12 ms·

This is why I detest touchscreens for most car functions. Specifically AC, with old fashioned knobs I have full control over AC without taking my eyes off the r

by jakear 7y ago

This is why I detest touchscreens for most car functions. Specifically AC, with old fashioned knobs I have full control over AC without taking my eyes off the road, but nowadays everyone wants to put it on their infotainment system, hidden beneath 4 other buttons.

adestefan 7y ago
I have knobs on the climate control on my car, but I still need to look at the screen. The problem is the knobs have no stops so I still need to look down to figure out what they're set to after they update the electronic display. On my old vehicle I knew the whole way to the left was fan blowing on feet, whole way to the right was defroster, and the 2 or 3 clicks in between were different settings of those extremes. Now I have no idea where it ends up when I spin the dial.
- indigochill 7y ago
  I'm not sure why dials have stopped clicking. Maybe it had some direct mechanical function at one point, but even if that's no longer necessary, the haptic feedback of the click seems just as important. In fact, even on touchscreens there will often be some sort of audiovisual "click" effect, whether that's an icon lighting up, expanding, or making an audible click noise.
- baroffoos 7y ago
  My method is to turn the knob back to when it stops moving and then it is now in a known state and I know how many clicks each setting is away.
  - adestefan 7y ago
    That’s the thing it doesn’t stop. It’s just a rotary dial with the lightest detents I’ve ever felt. You just spin it and it’s a circular buffer through every setting.
mhandley 7y ago
Yesterday I was driving back from Scotland to England, doing 70ish, when we ran into a really heavy thunderstorm. Went from good visibility to almost zero in seconds, and the only thing I could properly see was the crash barrier alongside the lane. I found myself desperately trying to see where the road was, simultaneously trying not to get rear-ended as I slowed up, switch on the rear fog lamps and hazards, max wipers, and select max demist because suddenly the windscreen had fogged up. Was one of those thankfully-rare maximum mental workload moments. Thank god for manual controls and muscle memory. Pretty such I wouldn't have had enough spare attention and/or brainpower left over for operating a touchscreen.
- blackflame7000 7y ago
  You know, when you take your drivers test in the US, you have to demonstrate your ability to know where all those functions are before you even pull away to start your test.
  - vinay427 7y ago
    This depends on the state/region. There's no universal standard in the US, and some states definitely don't require the operation of all of these controls before the test.
    - blackflame7000 7y ago
      Just because it's not on your test doesn't mean you shouldn't know how to operate your car properly. There's a lot not covered in each test that is still a requirement to operate a vehicle. In California, it is a requirement and all the roads are connected. Blaming a change in weather is unsafe. This is why we have so many accidents when it rains. Do you freak out when it gets dark because there are 4 touchscreen buttons to press to turn your lights on? So why when it rains? If you wanna make excuses for "I got myself into a dangerous situation because I wasn't prepared" go ahead but when it endangers other drivers I have to be critical.
      - 7y ago
Someone1234 7y ago
This is often repeated but not the complete picture. Modern, knob based, vehicle climate control systems actually bury a lot of functionality. For example Toyota's "automatic" AC you can either pick between fully automatic or a subset of manual controls. That's because they ran out of space/complexity headroom for more controls. Touch screen climate control integrates better with voice (which you should be using while driving), offers better fine-grain control, more information (like CURRENT interior temp rather than just outside/target temp), and can offer new functionality (like profiles/pre-sets, additional automatic modes, memory climate, linked seat heat & cool/positional vents, etc). I dislike several touch screen based climate control systems I've used. But that's because they're BAD. Car manufacturers are bad at making touch screen systems. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. There's a lot of good reasons to go that direction, car manufacturers just need to work on UX a lot.
- ocdtrekkie 7y ago
  I feel like you're making some very false choices between smarts/voice compatibility and physical controls. Physical buttons and dials for users to interact with that still can be changed by the system are wholly possible. For instance, a rocker switch that sits in the middle can be used to issue on and off commands, while being separate from say, a status light that lets you know whether the device is on or off. Which is to say, I think you're significantly limiting what you believe is possible with physical UX.
  - Someone1234 7y ago
    > Physical buttons and dials for users to interact with that still can be changed by the system are wholly possible. Sure, but irrational. One of the largest benefits of physical controls is physical feedback, like being about to feel if you've reached the max cold/hot ceilings or the state of the switches. To make them voice compatible you have to remove that physical association (e.g. infinite spinners, or blind switches), which means now you need to take your eyes off the road to use them, which was major perk of physical controls. Physical controls that have no physical state are the worst of both worlds. You've lost the physical and electronic control's advantages while adding the disadvantages to both.
HomeDeLaPot 7y ago
Absolutely agree. Controls with tactile feedback are literally lifesavers when you're trying to pay attention to the road. Touchscreens are cool, but all the basic controls should be presented as neat panels of knobs and buttons that don't require so much as a glance to operate.
droithomme 7y ago
> I detest touchscreens for most car functions Agreed. I consider them dangerous, a threat to public safety, they should be banned by the NTSB, and some cars that use them should be under recall to retrofit them with mechanical controls. Many states are now passing hands free laws that criminalize the use of phones or any other devices that use your hands while driving. The states provide exceptions for car touch screen use, but they shouldn't. They should criminalize the use of all touch screens when driving, not just some.
- minitoar 7y ago
  This is a good idea but a recall is too much for this to be practical. At least the NTSB should be doing this for all new cars.
- brewdad 7y ago
  I had this discussion with my teenage child this week and neither of us are sure. Our state requires handsfree phone use but has the car touchscreen exception. Would operating Android Auto or CarPlay be illegal or does it fall under the allowed exceptions?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- johnbrodie 7y ago
  For the life of me I can't understand why touch screens built in to a car are considered "different" than phones. Cities and states are finally waking up and making it a crime to use your phone while driving, how in the world are car touch screens any different?
  - userbinator 7y ago
    I suspect it's more because using your phone is almost definitely not controlling the car, while using a touchscreen that is part of the car's controls is still technically considered "operating the vehicle" and thus not a distraction, regardless of how difficult it is to actually operate.
mcv 7y ago
You're not the only one who detests touchscreens in cars. Mazda agrees with you[0]. I think touch screens are primarily useful for complex interfaces and interfaces that change every time. But driving a car needs to be as easy and reliable as possible, because you need those eyes and brainpower on the road, not trying to figure out an interface. [0] https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-mazda-is-purging-touchscreens-from-its-vehicles https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-mazda-is-pur...
elihu 7y ago
For what it's worth, Mazda recently decided that it doesn't want touchscreens in its cars anymore because they're a safety hazard. "Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20200335 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20200335
- Keyframe 7y ago
  Old Panamera and new Panamera. Disgusting and disorienting touch controls. I honestly can’t tell why would anyone prefer touch controls. I also can’t honestly tell how is Tesla’s screen street legal.
- sundvor 7y ago
  I had a top model Mazda 3 2014 before (manual Astina) as the #2 and everything about it was just first class usability wise. The rotary navigation knob let me do everything on the screen, and all the buttons for everything else were in intuitive places. Also a great radar cruise control, simple yet highly functional HUD, and things like rear cross alert which is amazing when backing out of 45 degree parking spots next to some big trucks. As much as I'd love a Tesla as my next car I'm not sure if their UI is where I want to go. Presently riding to save my health, and money.
agumonkey 7y ago
Plus GUIs are random in temrs of response time...
rkagerer 7y ago
I'm going to repeat a comment I made a couple times before as I think it's relevant: In one of the talks at Google I/O a few years ago a VP from Audi (or Volvo?) spoke in a thick and lofty German accent about how "ve haf completely oferhauled ze driver exzperienze". He played a sexy video clip showcasing their new Android infotainment system (something like https://youtu.be/h_7_fKJ0PNs https://youtu.be/h_7_fKJ0PNs), and the first thing I noticed is how they'd taken away my traditional temperature knobs and replaced them with digital touchscreen ones. They looked just like physical ones, and were in the exact same place you would expect (https://9to5google.com/2017/05/15/android-cars-audi/ https://9to5google.com/2017/05/15/android-cars-audi/). So, I've gained absolutely nothing, and now I have to take my eyes off the road and look down at the stupid console just to change the temperature. TLDR: Tacticle feedback is a Good Thing(tm) and designers should cultivate - not fight - muscle memory.
wincy 7y ago
There’s a part of me that misses T9 texting on my cell phones. There was a time that I was very good at T9, and because it was deterministic (with auto complete off) you could text without looking and it’d text exactly what you meant. Definitely can’t do that now, and voice controls aren’t as good.
- batbomb 7y ago
  I can text without looking on iPhone 5/SE, but that went away with the 8
tfha 7y ago
The emergency brake. I really need that to be a mechanical lever and not an electrical one. If something is going wrong on the road I need a backup brake that takes me under a second to activate while in a state of panic with my eyes glued to the road and it had better be functional.
- p2t2p 7y ago
  That’s the worst thing you could do. You block your wheels and you totally loose control over the vehicle. ABS enabled bakes do stop you quicker while maintaining control over the vehicle.
  - jakear 7y ago
    ABS is not much help when your breaks fail. I think that's what GP was referring to.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

by jakear 7y ago

adestefan 7y ago

I have knobs on the climate control on my car, but I still need to look at the screen. The problem is the knobs have no stops so I still need to look down to figure out what they're set to after they update the electronic display. On my old vehicle I knew the whole way to the left was fan blowing on feet, whole way to the right was defroster, and the 2 or 3 clicks in between were different settings of those extremes. Now I have no idea where it ends up when I spin the dial.

indigochill 7y ago
I'm not sure why dials have stopped clicking. Maybe it had some direct mechanical function at one point, but even if that's no longer necessary, the haptic feedback of the click seems just as important. In fact, even on touchscreens there will often be some sort of audiovisual "click" effect, whether that's an icon lighting up, expanding, or making an audible click noise.
baroffoos 7y ago
My method is to turn the knob back to when it stops moving and then it is now in a known state and I know how many clicks each setting is away.
- adestefan 7y ago
  That’s the thing it doesn’t stop. It’s just a rotary dial with the lightest detents I’ve ever felt. You just spin it and it’s a circular buffer through every setting.

mhandley 7y ago

Yesterday I was driving back from Scotland to England, doing 70ish, when we ran into a really heavy thunderstorm. Went from good visibility to almost zero in seconds, and the only thing I could properly see was the crash barrier alongside the lane. I found myself desperately trying to see where the road was, simultaneously trying not to get rear-ended as I slowed up, switch on the rear fog lamps and hazards, max wipers, and select max demist because suddenly the windscreen had fogged up. Was one of those thankfully-rare maximum mental workload moments. Thank god for manual controls and muscle memory. Pretty such I wouldn't have had enough spare attention and/or brainpower left over for operating a touchscreen.

blackflame7000 7y ago
You know, when you take your drivers test in the US, you have to demonstrate your ability to know where all those functions are before you even pull away to start your test.
- vinay427 7y ago
  This depends on the state/region. There's no universal standard in the US, and some states definitely don't require the operation of all of these controls before the test.
  - blackflame7000 7y ago
    Just because it's not on your test doesn't mean you shouldn't know how to operate your car properly. There's a lot not covered in each test that is still a requirement to operate a vehicle. In California, it is a requirement and all the roads are connected. Blaming a change in weather is unsafe. This is why we have so many accidents when it rains. Do you freak out when it gets dark because there are 4 touchscreen buttons to press to turn your lights on? So why when it rains? If you wanna make excuses for "I got myself into a dangerous situation because I wasn't prepared" go ahead but when it endangers other drivers I have to be critical.
    - 7y ago

Someone1234 7y ago

This is often repeated but not the complete picture. Modern, knob based, vehicle climate control systems actually bury a lot of functionality. For example Toyota's "automatic" AC you can either pick between fully automatic or a subset of manual controls. That's because they ran out of space/complexity headroom for more controls. Touch screen climate control integrates better with voice (which you should be using while driving), offers better fine-grain control, more information (like CURRENT interior temp rather than just outside/target temp), and can offer new functionality (like profiles/pre-sets, additional automatic modes, memory climate, linked seat heat & cool/positional vents, etc). I dislike several touch screen based climate control systems I've used. But that's because they're BAD. Car manufacturers are bad at making touch screen systems. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. There's a lot of good reasons to go that direction, car manufacturers just need to work on UX a lot.

ocdtrekkie 7y ago
I feel like you're making some very false choices between smarts/voice compatibility and physical controls. Physical buttons and dials for users to interact with that still can be changed by the system are wholly possible. For instance, a rocker switch that sits in the middle can be used to issue on and off commands, while being separate from say, a status light that lets you know whether the device is on or off. Which is to say, I think you're significantly limiting what you believe is possible with physical UX.
- Someone1234 7y ago
  > Physical buttons and dials for users to interact with that still can be changed by the system are wholly possible. Sure, but irrational. One of the largest benefits of physical controls is physical feedback, like being about to feel if you've reached the max cold/hot ceilings or the state of the switches. To make them voice compatible you have to remove that physical association (e.g. infinite spinners, or blind switches), which means now you need to take your eyes off the road to use them, which was major perk of physical controls. Physical controls that have no physical state are the worst of both worlds. You've lost the physical and electronic control's advantages while adding the disadvantages to both.

HomeDeLaPot 7y ago

Absolutely agree. Controls with tactile feedback are literally lifesavers when you're trying to pay attention to the road. Touchscreens are cool, but all the basic controls should be presented as neat panels of knobs and buttons that don't require so much as a glance to operate.

droithomme 7y ago

> I detest touchscreens for most car functions Agreed. I consider them dangerous, a threat to public safety, they should be banned by the NTSB, and some cars that use them should be under recall to retrofit them with mechanical controls. Many states are now passing hands free laws that criminalize the use of phones or any other devices that use your hands while driving. The states provide exceptions for car touch screen use, but they shouldn't. They should criminalize the use of all touch screens when driving, not just some.

minitoar 7y ago
This is a good idea but a recall is too much for this to be practical. At least the NTSB should be doing this for all new cars.
brewdad 7y ago
I had this discussion with my teenage child this week and neither of us are sure. Our state requires handsfree phone use but has the car touchscreen exception. Would operating Android Auto or CarPlay be illegal or does it fall under the allowed exceptions?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
johnbrodie 7y ago
For the life of me I can't understand why touch screens built in to a car are considered "different" than phones. Cities and states are finally waking up and making it a crime to use your phone while driving, how in the world are car touch screens any different?
- userbinator 7y ago
  I suspect it's more because using your phone is almost definitely not controlling the car, while using a touchscreen that is part of the car's controls is still technically considered "operating the vehicle" and thus not a distraction, regardless of how difficult it is to actually operate.

mcv 7y ago

You're not the only one who detests touchscreens in cars. Mazda agrees with you[0]. I think touch screens are primarily useful for complex interfaces and interfaces that change every time. But driving a car needs to be as easy and reliable as possible, because you need those eyes and brainpower on the road, not trying to figure out an interface. [0] https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-mazda-is-purging-touchscreens-from-its-vehicles https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-mazda-is-pur...

elihu 7y ago

For what it's worth, Mazda recently decided that it doesn't want touchscreens in its cars anymore because they're a safety hazard. "Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20200335 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20200335

Keyframe 7y ago
Old Panamera and new Panamera. Disgusting and disorienting touch controls. I honestly can’t tell why would anyone prefer touch controls. I also can’t honestly tell how is Tesla’s screen street legal.
sundvor 7y ago
I had a top model Mazda 3 2014 before (manual Astina) as the #2 and everything about it was just first class usability wise. The rotary navigation knob let me do everything on the screen, and all the buttons for everything else were in intuitive places. Also a great radar cruise control, simple yet highly functional HUD, and things like rear cross alert which is amazing when backing out of 45 degree parking spots next to some big trucks. As much as I'd love a Tesla as my next car I'm not sure if their UI is where I want to go. Presently riding to save my health, and money.

agumonkey 7y ago

Plus GUIs are random in temrs of response time...

rkagerer 7y ago

I'm going to repeat a comment I made a couple times before as I think it's relevant: In one of the talks at Google I/O a few years ago a VP from Audi (or Volvo?) spoke in a thick and lofty German accent about how "ve haf completely oferhauled ze driver exzperienze". He played a sexy video clip showcasing their new Android infotainment system (something like https://youtu.be/h_7_fKJ0PNs https://youtu.be/h_7_fKJ0PNs), and the first thing I noticed is how they'd taken away my traditional temperature knobs and replaced them with digital touchscreen ones. They looked just like physical ones, and were in the exact same place you would expect (https://9to5google.com/2017/05/15/android-cars-audi/ https://9to5google.com/2017/05/15/android-cars-audi/). So, I've gained absolutely nothing, and now I have to take my eyes off the road and look down at the stupid console just to change the temperature. TLDR: Tacticle feedback is a Good Thing(tm) and designers should cultivate - not fight - muscle memory.

wincy 7y ago

There’s a part of me that misses T9 texting on my cell phones. There was a time that I was very good at T9, and because it was deterministic (with auto complete off) you could text without looking and it’d text exactly what you meant. Definitely can’t do that now, and voice controls aren’t as good.

batbomb 7y ago
I can text without looking on iPhone 5/SE, but that went away with the 8

tfha 7y ago

The emergency brake. I really need that to be a mechanical lever and not an electrical one. If something is going wrong on the road I need a backup brake that takes me under a second to activate while in a state of panic with my eyes glued to the road and it had better be functional.

p2t2p 7y ago
That’s the worst thing you could do. You block your wheels and you totally loose control over the vehicle. ABS enabled bakes do stop you quicker while maintaining control over the vehicle.
- jakear 7y ago
  ABS is not much help when your breaks fail. I think that's what GP was referring to.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]