8 ms·

Touch screens should be banned on security [edit: safety] grounds. You need to take your eyes off the road to perform simple operations such as adjusting heatin

• martin_bech 8y ago
  How do you explain Teslas higher safety record if that was true? Its absolutely no problem using a Touch screen, have been for 4 years and 100.000km in my Model S.
  • netsharc 8y ago
    Sigh... "This car has a higher safety record, it has a touch screen, that must mean touch screens are safer!".
    • wrve 8y ago
      I think the argument they try to make is that the car is safe despite of the touchscreen.
      • stingraycharles 8y ago
        But that could be because of all the safety features. How do you know it would not be even safer without the touchscreen?
        • natch 8y ago
          Yes need three square feet of dizzying knob porn crawling and festooning every part of the dashboard. And a little bitty screen you have to lean and squint to read. Makes sense. /s
    • natch 8y ago
      You have it backwards. The claim is that touch screens are less safe. The claim is being presented with evidence that contradicts the claim. That’s not the same as making a new claim that touch screens are safer. Sigh.
  • oblio 8y ago
    Higher safety record? You mean this: https://www.tesla.com/blog/tesla-model-s-achieves-best-safety-rating-any-car-ever-tested https://www.tesla.com/blog/tesla-model-s-achieves-best-safet...? Isn't that just a bunch of crash tests?
    • martin_bech 8y ago
      No im talking about accidents pr. mile which is way lower for Teslas, than the average.
      • oblio 8y ago
        Same, irrelevant. The average includes much cheaper cars, much older cars, cars with way worse security features, etc. How's Tesla doing compared to the upper-mid range or luxury cars?
  • saiya-jin 8y ago
    I can guarantee you that every time I take my sight off the road, even down to speed/rev/consumption/etc screen behind the steering wheel, I can't properly register whats happening in front of me. Have enough driving experience in various cars to see this is consistent. I can clearly register car in front of me slamming the brakes or similar bright event, but for example a deer running across the road, nope. Or car changing lane, especially without any lights on during day (btw why the heck is this not mandatory everywhere, all the time? it can literally save lives every single effin' day). Central panel is much worse in this - there can be an atomic blast on the horizon and I wouldn't notice it, its just too far on periphery of the vision. It is bad, it is lame, and what is/was perceived as 'premium' feature is actually cheaping out on customers. I have 15-year old beamer which doesn't even support mp3, and on board computer means it shows me outside temperature and consumption. Everything is manual, with dedicated knobs of various shapes. I love it and wouldn't want anything else (which is worrying since this stupid trend took over whole car industry and eventually I will have to switch my car).
    • natch 8y ago
      >I can guarantee you that every time I take my sight off the road, even down to speed/rev/consumption/etc screen behind the steering wheel, I can't properly register whats happening in front of me. Maybe your controls are too dark and hard to read. I haven’t had this problem with the large Tesla screen, although I almost never have to look at it. When I do it’s very clear and the important things are in known fixed places and easy to read. If I do need to look at the screen I can turn on auto pilot or cruise control, a subset of autopilot functionality. Cruise control can be turned on at 0 mph or higher, and it follows the speed limit, dynamically updating as it changes, with user-adjustable leeway above or below. The cruise control maintains distance to the car in front of me and slows or stops for deer running across the road. Yes other cars have this but the point is it takes care of that point about cars stopping suddenly. So no worries while glancing at the screen. I’m not sure what it does for your hyperbolic atomic bomb scenario. All in all, it’s not as bad as you think, although for some it does require a taste adjustment I guess.
    • martin_a 8y ago
      > especially without any lights on during day (btw why the heck is this not mandatory everywhere, all the time? it can literally save lives every single effin' day). Nope. This kills cyclists and motorbike riders. Our eyes/mind get used to headlights and don't see any speciality in them anymore which leads to overlooking those as they are just part of the normal scenery. In former times, when only motorbikes were driving with headlights in bright daylight, you were much more aware of the fact that there was a "special vehicle" approaching you.
  • bcaulfield 8y ago
    Perhaps, so, but they're boring. I want big clicky buttons, large clacky nobs, and ostentatious levers.
    • natch 8y ago
      So, what car do you think is best in these respects?
      • pampa 8y ago
        bmw
        • natch 8y ago
          Huh, makes sense. I see you’re not op (that’s fine of course) but I’ll have to check out their electric models.
        • martin_bech 8y ago
          Bmws have a touchpad, all new Bmws have a toucscreen. The only electric Bmw, the i3 has a touchscreen..
• elihu 8y ago
  You mean safety?
  • isolli 8y ago
    Yes thank you :) It looks like everyone understood, though!
• netsharc 8y ago
  Hah, Kickstarter idea: a control panel with knobs and buttons that interfaces with the on-board computer, so you have shortcut physical buttons for those controls... It's the future, see!
  • moviuro 8y ago
    See this 2014 video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVbuk3jizGM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVbuk3jizGM & associated website: http://matthaeuskrenn.com/new-car-ui/ http://matthaeuskrenn.com/new-car-ui/
  • natch 8y ago
    Har har, but the car does have plenty of knobs and buttons. Just not needless ones.
  • natch 8y ago
    Kickstarter idea: reins and a buggywhip for retrofitting onto an electric car. So much more viscerally satisfying than a steering wheel and pedals.
• kondro 8y ago
  Whilst I agree with you and I honestly don’t know whether I would ever buy a car that was basically touch-screen only (although there are controls on the wheel), Telsas have a bunch of features that allow them to safely self-pilot, at least for the small amounts of time that you would take your eyes off the road to make adjustments like this. I’ve only driven cars with radar cruise control (with always-on auto-breaking) and lane & blind-spot detection and I now find these features invaluable to feeling safe whilst driving and avoiding the pitfalls distractions can cause.
• EngineerBetter 8y ago
  I've got a Model X, and the touchscreen is only dangerous when using the on-screen keyboard. If I need to type something whilst driving, I engage Autopilot. There is voice recognition for the phone connectivity and Spotify, but I rarely use it. Turning on windscreen heater, heating, and all that stuff is pretty straightforward, the on-screen buttons are always in the same place and are next to the bezel so you can anchor your hand. Plus cabin heating can be controlled via clickwheels on the steering wheel. I think maybe the seat heaters are a little distracting. You can only tell their state by looking at the screen, and they cycle through settings. That's something I'd like a button for, or at least to be able to control via the clickwheels. Edit Studied HCI and Usability Engineering at university, did my dissertation in usability of web systems, and generally share your concerns. Not aiming to dismiss them, more say that in my experience it's not as bad as one might expect.
  • bcaulfield 8y ago
    Huh, that's cool. I'd actually like a car where the controls are all big old levers. And yes, I prefer driving cars with manual transmissions.
    • elcomet 8y ago
      This is probably because you learned this way. Old habits die hard.
  • CJefferson 8y ago
    I thought when autopilot drives people into walls, we are told drivers should be giving the road full attention?
    • EngineerBetter 8y ago
      It's definitely a distraction from the road, but you can see the road whilst typing away with one hand.
      • justtopost 8y ago
• Shivetya 8y ago
  disclaimer, own a TM3. At first I was worried about the center console but quickly came to realize it was a non issue. Even the speed being displayed there did not matter as normal eye movement when driving would pick it up if not out of the "corner" of my eye. I was totally comfortable with it before I made it home from picking up the car. My eighty year plus old father had zero issues with it. He is of the type where you don't play with buttons/etc unless stopped. to each his own As for buttons, many cars have automatic climate control and I rarely if ever have changed mine. If I need the front or rear defroster its merely a glance and tap; muscle memory almost as much as with a button. Heat seater, my seat is right there on the bottom of the display. temp is a simple tap left or right. all again "muscle memory" because I am used to the car. Same as if I had to drive a friends car - you learn and you learn quite quickly. I give my friends a simple test with their cars. Put yellow dots on each you use during a drive to and from work. You can do this before or during. You would be surprised how much you don't use center console buttons. There is a reason why some controls are replicated to the steering wheel. Plus if you want to get down to it, if I really want to change something in traffic that is involved; though honestly I don't know what that would be; I let the car drive for awhile. It can do that. As for the presentation, I had to laugh. My TM3 is blue and for a bit when watching the TMY driving videos I was hard pressed to see the physical difference
  • myself248 8y ago
    I own a Prius. The center-mounted instruments were weird for about 5 minutes, then a total non-issue. I concur. I've done the button dot thing. Or rather, I did it with velcro and stickyback sandpaper, because the dash lights in my old Pontiac went out and it was more fun to make it tactile than fix the lights. I realized I could quickly distinguish hook velcro, loop velcro, and 3 grits of sandpaper, so that gave me 5 "colors" to work with. I coded the HVAC controls, the radio presets, and the rear defroster controls. That's about all I used on a regular basis. It was great. Previously I could find these controls without looking, but knowing I was on the right one meant groping to the end of the button row and counting back. My eyes never left the road, but my attention definitely faltered. Once they were tactile-coded, I had instant confirmation, and it took a lot less attention to interact. Modern cars tend to be the complete opposite of this pure-tactile experience. The Lincoln Touch console, with its capacitive controls that activate before you even register that you've touched them, are the absolute worst. You can't grope over to a control without looking, or you'll change a dozen other things on the way. Touchscreens are only slightly better, in that they tend to have borders you can follow with your fingers, and buttons are often placed along the edges. But not always. On the Prius touchscreen, I can get in the ballpark without looking, glance down to fine-adjust my finger placement, and get my eyes back up to the road even as my finger makes the selection. But that only works on the radio presets which are along the edge of the screen. Input source selection goes to a shit-tastic "pretty 3d" screen where the sources' display order can change, so you absolutely have to read the display to make a selection. (The steering-wheel copy of the "mode" button can also cycle between some, but not all, sources. It's worse than useless.) I've spent some time in a Model S and I can't love the touchscreen implementation. It's not the worst I've seen (that trophy goes to Lincoln, hands-down), but it's way more distracting than it needs to be. I feel like it was designed as a showpiece first, an interaction method second, and a reliable cockpit control not at all.
• HyperTalk2 8y ago
  I believe Elon is part of a tragically large group of people that continue to stubbornly define their expectations of the future based entirely on stuff they saw in Star Trek TNG. "Just because you can put a touch screen somewhere doesn't mean you should" is a thought that will never enter their minds regardless of how many people die as a result.
  • natch 8y ago
    Going by that theory, the cars with gross knob porn all over the dashboard are the ones following Star Trek, although maybe not TNG. Probably the original series.
  • jfoster 8y ago
    Is there a higher accident rate in Tesla's as a result of this?
    • natch 8y ago
      lower.
• ps 8y ago
  Model S owner here and as many others in this thread noted - it is not any more dangerous than knobs. I also heard opinion that UX is much worse than with physical controls. Indeed if you design the UI poorly, but this is not the Tesla's case. And I would yet have to see any physical UI that can be improved during the car's lifetime.
  • Angostura 8y ago
    So you can reach out, without taking your eyes off the road, unerring find the control and adjust it? Because that is what I can do with a conventional switch or knob. I have Carplay in my car - which I like a lot - however I'm under no illusion that using it while driving, is much much worse in terms of the amount of time it takes my attention from the road, than a similar physical control.
    • natch 8y ago
      There are buttons for most common operations so yes. There are also voice commands so yes. In the case of climate control you can use muscle memory if you really want to, to hit a button always ready in the same place on the edge of the screen, and then use the hardware buttons from there, so yes. Personally I would glance at the bottom edge of the screen (center) while approaching the button with my finger, but you don’t have to do this, and you can easily do it with a flick of they eye while traffic is in a calm pattern, at a moment of your choosing. It’s not like your eyes need to wildly search the screen for the button... it’s right there in a known fixed place. People have such far out misconceptions about Tesla cars. It’s bizarre.
    • ps 8y ago
      Lets take the temperature control for example. I am not able to adjust it with the touch controls without looking (or it is too difficult), however I am not able to adjust it with knobs as well, because sometimes the feedback is either missing or there is a bug in controller or whatever and my temperature is changed one step more than I wanted. Am I being more confident with knobs? Yes. Do I still have to check the result? Definitely. Do I spend less time checking the knob related 8-segment/LCD panel vs Tesla UI? Not sure, probably not. Btw I have to take my eyes off the road when I check the speed and the mirrors and that is something I do quite often and considering the behavior on the roads more drivers should.
• Flankk 8y ago
  This is why I use a BlackBerry. So I can safely text while driving. I'm actually writing this on the freeway and
  • Whiteshadow12 8y ago
    That got a good laugh out of me, your ok though ?
  • dutchbrit 8y ago
    He... hello?
• jfoster 8y ago
  Is this a response to a problem or just the imagining of a problem? Regulations for the sake of regulations? It's not as though Tesla have just switched to touch screens.
• yzfr12006 8y ago
  Fully agree with this statement. As a person who study UX for living a lot of people actually doesn't understand for what User Experience stands for. It is not just nice interface and simple clear minimalistic design although those are also important factors. When you put a large touchscreen on the right side of the driver seat the moment you need to get feedback from the vehicle or do something you are distracted and your eyes are not on the road. Now before all Tesla owners say, yea but my autopilot is on, and yea it is not as bad as I though it will be, you are still distracted and the primary task that you have in the vehicle (driving) is now with not optimal user experience which might lead to the worse case scenarios. The physical knobs are far better way to perform tasks in your vehicle while driving, mainly because of the muscle memory your body and brain will generate, you will not only perform the task faster but you will not put constrain on your brain to read, watch or whatever you need to do to perform a task. You also forget that you are not alone in your Tesla at the road. You have thousands of other drivers who might be as equality distracted or even worse. So imagine what happens when you play with your screen on autopilot and you are not watching your back mirror, while maybe a drunk driver is approaching very fast. Now I am not against Tesla or autonomous driving, quite the opposite I can't wait the day the autonomous driving will be so advanced that people won't need to drive, mainly because majority of the people don't take driving seriously and the end results is the worst one possible, people loosing their life over car accidents. There were statistics in my country alone that more people die every year from car accidents than people in active war times. I believe that Tesla can do a much better job to build futuristic vehicles rather than just placing a tablet in the middle of the car.
  • natch 8y ago
    >rather than just placing a tablet in the middle of the car. They didn’t “just” place a tablet. They did a lot more than that. More than I could ever mention in one comment. But to take just one thing, just because there is a tablet, that does not mean there are no buttons and other physical hardware controls. There are plenty of those. So I really don’t understand the motivation of your rant.
    • yzfr12006 8y ago
• natch 8y ago
  This is such a red herring. The critical factor isn’t whether an operation is simple (adjusting heating) but rather whether it is time sensitive (force a wiper swipe, hit the brakes, etc.) and the also how frequent the operation is. With something like heating, there is much more leeway for giving attention to the road as needed, because it’s not as time sensitive. Nor is it a very frequent operation especially if the car has excellent climate control which makes the example verge on moot. If people are going to adjust the volume more often than adjusting the heat, then you get a hardware button in the Model 3 for example, but not for heat adjustment. There’s a lot of misinformation out there. I’ve seen HN posters flat out state (wrongly) that you have to use the screen for things where you don’t have to. Examples: volume control, pause/play, wipers, windshield wash. Take these skeptics with a grain of salt when they assert opinions about stuff they have no experience with.
• sliken 8y ago
  I was hoping the Y would add just one dial for whatever is the most popular thing the touch screen is used for. Surely one nice dial wouldn't cost much or ruin the rather spartan aesthetic.
  • bryanlarsen 8y ago
    The 3 & Y have 4 way control knobs on both sides of the steering wheel that can be user assigned to various controls.
    • sliken 8y ago
      Yes, I meant one EXTRA dial. Things like temperature, volume, radio station, wiper speed, cruise control follow distance, etc. Whichever one isn't on the two 4 way control knobs would end up on the dial. It would also be in reach of the passenger and you'd end up with less fingerprints on the screen.
    • myself248 8y ago
      Okay now THAT's cool. I drove a Model S for a while and didn't love the touchscreen, but I'm super intrigued by this idea. I'll have to get my butt in a 3 sometime.
• josefresco 8y ago
  Anecdotally I have a "normal" car with hardware buttons and still look down to adjust the AC/heat etc. because there are many, many controls. My car also has a touch screen that controls the stereo and navigation - many other cars have this same setup. I don't see this as an issue worthy of concern, over say cell phone use while driving. Dumb question maybe (excuse me for not searching this out) but does Tesla have voice control? Seems like an obvious way to tackle this problem. "Tesla turn my heat up" "Tesla tune to SiriusXM channel 100" etc.