8 ms·

User interfaces have gone backwards decades in quality. Look at your car radio in a 90's car. You didn't need to look at it to figure out how to push the radio

User interfaces have gone backwards decades in quality. Look at your car radio in a 90's car. You didn't need to look at it to figure out how to push the radio button, turn the volume, anything. You could even adjust the bass on the fly with a bass knob instead of navigating to your "eq" menu to do it. Now, you've got to look away from the road, realize what "mode" your in, you can move the menu around to the "audio" section, then "fm", then select a channel. And of course, it's a touch screen so there's no tactile feedback. But at least it's got PRETTY ANIMATIONS! My Toyota Corolla will blast audio out of the speakers as it boots but the volume knob doesn't respond till it completely boots up. So you may start the car and have 5-10 seconds of blasting radio that you can do nothing about. GREAT JOB GUYS. A volume knob that needs to boot. This is what was considered not only acceptable, but a "Feature" in a modern vehicle with hundreds of millions of dollars in investment and NOBODY thought to see if the radio interface was actually... efficient? It's not like people interact with the radio/music console in a car on a regular basis... Or my 2001 Jetta. It was one of the earlier cars with "climate control". What that actually means is that to set it to heat, you have to tap the "plus temp" button a literal 20-30 times to get it into "HI" to force heat on. And then the day warms up and on your drive home you want AC? Tap it 20-30 times on the "minus temp" button. There was no knob for AC temp. They gave you 1 degree precision on a car that couldn't guarantee 10 degree temperatures. Additionally, the volume control for the car had digital buttons. That's right. Enjoy pressing up/down 50 times. No ability to rapidly change volume. So when you switch radio stations or to casette/cd and the volume is highly different you have to sit there pressing the button over and over. But, even then, at least these were BUTTONS that you didn't have to look away from the road to use. They had little tactile notches on them so you could feel around for them.

foobarian 9y ago
Don't get me started about TVs. When I grew up our family TV turned on in seconds, and pressing channel up/down reacted in tens of milliseconds.
- Cyph0n 9y ago
  To be fair, you weren't getting near-instantaneous full HD quality broadcasting with DVR support on your TV back then.
  - dreamcompiler 9y ago
    The problem is that there's no reason one couldn't design a TV that had both full HD and zero boot time with instantaneous channel switching. The reason such TVs don't exist is simply engineering laziness.
    - Cyph0n 9y ago
      > The reason such TVs don't exist is simply engineering laziness. If your answer to the question "why can't a billion dollar industry provide me with instantaneous channel switching?" is "because they are lazy", you are severely misguided (at the very least!). There are hundreds of extremely talented engineers working full-time on these problems. If the solution were as easy as you propose, the issues would be solved. > zero boot time That's not going to happen, ever, but I'll assume you meant "faster" boot times. Probably. Keep in mind that your average set-top box likely goes through a more complex secure boot process than most electronic devices you would ever interact with. Why? Because if people can run arbitrary firmware on a set-top box, your cable company would lose a shit ton of money. > instantaneous channel switching You are bound by the latency required to demodulate a signal being broadcast from some satellite ~30,000 km away from the receiver, decrypt the resulting stream, and finally decode it, all on the fly so you get a nice, continuous, stutter-free full HD broadcast. I am no expert, so there is probably way more stuff happening behind the scene that someone else could probably shed light on. The point of my comment was to demonstrate that things can sometimes be more complicated than they seem at first glance.
      - jimktrains2 9y ago
        When you change channels it has to wait for the next key frame before it can display video.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
- averagewall 9y ago
  How long ago? My color CRT TV took a good 10 s or so to warm up the tube before you'd see much/anything. But at least it responded instantly, so you could spend that time walking back to the couch instead of waiting for some stupid menu. Instant and trustworthy response is basically gone from most appliances. I think it's a combination of marketing (has to look high tech) and cost (touch buttons are cheaper than mechanically interlinked toggle buttons. I still can't tell if my computer monitor is on or off because I don't know the weird LED flashing code it uses to communicate that (Holy crap! appliances use something like morse code to tell you important information about their state! How did they get so needlessly cryptic? If there's no picture, I have to check all the cables and push the power button a couple of times to see what happens. Web programmers are as much to blame too. Show me a web video player that has play and pause buttons that always do what they say when they say it.
  - mietek 9y ago
    > Show me a web video player that has play and pause buttons that always do what they say when they say it. The only player which ever worked properly — even allowing the user to step through a video frame by frame — was part of Apple’s QuickTime framework. Fun fact: QuickTime will be 26 years old in December. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuickTime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuickTime
  - dredmorbius 9y ago
    mps / mps-youtube :)
- thaumasiotes 9y ago
  We have some recent TVs. They have no buttons. Including power buttons. If you want to turn them on, you need the remote control.
  - cesarb 9y ago
    The ones I've seen don't have physical buttons, but have nearly invisible capacitive buttons, at least for power/channel/volume. For most other functions, you do need the remote control.
- bitwize 9y ago
  Y'know how they say "don't touch that dial"? When I grew up, TVs actually still had dials you had to turn. The tuner responded instantaneously when you changed the channel. Now get off my lawn you damn kids.
  - Piskvorrr 9y ago
    Of course it did, you were directly manipulating the a resistor in its circuit. Getting the channel just right...and keeping it there...that was, of course, the flipside.
JBlue42 9y ago
Thanks for pointing this out. As cool as my friends' new car's features are, I still love my Acura RSX. I can reach from the steering wheel to adjust anything on the console without taking my eyes off the road. No fuss, made for human hands, knobs and buttons.
userbinator 9y ago
Automotive "climate control" has been around since the mid-60s, and the controls of the early versions were also far more straightforward; basically, one knob for temperature and another for turning the system on/off at various settings. Here's one from 1973: http://i44.servimg.com/u/f44/16/54/79/13/1973_c12.jpg http://i44.servimg.com/u/f44/16/54/79/13/1973_c12.jpg
- Yaggo 9y ago
  I had no idea that automatic climate control (i.e. user just sets the target temperature) dates back to 1970, because it was not a standard option for low/mid-price cars yet in 90s (at least in Finland). Heck, my parents bought a Toyota Corolla in 2003 with no automatic climate control. Fascinating to see it implemented with old-style analogous controls. Same for 6-way power seat.
  - userbinator 9y ago
    Indeed, it was originally only on luxury models --- Cadillac introduced it in 1964. https://ccco.s3.amazonaws.com/kb_photos/290/2284_1964_Cadillac_Prestige-27-28_low_res.jpg https://ccco.s3.amazonaws.com/kb_photos/290/2284_1964_Cadill...
  - darksim905 9y ago
    I thought most of YC HN was based out of/lived in a California bubble. Surely the rest of the commenters here have modern cars? I have a VW GLI that has climate control that beats the shit out of any car I've owned before it. There was also another posted complaining about their radio having to ''boot up'' before they could change the audio volume. I've literally never heard of these issues. This is ridiculous.
- katastic 9y ago
  I know. I'm not saying they invented it. I'm saying that it wasn't a common feature on lower price cars.
dreamcompiler 9y ago
It's truly awful. The last time I bought a car I wanted to take a hammer and smash the freaking "screen" because the UI was such a POS (VW Beetle). A 20-year-old radio is a better audio system, and the cheapest smartphone is a better navigation system than anything that comes in a car nowadays. But I suppose the manufacturers think they can't sell a car nowadays without "teh shiny screen." And they might be right.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
amluto 9y ago
That wasn't particularly early. I learned to drive in a used (but perfectly functioning, of course) '91 Lexus LS400. It was the make or break car for the new Lexus marque, and they put serious effort into the experience. It has excellent thermostat-controlled AC and heat, and it was very easily controllable using dedicated buttons without looking away from the road at all. I wish modern cars (cough, Tesla) would put a tenth the care into UX.
- CommentCard 9y ago
  Tesla's console is the embodiment of form over function for UI. It looks beautiful having a flowing button-free cockpit, but I'd rather be able to adjust settings without looking away from the road. Whatever happened to HUDs? It seems like a HUD with a dial on the steering wheel would let you have the best of both worlds.
jpindar 9y ago
>So you may start the car and have 5-10 seconds of blasting radio that you can do nothing about. What some people do is make an audio file consisting of several seconds of silence, and do whatever is needed (call it "AAA.mp3", or put it first in a default playlist) to have it play while the player boots. But yeah, it's really messed up that that should be considered acceptable.
chrisbennet 9y ago
Microwave oven UI's are terrible but they weren't always that way. My old Amana had 5 controls: a knob for intensity (never changed it) and a knob for the timer, plus start, stop and light buttons. When the the start button broke we just jammed it in the "on" position with a penny making the UI even simpler: put the food in, and turn the knob for the time. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Cookmatic-Radarange-Made-by-Amana-Microwave-Oven-Model-RR-7B-Nov-1979-/292308626476 https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Cookmatic-Radarange-Made-by...
- mrguyorama 9y ago
  I don't have the same feeling. Different brands have different UI's, and some are as simple as "Press then numbered button for how many minutes of full power cooking you want"
  - chrisbennet 9y ago
    Unless you want more than 10 minutes, then you have to press a different button and then type in the time. Fortunately, there are only something like 20 buttons...a big improvement over a knob and a button that is immediately usable by anyone.
    - mrguyorama 9y ago
      What do you cook in the microwave for that long? You could also look at much cheaper brands/models. I find that cheaper products seem to be keeping older UIs and therefor staying more functional
      - chrisbennet 9y ago
        I was mistaken, my microwave makes you press somewhat hidden button if you want cook something longer than 6 minutes, not 10.

foobarian 9y ago

Don't get me started about TVs. When I grew up our family TV turned on in seconds, and pressing channel up/down reacted in tens of milliseconds.

Cyph0n 9y ago
To be fair, you weren't getting near-instantaneous full HD quality broadcasting with DVR support on your TV back then.
- dreamcompiler 9y ago
  The problem is that there's no reason one couldn't design a TV that had both full HD and zero boot time with instantaneous channel switching. The reason such TVs don't exist is simply engineering laziness.
  - Cyph0n 9y ago
    > The reason such TVs don't exist is simply engineering laziness. If your answer to the question "why can't a billion dollar industry provide me with instantaneous channel switching?" is "because they are lazy", you are severely misguided (at the very least!). There are hundreds of extremely talented engineers working full-time on these problems. If the solution were as easy as you propose, the issues would be solved. > zero boot time That's not going to happen, ever, but I'll assume you meant "faster" boot times. Probably. Keep in mind that your average set-top box likely goes through a more complex secure boot process than most electronic devices you would ever interact with. Why? Because if people can run arbitrary firmware on a set-top box, your cable company would lose a shit ton of money. > instantaneous channel switching You are bound by the latency required to demodulate a signal being broadcast from some satellite ~30,000 km away from the receiver, decrypt the resulting stream, and finally decode it, all on the fly so you get a nice, continuous, stutter-free full HD broadcast. I am no expert, so there is probably way more stuff happening behind the scene that someone else could probably shed light on. The point of my comment was to demonstrate that things can sometimes be more complicated than they seem at first glance.
    - jimktrains2 9y ago
      When you change channels it has to wait for the next key frame before it can display video.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
averagewall 9y ago
How long ago? My color CRT TV took a good 10 s or so to warm up the tube before you'd see much/anything. But at least it responded instantly, so you could spend that time walking back to the couch instead of waiting for some stupid menu. Instant and trustworthy response is basically gone from most appliances. I think it's a combination of marketing (has to look high tech) and cost (touch buttons are cheaper than mechanically interlinked toggle buttons. I still can't tell if my computer monitor is on or off because I don't know the weird LED flashing code it uses to communicate that (Holy crap! appliances use something like morse code to tell you important information about their state! How did they get so needlessly cryptic? If there's no picture, I have to check all the cables and push the power button a couple of times to see what happens. Web programmers are as much to blame too. Show me a web video player that has play and pause buttons that always do what they say when they say it.
- mietek 9y ago
  > Show me a web video player that has play and pause buttons that always do what they say when they say it. The only player which ever worked properly — even allowing the user to step through a video frame by frame — was part of Apple’s QuickTime framework. Fun fact: QuickTime will be 26 years old in December. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuickTime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuickTime
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  mps / mps-youtube :)
thaumasiotes 9y ago
We have some recent TVs. They have no buttons. Including power buttons. If you want to turn them on, you need the remote control.
- cesarb 9y ago
  The ones I've seen don't have physical buttons, but have nearly invisible capacitive buttons, at least for power/channel/volume. For most other functions, you do need the remote control.
bitwize 9y ago
Y'know how they say "don't touch that dial"? When I grew up, TVs actually still had dials you had to turn. The tuner responded instantaneously when you changed the channel. Now get off my lawn you damn kids.
- Piskvorrr 9y ago
  Of course it did, you were directly manipulating the a resistor in its circuit. Getting the channel just right...and keeping it there...that was, of course, the flipside.

JBlue42 9y ago

Thanks for pointing this out. As cool as my friends' new car's features are, I still love my Acura RSX. I can reach from the steering wheel to adjust anything on the console without taking my eyes off the road. No fuss, made for human hands, knobs and buttons.

userbinator 9y ago

Automotive "climate control" has been around since the mid-60s, and the controls of the early versions were also far more straightforward; basically, one knob for temperature and another for turning the system on/off at various settings. Here's one from 1973: http://i44.servimg.com/u/f44/16/54/79/13/1973_c12.jpg http://i44.servimg.com/u/f44/16/54/79/13/1973_c12.jpg

Yaggo 9y ago
I had no idea that automatic climate control (i.e. user just sets the target temperature) dates back to 1970, because it was not a standard option for low/mid-price cars yet in 90s (at least in Finland). Heck, my parents bought a Toyota Corolla in 2003 with no automatic climate control. Fascinating to see it implemented with old-style analogous controls. Same for 6-way power seat.
- userbinator 9y ago
  Indeed, it was originally only on luxury models --- Cadillac introduced it in 1964. https://ccco.s3.amazonaws.com/kb_photos/290/2284_1964_Cadillac_Prestige-27-28_low_res.jpg https://ccco.s3.amazonaws.com/kb_photos/290/2284_1964_Cadill...
- darksim905 9y ago
  I thought most of YC HN was based out of/lived in a California bubble. Surely the rest of the commenters here have modern cars? I have a VW GLI that has climate control that beats the shit out of any car I've owned before it. There was also another posted complaining about their radio having to ''boot up'' before they could change the audio volume. I've literally never heard of these issues. This is ridiculous.
katastic 9y ago
I know. I'm not saying they invented it. I'm saying that it wasn't a common feature on lower price cars.

dreamcompiler 9y ago

It's truly awful. The last time I bought a car I wanted to take a hammer and smash the freaking "screen" because the UI was such a POS (VW Beetle). A 20-year-old radio is a better audio system, and the cheapest smartphone is a better navigation system than anything that comes in a car nowadays. But I suppose the manufacturers think they can't sell a car nowadays without "teh shiny screen." And they might be right.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

amluto 9y ago

That wasn't particularly early. I learned to drive in a used (but perfectly functioning, of course) '91 Lexus LS400. It was the make or break car for the new Lexus marque, and they put serious effort into the experience. It has excellent thermostat-controlled AC and heat, and it was very easily controllable using dedicated buttons without looking away from the road at all. I wish modern cars (cough, Tesla) would put a tenth the care into UX.

CommentCard 9y ago
Tesla's console is the embodiment of form over function for UI. It looks beautiful having a flowing button-free cockpit, but I'd rather be able to adjust settings without looking away from the road. Whatever happened to HUDs? It seems like a HUD with a dial on the steering wheel would let you have the best of both worlds.

jpindar 9y ago

>So you may start the car and have 5-10 seconds of blasting radio that you can do nothing about. What some people do is make an audio file consisting of several seconds of silence, and do whatever is needed (call it "AAA.mp3", or put it first in a default playlist) to have it play while the player boots. But yeah, it's really messed up that that should be considered acceptable.

chrisbennet 9y ago

Microwave oven UI's are terrible but they weren't always that way. My old Amana had 5 controls: a knob for intensity (never changed it) and a knob for the timer, plus start, stop and light buttons. When the the start button broke we just jammed it in the "on" position with a penny making the UI even simpler: put the food in, and turn the knob for the time. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Cookmatic-Radarange-Made-by-Amana-Microwave-Oven-Model-RR-7B-Nov-1979-/292308626476 https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Cookmatic-Radarange-Made-by...

mrguyorama 9y ago
I don't have the same feeling. Different brands have different UI's, and some are as simple as "Press then numbered button for how many minutes of full power cooking you want"
- chrisbennet 9y ago
  Unless you want more than 10 minutes, then you have to press a different button and then type in the time. Fortunately, there are only something like 20 buttons...a big improvement over a knob and a button that is immediately usable by anyone.
  - mrguyorama 9y ago
    What do you cook in the microwave for that long? You could also look at much cheaper brands/models. I find that cheaper products seem to be keeping older UIs and therefor staying more functional
    - chrisbennet 9y ago
      I was mistaken, my microwave makes you press somewhat hidden button if you want cook something longer than 6 minutes, not 10.