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Wait. Let me get this straight. Touchscreens, which are ideal for representing multiple user unterfaces in an intuitive way, but requiring constant visual cont

• ChuckMcM 7y ago
  Touch screens have a cheaper cost per command input and more easily changed. Further, you can reconfigure the controls on the screen based on use to achieve way more controls than would fit in a similar amount of space. As pointed out in the article, this is not good human factors process when the key set of command options are fixed and unlikely to change. And that hard controls for similar functions across equipment gives better cost savings in human training time than the "soft" controls give at acquisition time. I do think military acquisition folks can "fall in love" with "sci fi" interfaces but there has been a ton of excellent research at NASA Ames which disputes the utility of such interfaces.
• azernik 7y ago
  They were useful because they can be reconfigured on-demand to different interfaces - e.g. you can route helmsman's responsibilities to a different bridge station in case of hardware damage or human casualties.
  • vvillena 7y ago
    That's also possible with a common set of hardware controller devices. Just like multiple games are played with the same controller on a console, or the way we use personal computers with a keyboard and mouse.
  • atoav 7y ago
    As someone who designs ans builds modular synthesizer modules: so can mechanical interfaces if designed appropriately. Add labels on the display and use a set of generic controls and boom, you can use the same hardware for a ton of functions given the right abstractions.
    • tinco 7y ago
      With the added benefit of having your control stations look like the bridge of Star Trek space ships.
    • azernik 7y ago
      Yup - just requires the hardware designers to have some knowledge of the required UIs. My main point is that the use of touchscreens was more a case of lazy/cheap design than trend-driven design.
      • atoav 7y ago
        And I agree. Touch screens can be beneficial under certain circumstances — but they are not amazing for anything that has to be reliable and must be operated under stressful conditions. This is how for example the interface of the 50k$ Arri Alexa looks like (the de facto standard in cinema cameras): http://nofilmschool.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_wide/public/uploads/2012/05/arri-alexa-camera-simulator.jpg?itok=GuZqI036 http://nofilmschool.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_w... There were lower priced cameras like the Black Magic Production Camera which use only a toucscreen. And you can guess why that Black Magic model is discontinued..
    • jpindar 7y ago
      Sure. Softkeys - a row of buttons around the edges of the screen - are how a lot of electronic test equipment works. In fact the UI can be identical for a device with softkeys vs. one with a touchscreen. It causes a few DOH! moments when you are working with some instruments that work one way and some the other, but this isn't nearly as annoying as you might expect. You still have to look at the screen though. Unless maybe you could 'lock' the UI into one mode (with no sub-menus), which might be a good compromise for vehicles.
  • mannykannot 7y ago
    That was part of the problem on the USS McCain: the crew lost track of where essential control inputs were being routed from.
• ivanhoe 7y ago
  On one project for automotive industry we had a huge problem with touchscreen interface because mechanics often have grease and dirt on their hands and the touch screens we used would get all confused with the residue left on the screen. We first tried to fix it in the software, but quickly realized it's much easier to switch to custom control board with specialized buttons and keyboard, just wrap them in plastic bags so you don't have to clean them, and it all works like a charm. Unexpectedly, it turned out to be faster for users too.
  • reificator 7y ago
    > Unexpectedly, it turned out to be faster for users too. I'm not anti-touchscreen by any measure, but did you really find that surprising? It seems common knowledge to me that keyboard shortcuts are faster than touchscreens for most tasks.
    • devnulloverflow 7y ago
      Ever since mouses and GUIs were invented it was common knowledge that "ordinary" users don't bother to learn keyboard shortcuts. That common knowledge is wrong, but it comes from an important truth: brand new users who are not yet committed to your product will get frustrated if the thing they need to do is hidden away as a key-binding or command-line command. So successful products optimise for the UX of a user who doesn't yet know how to use the product well. And such users really love touchscreens.
      • reificator 7y ago
        But I wasn't talking about onboarding. I was talking about the speed of people using your software to do work on either a touchscreen or a keyboard.
        • p_l 7y ago
          The decision makers in UI design often design for "someone ripped from plow by grenade", as the saying goes in Poland - someone who has no idea about the product at all. Others tend to follow this. All of that results in undiscoverable interfaces designed for first-time users and horrible for everything else, and thus cult of first mouse, now touchscreen.
• MisterTea 7y ago
  Well, it worked on Star Trek. Then again, that was addressed in a Voyager episode when Tom Paris designs the helm in their new runabout with old fashioned buttons and switches because he wanted to actually feel the controls much to Tuvok's dismay. Though, on a serious note, I work in industrial automation and user interfaces, aka HMI's have been touch oriented for quite some time. It was and still is common to see graphical elements which emulate the look of physical buttons used on machinery. This was done to help operators navigate touch screens who were used to panels full of buttons, knobs, and switches. Recently I rebuilt a machine that was half analog and half digital controls to all digital control. I first started with a full touch interface with provisions for knobs and buttons. During testing operators hated, and I mean HATED the touch screen when it came to virtual potentiometers (one operator got up and walked away saying "this screen is a fucking piece of shit"). I installed encoder knobs to emulate potentiometers and it was a success. Everyone was happy. Some things just can't be done with a screen. You need physical things to interact with.
  • Izkata 7y ago
    Star Trek's bridge controls can be reconfigured, but there's a standard static configuration that doesn't change while they're in use. This is also referenced at a different point in Voyager when Tuvok is annoyed by how Tom Paris uses a nonstandard configuration. So that at least reduces the need for constant visual contact.
    • archon 7y ago
      There's another Voyager episode in which Tuvok is temporarily blinded and he tells the computer to turn on the tactile interface so he can work on a computer console. So even 25 years ago before everyone had a touchscreen in their pockets, it was obvious that touch screens wouldn't be great for all situations.
      • ringshall 7y ago
        And of course there’s the comment in ‘All good things’ by Dr. Crusher when she says she can’t believe how they got by with 2D controls in the old days, and how the current holographic controls were much easier to use. So, Star Fleet made the same transition as the US Navy, from a touchscreen to 3D tactile controls.
• lightedman 7y ago
  "Touchscreens, which are ideal for representing multiple user unterface (sic) in an intuitive way" Given the current state of such, no. Even the sheer disparity between desktop and mobile versions makes this readily apparent.
• CriticalCathed 7y ago
  Just about every Human Computer Interaction focused computer scientist I know is adamant that touch screens are inappropriate and vastly sub-optimal for many of the purposes it is currently employed in. I don't think it's that researchers think it's good. I think that executives and programmers do.
  • ahartmetz 7y ago
    Touchscreens, even where they don't make sense, are just one of those collective idiocies that regularly sweep the IT world. Hard to say who is at fault - there are many fashion victims in every group. Also many who have doubts or don't care either way, but will happily play along to sell something.
• devnulloverflow 7y ago
  > Touchscreens, which are ideal for representing multiple user unterfaces I am no expert on this, but from talking to people in the aviation industry I noticed slow a trend away from the cockpit-with-2,000 controls and towards using computer screens which switch between display multiple things. Or rather, there still are 2,000 controls, but thanks to the computer-screens, the number hasn't blown up to 200,000. So my guess is the touchscreens in these ships replaced some computer screen where input (and mode switching) had been done by physical buttons. And now they are moving it back.
  • nine_k 7y ago
    Configurable displays that you can quickly glance are great. OTOH controls that you normally, and especially in a critical situation, reach and operate without looking, is a different thing. They should be stationary, and provide good tactile feedback.
    • skgoa 7y ago
      One important fact here is that everything the pilots will need to reach quickly in an emergency still is a physical button. It's just the more "nice to have" things (e.g. programming the cost factor of the engines, putting the route into the autopilot) that are done through the screens. Though, even those inputs are largely done with a funky kind of mouse+keyboard. Actual touchscreens are largely relegated to tertiary functions like airport information displays.
  • p2t2p 7y ago
    I’m no where an expert and don’t know anything but I gave it a bit of thought. It seems to me that there are two types of vehicles or two types of operations. Instrumental and visual. So if a system is operated in instrumental mode, like instrumental flight, when all the information necessary is available in the screen in front of you, it seems to me that it would be more efficient to make interactive and turn the screen into touch screen. You’re only looking at the screen after all. But when you operate something in visual mode, when you have to monitor surroundings, the controls should be knobs and buttons, ones that you know from your muscle memory and can operate without looking. For planes that means that controls required during normal flight can be touch controls. After all on Concord and TU-144 pilots didn’t even have visual. However during departure and landing, pilots need physics buttons and switches as it is visual flight. Another conclusion is that fighter jets can’t have any touch controls, they are supposed to be in visual all the time.
• einpoklum 7y ago
  They're ideal for Steve Jobs to make marketing presentations of. On a more serious note - the touch-screen is the greatest "generalist" UI configuration: A whole lot is possible, but no UI is any good, in the sense of having tactile elements.
• bigiain 7y ago
  > Has nobody researched this before spending a few hundred million dollars? Of _course_ they did. But nobody listens to the UX/HCI researchers and academics, when the touchscreen vendor's sales team are inviting them to fully catered lunches on a tropical golf course... Business as usual.
  • gugagore 7y ago
    Do you know that this has happened specifically around touchscreens, or is this a more general observation?
    • bigiain 7y ago
      Just generalised Monday morning cynicism... It happens with _everything_ else in this stupid industry, what're the chances of it not happening just the same when the tech industry targets the military industrial complex???
      • zeveb 7y ago
        Principle of charity: don't attribute mistakes to malevolence. Unlike in business, military purchasing is, I think, generally run by people who were once users of the systems they were purchasing, and are not unlikely to rely on them again. Far more likely than, 'I don't care if the ensign standing watch on my next ship can do his job, this Mai Tai tastes great!' is 'wow, I see all these touch screens on TV shows, in movies and in the Tesla cars the print media tells me are the wave of the future; we need to get the New Hotness™ for our future combat systems too!' and 'hey everybody, look at this awesome futuristic 21st century cockpit my team designed!' They were, I think, completely well-intentioned and genuinely believed that they were doing a good job — and the few folks who opposed them probably sounded like cranky old guys ('why, in my day you had to get three stout sailors to man the rudder, and we liked it that way!'). Our entire culture is neophilic; military purchasers live in our culture; is it any surprise that they might be neophilic too?
        • magduf 7y ago
• gesman 7y ago
  +1 Touchscreens are vulnerable for fat fingering. Every time i carry my touchscreenable laptop - it gets crazy because of accidental touches, moves, brushes and if i forget to lock the screen completely - this bordering with disaster, such as deleted files, moved folders, spradically launched apps, etc..
• ulfw 7y ago
  Tell that to Elon Musk’s Tesla
• closeparen 7y ago
  Entertainment industry control consoles in audio, video, and lighting blend the two pretty well. Hardware faders and encoders for actually manipulating parameters. An LCD right next to each physical control showing its current assignment and meaning. Keyboard buttons for selecting pages and layers, playing back automation, and command-line programming. Touchscreens for situational awareness, drilldown to detailed views, configuration, routing, and navigation of complex hierarchies. Yamaha has a nice idiom called "touch-and-turn" where there's an unassigned encoder right next the screen which manipulates whichever parameter you tap onscreen. Navigating the touchscreen is at least as nice as visually scanning a large format analog console to find the right handle, but a knob is the right way to actually tune it. It works well. Your hands spend little if any time on the touchscreen during the show, but it helps you understand what's going on with the physical control surface and grab rarely accessed parameters, not worthy of dedicated console real estate, when needed.
• Razengan 7y ago
  Having an input system with haptic feedback but also context-based controls and customizable layouts is still the Holy Grail. Apple could still make it happen with a future version of their Taptic Engine. Preferably with hover haptic feedback, where you feel a "tingle" or something before touching the screen.
  • Shorel 7y ago
    So, the closest we have to the Holy grail of input systems is the Steam Controller?
• danjayh 7y ago
  And this is why I like Boeing's new manned capsule better than the one from SpaceX: Boeing: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/08/boeing-starliner-crew-spacecraft/ https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/08/boeing-starliner-cre... SpaceX: https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/atk7lokher30bvfh1t38.jpg https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/atk7lokher... (I despise Gizmodo, so it's a deep link for this one)
  • aggie 7y ago
    I don't actually see any touchscreen controls on the SpaceX panel. There are physical buttons in the middle and what appear to be information-only displays to either side. There might be some sliders, but it's hard to tell. That said, it does look like they are prioritizing aesthetics over functionality of the control layout.
  • audunw 7y ago
    You should keep in mind is that the SpaceX capsule is not really meant to be human operated under normal circumstances, and whatever actions are meant to be taken by humans during normal operation or emergencies supposedly have physical buttons. So if there's things you can do with the touchscreens it's likely to be a whole lot of small things you might want to do in rare non-emergency situations. That's a pretty good fit for a touch screen. You can potentially give the astronauts a huge amount of control over all aspects of the spacecraft without creating a mountain of buttons and knobs. It could even lead to better safety since you know that every single physical control you see is important, and there's less room for mistake when using only the physical interface. I'm not an expert in this area, so I could be wrong, but my impression is that SpaceX has a pretty good design here. Not necessary better or worse than Boeings approach. It's not like NASA would let astronauts fly on it if they thought it was unsafe or hard to operate.
• trilila 7y ago
  Fully touch capable keyboards would be awesome actually. Imagine remapping keys according to apps (games, editing, coding). I am not sure why you are using the macbook pro as a reference, as the only issues i had with it are related to the classic keyboard, not the touch.
  • kokx 7y ago
    If you mean that you have physical keys which you can remap, such as the Optimus Maximus keyboard concept [1], that would indeed be a great idea. However, I would not be certain if I could type well on a full-touch screen keyboard such as the Optimus Tactus [2]. I do my typing blindly, having a touch screen would constantly require me to find the correct position for my fingers by look. While on a normal keyboard that is easy to do by touch. [1]: https://www.artlebedev.com/optimus/maximus/ https://www.artlebedev.com/optimus/maximus/ [2]: https://www.artlebedev.com/optimus/tactus/ https://www.artlebedev.com/optimus/tactus/
    • yoz-y 7y ago
      I wonder how much would it be possible to touch-type on a touchscreen. I don't look at my phone keyboard anymore and type quite fast on it.
      • Shorel 7y ago
        Shorthand writing should also work very fast on modern phone screens.
• Fr0styMatt88 7y ago
  There’s something even worse than touchscreens IMHO - those capacitive buttons on non-screen surfaces, like the capacitive power touch points on some monitor bezels. As a visually impaired person, these are absolutely maddening. I don’t know if anyone else gets this, but it’s almost like my brain doesn’t know how to press them. Touchscreens are fine for me, but for some reason I get major tension in my hands when trying to find these surface ‘buttons’. They’re often denoted with a tiny symbol in low contrast, just to make it even worse.
  • Dextro 7y ago
    Agreed and they tend to get worse with age for cheaper models since the already low contrast symbol tends to fade away with time.
  • skgoa 7y ago
    As a visually unimpaired person, those touch buttons are just horrible. Especially so when it is a function that does not have an immediate effect. Just this morning I switched my monitor on, off and on again, simply because by the time it actually reacted, I had pressed the power button again already.
  • coldpie 7y ago
    I loved how my XBox would turn on and do its 60 second boot sequence every time I dusted it. What a nice feature.
    • SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
      Or when a cat brushes past, in our case.
      • ssully 7y ago
        My dog intentionally turns on my PS4 in the morning. When she turns on the PS4 it automatically turns on the TV and will play the soothing main menu music. We aren't sure if she does it for the music, the light from the TV, or the beeping noise from when you first press the button, but she has been doing it almost every morning for the last year and a half.
• killjoywashere 7y ago
  in aircraft, yes. Ships? probably, but the US Navy Surface Warfare community has a special way of believing they are more special than reality.
• m-p-3 7y ago
  IMO touchscreen are awful in any kind of vehicles or activities requiring you to have your eyes focused on something else than the display. Like for smartwatches, I hate using touch controls to control it, I really prefer physical buttons since they provide multiple benefits - keep the display smudge-free - works with gloves (useful during winter) - allow actions from touch-memory (ie: skip song without looking at it)
  • moftz 7y ago
    I feel like destroyers are large enough that taking your eyes off the "road" for a moment to adjust controls is perfectly fine. Ships like that have radar systems to detect other boats. These things could probably pilot themselves with enough sensors. They move slow enough in crowded waterways and have actual radar (versus lidar or cameras) so seeing the speed and direction of other things around them is already built-in. Relying on a bunch of tired people to work together to steer a ship seems like a worse idea than having just one well-rested captain that can sit back and observe an auto-pilot. Having a thoughtful default UI along with the ability to display any control or status on the screen would seem like a better idea for central control station. A captain could pull up their own configuration for the control panel. During an emergency, they could fallback to a default view that could be referenced by operating procedure documents. Give the ability to delegate controls to other stations but do not allow multiple stations to control the same input, that seems like an idiotic idea.
• ubermonkey 7y ago
  >It is awful for keyboards (see macbook pro) I've never seen a MacBook Pro with a touchscreen keyboard. Can you point me at one?
  • LambdaComplex 7y ago
    Probably referring to the Touch Bar: https://assets.pcmag.com/media/images/548053-touch-bar.jpg?thumb=y&width=980&height=900 https://assets.pcmag.com/media/images/548053-touch-bar.jpg?t...
    • ubermonkey 7y ago
      Except the sentence clearly implies that MacBook Pros use a touchscreen keyboard. That's a hilariously wrong assertion, hence my sarcasm.
• sailfast 7y ago
  The ability to route steering, throttle, and other critical controls previously locked to a couple of stations to ANYWHERE in the ship (including, say, the CIC) is a pretty convincing argument to an Admiral, I'd say. Combined with some modular control systems (a la the modular synth comments in the thread) it would be pretty awesome. The problem here was that they kept getting swapped between stations. It wasn't JUST the touch screen, it was also WHICH touch screen, which is a problem that should be resolved in case they're still looking to allow for control switching.
• pmarreck 7y ago
  I've owned a Tesla Model S for a few years now and its touchscreen has never felt like an impediment. To be fair, though, the crucial controls are still under my feet and under my thumbs on the steering wheel, and those are all physical/tactile.
• CharlesColeman 7y ago
  > Why was touchscreen ever even a consideration for controls you're not looking at? Touchscreens are the future™
• zyngaro 7y ago
  Even for gaming it’s awful. Playing a video game on a touch screen never felt right , depending on the game but For most games it’s an awful experience.
• exadeci 7y ago
  "It's the future!" A company I was working for used an old telnet ERP that couldn't handle the mouse so everything was keyboard only and users could move at blazingly fast speeds between the menus. Then they asked me to make a website to help new users, honestly, I wished that they would have instead just tried to update/improve the Telenet experience or maybe let me add the same shortcuts on the web interface.