashes are not distracting much at all. Can run very
| dim too. Newer dashes distract far more. Won't always dim, or
| worse, will dim, sans for one bright thing, usually a little
| display.
|
| The always on bulbs do leave a vision trail, compared to the dots
| from LED lights. For many, that trail appears to be processed in
| a less distracting way.
|
| LED tail lights are the big offender here.
|
| Over time, as I land in various airports, the conversion to LED
| has been completed. The pattern of speckles are crazy! Various
| colors, and modest duty cycle rates make for a mess.
|
| Any pilots care to comment?
| adamc wrote:
| Touchscreens unfortunately only provide visual feedback. I can
| _feel_ the wheel turn without taking my eyes off the road.
|
| There are lots of development-related reasons touchscreens are
| appealing, but in situations where the user cannot reasonable
| look at the screen much, it's not obvious a touchscreen is a good
| solution. Maybe with haptic feedback of some kind.
| ragebol wrote:
| Funny anecdote: when I was working on the Ultimaker S5 touch
| screen interface, there were lots of tests done with new users.
| Many people had trouble figuring out that the previous version
| did not have a touch screen but a tiny, tiny OLED display that
| was controlled by a rotating button. People poking their finger
| at this tiny OLED which was not giving a damn about what they did
| there. Really funny to look at, but made it very clear customers
| expected us to have a touch screen.
|
| That allowed for a much nicer interface (we won some award with
| it), but the only thing that was not better with a touchscreen
| (IMO) was manual bed leveling, where you look at the print head
| and not the screen. We did our best on that and to make it as
| unneeded as possible. I don't have a such an S5 3D-printer and I
| don't work for Ultimaker anymore, so I'd be glad if anyone here
| could tell me how they like the bed leveling UI, if they ever
| used it :-)
| delfinom wrote:
| Yesssssss
| whyage wrote:
| Their touchscreen implementation is so horrible, that this sounds
| like the right move. This is the only thing I hate about my 2019
| Clarity.
| tikiman163 wrote:
| All they did was put the analogue A/C controls back. I don't see
| this as a big deal and I kind of like that some of the basic
| controls don't require digging through menus. One of the
| drawbacks of touchscreen controls is you have limited screen
| space to cram everything that used to cover the whole dashboard.
|
| New features like navigation and music makes sense when moved to
| the touch screen, but adding things you don't need to just means
| I have to switch away from navigation or music controls just to
| change the A/C.
|
| I think Honda is making a good choice in terms of User Interface
| design.
| caconym_ wrote:
| Nice. I see a Honda in my future...
| emiliosic wrote:
| New Mazda models also no longer have touchscreens. We lease one
| of the newer models and honestly do not miss the touchscreen at
| all. The rotary controls are intuitive and less distracting
| wmeredith wrote:
| Mazda started doing this a couple years ago. Glad to see it
| spreading.
| ballenf wrote:
| I really wish Bevi (and similar kiosk type coffee or dispensing
| machines) would add physical buttons for dispensing and use the
| screen only for flavor information. I think our machine's screen
| isn't properly grounded or insulated from the refrigeration
| motors. I'm appreciative we have one in the office, however, and
| look forward to getting to see it again sometime.
|
| Definitely agree with the sentiment that touch screens have gone
| too far. Feels kind of like the over use of plastic as we got
| better at manufacturing it. Hopefully the pendulum will swing
| back on touchscreens too.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| What if--and stay with me for a moment--what if it's good for
| different manufacturers to have different approaches to the
| problem, giving people the option to choose Honda for buttons or
| Tesla for touchscreens?
|
| What if there are legitimate arguments for both and it's good
| that there's both options available?
| pubstik wrote:
| If your metric is safety, control, and effectiveness, there is
| not an argument. Touchscreens are a cost saving measure, not a
| feature.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| > "Touchscreens are a cost saving measure, not a feature."
|
| That's why there are so many high-end phones with lots of
| buttons.
| loriverkutya wrote:
| "If your metric is safety, control, and effectiveness,
| there is not an argument"
|
| not really the metrics for high-end phones
| Robotbeat wrote:
| You left out the last part: "Touchscreens are a cost
| saving measure, not a feature."
| pessimizer wrote:
| > What if there are legitimate arguments for both
|
| What if you made one?
| duxup wrote:
| I love me some good switches and buttons.
|
| Sadly cars are kinda bad at those too.
| ryanmcbride wrote:
| I like touchscreen controls for my apple car play, but literally
| nothing else.
|
| I can adjust the climate control temperature with dash buttons,
| but if I want to control which vents the air comes through, I
| have to use the touch screen.
|
| Same for if I want to turn on the heated steering wheel. I don't
| use it too often so that doesn't bug me _too_ much, but sometimes
| if it's cold when I start my car, it turns it on for me. So when
| my hands get too hot I have to minimize apple car play, select
| the ford app, select climate control, and tap the tiny button for
| the steering wheel.
|
| Seems way more dangerous than reading a text.
| user-asdfgh wrote:
| Appeal to authority is one of the informal fallacies of logic. It
| can/should never be used to prove a point.
| vearwhershuh wrote:
| _> While Honda's decision to return to physical controls will be
| popular with some - including, no doubt, its ageing owner base in
| the UK - the predicted move towards more voice-controlled actions
| in cars could eliminate the debate around touchscreens versus
| analogue controls in the future._
|
| No, I will not be talking to my car.
|
| Knobs and buttons with tactile feedback were great and should be
| used for major functionality.
|
| My favorite fan controller of all time was a fan pull knob on a
| FJ40, which had physical clicks for each fan setting as you
| pulled it out:
|
| https://forum.ih8mud.com/attachments/p13-jpg.509941/
|
| It was intuitive and deeply satisfying.
| AdamN wrote:
| Solution here is generic knobs that can be assigned to different
| functions: Temp, fan speed, volume, for those with kids fader
| control :-)
| huhtenberg wrote:
| Touch controls have their place in the car - they are a MUST for
| a quick map navigation and they are very handy for entering
| addresses.
|
| Otherwise - yes, 100%, physical buttons and knobs are far
| superior. Especially for making adjustments without looking.
| numlock86 wrote:
| Mazda also did this. Long ago.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20200335
| jchw wrote:
| I find the climate control on my Honda Civic to be maddeningly
| confusing for reasons that aren't really too related to the fact
| that it has some touchscreen elements, but I'm glad nonetheless.
| I feel like forcing things to physical buttons forces certain
| design decisions that you want anyways.
| wil421 wrote:
| I like the UConnect system in my '19 Jeep Grand Cherokee. It has
| a mix of touch features and dials/buttons. Some features you can
| control with both touch and dials/buttons. Front seat warmers and
| coolers do no have physical buttons and I dislike it a lot.
|
| Physical and touch controls should complement each other. Too
| much touch is bad and too many buttons are bad. I remember
| looking at Acura's with to many buttons a few years ago.
| FillardMillmore wrote:
| I believe Mazda made this decision not too long ago.
|
| I hope this is a sign of things to come for the automobile
| industry.
|
| Essentially, why I don't like touchscreens in automobile media
| interfaces:
|
| -no tactile response
|
| -more distracting due to the increased dexterity required to get
| where you need and the greater necessity to focus your eyes
|
| -less intuitive than button/wheel controls (in my experience)
|
| -uglier interfaces (again, in my experience)
| m-p-3 wrote:
| I do hope other automakers follow, because why should a head-unit
| should be considered safe to operate while driving, while
| touching a smartphone display isn't.
|
| Both lacks the tactile feedback buttons are offering, both don't
| work with gloves and both requires you to look at the display
| (and stop looking at the road) to know what action you're making.
| sizzle wrote:
| My Mazda 3 sGT (and current year model) already does this and
| it's a joy to use, no touchscreen climate control!
|
| Pics: http://www.2wired2tired.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2015/03/Mazda...
|
| https://blogmedia.dealerfire.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/45...
| gertrunde wrote:
| Mazda have also announced the same thing.
| (https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-mazda-is-pur...)
|
| Favorite quote: "Doing our research, when a driver would reach
| towards a touch-screen interface in any vehicle, they would
| unintentionally apply torque to the steering wheel, and the
| vehicle would drift out of its lane position,"
| jetrink wrote:
| I 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 hand and aware of
| what is happening around you. If camera designers know this, why
| don't automotive designers, where the task at hand is a matter of
| life and death?
| unethical_ban wrote:
| I just got a new camera, and the touchscreen wonderfully
| _compliments_ the three dials I have. They have several
| physical shortcut buttons to back out of menus and to get to
| quick actions more quickly.
|
| Tactile feedback and quicker response time on certain actions
| is amazing, and just using the camera is a blast.
|
| My 2014 mazda has some touch functions, but the main radio
| controls and the entire climate interface are all still knobs
| and buttons. The clock is separate from the entertainment
| screen. I love it!
| izacus wrote:
| They make cars significantly cheaper to produce - both in terms
| of parts and construction time. Evey button you lose is a
| button you don't have source and install when building the car.
| There's less wiring, less replacement parts to stock. It's a
| win in all kinds of situations for the manufacturer.
|
| It's no coincidence that the company with most manufacturing
| issues - Tesla - also went with completely touchscreen based
| cabin with pretty much no additional cost. This is further
| confirmed by the fact that they didn't offset the screen issue
| by installing a projected HUD display (which is these days
| available in most 20.000$ cars) - it's complicated to install.
| core-questions wrote:
| Problem of course is that the interior of a Tesla has the
| aesthetic sense of a consumer electronics manufacturer, not
| of a precision automobile. It looks like a big fuckin' iPad
| stuck to the dashboard, almost aftermarket. It's tacky, even
| if the interface on the screen is better than most.
|
| Way prefer the Mazda / Honda direction of moving back to
| switchgear. It looks and functions better, it can be
| discretely repaired and replaced by a normal person, and so
| forth.
| rubber_duck wrote:
| Tesla big goal is self driving and the huge screen being
| the only interface sort of makes sense, if they ever
| deliver the self driving part that is
| mywittyname wrote:
| What kills me is when "legacy" automakers have dashboards
| with 40 buttons on them, of which you use may 5 regularly.
| It's especially annoying when the functions I use every day
| are buried in nested menus, but the button for setting the
| clock, sending a text, or satellite radio is right there
| front and center.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| There shouldn't be menus at all. Modal systems in general
| are hard to use while driving.
| bialpio wrote:
| The cost argument should also apply to the camera
| manufacturers and yet they have enough common sense to not
| make decisions that (to me) are user-hostile. Teslas are in a
| different boat - it seems that whatever they do, people will
| still line up to buy their stuff, at least for the time
| being.
| munificent wrote:
| I think there's too much selection bias for this analogy to be
| particularly strong.
|
| Digital cameras are increasingly a niche product that exist
| mainly to cater to people who specifically want a the "SLR"
| user experience. If you just want to take decent enough photos,
| your smartphone's camera today is better than most prosumer
| DSLRs from like five years ago.
|
| I don't think today's DSLRs have the form factor that they have
| because it's objectively more usable. It's just the form factor
| that their self-selected customers want. One piece of evidence
| in favor of that is that all DSLRs _do_ have big LCD screens on
| the back and often require a lot of menu diving to access any
| functionality that didn 't exist in cameras before the digital
| revolution.
|
| There's still a physical dial for switching modes even though
| that's not something you actually change that often. Meanwhile
| you often have to dig into a menu or go through crappy buttons
| to do things like delete a photo.
|
| I won't go so far as to describe it as fetishization, because I
| think that's unfairly critical. But I do think a camera UX
| designed from first principles purely for usability would not
| have the same physical controls as a typical DSLR.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > I don't think today's DSLRs have the form factor that they
| have because it's objectively more usable. It's just the form
| factor that their self-selected customers want. One piece of
| evidence in favor of that is that all DSLRs do have big LCD
| screens on the back and often require a lot of menu diving to
| access any functionality that didn't exist in cameras before
| the digital revolution.
|
| So on my seven year old Nikon D3s I can use buttons to focus
| and change the shutter speed, aperture, ISO, WB, focusing
| mode and focus selection point all the while keeping my eye
| to the viewfinder. I would almost never look at the rear
| screen except to check the always-on histogram if the
| lighting radically changed. This means I can react instantly
| during a sequence of shots without even thinking about the
| menu system. It is not just 'what I want' but a massive
| amount of directly accessible usability and configurability.
| Going into the menu system would almost never be necessary
| during a typical shoot.
|
| The D850 I recently upgraded to is pretty much the same. I
| use the live-view screen on the D850 when shooting video but
| use the viewfinder and buttons (as above) when shooting
| stills.
| ghaff wrote:
| I'll just add that mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras
| mostly became serious tools once electronic viewfinders
| became good enough that they could reasonably replace
| optical viewfinders for the most part. (Still not as good
| but a reasonable compromise given the smaller and lighter
| bodies they make possible.) As the say the LCD back can
| provide useful feedback--and are occasionally useful for
| specific situations when shooting--but at least for
| handheld shooting they're not often used for framing the
| subject.
|
| And, to the original point of the discussion, these cameras
| also have lots of physical buttons and dials which are nice
| to have when they're properly designed.
| munificent wrote:
| _> So on my seven year old Nikon D3s I can use buttons to
| focus and change the shutter speed, aperture, ISO, WB,
| focusing mode and focus selection point all the while
| keeping my eye to the viewfinder. _
|
| Sure, and you could do that with an SLR from the 90s too,
| as I recall.
|
| Camera manufacturers are very innovative when it comes to
| capabilities and new features, but incredibly conservative
| when it comes to user experience and form factor.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| Totally agree but the broader point stands that buttons
| have some very useful affordances
| SilasX wrote:
| Yeah, that's what I hate about taking pictures with their
| iPhone, the lack of a tactile button for taking the shot. It's
| especially bad when you have to photograph without a view of
| the screen.
|
| (So that you don't guess, I mean when photographing the back of
| my head or the inside of a tight crawl space when my cat got
| inside.)
| bitcurious wrote:
| FYI the volume buttons work as shutter buttons when using the
| native camera app.
| SilasX wrote:
| Oh nice, thanks!
| three_seagrass wrote:
| Does the iPhone not allow double-tap of the power button to
| start the camera? Volume buttons should work as a shutter
| button to take a photo.
| jki275 wrote:
| I don't think it does anymore. You have to activate the
| screen and slide left to get the camera. The volume buttons
| still work for the shutter though, which I use all the
| time.
| bob1029 wrote:
| Automotive designers are simply catering to their perceived
| marketplace in order to realize maximum profit extraction.
|
| Most people who drive would prefer to be insulated from the
| activity as much as is legally possible. Fly-by-wire
| everything, touch interfaces, etc. This is how you achieve that
| objective. These "innovations" are obviously the antithesis of
| safe. But, we all know money is more important than safety, and
| most consumers are attracted exclusively to this kind of shiny
| bullshit.
| sneak wrote:
| I can only conclude from the situation you describe, as well as
| the fact that most cameras (as cameras, not phones) still lack
| GPS and sometimes Wi-Fi, that a great many industrial designers
| are trend-following, uncreative bores.
|
| Most modern car interior controls are horrible (Tesla's giant
| laggy touchscreen included).
| gkfasdfasdf wrote:
| Laggy? The Tesla Model 3 touchscreen is anything but.
|
| I had many reservations about the touchscreen prior to
| ownership, however I don't really have any complaints now.
| You get used to it, Tesla's specifically is _not_ laggy, and
| most critical stuff is on the steering wheel /stalk anyway.
| odysseus wrote:
| Maybe this has been improved in the Model 3, but in older
| models: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/how-laggy-
| is-your-to...
| munificent wrote:
| _> a great many industrial designers are trend-following,
| uncreative bores._
|
| More likely that the executives above them who are watching
| what sells and what doesn't are.
| thedance wrote:
| Why do I need my camera to have GPS? In what situation would
| I be equipped with a camera and not my phone, which certainly
| has a GPS? This seems like the same instinct that makes OEMs
| put mobile modems in laptops, as if I would ever have my
| laptop but not my phone to which to tether it.
| zchrykng wrote:
| GPS in the camera is handy for auto-tagging the location of
| the photos. Which is nice for when on trips.
| thedance wrote:
| Thanks. I am familiar with why you want location data in
| photos. I am not familiar with any justification for why
| this data cannot be acquired from my mobile.
| wl wrote:
| If I'm using a standalone camera, I don't want to be
| fiddling with other devices just to get geotagging
| working.
| ghaff wrote:
| It possibly could be done in real-time using Bluetooth
| but I doubt it would be reliable and remember that higher
| end cameras might be writing out images at maybe 6+
| frames/second. Alternatively you can make a point of
| recording a track on your phone (which tends to be hard
| on the battery life) and then syncing them up later. But,
| as someone who has done this, it's a pain in the neck.
| ferongr wrote:
| Geotagging on my X-T3 with the Camera remote Android app
| is very reliable to be honest. And you don't have to
| query the phone at the same rate as you're taking
| pictures, it's perfectly sane to assume the same location
| for 5-10 seconds during a burst.
| ghaff wrote:
| Fair enough. Though I'm not sure I'm convinced that,
| today, you're not just better off putting a GPS receiver
| in the camera. GPS is a bit hard on battery life but with
| the bigger batteries in these cameras, I'm not sure
| that's much of an issue. (And of course you can turn it
| off.)
| ferongr wrote:
| Depends. MILCs are generally pretty hard on battery and
| keeping a constant GPS lock would exacerbate their
| generally poor "active standby" (camera turned on with
| the viewfinder or LCD active) battery life. On the other
| hand, my smartphone, using both GPS and augmented network
| location services can instead very quickly acquire a lock
| when needed with minimal battery usage only when needed.
| And it also has a way larger battery, and the system is
| generally more optimized.
| jki275 wrote:
| Not everyone carries a phone, let alone a smartphone.
|
| Not everyone wants to.
|
| Geotagging pictures is a very important use case for a
| professional photographer, and relying on the user to
| provide GPS through another device is not advisable.
|
| Also phone location services may not work very well without
| a cell signal, and not everyone takes photos only within
| range of a cell tower.
| outworlder wrote:
| EXIF tagging.
| kinkrtyavimoodh wrote:
| Because you would want your photos to be geotagged.
|
| Also, whenever you are starting a sentence such as "In what
| circumstance..." and making blanket assertions, it's better
| to take a step back and question if other people's
| circumstances are radically different from yours. That's
| what good product thinking is about.
| koheripbal wrote:
| Touch screens are cheap and very easy to develop for. They also
| de-couple the software development from the device development.
|
| It also allows updates and changes after the car is in
| production.
| avs733 wrote:
| lower parts count as well. More commonality possibilities
| between vehicles are possible. the ability to add and remove
| features at different prive points without having to
| add/remove as many physical parts is huge. They price compete
| on bolts and screws...removing a button is a huge cost
| savings when multiplied by you
|
| Munro and Associates is a company that does reverse
| engineering and costing work and it's wildly interesting to
| learn about: https://jalopnik.com/the-fascinating-company-
| that-tears-cars...
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| Ya, Volvo has gone to a unified interface for their whole
| lineup. The standard stuff can be controlled with a few
| knobs and buttons and all the minor differences between
| models and trim levels are controlled on screen. I'm sure
| it saves them a ton since the part count would be very low
| now.
|
| They've done a pretty good job at it too, but it needs to
| be customizable to be great. If I ordered the surround
| camera option, I want that to be easy to access, not buried
| a few gestures deep. Chrysler nailed it, they let you
| rearrange the touch screen icons and have a bar along the
| bottom where you can put items that are always visible.
| They also have more buttons and dials.
| avs733 wrote:
| I would think that would be where good context aware
| software would come into play.
|
| Shouldn't it just automatically show the surround camera
| when I am in reverse or in some parking mode? I feel like
| that could be a setting or a soft button that appears
| when appropriate.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| > Shouldn't it just automatically show the surround
| camera when I am in reverse or in some parking mode?
|
| For the past couple years, US law requires that they
| default to the backup camera when in reverse (which is
| dumb, but that's another discussion). At least surround
| view is only one tap from there. Other manufacturers
| still do this better by showing both the backup camera
| AND the surround cameras at the same time and the Volvo
| screen is plenty large enough to handle this since other
| manufacturers with smaller screens do it well.
|
| It should do it in parking mode, but it doesn't! The car
| even switches to a top view illustration of the car to
| show you the ultrasonic sensor readings when you're close
| to stuff (ie. when you're parking) but it doesn't turn
| the surround cameras on!
| aembleton wrote:
| I'd like to see everything controllable through the touch
| screen, but then have plenty of physical buttons and knobs
| that can be programmed to map to elements on the touch
| screen.
|
| That way, if there is a software update; and there is a new
| feature it can be mapped to a button by the user in the way
| that they want.
| CryptoBanker wrote:
| Unreasonable, IMHO, for a car meant for consumption by the
| masses. Few people actually care about that stuff in the
| real world
| gizmo385 wrote:
| Then provide a reasonable set of defaults and then most
| folks don't have to worry about it :)
| beefalo wrote:
| Jaguar/Land Rover have been starting to do this. They have
| knobs where the knob label is a tiny screen and they change
| function based on the context of the menu you are in.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| > physical buttons and knobs that can be programmed to map
| to elements on the touch screen
|
| Agreed, this is the end game.
|
| The original CTS (circa 2003) did this. It had four buttons
| and a rotary dial on the steering wheel that you could
| assign to the functions of your choosing. This was a
| groundbreaking usability enhancement at the time. They also
| had a dial on the ceiling for the sunroof where you just
| turn it to the position you want the sunroof to open to
| (ex. 50%) and then the sunroof would open that amount. It
| was brilliantly simple and elegant.
|
| Unfortunately, Cadillac went in reverse for a number of
| years afterwards... dropping the customizable buttons,
| dropping the sunroof dial, making touchsensative (but not
| actually tactile) physical controls. Finally, this year
| they have gone back to real tactile controls!
|
| BMW has been using assignable buttons for over a decade
| now. I loved having one button to go to my favorite radio
| station, another button to call my wife, another to set the
| nav system to navigate home. The buttons are also sensitive
| to resistive touch, so if you put your finger on the button
| without actually pushing it, it will tell you on the screen
| what that button has been assigned to. I think BMW does
| tactile controls better than any other car I've owned. Not
| that many BMW owners use them, but even the signal light
| wand is a delight for tactile senses.
|
| There may be other automakers who do the assignable button
| thing too, would love to hear from anyone who knows of
| others.
|
| I was a little disappointed in the controls in the new
| volvo I bought last year. They have a mix of touchscreen
| controls and a limited number of tactile buttons and knobs.
| They got really close to getting it right. They at least
| need to make the screen configurable so you can put your
| most used functions on the home screen.
|
| Fiat-Chrysler got this right at least. Their UConnect
| system has a system bar along the bottom of the screen that
| is always visible and you can decide which buttons you want
| there (heated steering wheel control, surround cameras,
| etc). If I wanted to bring up the surround cameras on the
| Volvo as I'm pulling into a parking space, I'd have to
| swipe right, tap cameras, then switch the surround view,
| with slight UI delays in between each of these gestures --
| not ideal when pulling into a parking space. BMW (and the
| new Corvette C8) have a dedicated tactile button for this,
| Chrysler lets you put that "button" on the home row of the
| touchscreen... both are much better solutions.
|
| Hopefully the automakers are coming out of a learning phase
| right now and things are about to get much better as
| everyone has tried terrible touchscreens and learned why
| there needs to be more buttons.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| And customers apparently like them, when deciding what to
| buy.
| setr wrote:
| You can't use the market as an example of it, because the
| producers shifted in (almost) unison, and bundled it with
| other more valuable features.
|
| The same thing happened with 3DTVs -- the manufacturers all
| decided this was the next big thing, and shifted all their
| production to it, and it turns out.. it wasn't. But we as
| consumers had a 5-year drought where you simply couldn't
| buy a new TV that wasn't 3D. The same is happening with
| SmartTVs today -- if I want a new TV that isn't bottom-of-
| the-barrel tier, my only option is Smart.
|
| When I got leased a VW Jetta a few years back, you had the
| option of no-touchscreen.. but that was the lowest-featured
| car, so you have up 10 other things for it.
|
| You can also find the same thing in MacBooks with the
| touchbar -- once it was out, your only real options were to
| buy it, or throw the baby out and buy nothing/windows.
|
| You can't judge whether customers like them, because it's
| bundled to other far more valuable aspects.
| dublin wrote:
| The Macbook touchbar holds a likely never-to-be-surpassed
| record for "The World's Most Useless Touchscreen". I
| literally cannot imagine how this UI abortion got to
| market. To me, the touchbar was the canary that Apple's
| innovation days were done. Sometimes, it's really NOT a
| good thing to "think different"(ly)...
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Apple replaced the function keys because they were
| increasingly disused (and to increase the BOM and
| consequently the margin in absolute dollars.) The Touch
| Bar gets used more often. The default modes aren't to
| everyone's taste, but they're easy for inexperienced
| users (based on our user observation) and power users
| like the potential to customize (check out
| BetterTouchTool if you haven't yet.)
| stainforth wrote:
| I never buy this argument. I'm sure we could've focus
| grouped seat belts and no one would've liked the experience
| but thank god we have them now, for the better.
| braythwayt wrote:
| We did "sorta" focus group seat belts, and I was there to
| witness it.
|
| Before laws mandated the use of seat belts, most people
| didn't use them. My mother bought a Volvo 122 in the
| 1960s, and people marvelled at the three-point harness.
|
| But it's not like US manufacturers rushed to take
| advantage of Volvo making the patents freely available,
| and nor did Volvo take over the world by storm.
|
| Some cars had alarms that nagged the driver if the seat
| belts weren't done up. I recall my uncle routed around
| this by looping the driver and "shotgun" belts -behind-
| the seats and fastening them.
|
| Left to their own devices, large numbers of people prefer
| convenience and low price to safety. Only by regulation
| did the mass market adopt safer cars.
|
| So I completely agree, no, people did not like wearing
| seat belts. They only did so when their option to forgo
| safety was removed.
|
| p.s. I recall watching this PSA in Ontario. Everyone
| laughed about it, but soooooo many young men then went
| out and drove their muscle cars sans belt. Enjoy.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sri9j3PA5vE
| jki275 wrote:
| Customers often don't have much choice. Most people don't
| make car buying decisions based on the head unit.
| bartread wrote:
| I think because cars, although primarily a form of transport,
| are often also a fashion accessory, or a statement of who you
| are (or aspire to be). And touchscreens are very
| fashionable[1].
|
| Cameras aren't really like that. Nowadays if you've actually
| bought a camera as opposed to just using the one in your phone
| you're probably at least a little bit into photography, and in
| that context the function matters more than the form and style.
|
| _[1] I 'll grant that cost, along with simplicity of
| reconfiguration via software, may also be factors._
| jglathe wrote:
| YES. What took them so long?
| jkbr wrote:
| Apple should follow and ditch the Touch Bar. Also, the excellent
| The Best Interface is No Interface book [0] talks quite a bit
| about unnecessary touch screen controls in cars and related
| topics.
|
| [0] http://www.nointerface.com/book/
| snitzr wrote:
| I bought a Kia minivan in 2018 just because it had the most real
| buttons and dials.
| tibbon wrote:
| Thank god.
|
| I just got a 2005 Porsche Boxster with a CDR-24 radio, and one of
| my favorite things about it is how simple the interior controls
| are. Knobs, buttons, switches. The PCM radio I think might have
| had touch screen, but anyway...
|
| My main point is that my 15 year old car doesn't feel anywhere
| near as dated as many cars from 2009, that have slow, low
| resolution, or awkward touch screens. The only car I've used with
| an acceptable (but still flawed in many ways) touch screen is a
| Tesla 3 or S.
|
| An absence of features often for me turns out to be a feature.
| It's a car; do I even really need that many buttons or controls?
| berti wrote:
| Mazda began doing this last year [0]. If anything Honda are
| jumping on the trend they started, and I'm really happy to see
| it.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20200335
| babypuncher wrote:
| The only touch screen in any car should be a dumb terminal for
| CarPlay/Android Auto. Everything else should be dials and
| buttons.
| 0xff00ffee wrote:
| Oh thank goodness. Haptics are a real.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| In an odd way that Douglas Adams predicted this weird evolution
| of controls making fun of how manual controls were eventually
| replaced by controls that forced a pilot to sit perfectly still
| so as not to change a radio station.
|
| I applaud Honda. Touch screen is a distraction in my car.
| Shivetya wrote:
| I will defend the screen in the Tesla 3, the simple fact is that
| you really never have to use on your typical drive and yes muscle
| memory works for simple UIs like what the Tesla employs.
|
| Compared to 40+ buttons in my previous Volt AND a screen. Many
| cars have that many or more buttons and this is easier? Where
| screen's become distracting is when the UI is shit, having more
| than one or two clicks to do anything, and worse duplicating
| features there are physical buttons for but naturally distract
| the driver who thinks they should use that screen.
|
| From automatic headlamps, climate control, and wipers, I really
| have no reason to interact with the screen except as glances
| while I do the standard look around while driving.
|
| My favorite test... put a sticky on every button and only remove
| one if you truly had to use the function. bonus points for not
| having to remove the sticky to find out what the button did.
|
| edit: spelling error
| gnicholas wrote:
| Touchscreens that are huge are somewhat less of an issue
| because tap targets are much bigger. But most non-luxury
| vehicles come with 7 or 8 inch screens, so tap targets are
| small/clustered. Layer on that the fact that many screens
| aren't capacitive (and instead require a certain amount of
| pressure from your finger/fingernail), and things get even more
| annoying/dangerous.
| pmontra wrote:
| With physical buttons we can keep eyes on the road, one hand
| on the wheel and the other one looks for the right button.
| With a touch screen we have to look at the screen, hoping we
| made the right decision about what's going to happen on the
| road. If there are laws against texting there should be laws
| against using touchscreens when the car is moving.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Fitts's Law is really relevant here, even if the buttons
| were physical, but especially if they are touch based. Not
| all hit targets are the same in terms of safety.
| Shivetya wrote:
| Just how many controls are you manipulating that are not
| duplicated to your steering wheel on your drive? Modern
| cars feature nearly automatic everything, set and forget.
|
| Just a note about laws against texting. So my state
| recently, finally last year, put in place a law which said
| you must use hands free.
|
| Guess what happened, now half the dolts have their phone
| mounted to their windshield in their field of view or on
| their dash. So yeah, its hands free but even more
| distracting. Apparently this loop hole exists in many
| states!
| close04 wrote:
| "Somewhat" is not really good enough given the stakes. You
| cannot "feel" your way through a touchscreen interface and
| you cannot rely on muscle memory. You _will_ take your eyes
| off the road to see where the button is and "aim" at it. And
| a bumpy road just makes it worse because it only takes an
| accidental light touch to trigger some random function close
| by.
|
| Even a 17" screen or great UI won't fix the problems, they
| will just ameliorate them.
|
| The are functions that just fit better into a touchscreen
| experience, and some that should have physical buttons even
| if it takes regulation to make sure of this.
| root_axis wrote:
| I have a Tesla and previously owned a Lexus, I find that in
| practice it's pretty much identical with respect to taking
| eyes off the road. The only on-screen setting I ever adjust
| while driving the Tesla is the AC and in my Lexus I also
| make a quick glance down at the console because the row of
| buttons controlling AC functionality all feel the same.
| close04 wrote:
| After a few weeks of using any car I owned I basically
| stopped needing to look at the buttons. Even when there's
| a row of 4-5 identical physical buttons I just run my
| fingers across the row, this is where muscle memory comes
| in (like blind typing). The huge advantage being I can
| touch every button without triggering the function until
| I _press_.
|
| I mean I'm not against huge screens in the car, as long
| as I can turn them off or dim them to the point where I
| consider they don't impede my driving. But I'd still very
| much like to see basic functions of the car tied (also?)
| to physical buttons. Whether the manufacturer also wants
| to put them on a screen that's fine but I see no good
| reason a handful or buttons and knobs can't fit in a car.
| The minor savings or the wow effect don't really offset
| the downsides of distracting attention.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| > I'm not against huge screens in the car, as long as I
| can turn them off or dim them to the point where I
| consider they don't impede my driving.
|
| This is an excellent point. Screens always emit more
| light than analogue gauges and buttons. When driving at
| night, dashboard lights annoy me so much that I avoid
| turning on the high-beams because the blue alert cluster
| light is so bright. I went so far as to wire up the dash
| lights to a toggle switch so I can shut them off
| independently of the headlights. This is on a 2003 VW
| Jetta, which has no back-lit screens.
| slg wrote:
| What I always get from these discussions is that people fiddle
| with their cars settings a lot more than I do. What are people
| doing that requires immediate attention? The only thing I am
| really tempted to use the screen for while actively driving a
| Tesla are to adjust the temperature and turn on defrosters.
| Everything else is handled with physical controls or can wait
| until I am stopped.
| caymanjim wrote:
| It's great if you don't _have_ to use the touch screen in the
| Tesla while it 's driving, but it shouldn't even be possible to
| use it with the car in motion.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| I almost never drive by myself. Things that lock out my
| girlfriend from using them are very annoying to me. Android
| Auto does this on some features.
|
| It's not like it stops people from just using their phones
| anyway.
| braythwayt wrote:
| _It 's not like it stops people from just using their
| phones anyway_
|
| By that logic, doors needn't support locks, because people
| can just break windows anyways. Likewise, why put safety
| features in cars, people can just ride motorcycles?
|
| When you're making a thing, your job is to make that thing
| safe. The fact that people can use other, less-safe things
| does not in any way abrogate your responsibility for the
| safety of the thing you make.
| jsight wrote:
| > It's not like it stops people from just using their
| phones anyway.
|
| I'm finding that more and more people are bringing a
| software mindset to cars.
|
| If it can be done wrong, we should add a technology fix to
| stop them!
|
| It hasn't always been this way to anywhere near this
| degree.
| salawat wrote:
| It's not a software mindset per se. It's a level of
| control freakery that was kept in check by the fact
| technology didn't integrate as effortlessly before
| digital systems became ubiquitous.
|
| One can be a software developer and resist the urge to
| control the user through dark patterns/software
| interlocks; unfortunately it seems there is a type of
| person drawn toward software development in the first
| place by the degree of empowerment and capacity to
| control it offers.
|
| I've always understood the impulse/satisfaction I've
| gotten out of writing it; but for me the end goal was
| writing the perfect tool to satisfy the end-user's
| workflow/experience. I've never been fond of using
| software as a means of mass coercion via "middle-users";
| and when I see, or am asked to be part of it, it's
| generally a safe bet a philosophical rant/entreaty isn't
| far away.
|
| And besides which, screw Software interlocks. If it's
| important enough, dedicate hardware to it, lest you feel
| like ending up as the next THERAC-25/737-MAX.
| raisedbyninjas wrote:
| If people routinely wore capacitive clothing, the screen
| could determine which seat the finger's owner was sitting
| in.
| kowbell wrote:
| I know this is comment in jest, but could you actually
| identify who touched a screen? Do people have different
| physical characteristics that would give them a
| detectable capacitive "fingerprint?"
| rconti wrote:
| The Volt had the worst of both worlds, though -- touch controls
| that weren't even a screen.
|
| I own a Tesla 3 as well, and I mostly agree-- I have 0 need to
| adjust most controls manually, the auto stuff works really
| well.
|
| But I don't think voice controls are a good 'fix'. I still wish
| the car had a physical glovebox button and physical wiper
| controls.
| vincnetas wrote:
| I remember i have read this a year ago.
|
| https://www.nngroup.com/articles/tesla-big-touchscreen/
|
| A Case Study of Car-Dashboard User Interface
|
| And it was discussed here before:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19968970
|
| Im curious, have any of these problems been fixed?
| - Soft Buttons That Demand Attention - Poor Target Design
| - Target Size - Accidental Touches - Map Always on
| Screen
| thedance wrote:
| The backlit display on the Tesla 3 is wayyyyy too bright for
| night driving, even at its lowest backlight intensity and in
| night mode. It is like they intentionally ignored all available
| human factors research. Tesla is not alone here. Many
| automakers these days have too-bright interiors for night
| driving.
| vidanay wrote:
| I've been turning the dash light intensity almost all the way
| down for 30+ years. They've always been too bright. If the
| Tesla is as bright as you say, it would literally be
| undriveable for me at night. (No screens or touch in either
| of my 18-20 year old vehicles)
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| They should probably switch to an AMOLED and go with a dark
| mode for night driving?
| Armisael16 wrote:
| I have a model 3 and have no idea what they're talking
| about, fwiw.
| rs23296008n1 wrote:
| My preference in cars is touchscreen for rarely used
| functionality, and then dials, buttons and sliders for everything
| else.
|
| Messing with audio is a peripheral task so expecting me to take
| my eyes off the road etc is still unacceptable. Especially to
| change the track or adjust volume.
|
| That said, we're all used to _small_ touchscreens. These tend to
| require the user to maintain the current context on what is on
| screen. The whole screen is subject to change and this
| complicates / weakens muscle memory. I've used larger
| touchscreens where controls don't change around so much and
| muscle memory can easily kick in if the design is sane. The
| difference is tangible. Eg you can blind press using peripheral
| vision and it can work well.
|
| The real answer might just be that we're in the early days of
| touchscreen use. The technology and application thereof is still
| immature. The design language, for want of a better term, is
| still evolving.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| Car audio systems pose greater dangers than texting, pot
|
| https://techxplore.com/news/2020-03-car-audio-pose-greater-d...
| beat wrote:
| My spouse has a 2019 Honda HRV and I _hate_ dealing with the
| touchscreen while driving. It 's cognitively very difficult to do
| the degree of fine motor control and visual attention the
| touchscreen requires while also driving safely. It's actually a
| little terrifying.
|
| I remember reading an article a while back about some
| manufacturer, can't remember which one, adding a clickable knob
| to control the "smart" functions. Since so much of what we use a
| touchscreen for is actually menu selection, that could cover most
| of what we need to "touch".
| modzu wrote:
| hallelujah!
|
| the controls were a big reason i got a subaru; its a car you can
| drive the ____ out of with eyes on the road/dirt/gravel. the
| layout on the honda looks astonishingly similar. i duno how it is
| formalized in business terms, but it seems neat how all the
| japanese auto companies seem to cooperatively share tech
| pier25 wrote:
| I own a Honda HRV and I agree. The fucking touch-slider for
| volume control is absolutely atrocious.
|
| There are buttons on the wheel but these are slow compared to a
| good old knob.
| kogus wrote:
| The only feedback I've seen has echoed my own sentiment: "Good".
| What is the opposing point of view? Is there anyone out there who
| is willing to defend touch-screen interfaces in vehicles? What's
| the advantage to the driver? Is it even that much cheaper to the
| manufacturer? Surely plastic knobs are not a big hit to the
| bottom line of car makers.
| tills13 wrote:
| Repairability and features as software instead of hardware. For
| example, Tesla was able to enable Spotify in all its cars with
| an OTA update. Hell, you can enable rear heated seats in the
| Model 3 SR+ via an OTA.
| dpedu wrote:
| Tesla also takes away features via OTA updates. It's a
| double-edged sword.
| jiveturkey wrote:
| https://outline.com/VugcGV
| tills13 wrote:
| Probably the one thing that bugs me about my M3. 90% of the time,
| it's fine... but that once or twice a week where I'm actively
| driving and need to turn on AC or whatever and have to navigate
| while trying to interact with the touchscreen is rough.
| djhaskin987 wrote:
| I have a touch screen in my Nissan and it's almost useless when
| I'm driving down the road at 60 miles an hour and trying to
| navigate menus 8 layers deep to do something simple that used to
| be a button press on my old Honda.
|
| Relatedly, the US Navy removed touchscreens from all vessels
| after a collision happened because someone couldn't navigate the
| interface in time. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49319450
| getpolarized wrote:
| There is a trend to assume new technology will always replace old
| technology.
|
| During the Vietnam war the F4 ditched its cannons for the
| sidewinder air to air missile.
|
| The sidewinder is fire and forget for the most part and somewhat
| of a no brainer whereas cannons require more skill and training
| in dogfighting.
|
| It also gave the US a MAJOR advantage (in theory) vs the MiG.
|
| The problem is that the Vietnamese picked up on this and changed
| their tactics.
|
| Before this the US had air superiority and a significantly higher
| kill ratio.
|
| The Vietnamese built 'hidden' airfields and would dispatch their
| MiGs when the F4 was directly overhead and engage them in head to
| head dogfights.
|
| The F4s needed to build distance to launch a sidewinder and this
| dramatically rebalanced the kill ratio and during this time it
| came out to close to 1:1 with the US having a slight advantage.
|
| They US realized their mistake and subsequent F4s had cannons...
|
| Same thing here with cars. When the new screens came out
| everything was done through software but it's just NOT a good
| design.
|
| When I'm driving I want to push a button and be done. IF just for
| safety.
|
| When the UI locks up or is slow it's literally a safety risk.
| jki275 wrote:
| The vietnam era missiles were really bad missiles with a really
| bad pk. Lack of a cannon wasn't the problem, and adding one
| wasn't the solution. Fixing crappy missile technology was the
| solution.
|
| I don't think there's been an air to air gun kill in four
| decades, maybe five (US at least). Essentially all air to air
| combat is with missiles, to the point two of the three JSF
| variants don't even have a built in cannon and will likely
| almost never fly with the gun pods they are building for them.
| fitzn wrote:
| Wasn't another factor of the drop in head to head kills and
| then the subsequent improvement due to the energy-
| maneuverability of the fighter jets? John Boyd's biography
| (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38840.Boyd) talks a lot
| about his work while an instructor at the Air Force.
|
| EM theory:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy%E2%80%93maneuverability...
| chanmad29 wrote:
| Although I do not drive around much, fully hardware buttons +
| Siri voice controls(maps, music) does not sound bad.
| woozyolliew wrote:
| Always seemed like a cargo cult: iphone good; touch good; buttons
| bad (steve said).
|
| Let's hope it's a new trend! I love that my Audi still has
| tactile buttons and wheels, and was a big factor in choosing it.
| My previous car had a touch screen and it was so dangerous having
| to brace my hand for accuracy and stare at my fingers while
| driving.
| freepor wrote:
| It was never a cargo cult of being good... it was a cost
| cutting play that they correctly thought they could shove down
| consumers throats. Glad to see Honda acting on behalf of the
| driver again.
| pdimitar wrote:
| Not looking to start a fight but was a touchscreen really the
| cheaper option? I would be strongly surprised if that was the
| case.
| Steltek wrote:
| How could it not be cheaper? No molds (or just one bezel
| mold), far less industrial design, fewer individual wires.
| Not to mention the QA requirements for testing buttons vs a
| virtual screen.
| pdimitar wrote:
| I admit I am completely oblivious to those details. Quite
| interesting. I'd think 5-6 rolling dials and 3-4 buttons
| in total are still cheaper than a 8" touchscreen but
| apparently I was wrong.
| kevingadd wrote:
| They're probably cheaper at the small scale - big panel
| big price - but at the large scale might not be so cheap:
| Now you have a point of failure for each of those
| dials/buttons, the housing is more complex/expensive, you
| need to make replacement parts for all of those buttons,
| etc. More training for repair technicians, more parts
| they have to keep in stock. Possibly more damaged phones
| because each button is a weak point in the phone's
| housing.
|
| Screen costs trended down pretty aggressively over time
| so over the course of a couple years it probably ended up
| being cost-effective even if it wasn't at day 1. If
| you're already throwing a relatively sizable high-quality
| panel into your phone making it a bit bigger may not be
| as much of a bump up in price.
| pdimitar wrote:
| Economies at scale. I didn't think of that. Thank you,
| this was eye-opening.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Molds and parts are cheap at volume and I would be
| surprised if the costs were above a few buck in total,
| including setup.
|
| That said, a huge factor is assembly, maintaince, and
| repair.
| freepor wrote:
| Touchscreens are massively massively cheaper. Especially
| for products with warranties like cars. Thing fucks up,
| just swap out the entire brain+display unit.
| BrandonMarc wrote:
| ... I see your cargo cult, and I raise you Elon Musk and Tesla
| with gargantic touch screens in their cars. Aesthetically neat;
| realistically trouble.
| woozyolliew wrote:
| Never owned a Tesla, but always worried about this when I've
| been inside one.
|
| Elon says they drive themselves now though, so there's that
| ;)
| agumonkey wrote:
| even on phones it's "bad", it requires high focus.. it's was
| only good in the theory that smartphones would be used for
| prolonged dedicated tasks. how i miss blind use of buttons on
| old dumbphones
| brundolf wrote:
| It's good on phones because it allows them to become multi-
| tools. You can't have physical buttons for every thing any
| app might want to do; with a touch screen they can make their
| own buttons.
|
| On cars it's silly. Cars are not multi-tools; they have a
| finite set of dedicated functions. Even for functions that
| benefit from a large high-res screen (maps, music library
| browsing, etc.), the actual _input_ requirements are narrow
| enough to work with physical controls. Just look at the
| original iPod.
| pretendscholar wrote:
| There are general purpose buttons like back or home.
| nitrogen wrote:
| _You can 't have physical buttons for every thing any app
| might want to do_
|
| This is why the cursor keys exist, also keybindings
| agumonkey wrote:
| that's a fair point but having 4 buttons would allow for
| generic physical input
|
| humans can learn how to make most important and quick
| features easily
| Noumenon72 wrote:
| I've been hanging onto my Galaxy S7 just because it has
| actual home and back buttons. Don't know if anyone else still
| does that.
| agumonkey wrote:
| wait for 2025 invention of the physical extra-surfacic
| actuator, not a button, a xiaomi exclusive
| walterbell wrote:
| Next week's iPhone (9? SE2?) release brings back the home
| button and reliable Touch ID! It will fly off the virtual
| store shelves.
| pmontra wrote:
| I share your feelings. I had to buy a newer phone and I
| pinned the 3 buttons to the bottom of the screen where I
| used to have the buttons on the bezel. The screen is at
| least 2 cm / 1 inch too tall anyway. The alternative is
| swiping to go back, which is unusable.
|
| Sometimes the buttons disappear but bringing them back is
| not as complicated as I feared. Of course it's worse than
| having them. I'd take a 3 cm shorter screen and 1 cm bottom
| bezel with buttons.
| stainforth wrote:
| Phone manufacturers need to bring back keyboards
| orthecreedence wrote:
| To be honest, if I had a droid 4 with the specs of my pixel
| 3a I would probably not purchase another phone for a
| decade. I loved the slide-out physical keyboard on the
| droid line.
| president wrote:
| I always assumed companies were drawn to it not just because of
| the trendiness but because engineering and general development
| of these features are faster, cheaper, and easier to fix
| compared to dealing with physical parts (e.g. knobs, wiring).
| woozyolliew wrote:
| Yeah, there's probably an awful lot of truth to that. More
| software eating the world.
| briandear wrote:
| You (or maybe the market) are misinterpreting Steve Jobs. In a
| phone context, he is correct.
| hobs wrote:
| Still loved all my physical buttons which made input a breeze
| and didnt require constantly correcting my dang text, in a
| phone context, nah, he's still wrong; maybe a hybrid is even
| better, but amorphous movement and inferring intent is not a
| great user experience as things get more complex.
| takeda wrote:
| Agree, now it is very difficult to find a phone that has
| physical keyboard, sdcard, phone jack and is current.
|
| I really hate those trends.
| robocat wrote:
| Instead you get a phone that can get wet, that the
| charging port doesn't break after a year, and that has
| enough memory to not need to use an sdcard (I bought a
| good brand sdcard from a reliable retailer, and it fucked
| out in the phone: I would never make that mistake again).
|
| I love equipment I can hack and fix myself, but I love
| reliable equipment more.
| debaserab2 wrote:
| My nieces and nephews seem to have zero problems navigating
| a touch screen and type faster than I can.
|
| Might not be intuitive to us, but it definitely is to them.
| salawat wrote:
| Mine don't. They've only ever really had tablets, and I
| just recently got a Pi for one of them to learn physical
| touch typing on.
|
| I'm always annoyed phone typing specifically because I
| can't do anything but focus on the damn on screen
| keyboard until the message is complete. I remember being
| able to write reams of text on my old cell with a pop out
| keyboard, or even with the T9 setup on a Nokia brick
| entirely by feel, and nigh-automatic.
|
| I don't think I've ever communicated/operated as smoothly
| as When I have a haptic interface to work with. That even
| comes down to learning unfamiliar interfaces too. With a
| strictly defined series of controls to be actuated in a
| particular order, I tend to be able to permute and learn
| faster when I have some level of feel to work with.
| kevingadd wrote:
| Only correct in a "whatever people buy is good, and people
| buy iPhones so everything they do is right" sense. Hardware
| keyboards on phones still are faster to type on than even the
| best swipe keyboard, and they work through gloves (rather
| relevant now in these wear-gloves, wash-your-hands days).
|
| Of course, optimizing for WPM over other factors is not right
| for all customers. But a car is definitely not a phone, so.
| mft_ wrote:
| Was he not coming primarily from a design perspective?
|
| Design =/= usability?
| closeparen wrote:
| How do you feel about the MMI scroll wheel? I don't feel safe
| using that either; it still requires eyes on the screen to see
| what you're selecting. Even my passengers, who can give it
| their full attention, are routinely stymied by the process of
| pairing their phones for Bluetooth audio playback.
|
| At least I can get the volume and temperature knobs by feel.
| close04 wrote:
| I think there can be a balance between physical controls for
| actions that need to and will often be used while driving,
| and touch controls for stuff that you will most likely use
| when standing still.
|
| Controlling the temperature or music volume will be done
| while driving so they should be actual buttons that your
| muscle memory will reach with no mental effort or
| distraction. Adjusting the suspension settings or typing in a
| GPS address can be done via a touchscreen since it's unlikely
| you'll do it on the move and touch offers a better experience
| for this.
| clairity wrote:
| yes, that's the best split--make frequently-used features
| and/or features used primarily while driving physical
| controls, while rarely-used features and/or features used
| while parked can be touch-based.
|
| however, address input should be primarily by voice control
| rather than touch entry. changing destinations (for
| whatever reason) mid-drive on a navigation system is
| dangerous and somewhat common, and voice control is the
| best option for keeping your eyes on the road (absent a
| passenger who can do the touchscreen data entry).
| Ambroos wrote:
| I think the MMI interface, in one specific generation (the
| one just before they introduced the touchscreen, where the
| four-corner buttons were dropped), has one big advantage: you
| learn the amount of clicks things are away.
|
| It's been over a year since I had an Audi A3 with the system,
| but I still remember that going from anywhere to Android Auto
| would be pressing home, then just giving the wheel a big turn
| clockwise, then back one click counter-clockwise and confirm.
| You got used to the common operations, and you could do them
| blindly after a while. In a moving car, a touchscreen is
| almost always problematic because you need to see if your
| finger is going the right direction to compensate for car
| movements.
| woozyolliew wrote:
| I mean, it certainly isn't perfect at all. It has the down
| side that you are invited to stare at the screen. But if I'm
| disciplined, I can get away with a click-glance approach to
| adjusting things, which is still better than the multi-second
| hover I had to do with the touchscreen.
| basch wrote:
| Whats interesting about Honda going with a dial, is that they
| designed, what I thought, was a pretty brilliant absolutely
| positioned touchpad for Acura. Have peopled used these, what
| is there feedback. It seems much more natural, intuitive, and
| fast compared to a dial.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScWOFtlLCyI
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcKa9apjOX8
| TomVDB wrote:
| Audi may be doing some things right (I love the location of the
| audio volume knob), it doesn't compensate for that ridiculous
| touch pad which you're supposed to use to enter street names by
| writing the characters one by one with your finger... and many
| other UI warts.
|
| The best thing about Audi's console is that fact that they
| support Apple CarPlay.
| Dahoon wrote:
| https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/03/20/new-study-
| shows-u...
|
| Using Apple Carplay is more dangerous than texting.
| nthnclrk wrote:
| From the article, " Honda has done what no other car maker is
| doing".
|
| False, Mazda started this with the Mazda 3 in 2019
| (https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-mazda-is-
| pur...).
| 2bitencryption wrote:
| Unrelated, but this line stood out, and now I have a question:
|
| > Honda's decision to return to physical controls will be popular
| with some - including, no doubt, its ageing owner base in the UK
|
| Ageing? Is there some stat showing Honda owners are older than
| owners of other models? Or that young people aren't buying
| Hondas?
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I think that's just the perception/bias by the writer. It does
| not stand as a quote from industry source or manufacturer.
| abruzzi wrote:
| I haven't seen any stats, but anecdotally, I remember watching
| TopGear episodes a decade ago where they would go on about how
| Hondas were boring "old people" cars. Its funny because in my
| region on the US Hondas are very popular with young people hot-
| rodding them up.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| I'm young and I love tech, but I'd rather feel for the volume
| control knob while I'm watching the road than stare at a touch
| screen and try to position my finger to hit an icon in a moving
| car. Those interfaces were just a terrible idea.
|
| In my brother's old Prius it would randomly switch to a diagram
| showing how cool its power train system was/energy transfer
| etc. Just what I need while I'm driving - a useless distraction
| which I have to close before I get access to the controls I
| need!
|
| (I don't remember exactly how it worked though because I
| haven't driven it in a while.)
| malinens wrote:
| Voice control maybe works for folks in silicon valley but it is
| very lacking in quality for smaller languages or even non-
| existent
| baybal2 wrote:
| The dirty secret of the electronics industry is that the reason
| for moving to sensor buttons is cost.
|
| When first capacitive touch devices appeared around 2005-2006,
| everybody immediately noticed that you only need a single
| digitizer for the whole front panel of the device, or dirt cheap
| cap sens circuits for point sensors.
|
| For as long as the sensor is just a piece of polyimide pcb you
| can glue to anything, but a metal surface, things get really
| cheap without mechanical buttons, holes in the case to cut, and
| PCB to hold the buttons.
| taurath wrote:
| Thank goodness. I bought a Honda quite a few years ago and got
| the top trim, but insisted that they remove the navigation system
| as just using it as a radio was far worse because it was entirely
| touchscreen focused. This might keep on me on Honda's for a
| while.
|
| Edit: Wait... they're just talking about climate controls here.
| They're not adding any dials. Apparently other carmakers are
| going just touchscreen for everything. I guess its just gotten
| worse over the last few years. Tesla can sort of get away with
| it. But goodness a huge part of the reason I liked a lot of
| luxury cars was they tended to do more dials instead of
| touchscreens.
| bluetomcat wrote:
| The best "driver UX" I've ever had is on a 1995 Rover Coupe, with
| its dashboard and switchgear carried over from a 1988 Honda
| Concerto:
|
| https://imgur.com/a/YvpSUFa
|
| Just 3 knobs for regulating blower fan speed, blown-in heat
| level, and flow direction. One switch for letting/stopping
| incoming air flow, another for recirculating/capturing cabin air.
| A single on/off button for the AC.
|
| Left steering column switch is entirely light-related, right
| switch is entirely dedicated to the wiper system.
|
| Three buttons just below the dials: emergency lights, fog lights
| and rear screen heating.
|
| Just the bare essentials that you'll be using 99% of the time,
| easily discoverable at the most sensible locations, with a solid
| mechanical "clicking" feedback. It's a significantly safer car
| simply by virtue of lacking distracting controls.
| manmal wrote:
| I very recently bought a BEV Hyundai Ioniq of the first
| Generation, and one of the reasons I chose the 1st gen was that
| it still has some knobs and dials. The new generation has almost
| only touch controls, and this feels kinda wrong. Notably, it's
| not a pure touch screen, but the knobs and dials have been
| replaced by a lot of capacitive touch elements with backlights.
| When it's dark outside, it would take me a few hundred ms to find
| the right button, and then I still have to visually guide my
| finger there. And then there's no physical feedback when
| pressing.
|
| There are other reasons for why I chose the 1st gen (better fast
| charging capability), but the touch elements were the last straw.
| zchrykng wrote:
| I for one will be really glad if this sparks and industry wide
| trend to go back to buttons and shift levers rather than buttons
| or levers that aren't actually good.
| thunderbong wrote:
| I don't think anybody even bothered to read the article!
|
| It explicitly states, right below the top image -
|
| >> The new Jazz has a touchscreen for many functions, but not
| temperature control
|
| So, only the temperature control is via a dial. Everything else
| is still on the touchscreen.
|
| Image -
| https://www.autocar.co.uk/sites/autocar.co.uk/files/styles/g...
| jordache wrote:
| GM had it right!
|
| http://carphotos.cardomain.com/ride_images/2/4797/3641/24491...
|
| https://bestcarmag.com/sites/default/files/65564525286387311...
| cletus wrote:
| Any monitor manufacturers want to follow suit?
|
| What I'd give for hardware input source buttons. This is a
| ridiculous UX:
|
| 1. Touch button to open menu
|
| 2. Select "Input Source"
|
| 3. Click up/down (possibly multiple times) to find your source
|
| 4. Click OK
|
| ...when your monitor has TWO sources. Just give me 2 buttons:
| HDMI and DisplayPort.
|
| I don't care that this would be marginally more expensive. I'd
| pay it.
|
| Touch screen controls strike me as not being about cost but being
| about incredibly lazy UI and a good example of worrying about
| problems you'll never have like "what if you have 10 input
| sources? That'd mean 10 buttons". But YOU DON"T. You can't add an
| input source with software after the fact.
|
| /rant
|
| Touch screens make complete sense for phones. You're looking at
| it. There is limited screen real estate. The second is why
| hardware keyboards died. It's even why the Home button on iPhones
| died, which makes me sad because I loathe Face ID with a passion
| (compared to Touch ID).
|
| Touch screens require you to look at them. This seems bad when
| driving. Physical controls are tactile and you can learn to use
| them without looking. People seem to forget how important this
| is.
|
| It's also why I prefer keyboards that split function keys into
| groups of 4 over the terrible design of putting them all
| together. Function keys are really too far to touch type
| effectively so you need a non-visual cue of which is which.
|
| Beyond that, every touch interface I've seen in a car is
| objectively terrible.
|
| Kudos to Honda for bucking this stupid trend.
| root_axis wrote:
| I dunno, when it comes to configuring monitor settings, I'd
| trade a touch screen menu for any of the physical button
| configuration schemes on any monitor or TV i've ever owned.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| > Touch screen controls strike me as not being about cost but
| being about incredibly lazy UI
|
| It's almost always about cost. Touch screens are shocking cheap
| thanks to smartphones driving the prices down and physical
| controls can be shockingly expensive per control.
| rland wrote:
| Do you have an idea of why dials and buttons are so
| expensive? That surprises me. The components aren't
| particularly high tech.
| president wrote:
| I would imagine it's more the one-time cost of the R&D for
| developing the digital menu system vs per-unit hardware
| costs for the dials/buttons over time.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| Dell Ultrasharp gives you shortcut keys that you can assign to
| any function. I have one for Displayport and a second for HDMI.
| catalogia wrote:
| My TV has capacitive psuedo-buttons even for the power button.
| Of course it isn't illuminated, since that would distract from
| the screen, which means that turning on or off the screen when
| the lights are out is literally a matter of making wild stabs
| in the dark.
| winkeltripel wrote:
| That's why my TV is on a lightswitch!
| catalogia wrote:
| That's a pretty good idea. I was thinking about
| retrofitting the capacitive buttons by gluing rubber domes
| onto them, but changing its outlet to one controlled by a
| switch seems like a more elegant solution.
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| Since DisplayPort can normally be passively converted to HDMI,
| your easiest option is probably to get a convertor and also an
| HDMI switch box. It'll be external to the monitor but there are
| plenty to choose from that have physical buttons. There are
| even some with remote controls!
| cesarb wrote:
| > Since DisplayPort can normally be passively converted to
| HDMI
|
| What actually happens is that some (but not all) DisplayPort
| sources can also output HDMI signals, so the passive
| converter only has to change the voltages and pinout. But if
| the source doesn't output HDMI signals, you need an active
| converter.
| GordonS wrote:
| Totally agree. I have Dell monitors, which are fantastic in
| every way bar one - they have invisible, capacitive buttons at
| the bottom right of the bezel. I literally have to put my face
| right up beside it and squint to have any idea where the
| buttons are.
|
| You can't easily see where they are, and you get no feedback at
| all when you press on them, and it seems to be 50/50 whether a
| press is registered. Horrible, horrible UX!
| WWLink wrote:
| The newer ones ditched the capacitive buttons for regular
| pushbuttons. Unfortunately being budget constrained (or
| profit motivated) the buttons are the cheap kind that move
| your monitor when you poke at them (and make creaky sounds of
| course, to compliment the creaky sound the monitor stand
| makes haha).
|
| Still, it's an improvement.
| anderspitman wrote:
| See also: https://features.propublica.org/navy-uss-mccain-
| crash/navy-i...
| turdnagel wrote:
| This article talks about using dials for climate control. I have
| a 2019 CR-V and it still uses dials for that.
| [deleted]
| everdrive wrote:
| Welp, looks like Honda's back in the running for my next car!
| [deleted]
| EastSmith wrote:
| I think what Tesla did was cost cutting by putting everything in
| one big screen - no need to think about hardware knobs and
| buttons - have the screen UI and update it remotely if it is not
| intuitive.
| hinkley wrote:
| It seems like the middle way would be:
|
| Build your console with a big hole in the middle. Mount the
| buttons to the insert, figure out your UI and adjust the button
| placement, so really most of the last minute design is
| producing a new mounting bracket for the electronics and
| physical controls.
|
| The biggest problem I see there is that you are very limited in
| button placement without resizing the panel. But if you pick a
| clever panel size to console hole ratio you could buy yourself
| some flexibility. For example, an almost square panel could
| allow you to rotate it and move some buttons from vertical to
| horizontal.
| egberts1 wrote:
| Best thing that ever happened in the automotive industry. Thank
| you, Honda. The many accident victims will thank you for the rest
| of us.
| huffmsa wrote:
| Good. Those damn things were clearly never tested on real roads
| with bumps.
|
| > _" Oops you fat fingered the main menu icon while you were 5
| layers deep! Guess you have to start over!"_
|
| Physical controls have their place, and in a car is one of them
| liquidify wrote:
| At least it's good that honda has been thinking about this kinda
| stuff. Some of their UI's have been pretty atrocious in the past.
| dorkwood wrote:
| Is there a name for this phenomenon where manufacturers build
| harmful features into their products purely for the technical
| credibility? It's the same with motion smoothing and televisions
| -- the experience is massively degraded, but the technology is
| impressive, so presumably sales will increase.
| jszymborski wrote:
| a great reason to buy a Honda... if this becomes the new normal,
| I wonder how much this will hurt Tesla since it'd be a pretty
| drastic change for them.
| luxuryballs wrote:
| Hooray! That's why I didn't get the EX-L and went with the EX,
| didn't want a touchscreen, give me knobs and dials!
| sarah180 wrote:
| More accurately, they're putting back dials for temperature
| control in one of the only cars the make that doesn't already use
| dials. They're not getting rid of touch screens, nor are they
| pushing against the industry: they're aligning temperature
| controls in one of their cars with their other cars and much of
| the rest of the industry.
| fulldecent2 wrote:
| Did you know that in a car you can change the climate control
| temperate for when the system is "off"?
|
| Try it today. In an old car, set the fan speed to off. Then
| adjust the temperature. Switch it back and forth a few times and
| test it.
|
| In a new car you need to turn the fan on, then change the
| temperature and then turn it off again, in order to change the
| "off" temperature.
|
| On a touch screen this task requires many seconds of eyes-off-
| the-road-time to accomplish.
|
| But hey, designers need flexibility because changing temperature
| is a new concept and they couldn't possibly handle a deadline to
| work with component selection and other parts of the product
| team.
| F_J_H wrote:
| I see the benefits of touch screens, but I really miss tactile
| controls, like the temperature controls on my Dad's 1978 GMC
| pickup truck, which is the vehicle I learned to drive in. Three
| super simple, super intuitive slider type controls for all
| temperature settings:
| https://i.ytimg.com/vi/iVtb4z2QozY/maxresdefault.jpg
| SeanFerree wrote:
| I don't mind this! Not a fan of touch screens
| solatic wrote:
| Last year I bought a motorcycle (Honda CB300R) and it was a
| revelation.
|
| No touch screens. No stereo. No GPS. No Bluetooth. No automatic
| transmission. No cupholders. Basically no "modern car features".
| And it's a much, much better road experience than any car I've
| ever been able to afford to drive.
|
| Get rid of all the distractions at a price point under $30k with
| an engine that doesn't feel sluggish and maybe I'll consider
| buying a car again.
|
| (Necessary disclaimer: I live somewhere where it's sunny and warm
| the majority of the year and where car parking is nigh
| impossible. Maybe I'd feel differently if I lived in rural
| Canada.)
| BrandonMarc wrote:
| You'd probably be better off with a snowmobile there, too
| shoes_for_thee wrote:
| Get a Miata and call it a day.
| pp19dd wrote:
| Toyota GT-86. Starts around 27k, three flavors (Scion FR/S,
| Subaru BRZ). Excepting some radio controls, all button (has
| steering wheel volume, tuning, etc.) And as a bonus, it's a
| six-gear rear wheel drive.
|
| Eject button sold separately: https://i.imgur.com/wHL5Xnc.jpg
| riazrizvi wrote:
| "You lost me at 'under $30k', I'm trying to figure out how to
| credibly raise prices, not lower them", Head of Strategy,
| Automaker XYZ.
| bryanmgreen wrote:
| Great.
|
| I think voice controls are obviously the theoretical best for
| automotive and I hope that in the near future every car will have
| built-in functionality - that will even work offline.
|
| Obviously Siri can't control my AC right now but it infuriates me
| that CarPlay voice controls don't work without internet.
|
| I have a hard time imagining it would be difficult to increase
| offline functionality when in my old 2010 Ford I had Microsoft
| Sync with the functionality to voice control an iPod offline and
| it worked pretty much perfectly.
| isaacaggrey wrote:
| > Honda has done what no other car maker is doing,
|
| Huh? The author is not familiar with Mazda - their latest models
| of the CX line (possibly others) have full control of the
| interface with a very functional physical knob / dial along with
| other tactile controls.
|
| Also, the headline is a bit misleading - they aren't removing
| touchscreen controls entirely - only removing them from "some"
| controls as their preface text indicates, which to be clear is
| solely A/C controls.
| fitzn wrote:
| Yes, thank you. I was thinking the exact same thing. I was
| positive I read an article last year about how Mazda was doing
| away with touchscreens. I think someone just pasted the Mazda
| article above.
| otherme123 wrote:
| I have a Mazda from 2019 (not the CX), and I can do
| _everything_ with a couple of knobs. Even the extra buttons you
| mention (volume up /down in the wheel or quick access to
| media/navigation/radio in the center console) are redundant and
| nearly useless. Just a couple of weeks after I got the car, I
| have never touched the screen again.
|
| A/C controls are completely manual. Mazda got it right from the
| beginning.
| intrepidhero wrote:
| Yay Honda!
|
| I've never been in a car that had a better designed interface
| than my '91 Accord. I'm sure they're out there but if a budget
| car can have such a pleasant interface there's no reason they all
| can't.
| dgudkov wrote:
| Didn't Mazda do it first?
|
| https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/1148040/Mazda-3-to...
| OOPMan wrote:
| IIRC, Mazda are also pushing back against the touchscreen fad
| devy wrote:
| The physical dial and nobs and the tactile feedback when human
| drivers get from operating them is much better than touch screen
| controls. I applaud Honda's the design, as well as some German
| automakers' design in the same vein.
| LeicaLatte wrote:
| Not all touchscreens are same. There are few touchscreens that
| are good. Most Honda touchscreens are bad.
| randcraw wrote:
| All touchscreens provide zero tactile feedback or spatial info
| about its setting. Thus to use any touchscreen, you _always_
| must take your eyes off the road to look at it. Thus no matter
| how logical or attractive or fast the display, screens are
| always less safe than _any_ tactile alternative control that
| lets you keep your eyes on the road.
|
| Also, for car devices that provide intuitive feedback on their
| activity (wiper motion, fan noise, air temperature from
| outlets, audio volume, etc), you don't need a screen to confirm
| that it has changed.
|
| And since these devices are the ones that I change most often
| (and music), I'd much prefer to control them on the steering
| wheel or verbally, and never use a screen.
| catalogia wrote:
| As long as my fingertips cannot read touchscreens, touchscreens
| in cars are _all_ inferior to physical dials and buttons.
| dbg31415 wrote:
| "Honda is doing what no other car company is doing..."
|
| Except Mazda. 6 months ago. Oof.
|
| https://www.motoringresearch.com/car-news/mazda-getting-rid-...
| the_other_b wrote:
| good, can't count how many times I've had to mash a touch-screen
| (not in Honda, so may be different) to get something to "click."
|
| i'm all for physical UX.
| neya wrote:
| Let me give you another perspective - I own a Suzuki SX4 S-Cross
| that comes with a fluid, super responsive and intuitive
| touchscreen with voice commands in it, which can also be
| controlled from the steering. You can do stuff like ask to call
| someone's phone, or read a text message or ask you to give
| directions.
|
| But the real highlight is the UI + UX. It's super intuitive in
| that the volume controls, although touch, are always in a fixed
| location and you just drag over towards the edge of the screen up
| or down. In addition, you also have steering mounted controls to
| control the volume. The whole screen is divided into 4 quadrants
| and clicking anywhere in those quadrants will take you to either
| of the main screen (Eg. Navigation or FM Radio). It doesn't take
| long to get used to remembering which quadrant is for which.
| Also, for safety, you can't use some core features of navigation
| while driving the car. It will ask you to stop first if you want
| to say, type for a certain address.
|
| I have never seen such fantastic UX in such mid-tier cars. To me,
| it seem's Honda's move is backward - perhaps it could be solved
| by simple UX..which Suzuki and Bosch (the supplier of their
| infotainment units) have already solved?
|
| I find it super convenient because I don't even need to take my
| eyes off the road...while enjoying the convenience of a touch
| screen.
|
| A picture (or video is worth a thousand words):
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvERUKfjufg
| cinbun8 wrote:
| That's only one control though. You can still accidentally
| touch something else while you fish for this control. I'm sure
| most users would prefer dials that provide touch feedback.
| ammanley wrote:
| All I can say is, thank f __k
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Good, the Honda touchscreen controls in my 2016 Pilot are
| incredibly awful.
| jerf wrote:
| I buy cheaper cars, because I don't really care about any of the
| high-end features that cars offer, and this has been one
| legitimate advantage, at least as of the last time I was
| shopping; cheap cars cheaped out on the display, so they still
| had physical controls for things like volume. I hope this trend
| takes off before I buy another.
|
| I think it would be possible to make a decent touch screen, but
| it seems like the only people who give even a quantum of a damn
| about latency are the video game folks. A UI with 95th-percentile
| or 99th-percentile multi-second latency is an active hazard on
| the road, even if it is normally acceptable, which itself is
| fairly rare and expensive.
| alkonaut wrote:
| Just and knobs for everything I need when driving. But please
| keep touchscreen for everything complex I can do while standing
| still. Complex setup of display options, car setups or whatever
| is infuriating without touch.
|
| This is how every other device works such as a digital camera.
| You can't have an unlimited amount of knobs and buttons but you
| can have a dozen so you choose very carefully which functions
| need direct manipulation.
|
| I don't think it's so bad currently in many cars to be honest. My
| VW does what I want, there are knobs and buttons for climate and
| radio, but setup and other things are touch. Only complaint is
| that switching source between line in and bt is touch only (and
| is used a lot).
| sebastianconcpt wrote:
| Excellent move. I totally support this. Touchscreens removes all
| the accurate tactile feedback of what you are doing to a control
| and that forces the user to fallback to taking a look, hence
| deviating the center of the sight from the ideal zone for a
| really unjustifiable reason.
| adreamingsoul wrote:
| UX designer here, I approve.
| fma wrote:
| I recently purchased a 2020 Honda Odyssey. I hate the touchscreen
| controls, and I hate the button gear shifter (i.e. press a button
| to reverse...)
|
| For example, it's so difficult to change AC controls w/o looking
| at the screen. It's very dangerous. I don't do it unless I'm at a
| light, or if on the highway, no one is around me.
|
| Toyota Sienna still has their AC controls as buttons/knobs, still
| has a regular shifter, and probably more traditional controls.
|
| But the Sienna was lacking in many other areas...so we went with
| Odyssey. Looks like we coulda waited a few more years!
|
| The article also refers to "voice control". No, I don't want to
| yell at my car to lower the AC when my baby is sleeping.
|
| I'm all for innovation...but please leave controls as it is!
| bitcurious wrote:
| To be fair to touch screen controls, Honda had exceptionally poor
| ones. There's always at least a second delay on
| brightness/volume/etc. adjustments in our 2018 Honda. I think the
| unit is just incredibly underpowered, because CarPlay (phone
| driven) doesn't suffer from the same issues.
| TheCapn wrote:
| I've said it before, I'll say it again.
|
| Touchscreens CAN BE DONE RIGHT. (or at least better)
|
| I have an aftermarket JVC headunit in my 2003 VW. It has one
| button, that's the "Menu" button on single press, or Power button
| when held.
|
| The screen itself is relatively intuitive to control without
| looking because of a gesture feature it has as well as button
| placement being useful.
|
| If I want more volume I put one finger on the screen and make a
| circle gesture in the clockwise direction. Down is counter-
| clockwise. The play/pause button is in the very bottom right so
| you can find the button with feel. You can shuffle songs with
| another gesture (though I never use it).
|
| I really like my touchscreen. And every time I am using a work
| vehicle (Ford Explorers), or my wife's GMC Sierra, I hate the
| controls because you have to look up to see what you're doing.
| Thankfully their steeringwheel controls are generally good.
| jgust wrote:
| Or you know, knobs and buttons which don't require any user on-
| boarding or discovery process.
| leetcrew wrote:
| there is a place for both kinds of controls. frequently used
| functions (volume, climate controls) should have physical
| buttons. infrequently used functions (like reset tire
| pressure monitoring) is best hidden in a touchscreen menu.
| jgust wrote:
| Absolutely. Use the right tool for the job, etc.
| miguelmota wrote:
| I'm glad they're going in this direction. Mostly all BMWs use the
| screen for simply displaying informational content and for input
| and navigation it uses a multi-direction knob right by the arm
| rest and it's best most intuitive way to navigate the screen imo.
| Car screens are either matte and less responsive or glossy and
| more responsive but less visible in sunlight.
| mey wrote:
| https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-mazda-is-pur...
|
| A more in-depth article last year on why Mazda is doing this.
| pentae wrote:
| Yep, Mazda were the most vocal about rejecting the touch screen
| trend, and Honda and Toyota are losing a lot of customers to
| Mazda who have been producing the best cars in their class in
| the last several years so it makes sense that they are jumping
| on the bandwagon.
| woobar wrote:
| Since peaking in 2015 Mazda is not growing. They are steadily
| losing market share over the last 10 years. They make
| attractive cars, but they bet on pretending that they are a
| "premium" brand and priced themselves out.
|
| https://carsalesbase.com/us-mazda/
|
| https://www.autonews.com/sales/mazdas-complicated-journey-
| pr...
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Interesting. I from what I have seen of Mazda's price
| range, even within a model, it's pretty large. You can get
| a CX-5 base for mid 20s, or the turbocharged, leather-
| wrapped nav-included tour package for almost 40.
|
| The CX-5 is at the higher end of their starting prices,
| too. They have the Mazda3, CX-3, CX-30 and Mazda6 that are
| all cheaper base.
|
| And to be sure, Mazda's crossovers look much better than
| Honda or Toyota - at least Toyota finally refreshed their
| interiors two years ago to look like something other than
| 2003 era.
| kenhwang wrote:
| In terms of sales volume in the US, you are correct: Mazda
| is not selling more cars. If you look at their financial
| reporting, they're making more money from car sales. Looks
| like ~60% more.
|
| Anyone with a lick of business sense would happily trade
| -10% sales volume for +60% profit from higher margins. They
| didn't price themselves out, they just decided to not play
| the loss-leader volume game Ford/Honda/Toyota is playing.
| woobar wrote:
| Looks like ~60% loss to me. (From $1.1B net in 2015 to
| $572M net in 2019)
|
| https://money.cnn.com/quote/financials/financials.html?sy
| mb=...
|
| EDIT: $1.1B in 2016. In 2015 net income was $1.45B :-(
| middleclick wrote:
| My Mazda3 has no touchscreen controls and I am very happy
| with that.
| sh87 wrote:
| Link [1] to HN discussion around the Mazda announcement
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20200335
| donretag wrote:
| I love the Command Center in my Mazda. I can switch modes,
| change content, many other things, all without looking at the
| knobs. Voice controls using Android Auto makes it even better,
| but I do not use it much since the knobs do a great job. I
| never use the touch screen.
| therealdrag0 wrote:
| A lot of mention of Mazda, but my 2018 Ford Escape has
| buttons/knobs for all the standard car features. I also have
| Apple CarPlay which is great for maps/media. Very happy with it.
| siliconunit wrote:
| Why not do a standard benchmark, perform a number of actions in
| different conditions and configurations, and see whether humans
| can react faster and more precisely with 2 touchscreens (let's
| level the 2 hands advantage) or multiple hardware controllers...
| nabla9 wrote:
| Another fad that should go away is blue light dashboards. They
| give horrible afterimages in dark conditions. BMW's red-orange
| lights are so relaxing to look at in comparison.
| randcraw wrote:
| If a car uses blue dash lights, that will stop me from buying
| it instantly and unquestionably. Blue is extremely saturating
| to my eyes' receptors and uncomfortable to look at in darkness
| even for a moment. Red is 100x more forgiving.
| throwaway55554 wrote:
| Ugh! Blue light should never be used at night.
| tw04 wrote:
| I'm pretty happy with the newest Rams - large screen with touch
| controls, but things like volume and temp are physical buttons.
| Volume is the one thing that should NEVER be a touch control
| (IMO).
| PascLeRasc wrote:
| Unfortunately we won't get this car in the US. I love my 1st gen
| Honda Fit and plan to keep it pretty much forever, they're such a
| great vehicle. Incredible gas mileage and they're actually fun to
| drive with the short wheelbase. In tune with the article I put
| the only Carplay receiver with a physical volume knob in it and
| it's perfectly easy to use.
| jfengel wrote:
| I gotta say... I got a Fit in 2007, pre-ordered before they
| were available, and at 300k+ miles it's doing great. The guy at
| the oil change place literally turned his eyes to the heavens
| and said that he couldn't find any service to recommend. He'd
| never seen a car of such age that clean; it should surely be
| leaking something.
|
| I've heard Honda has gone downhill in the last decade, and my
| next car probably won't be a Honda. But at this rate, my next
| car will drive itself. (Especially since I'm no longer putting
| miles on it at the rate that got me to 300k in a decade.)
| schempet wrote:
| these days I am having very difficult time unlocking my iphone
| with my facemask on
| ellard wrote:
| Good. Touch screen controls are a good tool for communicating
| visual information while having some way to still give users some
| controls. Tactile controls are good tools for when the operator
| needs to visually focus on something else and feedback can be
| sensed in other ways. For cars, the only visual information it
| should show to the driver are either things that are controlled
| outside of a touch screen (speedometer, tach) or can't be
| controlled while the vehicle is in operation anyway (oil temp
| gauge, etc). Everything else can be intuitively sensed by the
| driver's other senses and the important part of the control is
| the feedback saying that you are in fact manipulating the
| controls properly.
| eximius wrote:
| Odd article as this isn't _new_. Is it new in that other
| manufacturers have started and they have no plans to? My current
| Honda has a very comfortable interface, probably my favorite of
| any car I 've driven.
| achenatx wrote:
| Interfaces to the car should have standardized use
| cases/requirements that are interface independent.
|
| There should be requirements like - user should be able to
| rapidly change stations manually without looking at the
| interface.
|
| For example I have a dial for my XM radio in my tundra, if I want
| to go from station 10 to station 100, I can easily do it by
| spinning the dial really fast two or three times without looking
| at the screen.
|
| In my honda, to get to that UI where I can arbitrarily tune, I
| have to hit 3-4 buttons all in different places. Then I have to
| hit the up button 90 times.
|
| I could imagine a digital tuner that is a bar that lets you
| simply touch where on the spectrum you want to select a station.
| But up/down arrow to tune should be banned.
| GrumpyNl wrote:
| Me in my bit older Mercedes, my gears, lights, whipers all go
| automatic, im left with radio control and temperature. Audios is
| easy, it on the steering wheel, so is answering the phone. Two
| knobs for warm/cold and airco. No need for touchscreen.
| SamReidHughes wrote:
| I've always been very happy with Honda's car interfaces.
| Everything from basic driving stuff to climate control and the
| radio seem... well, not great, but simply, fine. Most other
| manufacturers seem to have some trick up their sleeve, with crazy
| turn signal mechanisms or some other nonsense. I think they have
| relatively sensible people working in that department.
| nixpulvis wrote:
| As far as I'm concerned, there is nothing inherently wrong with
| "touchscreen controls", it's the usage and user interface
| assumptions.
|
| Make a touchscreen slider and who knows, perhaps it's even more
| durable and reliable than a moving part. It's the whole sets of
| modal interfaces, and jenky controls which make this stuff
| unsafe, and irritating.
| java-man wrote:
| Thank you, Honda!
|
| Touch screen controls in automotive environment is such a bad
| idea (unless the vehicle is stationary, and even then...)
| ardy42 wrote:
| > Touch screen controls in automotive environment is such a bad
| idea
|
| Touch screen controls are a bad idea _in general_ when the form
| factor has space for adequate physical controls.
|
| The only time they're an acceptable compromise is for small
| devices like phones. Even then careful use of a small number of
| buttons can be a great improvement.
| PascLeRasc wrote:
| One of the best features of switching from Android to an
| iPhone is the physical mute switch. Whenever I'm going into a
| meeting, I can mute my phone without taking it out of my
| pocket. With Androids (At least, version 6 from when I left)
| you have to take it out and go through all the separate
| volume menus. It was so refreshing to have the confidence
| that my phone wouldn't vibrate or disturb others during a
| meeting.
| kube-system wrote:
| The situation is more nuanced than "touchscreens are bad";
| the number of controls has grown exponentially since
| touchscreens have made it easier to put literally hundreds of
| buzzers and whistles on modern vehicles.
|
| It's fairly common now for cars to have configuration
| settings like: the number of seconds that the courtesy lights
| stay on after locking the car. This is a feature that would
| never need to be operated while the vehicle is in motion, and
| likely wouldn't be configured more than once by any given
| owner.
|
| Features like this are more than adequately served by
| touchscreen controls. Really, you would have a worse UI if
| there was a hardware slider for this on the dash.
|
| But yes, all controls that a driver would want to use while
| the vehicle is in motion should be controllable with hardware
| controls that can be located and operated tactilely.
| catalogia wrote:
| > _" It's fairly common now for cars to have configuration
| settings like: the number of seconds that the courtesy
| lights stay on after locking the car. This is a feature
| that would never need to be operated while the vehicle is
| in motion, and likely wouldn't be configured more than once
| by any given owner."_
|
| Features like that could be implemented as dipswitches/etc
| hidden in a compartment under the hood, or not at all. The
| _" configuration screen with a gazillion tweakable
| settings"_ thing has generally fallen out of favor in
| desktop and mobile software, and I expect the car industry
| will eventually catch up.
| kube-system wrote:
| > Features like that could be implemented as
| dipswitches/etc hidden in a compartment under the hood,
| or not at all.
|
| How is this an improvement over having it on a touch
| screen?
| catalogia wrote:
| I thought that was obvious; because then you can
| eliminate the touchscreen entirely. Cars are better
| without them.
| ardy42 wrote:
| > The situation is more nuanced than "touchscreens are
| bad"; the number of controls has grown exponentially since
| touchscreens have made it easier to put literally hundreds
| of buzzers and whistles on modern vehicles.
|
| Touchscreens aren't necessary for any of that, though.
| There are alternative, better UI interfaces. For instance:
| f-key driven soft menus. Those have tactile feedback, have
| reliable key-press detection, and can be operated with
| regular gloves.
|
| The only situation in a car where I could see a touchscreen
| being the right option are cases where a soft keyboard is
| needed.
|
| > It's fairly common now for cars to have configuration
| settings like: the number of seconds that the courtesy
| lights stay on after locking the car.... Features like this
| are more than adequately served by touchscreen controls.
|
| My Honda has a button-operated menu for that, and that's
| better than a touchscreen.
|
| > you would have a worse UI if there was a hardware slider
| for this on the dash.
|
| I never said that cars should have a dedicated, physical
| control for each function. What I said was touchscreens are
| unnecessary and sub-optimal.
|
| Commonly used functions should have dedicated physical
| controls, especially those that are likely to be used while
| in motion (driving controls, climate control, basic audio
| stuff). The next most common set of functions should be
| implemented with a combination of shortcut keys and f-keys.
| Finally, seldom-used functions (such as configuration)
| should be accessed with f-key driven menus.
| kube-system wrote:
| I do like key-driven soft menus (like the steering wheel
| controls commonly used for HUDs or gauge cluster menus),
| but they get a bit unwieldy with longer lists. Some
| automakers (GM) address this by nesting all the options
| in a bunch of sub-menus, but I find this frustrating
| because I end up just having to search through a bunch of
| menus to find what I want.
|
| Some automakers (Mazda, BMW) use a knob instead, which
| makes it a bit quicker to scroll through a longer list,
| but I have found myself overshooting and then having to
| back track which is sometimes annoying.
|
| There's really pros and cons to whatever implementation
| is used. While I completely agree that any function that
| might be operated while driving needs to be able to be
| operable with hard controls, I also don't think it's a
| good idea to clutter those menus with a bunch of junk
| that you _don 't_ want or need while driving.
|
| I think there's a good case to be made for 3 levels of
| controls:
|
| * Things that must have dedicated hard keys: anything
| that must be adjusted rapidly for driver attentiveness,
| control, or comfort -- HVAC, audio levels and basic
| tuning, all lighting and vehicle controls.
|
| * Things that must have hard keys, but can live in a
| shared menu: anything that a driver may want to adjust
| while driving, but is not essential for immediate use --
| trip data, infotainment, non-critical gauge monitoring
| etc.
|
| * Things that don't need hard keys and should not clutter
| any of the above interfaces: odd-ball configuration
| settings that a driver would not need to operate while
| driving -- key fob configuration, entry-exit preference
| configuration, software updates, integrations with
| external services, maintenance logs, etc.
| mcescalante wrote:
| I have a 2013 Accord with a touch screen (bought it used and it's
| what came with it) instead of button controls. The latency on the
| screen is terrible and my father's Acura RDX which does not have
| a touch panel is much more user-friendly. I would love if more
| manufacturers started to put more analog controls back into their
| cars, but kept the non-touch screens for info display/backup
| cameras.
| voyager2 wrote:
| Bout time this started happening. Now, the rest of the industry
| just needs to follow suit.
| kart23 wrote:
| BMW and Mercedes have always had physical dials to control the
| infotainment system.
| 0xdeadbeefbabe wrote:
| Including the movie industry.
| java-man wrote:
| the industry: improve usability or save $0.20. hmmm, touch
| choice. good bye, hardware buttons!
| product50 wrote:
| The Audi MMI system consisting of a central dial is still the
| most intuitive and least distracting of all car systems I have
| seen in the market. And, as a bonus, it also works really well
| with Android Auto and CarPlay - without touchscreen.
| hosanex wrote:
| I think Land Rover has made one of the neatest and most balanced
| yet useful interior designs with Land Rover Defender 2020.
| https://carbuzz.com/cars/land-rover/defender
| plodman wrote:
| Tell that to my 2019 HRV. Doesn't even have CarPlay so I can't
| use Siri to do anything for me. All AC controls are touch screen
| so I have to look away from the road just to change the fan
| speed.
| aembleton wrote:
| Why did you buy it?
| dirtyid wrote:
| I remember years back there was a company that had and inflatable
| layer ontop of touch screens for flexible "buttons". I'm sure
| there's ergonomic pros/cons of different kinds of physical
| switches but seems like we need to move on better touch screen
| haptics.
| mataug wrote:
| This is a great decision by Honda. Touchscreens are a terrible UX
| when driving. Its difficult to be accurate with the touchscreen
| in a car when its moving, even as the passenger. Physical
| controls are much easier to control, less distracting, and we
| develop muscle memory for knobs dials and switches easily.
|
| As an example, I personally am not a fan of the extreme
| minimalism in Tesla cars. A fully touchscreen experience makes
| sense only after a car is capable of fully autonomous self
| driving. As long as a human is responsible for
| controlling/monitoring the car, physical controls are better than
| touch controls.
|
| To be fair, touch screens are better for changing settings,
| monitoring the health of the car, and any other action that we do
| while the car is parked.
| kazinator wrote:
| I just need a basic stereo, manually cranked windows, and a 5-6
| speed stickshift.
| dublin wrote:
| I've designed hardware and software for a number of touchscreen
| devices and applications. I even invented the double-sided
| touchscreen, which may show up in phones in another few years.)
| So I love touchscreens, BUT, he lack of feel makes knobs, buttons
| and switches a far better choice for moving environments - I hate
| most new cars that lack real controls for at least commonly used
| functions. It's hard to beat the knobs and sliders in most 50-60
| year-old cars for easy work-by-feel operation.
|
| (FWIW, I always thought it would have been cool if someone in
| StarTrek TNG/DS9/Voyager had sat down at one of those smooth
| glass LCARS interface panels and been surprised that they could
| "feel" 3D controls on them. That seems to be the sort of thing
| that would be done given the obvious capabilities of their
| holo/forcefield generators...)
| larrik wrote:
| > the predicted move towards more voice-controlled actions in
| cars could eliminate the debate around touchscreens versus
| analogue controls in the future.
|
| Oh yuck, voice controls are the absolute worst. Anyone who thinks
| otherwise probably only drives alone (or at least without kids
| yelling in the background).
| furiousjulius wrote:
| Top complaint of my Civic, touchccreen controlled volume/mute. TS
| buttons just don't cut it for some things.
| yourapostasy wrote:
| I wouldn't mind a tactile touch screen [1] with optional voice
| prompting, and a jog dial.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiM0u79fals
| dron57 wrote:
| Funny coming from Honda. My parents own a 2017 (I think) Civic
| and the only way to adjust volume is by tapping +/- on the
| touchscreen. It's the most unusable volume adjustment I've ever
| experienced. It was completely unusable with a glove in the
| winter.
|
| So while most other companies only implemented touchscreen
| controls for secondary features Honda did it for the most widely
| used one. Now they are backtracking 100%, go figure.
| rjbwork wrote:
| I just got a 2020 Civic. There are touch screen control, but
| volume, music, climate control (up and down, not which vents),
| tuner, cruise control, and a number of other things are all
| physical buttons and knobs. I mostly have Android Auto up with
| music and map going on the touch screen while actually driving
| anyway, so more physical interfaces are a-ok by me.
| sosborn wrote:
| I'm in the same boat with my 2019 ridgeline. To me, this is
| the best of both worlds. Most days, I don't even have to look
| at the touchscreen much less interact with it.
| signal11 wrote:
| My 2017 Honda had a dial for adjusting the volume (it could
| also be pushed in to switch off).
|
| The issue with new Hondas is that switching off/on the air
| conditioning, or air flow/fan speed, has to be done via touch
| screen. They do have dials for temperature control and a button
| to bring up the Climate UI.
| [deleted]
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| I have a 2015 Fit (Jazz in the not US), and it has the +/- on
| the touch screen, but also physical buttons on the steering
| wheel. I guess the compromise is that the driver doesn't need
| to use the touch buttons because they have the ones on the
| wheel, and the passenger can take their eyes off the road.
| fenwick67 wrote:
| I'm curious to know if the buttons are in the base model or
| are an upgrade.
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| I DO have the highest trim level, so maybe that's why.
| thedance wrote:
| At least in the US models of the Fit there's no
| difference in the interior trim levels. I think part of
| the confused nature of this discussion is that Honda
| never shipped the touch-only dashboard that this article
| is talking about in the US market. The Fit and as far as
| I have seen every model Honda sells in the US has always
| had real knobs and switches for the climate controls. The
| touch climate controls were available in Japan and
| elsewhere.
|
| ETA:
|
| Non-USA interior:
| https://img.sm360.ca/images/article/the-honda-
| way/58810//the...
|
| USA interior: https://file.kelleybluebookimages.com/kbb/b
| ase/evox/StJ/1082...
| nereye wrote:
| For the 2016 year model, the base model has a volume knob
| but the higher models do not. The 'USA interior' link
| above seems identical to the Non-USA link vs audio volume
| knob not being there. This is what the dash looks like
| for models with the knob (could only find 2015 lx but
| looks identical to 2016 lx): https://cdn.jdpower.com/Chro
| meImageGallery/Expanded/White/64...
| thedance wrote:
| Oh yes, I'd quite forgotten about the base model radio.
| Almost surprised it has no tape deck.
| dole wrote:
| One of the major changes between the 2018 and 2019 Honda model
| years was the addition of a physical volume knob on the main
| touch screen. Evidently this was one of the biggest complaints
| and they actually listened.
| fizixer wrote:
| There should be UX research about an ideal combination of tactile
| physical interfaces (knobs, dials, push buttons, whatever) and
| voice-activated and voice-feedbacked control while driving.
|
| I we're missing out on not only voice-activated commands, but AI
| responding and updating about the situation through speakers, not
| just through the screen updates.
| PythonicAlpha wrote:
| Wasn't it the US marine that moved back from touch screens to
| physical controls in their ships?
|
| While the actual reason could be a case for discussions, the
| decision is correct in my humble opinion. The reason was, the
| loss of (I think) one destroyer, that crashed with a civil ship
| (a big freighter or tanker), because of misinterpretations of the
| steering control on the bridge of the destroyer.
|
| In my humble opinion, when it comes to mission critical and
| distraction free control, nothing is better than physical control
| systems. In a good car, not only you have physical control
| systems, but also buttons and switches are of different shape or
| size or way of control (pressing, twisting, ...), so they can be
| identified simply by touching them.
| SN76477 wrote:
| difficult to operate intuitively is exactly right.
| crimsonalucard wrote:
| The steering wheel and acceleration pedals should be made into
| touch screens. Physical interfaces are so old school.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Fuck Honda. I'm never buying another "new" Honda:
|
| While their new and "certified" inventory is rusting on dealer
| lots, they have declared [0][1] that peons owning Takata NADI
| inflators (SHRAPNEL BOMBS sitting inches from our faces) should
| just wait (NO FREE RENTAL) a few MONTHS (sometime in 2021) for
| them to redesign, test, manufacture, ship, and ultimately replace
| said shrapnel bomb.
|
| [0] https://hondaairbaginfo.com/nadi
|
| [1] https://hondanews.com/en-US/honda-
| corporate/releases/release...
| dang wrote:
| Related (re Mazda) from last year:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20200335
| samizdis wrote:
| Eminently 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.
| tropdrop wrote:
| Thinking of voice-activation in a car in lieu of analog manual
| controls misses the point - perhaps you weren't advocating for
| it as a replacement, but the article above seems to.
|
| There are multiple points of failures for a voice-control only
| interface for a high-speed moving vehicle:
|
| 1. Problems with NLP, and needing to adjust oneself to the
| proprietary format of _this_ particular car 's voice
| recognition grammar/syntax/parsing/etc. (discussed elsewhere in
| this thread)
|
| 2. Loud location (driving by a jackhammer)
|
| 3. Female voices [1]
|
| 4. AAVE voices [2]
|
| 5. Immigrant voices [1]
|
| Some argument can be made that 3-5 _could_ be improved on with
| larger training sets. Given that we 're still working off of
| much of the same recording equipment that we developed in the
| early 20th century, this is only true up to a point in regards
| to #3, since it's difficult to calibrate higher pitched "noise"
| out and keep higher pitched voices in when they're at a similar
| range.
|
| Even assuming all the above problems are solved, there are
| still the cases of someone losing their voice temporarily due
| to illness, or someone speech-disabled but otherwise able-
| bodied, _and_ the cases of a computer malfunction in the car
| itself that causes voice recognition to break. I was in such an
| incident myself quite recently, where a rented Mini Cooper 's
| onboard computer made it appear that the engine was overheating
| (red hot engine symbol) and that I must cease driving
| immediately lest the car explodes. After the car was off, the
| computer malfunctioned so severely that attempting to turn the
| car on only resulted in a light-up display of every error
| message the car had.
|
| All that to say - voice controls are not a suitable replacement
| for standard knobs and dials, and the latter should always be
| available as a reliable back-up method for operating a car.
|
| [1] - https://hbr.org/2019/05/voice-recognition-still-has-
| signific... [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-
| American_Vernacular_En...
| throwanem wrote:
| My car has onboard voice controls, but, unlike Siri via the
| car's audio system, they suck. Recognition is slow and
| unreliable enough that I never bother, and if I did, the
| cognitive overhead would be unacceptably high anyway. They'd
| have done better not to bother implementing them at all and
| instead just offload that work to the driver's paired
| smartphone, which for a sedan that listed $32k new, it's very
| reasonable to assume will be present.
| Dahoon wrote:
| >My car has onboard voice controls, but, unlike Siri via the
| car's audio system, they suck
|
| Using Siri is more dangerous than driving and texting:
|
| "Undistracted drivers typically showed a one-second reaction
| time. Those who used the voice-controlled Apple CarPlay saw a
| 36% increase in their reaction time, which rose to 57% when
| they used the touch interface."
|
| https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/03/20/new-study-
| shows-u...
|
| Touchscreens should be banned in cars. I bought my car
| without any for that reason.
| throwanem wrote:
| I'd be interested to see how having a conversation with a
| passenger lines up.
| perl4ever wrote:
| Yeah, well, people are selective in their concerns. How
| much does it affect reaction time to have passengers in the
| car who you may talk to, or may be doing all sorts of
| things that distract you?
| saagarjha wrote:
| Aren't passengers much better to have in your car,
| because they can "copilot" for you?
| [deleted]
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| It's interesting, when I had my Windows phone and linked it
| with my 2014 Ford Fiesta which had Microsoft Sync, it was
| incredibly fast, responsive and a joy to use. Once you got
| the format of your queries down, it was super easy to use.
| They had a button on the wiper knob. Press it, wait for the
| beep and your're off and running. It synced up instantly. As
| soon as your phone was connected via bluetooth, you were good
| to go.
|
| I had a text conversation with my GF back and forth for
| almost two hours, just by using the speech to text
| recognition capability of the Sync in my Fiesa, it was really
| amazing to me how well it worked.
|
| My 2016 Toyota Corolla has something similar and pairs with
| my iphone and its a total nightmare. it takes literally ten
| minutes for it to sync up. That's after the phone has already
| been connected via Bluetooth. The command queries don't often
| work, you have to repeat them several times, and then after
| three of four times of saying the same thing over and over,
| you finally just give up. I'm not sure if its just with the
| iphone, but it really does suck.
| throwanem wrote:
| It might just be the car. Unless I invoke the onboard voice
| recognition, my Altima essentially behaves as a Bluetooth
| headset powered by internal combustion, and Siri is as
| usable that way as via the phone's own speakers and mic.
|
| That said, I wouldn't be surprised if that were heavily
| dependent on the quality of the car's audio system, though;
| I went for the best available trim package, figuring that
| if I had to go back to owning a car again then it might as
| well at least be as comfortable as I could manage, and I
| might not have so good an experience here if I had
| economized a bit more.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Is taking your hands off the steering wheel much better?
|
| Ideally, all controls would be available on the steering wheel
| without removing either hand. Or, as you say, voice controls.
| throwaway55554 wrote:
| Taking one hand off the wheel is nowhere near as bad as
| taking your eyes off the road. With physical knobs, I can use
| muscle memory to reach out and adjust them without taking my
| eyes off the road.
| laumars wrote:
| Some cars already do. My car has buttons on the steering
| wheel which allow you to navigate menus, control the radio,
| etc. As well as paddles to control over functions. The
| problem is if you are not on a straight road those controls
| become virtually impossible to use safely. Whereas if I
| quickly need to change the volume or even mute the radio I
| can do so one handed without even glancing at the volume dial
| on the radio and still steer the car safely.
| quicklime wrote:
| Having it on the dash rather than the steering wheel also
| allows the passenger to operate the controls, which is
| probably the safest way to do it.
| usrusr wrote:
| Steering is a "good enough" problem outside of extreme
| driving conditions whereas in driver attention every bit of
| eyes-on-the-road counts.
| nannal wrote:
| When it comes to it, I don't think it's as bad. In a manual
| car one hand is often off the steering wheel and that's not
| detrimental.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Having actually used voice controls in a car, it is worse
| than taking one hand off the steering wheel. It is also worse
| than a touch screen interface. It really is the worst of all
| options.
|
| Because they suck at recognition.
|
| I've noticed the mental effort I spend in trying to formulate
| a voice command that the car (or even phone) will understand
| is significant - and that almost none of my brain is being
| used for driving. The likelihood of it not recognizing what I
| said is not low. With tactile buttons, it's almost automatic.
| I don't spend any time thinking. I know where the buttons
| are, and my finger is good at finding it.
|
| On the few occasions where I'm not sure where my finger
| landed, I can still slowly move my finger to an edge and
| start counting. I can do this over several seconds. Often
| while doing this I have to attend to an event on the road,
| and it's trivial to do so: I pause my finger search, attend
| to the event on the road, and then resume. So even if it
| takes 10-30s to find my button (very rare), it can be done
| with almost no loss of attention on the road. The same goes
| if I need to pause to listen/respond to what someone else in
| the car is saying.
|
| Contrast that with voice recognition: If I have to pause to
| attend to anything on the road, the recognition system
| assumes I'm done talking. This adds more mental stress (maybe
| it will execute the wrong command? In any case I'll have to
| start over).
|
| Now I'll go further and make an even stronger claim: Even if
| voice recognition becomes almost perfect (better than
| humans), it will _still_ be a greater cognitive load to use
| voice recognition. For me, changing stations on the radio or
| adjusting the volume or adjusting the climate control is
| pretty automatic. The cognitive load of finding the preset
| station is virtually none. Whereas just formulating the
| command verbally - even to another human where I wouldn 't
| worry about voice recognition - takes more effort. Perhaps
| verbal skills are tied to the vision in the brain and tactile
| senses are not? I wonder if any studies have been done on
| this.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Hand, not hands.
|
| Also my steering wheel has both. I can do everything by
| feeling without my eyes leaving the road.
| Dahoon wrote:
| Voice controls are worse than texting:
|
| "Undistracted drivers typically showed a one-second reaction
| time. Those who used the voice-controlled Apple CarPlay saw a
| 36% increase in their reaction time, which rose to 57% when
| they used the touch interface."
|
| https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/03/20/new-study-
| shows-u...
| dijit wrote:
| This is a great example of when "perfect is the enemy of
| good".
|
| Humans have pretty good spatial reasoning (proprioception);
| the notion that touch controls should replace tactile well-
| spaced controls is dependent on the fact that both senses
| (sight, spatial awareness) are uncontested.
|
| I would argue the point that sight is already in-use and must
| not be interfered with, if there's an alternative that does
| not use the same resources.
|
| I think of it like hardware acceleration and parrelelisation;
| the brain has a hardware accelerator for sight, but only one,
| and has a bunch of cores ready for other tasks, and those
| other tasks can happen in parallel.
| fastball wrote:
| Or you could go for Tesla's strategy, which is try to get
| self-driving ASAP so you don't have the problem anymore.
| paganel wrote:
| Yes, taking one hand off the steering wheel is much better
| than taking your eyes off the road. Let's be honest here,
| we're not driving F1 cars so we don't actually physically
| need to be with both hands on the wheel 100% of the time, but
| it can take only second of us not looking at the road and we
| could be hitting someone/something and be dead (or we could
| kill that someone that we've just hit).
|
| I really, really love to drive, I think I'm one of the few
| Europeans who chose to drive from Eastern Europe till the
| Atlantic Coast and back for his vacation just because I like
| driving (and wanted to see how Europe actually looks like
| outside of the big cities), and as such I can tell you that
| lack of attention (i.e. not seeing where you go and not
| seeing how the people around you are going) is the number one
| factor of accidents. I think there's nothing else that comes
| close to it.
| axaxs wrote:
| Taking your hand off the steering wheel isn't so bad. It's
| loss of attention, even for 1 second, that's extremely
| dangerous. Touch screens make you look away from the road.
| Knobs and buttons do not. However, jamming them all into the
| steering wheel may then cause the same problem, as if there's
| too many things in the same area you'd have to look down to
| find what you're looking for.
| donaltroddyn wrote:
| I'm not at all convinced that voice recognition are better or
| safer than well designed physical controls.
| winkeltripel wrote:
| I'm certain that it'll be worse. Consider spending 15
| seconds to change a single setting.
| mywittyname wrote:
| I do not like button on steering wheels. I drive at 10-and-2
| so unless I know where the damn button I'm looking for is, I
| have to move my hands to look under them on the steering
| wheel. I have a Ford where all the buttons are mostly the
| same.
|
| If you forced me to have them, I'd prefer something like a
| d-pad on each side because they are easy to locate without
| looking and intuitive to select. Critical controls should be
| stalks, IMHO. I can't use cruise control in the car I've
| owned for six years without looking at the steering wheel,
| but I test drove a Subaru, which I haven't owned for like 9
| years, and immediately remembered how to operate the cruise
| stalk.
| nickpinkston wrote:
| That's actually the approach Ferrari uses:
|
| https://images.app.goo.gl/KdEV4qWFEHouDEq28
| fanatic2pope wrote:
| No radio! As god herself intended.
| nickpinkston wrote:
| Still a phone though - I guess you might get an important
| call on the road :D
| Jagat wrote:
| >> Is taking your hands off the steering wheel much better?
|
| Yes. Most drivers are able to drive using one hand for a
| short period of time. Not so with eyes off the road.
|
| In fact, it's a requirement in most countries where stick
| shift is the norm.
| [deleted]
| nannal wrote:
| I'm hoping they take up some kind of googles or periscope like
| interface.
| Wistar wrote:
| 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--allowing the car
| (me) to drive off the edge of the map--and didn't allow me to
| move the map, to re-center by touch, while the car was in
| motion, instead presenting an alert saying that the action was
| unavailable while the car was moving. As I was driving in an
| unfamiliar city, this issue forced me to stop several times so
| that I could see the map surrounding the car, it was simply
| horrible.
|
| To complicate things, the rental agency had bound the two key
| fobs together with steel cable. This caused the car to
| arbitrarily recall the user settings from one key or the other
| --presumably whichever key it happened to recognize first. This
| had the effect of making the system behave even more randomly
| as it unevenly switched back and forth between the two user
| profiles each time I started the car. Every time I'd think I
| had tamed the user preferences, the "other" set would get
| loaded, changing the preferences. I solved this by removing the
| key battery from one of the keys but even with just a single
| profile, it was a remarkably trying experience and one that
| seemed to have been engineered for frivolous, show-offy,
| reasons rather than solid, task-solving reasons.
|
| Mercedes-Benz has, in recent years, also made their UX very
| flashy and fiddly even though they are not using a touch
| screen. Just tuning a radio station is a multi-step process
| requiring the traversal of several menus but lacking the
| feedback in the sub-menus that is needed to let the user know
| they have actually made a selection. The user must come back
| all the way to the top of the menu structure to see if the
| selection they made two or three steps earlier has had any
| effect.
|
| Just give me a dedicated knob.
| ihuman wrote:
| Honda cars already have built-in voice controls, plus Siri (and
| I'm assuming OK Google) if your phone is plugged in.
| beamatronic wrote:
| My 2007 Honda already has voice controls. Never use them.
| black6 wrote:
| I'm still waiting for the convenient floor-mounted headlamp
| dimmer switch to come back.
| vidanay wrote:
| I don't know of any teenagers who re-wired that switch to cut
| off the license plate lights....no, none.
| huffmsa wrote:
| Now would be a good time, there are very few of us who use
| the engine disconnect pedal these days.
| eyegor wrote:
| What is an "engine disconnect pedal"? You rewire the
| ignition or something?
| icefo wrote:
| Complicated way to say clutch
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| The clutch pedal disconnects the engine from the
| transmission.
| mywittyname wrote:
| OP is being a smartass. He means a clutch pedal.
| Zenst wrote:
| Exactly - touchscreen offer no unique tactile feedback you can
| associate with an individual action. Also when the screen is
| multi use depending upon options then you really handicap the
| muscle memory and with that, cause distractions.
|
| However, I do feel HUD display tech is one area in which could
| do with some love as would compliment and be less distracting
| over a screen located away from the drivers view of vision.
| lazyjones wrote:
| Voice control sucks IMO, even though a lot of people now grow
| up with Alexa and similar and adapt to the technology. Why does
| it suck, just like some "smart" buttons? Because it's not
| obvious what it can do. You have to learn the vocabulary it
| understands and its other limitations (tone etc.). For example,
| I tried to get my Tesla to text one of my contacts recently and
| failed. I didn't know whether it just didn't understand me or
| was unable to. Good UI are obvious and don't require you to
| memorize secret capabilities.
| 121789 wrote:
| not obvious to you. I suspect younger generations won't have
| much of an issue with this, similar to how millenials learned
| how to utilize google search easily while it confounded their
| parents
| nullc wrote:
| Have you watched a younger person search? Most of them
| don't have any clue what they're doing either. Presumably
| it's just more socially acceptable for older people to
| admit their ignorance. :)
| gnicholas wrote:
| Voice control still isn't there yet. Siri frequently thinks I'm
| talking to her when I say "hey [kid's name]" -- despite the
| fact that my kid's name shares zero letters with "Siri", either
| in English or in IPA.
|
| This is pretty surprising/disappointing, considering that the
| /s/ sound is pretty distinct, and considering that I did the
| "hey Siri" training when I got my phone.
| chc wrote:
| I like physical controls better, but I don't think that's a
| totally realistic contrast. Neither touchscreens nor knobs
| necessarily _demand_ you look. I 've known lots of people who
| looked while using physical buttons, and I can do my common
| touchscreen tasks in my car (e.g. switch to Bluetooth, hit play
| or pause) without looking. I suspect most people will look in
| both cases.
| masklinn wrote:
| > I suppose that voice controls would be a reasonably safe tech
| option, but probably not cost-effective.
|
| They all suck and they're literally not workable for rentals.
| Nobody will waste an hour configuring a rental car's VA on
| departure.
| brozaman wrote:
| The previous BMW one is pretty good and requires 0
| configuration, at least in Spanish. I haven't tried the new
| one and my accent is very clear though.
|
| It has few functions like call X or go to Y but in my
| experience, it doesn't do that many things but makes them
| very well.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| I always hunt down and hit the "factory reset" menu option on
| every car I rent, though. If you don't, you never know what
| weird settings the previous users have changed.
|
| I also un-pair all the hundreds of paired bluetooth phones,
| if the reset hasn't already done that. I often rent cars
| where the address book is full of names and numbers from
| previously paired phones.
| mushufasa wrote:
| hondas have had voice controls for ~20 years. they're in e.g.
| the 2004 acura tl. simple voice controls are cost effective and
| already implemented.
| jsight wrote:
| If they are as good as the ones in my Nissan, they are
| effectively worthless.
| randcraw wrote:
| Yes but they're uselessly complex. I've owned a top-of-the-
| line Ridgeline with voice control for over a year and I still
| don't remember any of the sequences of specific commands it
| recognizes.
|
| Any car needs to be connected to a central server where the
| processing occurs. Useful levels of voice recognition just
| aren't going to happen inside the car.
| setr wrote:
| The problem there is that they try to parse voice as
| natural language -- if they instead made a simple
| programming language with a consistent format.. you'd be
| able to process the voice locally (speech-to-text has been
| mostly effective since like the 95s) and actually make it
| memorizable and semi-explorable.
|
| And if you added a semicolon-keyword like "over" for radio,
| you'd avoid the issue where it waits a minute to see if you
| finished, making usage agonizingly slow.
|
| But we somehow still haven't reached the point where
| people/corps finally realize that we simply can't parse
| natural language effectively
| bilalq wrote:
| The headline had me alarmed. This is just moving heating and
| whatnot to physical controls. That's awesome. I was worried they
| were getting rid of the touchscreen entirely.
|
| Android Auto has been an absolute game changer, and it works so
| much better with touchscreen. Voice controls actually do cover
| the majority of use cases, but things like being able to quickly
| see the next turn or zooming out on the map with one hand are
| simple, and can be done without really looking at the screen
| until you need to see the info.
|
| Unfortunately, the car I ended up buying (Acura TLX) had Android
| Auto, but was controlled by a dial knob. It was really the worst
| of both worlds, since heating was still managed through a second
| screen that was a touchscreen.
| viburnum wrote:
| The way my brains works, it's hard for me to even read road signs
| when I'm driving (excepting simple ones like speed limits and
| one-word signs). Switching contexts is just really slow. If I try
| to use voice recognition I basically go blind for three seconds.
| tomp wrote:
| Wow, this is easily the most annoying site I've come across
| recently. Not only does it block the whole page if I'm using
| adblock, but it doesn't even start working when I disable it (I'm
| using uBlock Origin).
|
| We really need to figure out a proper anti-anti-adblock
| technology...
| snarfy wrote:
| I recall Mazda doing this a while back. [1]
|
| [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20200335
| csours wrote:
| What physical controls are an ABSOLUTE MUST for you?
|
| Leaving aside Legally mandated: Wipers, Headlights, Gear
| Selector, Brake, Accelerator, Horn, Hazards.
|
| Me: Required: Mute Music, HVAC temperature and fan speed.
| Strongly preferred: All audio controls, Cruise control.
| tomohawk wrote:
| A friend bought a Tesla and he was very pleased with it. He
| insisted I drive it. I couldn't stand it. It was obviously
| designed to not have a human drive it. My friend doesn't care for
| driving, but I love it.
|
| I think that's where the touch screen comes in. The driver is
| secondary. They have to let the driver access things, but they
| don't have to make it safe or convenient.
|
| Now that the self driving hype is dying down, perhaps the driver
| will be put first again.
| rcardo11 wrote:
| I still don't get it. For me banning touchscreens from every car
| interface is a no-brainer.
| sethammons wrote:
| > We changed it from touchscreen to dial operation, as we
| received customer feedback that it was difficult to operate
| intuitively. You had to look at the screen to change the heater
| seating, therefore, we changed it so one can operate it without
| looking, giving more confidence while driving.
|
| Finally, logic, reason, and listening to customers.
| numbers wrote:
| My Prius prime has the worst controls possible. During spring and
| fall, when one part of the day is cold and the other warm, it's
| annoying to turn on the car. For instance, if I commute home and
| used A/C, turning on the car in the morning will have the A/C
| blasting when it's also cold outside. And I have to sit through
| the animation and boot up of the screen and then go to the
| climate control settings which usually is a very uncomfortable 30
| seconds every time. And then, the touch is not as smooth as a
| modern smartphone. This is a 2019 Prius too so idk what Toyota
| was thinking going all touch on this one.
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