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No. We've seen touchscreens replacing knobs, marketed as the cool new thing but really it is done for cost reasons - touchscreens are getting incredibly cheaper

No. We've seen touchscreens replacing knobs, marketed as the cool new thing but really it is done for cost reasons - touchscreens are getting incredibly cheaper and automotive grade rotary encoders, buttons, switches are getting more expensive as the demand is falling. It is sad to see how adding more features is degrading cars. Stop fucking with things that work. I hate touchscreens except for my phone. That's the only place where it makes sense and it has worked well. I hate using an iPad and I hate literally anything that has a touchscreen. Old ATMs were so much better than this touchscreen bullshit. Cameras instead of mirrors is how upper management wants to do cool things for the sake of doing cool things - aerodynamic efficiency takes a back seat where I have a risk of not being able to see things clearly, or if the camera breaks or if parallax becomes a problem.

robomartin 7y ago
Touch screens are terrible for what I will generalize as "machine control". Dangerous, really. It's a two part problem, first there's the touch screen itself and then the UI software. When I was getting started in engineering I did a stint writing process management software where I worked. I was quite proud when I completed the project I was assigned by the VP of engineering. I had him come over to show off the completed project. I showed him all the features. Everything worked. I completed it on time and exactly per the specifications he gave me. And then he took his hand and swiped across the computer keyboard back and forth like he was playing every note on a piano by pressing down and moving his hand all the way to the left and then all the way to the right. He looked at me, smiled, and walked away. Didn't have to say a thing. I won't describe what happened. Let's just say it broke. Had this been a controlling a real process --rather than a simulator-- it would have been a horrible mess. It took me twice as long to redo the thing and make it fault tolerant, not just to user mishaps (drop a coffee cup, wrench, notebook or trip and press down with your entire hand on the keyboard) but also to sensor failures. With one simple demonstration he taught me what school never did about software, hardware and the real world. Touch screens are great tools, but you really have to think things through very carefully before using them as the only UI device. Bottom line: You should be able to close your eyes, place your hands on the touch screen and play it like a piano without anything bad happening. Having designed lots of physical user interface control panels (knobs, buttons, etc.) I know exactly why people resort to touch screens: Designing control panels is very, very hard. You also have to think things through and do a lot of testing in order to be able to both deal with ergonomics, usage patterns, function availability and user cognitive load. With touch screens you design the control panel and then let the software gods sort it out. The process allows one to get to final hardware quicker while delaying all the hard UI work as much as possible. I won't even get into the issue of touch screens creating greater cognitive load as well as requiring finer motor control, both things that are undesirable while driving or operating equipment that could cause physical harm or property damage.

robomartin 7y ago

Touch screens are terrible for what I will generalize as "machine control". Dangerous, really. It's a two part problem, first there's the touch screen itself and then the UI software. When I was getting started in engineering I did a stint writing process management software where I worked. I was quite proud when I completed the project I was assigned by the VP of engineering. I had him come over to show off the completed project. I showed him all the features. Everything worked. I completed it on time and exactly per the specifications he gave me. And then he took his hand and swiped across the computer keyboard back and forth like he was playing every note on a piano by pressing down and moving his hand all the way to the left and then all the way to the right. He looked at me, smiled, and walked away. Didn't have to say a thing. I won't describe what happened. Let's just say it broke. Had this been a controlling a real process --rather than a simulator-- it would have been a horrible mess. It took me twice as long to redo the thing and make it fault tolerant, not just to user mishaps (drop a coffee cup, wrench, notebook or trip and press down with your entire hand on the keyboard) but also to sensor failures. With one simple demonstration he taught me what school never did about software, hardware and the real world. Touch screens are great tools, but you really have to think things through very carefully before using them as the only UI device. Bottom line: You should be able to close your eyes, place your hands on the touch screen and play it like a piano without anything bad happening. Having designed lots of physical user interface control panels (knobs, buttons, etc.) I know exactly why people resort to touch screens: Designing control panels is very, very hard. You also have to think things through and do a lot of testing in order to be able to both deal with ergonomics, usage patterns, function availability and user cognitive load. With touch screens you design the control panel and then let the software gods sort it out. The process allows one to get to final hardware quicker while delaying all the hard UI work as much as possible. I won't even get into the issue of touch screens creating greater cognitive load as well as requiring finer motor control, both things that are undesirable while driving or operating equipment that could cause physical harm or property damage.