23 ms·

Look at the cockpit of any modern airliner and you will see screens, but they are never interactive. There are hardware buttons, dials and lights all over the p

by hnarn 7y ago

Look at the cockpit of any modern airliner and you will see screens, but they are never interactive. There are hardware buttons, dials and lights all over the place. A tactile interface is both more obvious, sturdy and more stable, and therefore safer. The problem that touch interfaces solve, ever since the advent of the first smart phone, is that the interface is now dynamic. You can change it without having to replace the hardware. Here's the catch: for safety critical interfaces, YOU DO NOT want the interface to change. The point is moot. Touch screens will hopefully never make it into any critical pilot systems, because safety and stability matters to airline manufacturers, current ongoing scandals notwithstanding. I only wish automobile manufacturers took their job equally seriously.

hinkley 7y ago
Electronic Flight Bag is one of the biggest screens, right? And that's used for navigation, which is largely strategic, not tactical.
- hnarn 7y ago
  I'd love for someone who's in the industry or an actual pilot to comment on this because I'm frankly not sure about what common scope AFBs have on commercial airliners, and what the backup procedures are if they fail. For private pilots, I know bringing an iPad up is common these days, but I think (and sure hope) commercial flight is a lot more risk averse and slow to adopt these things without thorough procedure.
  - benhurmarcel 7y ago
    80 to 90% of airlines worldwide use EFBs, based on iPad or Microsoft Surface.
CivBase 7y ago
I work for an avionics manufacturer and I can assure you most of our upcoming comercial systems (and even a healthy portion of government ones) feature touch screen inputs.
- hnarn 7y ago
  What exact type of input is being grabbed by these screens? "Critical pilot systems"? Touchscreens already exist in airliners, for systems used by crew and passengers, but that's beside the point.
  - chc 7y ago
    Critical driver systems (i.e. steering, signaling, acceleration and brakes) aren't controlled by touchscreen in any car I know of either, so if non-critical systems are beside the point, what is the criticism here? Or are you thinking of some particularly extreme cars that are even more reliant on touchscreen than the Model 3?
    - hnarn 7y ago
      I was just trying to make an illustrative example of why I think static interfaces are safer and therefore better, at the end of the day it comes down to subjectivity for the part of a positive user experience, but when it comes to safety the trend is, to me, worrying. I also imagine that there are other reasons for both airliners and cars to replace buttons with touchscreens, namely that of cost instead of prioritizing safety and stability, and in general I am not a fan of that trade-off. But I'm also not claiming to be representative of the automobile market in general.
      - light_hue_1 7y ago
        If you believe that aviation not having touch screens means that cars should not either, then evidence to the opposite should change your mind. The A350 and 777X both have touch screens now. It's not just Boeing, who you accused of being backwards who are doing this, Airbus is too, along with every other manufacturer. Garmin and BendixKing now offer touch screens and it's clearly the future of GA as well not just commercial aviation. Everyone believes that this will increase safety. That showing only the relevant information in a tunable and interactive way will decrease distractions and help focus on what matters. The idea that this is to save money is totally absurd! A 777X is $350 million dollars. Any accident would cost an astronomical amount compared to the cost of switches. Even leaving that aside. The touchscreens are actually far more expensive than the old instruments. This is just a way for Honda to cover up the fact that they can't write software, can't design a reasonable UX, don't want to spend money on it, and want to live as if it's 1999 forever.
d_silin 7y ago
Too late! Boeing 777-X will have touch screen interfaces for pilots. Personally, I think information display can and should use touch interface, but actions should be tied to physical switches or buttons.
- hnarn 7y ago
  The problem is not "having touch interfaces", the problem is "having touch interfaces for critical systems".
  - d_silin 7y ago
    I can assure you that PFD (primary flight display) interfaces are very much safety-critical. And they will be touch interfaces.
    - hnarn 7y ago
      Personally I think it's an awful idea. I just watched the promotional video that I expected to give some answers as to why this design decision was made and I frankly ended up even more worried.[1] I can accept that I'm somewhat of a luddite when it comes to this and I might be wrong, I just hope these are thoroughly tested and actually solve real world problems, and aren't just a way for Boeing to save money or solve the problem of "hey why aren't there any cool touchscreens in here". [1]: https://www.boeing.com/777x/reveal/touchscreens-come-to-777x-flight-deck/ https://www.boeing.com/777x/reveal/touchscreens-come-to-777x...
      - spaceandshit 7y ago
        You would have a difficult time finding an airborne system that does not already do this: > I just hope these are thoroughly tested and actually solve real world problems Changing from a legacy style to a new one is not cheap, and aerospace companies are not the type to spend money on useless, less reliable technology.
        deleted 7y ago
derefr 7y ago
> The problem that touch interfaces solve, ever since the advent of the first smart phone, is that the interface is now dynamic. You can change it without having to replace the hardware. I mean, the other point of a dynamic interface is that you can now have more controls than would fit on a static interface. Touchscreen fit-to-purpose controls might suck more than hardware fit-to-purpose controls, but either option is better than a single set of generic controls that control multiple systems that "should" have different control paradigms, translating to the generic controls being a compromised bad fit for any use-case. E.g. a hardware English-language keyboard is probably better than a touchscreen English-language keyboard (though people with modern Blackberries might dispute this); but both are better than entering English text through T9 on a dial pad. And the touchscreen has the benefit of allowing you to have more keyboards (for e.g. the multiple native languages you type that use different alphabets), which wouldn't even fit on the phone as hardware keyboards. I bring this up, because eventually you run out of space to stuff additional controls. As airplanes become ever-more advanced, their cockpits will approach that point. At that point, dynamic affordances may be necessary, just so you can have some kind of "pagination" allowing you to squeeze more controls in. (Hopefully it'd just be for the non-time-critical switches to flip.)
- hnarn 7y ago
  I'm not disagreeing with anything you're saying and despite my somewhat ranting comment I am not completely opposed to a mix of touchscreens and hardware interfaces: but I think you'll agree that there needs to be a decision made in terms of safety when you decide to use a touchpad for input. If you're adjusting the screen brightness on your smart phone, that slider doesn't have to be perfect, and maybe adjusting the cabin lights for an airliner doesn't have to be either: I'm just dreading the day when things like navigational headings and airspeed creeps into a touch interface because of "convenience". But if my observation about this trend is wrong, which I hope, that separation of concerns will stay in future designs as well.
- jsight 7y ago
  > I mean, the other point of a dynamic interface is that you can now have more controls than would fit on a static interface. I think this point is lost sometimes, but is also useful. My car has a lot of physical controls. Some of the ones that are useful during driving are tucked inconveniently below my left knee! Moving some less frequently used controls to a touch screen might actually benefit some of these designs.
cbhl 7y ago
Sure, but there are still tons of touchscreens in the cabin -- controlling the climate, the lighting, and the playback of the safety video.
- hnarn 7y ago
  Yes, and I have no problem with that. I don't imagine that an imprecise control of the climate, lighting or video playback will bring the plane down. I mean, I sure hope not.
jasondclinton 7y ago
This comment is off-topic: the article is about physical buttons for non-safety-critical systems. E.g. the article explicitly mentions climate control.
- hnarn 7y ago
  I'm sorry if I wasn't clear enough about this but I was more trying to make a point that physical input is safer, and that the trend towards touchscreens in general worries me. So a return to "normal", which I guess is not so normal these days, is for me very welcome. Touchscreens in cars cause safety issues for other reasons, namely those of distraction, but my concern is what the future will look like if touchscreen normality takes the upper hand over safety concerns.
- KotlinFan554001 7y ago
  I am really sorry but foggy windshield is definitely safety critical.
- daotoad 7y ago
  You can still die if the driver spends too long messing with air conditioner settings instead of focusing on the road. CarPlay and Android Auto make this problem worse, IMO. Now you have app publishers writing arbitrarily complex UIs for cars. Spotify is a bitch to use while driving and because of Apple's reluctance to enable Siri support for third party apps, it's not very controllable by voice.
  - diydsp 7y ago
    yup, just rented a cool modern car and was distraught at how much menu-diving there was. and even if you memorize it, the lag was still huge vs. real-time controls!
  - sigspec 7y ago
    "Siri, play the Eagles on spotify" Been available for a little bit now. https://www.tomsguide.com/how-to/how-to-use-siri-to-control-spotify-ios-13 https://www.tomsguide.com/how-to/how-to-use-siri-to-control-...
gok 7y ago
I suppose you don't include the flight manuals as a critical system, since those have been touch screens for almost a decade?
sgustard 7y ago
An airplane cockpit has two pilots and literally several hundred physical buttons. No one wants to drive that car. In cars we're mainly talking about the volume and fan speed. Personally I much prefer knobs for those. But I wouldn't call those critical safety systems.
- bialpio 7y ago
  Someone already mentioned this: climate control becomes safety critical when your windshield fogs up. Good luck finding that goddamn touch button then... Additionally, I sometimes hear radio ads that have honk or siren sounds in them that immensely piss me off and cause me to immediately turn the radio off just to be able to hear if something's actually happening or not.
jariel 7y ago
Great points. BUT - touch screens can be used if people are trained, the layout is rational, the device is responsive. There are two underlying things: 1) Tactile. As you spelled out. 2) Changing interfaces. This is the real killer. 100 screens, don't know what's what, supposed to be driving. These UIs need some thinking but I suggest that the 'knobs and buttons' can possibly be mapped to different functions depending on.
cosmotic 7y ago
> The problem that touch interfaces solve, ever since the advent of the first smart phone, is that the interface is now dynamic. You can change it without having to replace the hardware. They also enable the completion of hardware design before the interface design is completed. While the plastic molds and mechanical designs are worked out, the interface and software development can continue.
- downerending 7y ago
  That sounds good, but for some reason, design of "virtual" controls always seems to end up far inferior to physical ones. Perhaps the thought is "We'll just toss something out there and we can fix it later", as opposed to "We only have one shot at this so we better get it right". I'm reminded as well of web "app" interfaces. In the early days, with relatively fixed controls, one could often navigate sites more easily since there just weren't that many ways they could work. Now, with a blizzard of JS UI kits and an oh-so-wonderful variety of ways of doing everything, each site works differently. And it's not an improvement.
  - cosmotic 7y ago
    Yeah, sorry, I should have been clearer on my opinion on the matter: virtual controls are almost always worse than physical ones.
parsimo2010 7y ago
> Touch screens will hopefully never make it into any critical pilot systems For one, you're too late, touchscreens are prevalent in modern avionics, and unlabeled buttons on the border of a screen that change function depending on what screen you're viewing are the second most common. The more relevant part to the Honda discussion is that there are different considerations for a car and airplane interfaces, and they are so different it's not a good argument to say "planes don't/shouldn't do this so cars shouldn't either." The issue with a car isn't the interface, it's the fact that people look inside their vehicle for too long to fiddle with the radio. Even if the buttons/knobs could be operated entirely without looking, most people would still stare at their radio while they are doing it. Pilots learning to fly are trained to look outside after pretty much any action, they shouldn't ever stare inside the plane. They do a quick instrument scan and look outside. They glance at their chart and look outside. If they need to change frequency they do it and then look back outside. It's kind of hard to break the habit of looking outside when you start instrument training. But most car drivers don't have the same amount of training and fixate on things inside the car, like the radio or climate controls. TBH, pilots still get fixated on things, it's just that they usually snap out of it and regain situational awareness before anything bad happens because the skies are pretty spacious. But car drivers don't have spacious roads. There's another car right next to you going 75 mph and if you drift out of your lane you'll cause an accident. The issue isn't the design of the buttons at all. That matters to a fighter pilot, but the issue for a car driver is the fact that the screen is even on and the radio is accessible while driving down the road. The real critical safety feature would be disabling the screen while driving, and either locking out controls or only allowing voice control. But people would never buy a car that doesn't let them fiddle with the radio or stare at their little screen, so the actual safety feature that needs to be implemented won't happen. Edit: When I say "fiddle with the radio" I'm including all activities that take place in a car's center stack- audio, navigation, climate control, etc. I'm also a pilot, have designed tests for avionics upgrades for multiple fighter jets, and own my own plane. I have lamented the introduction of touchscreens into modern avionics at a professional level and the personal level. I own three cars with varying levels of touchscreen invasion. So I've thought about the issues surrounding touchscreen quite a bit, and have concluded that the interfaces in a car are so simple that the issue isn't whether you can operate it without looking, it's the fact that people aren't trained to do so.
ciconia 7y ago
Pilots already use iPads for checklists.
- dewey 7y ago
  That's a different ballpark though as you can fall back to the paper version at any time.
  - storyinmemo 7y ago
    More often than not, navigation charts are now on iPads and there is no paper backup carried anymore.
johnflan 7y ago
While not touch many Airbus aircraft feature a full keyboard and trackball for operating those screens.
friendly_fren 7y ago
The f35 has a large touch screen that pilots use. Maybe the $1m helmet has a way to interact without touching.
- squaresmile 7y ago
  For some more info: https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/cmypjd/the_finger_prints_on_the_f35_touch_screen_display/ https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/cmypjd/the_finger... It's fun thread. You can catch some actual military pilots there.
deleted 7y ago
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fitzn 7y ago
I was about to ask if there are any pilots on this thread who could weigh in because this was my intuition as a non-pilot. Just to drive one of your points home further, you don't want the interface to change because that could confuse the pilot. Toyota's braking fiasco is an example where unfamiliarity led to mis-operation even though the hardware or the device itself was functioning "to spec".
deleted 7y ago
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nimrody 7y ago
I am not a pilot, but it seems like MFD (multi-function displays, a sort of touch screen with touch points at the edge of the screen) are very common even in fighter planes. Yes, the basic controls do not change. But more advanced functionality is easier presented through menus and screens which guide you through a process -- instead of adding tons of switches for every possible function. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-function_display https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-function_display
TheKarateKid 7y ago
The problem here is not with the technology - it's from the people implementing it. Instead of leaving the design and software to tech companies, we have car companies trying to do it on their own. The result is terribly designed software that looks like it's from 2000.
- stevehawk 7y ago
  The arrogance of that statement is amazing. I recently bought an iPad for the first time in 5+(?) years.. before multi touch and pressure sensitive screens. I have no f'n clue what I'm doing anymore. I accidentally had Safari running two windows side by side with no idea how to stop that. I'm still not sure what I did to make it go back to one window.. My friends and I decided to try out a (new to us) game which required Microsoft Store / Xbox PC Game Console or whatever the shit it is. 4 of us cannot figure out how to add someone as a friend. It's not in any menu anywhere. I can follow, I can favorite.. I have no idea how to "friend".. which means we can't figure out how to invite people to games. I'm convinced if Silicon Valley were to design car interfaces I'd be stuck in some sort of pay per action dark pattern captivity hell. And as a student pilot nothing scares me more than touch screen controls. Maybe I spend too much time down low in the thermals but it's so much easier to hold on to a knob and turn it, while counting clicks, than trying to press a touch screen and hope you hit the right finger sized button the right number of times to change radio frequencies. Different story on heavy planes since they don't bounce around as much as GA planes but it sucks to fight the fight while trying to maintain control/coordination.
  - spaceandshit 7y ago
    Unfortunately, that kind of arrogance is common on this forum.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    While working from home, I was trying to figure out how to mute my Android phone on a conference call the other day. I eventually did, but the sequence of actions to get to the menu was very strange. I'm pretty sure it was more intuitive just a few years ago, but of course, you don't control whether you update software anymore. Interface design is accelerating downhill, and it's amazing how things have regressed since Apple and Microsoft published guidelines for good design in the 80s and 90s.
clSTophEjUdRanu 7y ago
I'd argue that humans have evolved to physically manipulate their environment. Safety critical systems are the last place you want UI variation. Things need to be predictable and tactile to build muscle memory.
WalterBright 7y ago
> Touch screens will hopefully never make it into any critical pilot systems Touch screens in the cockpit seem like madness to me. Cockpits sometimes fill with smoke and the pilot has to be able to find and operate the controls. Ever notice that the flap levers have little flaps on top of them? The nosewheel steering control has a little tire on the top? That's so the pilot knows without looking what his hands are on. These designs were not the result of some study group following fashion, but were the result of accidents.
- astrodust 7y ago
  Not just smoke. During explosive decompression the air turns to thick fog, and that's when you'll need to fumble around for the correct controls the most.
- ondravn 7y ago
  Another consideration is vibration; trying to press a virtual button while in a high turbulence situation can be non-trivial, for example. Critical functions will (hopefully) always remain on tactile controls for these and other reasons.
pascalxus 7y ago
well said. I for one don't like all those touchscreen buttons. Screens should be for maps and other non-interactive stuff.
tomc1985 7y ago
Didn't the US Navy try this and end up crashing a destroyer or something?
- heymijo 7y ago
  You are correct. > The US Navy is replacing touch screen controls on destroyers, after the displays were implicated in collisions. Unfamiliarity with the touch screens contributed to two accidents that caused the deaths of 17 sailors, said incident reports. Poor training meant sailors did not know how to use the complex systems in emergencies, they said. Sailors "overwhelmingly" preferred to control ships with wheels and throttles, surveys of crew found. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49319450 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49319450
SAI_Peregrinus 7y ago
The thing I'd like to see more of is OLED buttons (Optimus Keyboard style). Physical, clicky, mechanical buttons, but each button is a screen. MFD buttons already change their function depending on what mode the screen is in, having the button also be an icon of what it will do can be very nice. Otherwise I agree. You need the use of the interface to be as automatic as possible, and exploiting muscle memory & tactile feedback are very important for that. Touch screens fail there.
deleted 7y ago
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jrockway 7y ago
I don't think this is entirely true. The GA glass panels love touchscreens, and they are just as FAA-certified as their non-touchscreen counterparts. You are right that they are flaky. Here's Martin Pauly (great YouTube channel!) using his touchscreen transponder and it just stops working: https://youtu.be/bopcQSJKcD8?t=732 https://youtu.be/bopcQSJKcD8?t=732
rurounijones 7y ago
> Touch screens will hopefully never make it into any critical pilot systems The F-35 Fighter Jet has basically only touch-screens (apart from Hands-on-throttle-and-stick controls for when you are busy pulling Gs) Depends on your definition of "critical" but I don't think this is a great example.
- Dahoon 7y ago
  And the F-35 is a great example of how not to do things, so of course it has touchscreens.
jread 7y ago
Perhaps, but on many pilot's knees will be a digital touchscreen kneeboard which having learned with paper approach plates and map books myself was a godsend.
danbolt 7y ago
I think that’s partially why the market for handheld game devices didn’t get crowded out by smartphones. Tactile inputs let the player’s muscle memory work as a more direct shorthand into the product for a lot of video games. It helps the repeated interactions of a video game be more accessible over a “look, then touch” method of input.
jchw 7y ago
Dynamic interface can still be useful in some cases. Cars do require the driver’s active attention, but certainly not the passenger’s, who can operate the touchscreen. Further, undoubtably part of what makes controls intuitive is familiarity, and thanks to smartphones, tablets, and to some degree even modern laptops, it’s hard to argue against it from a familiarity standpoint. I’m sure it’s been attempted but, It’s hard to imagine a good mapping interface in a car with no touchscreen at all. I’m still glad for what Honda is actually doing, which is not unilaterally removing touch screen controls but instead moving climate control back to physical buttons. These are things a driver ought to be able to operate safely while in motion, and touch controls only ever made them more complicated I think.
viklove 7y ago
I think you're missing something pretty major -- a touchscreen can support multiple UIs, menus, and controls, with minimal hardware. If I have 20 user adjustable inputs, I would need 20 dials/buttons scattered around the cockpit. On the other hand, with a screen, I can display 5 on each page and allow the user to swap between pages.
pbreit 7y ago
It's not useful to compare cars to planes since cars can easily pull over to the side of the road.
storyinmemo 7y ago
Check out all the latest Garmin aviation equipment. Touch is here for critical systems including GPS systems used on instrument approaches. Super fun to reprogram in turbulence.
0x262d 7y ago
Pretty sure this has everything to do with planes being old. Boeing pretty clearly demonstrated that planes being planes doesn't mean they're immune from bad design, corruption, or any other problem.
solinent 7y ago
One time I had to create a button for a in-flight software which would control a lidar instrument. The button would enable you to select when to turn on and off the instrument. We went for a few iterations where the button would light up when the laser was on. There were tons of issues--the state of the laser was not stored in the hardware, so every time the button would disconnect briefly, the state would get reset and lost. After months of back and forth dealing with algorithms to save the state and deal with spurious button presses when the device disconnected, we ended up with a completely useless button, as disconnects would happen very often inside helicopters, rendering the button useless due to the spurious presses near disconnect/reconnect. Finally, we decided to go with a hardware switch (which I wanted from the start). In about one day the whole thing blew over.
mkhpalm 7y ago
> Touch screens will hopefully never make it into any critical pilot systems, because safety and stability matters to airline manufacturers, current ongoing scandals notwithstanding. You might want to take a look at garmin's general aviation product lineup. They're pretty popular.
friendlybus 7y ago
Look at the upcoming TEMPEST fighter to see touch screen displays in full force.
slavak 7y ago
I'm afraid I have some bad news for you: https://youtu.be/wfOD2y_AD_w?t=190 https://youtu.be/wfOD2y_AD_w?t=190 https://www.dynonavionics.com/SkyView-HDX/ https://www.dynonavionics.com/SkyView-HDX/ https://youtu.be/1oyCzT6sB_4 https://youtu.be/1oyCzT6sB_4 Just a few examples. Aviation very much uses touch screens quite extensively. The difference usually is that more thought is put into when and how to use them; you're not just replacing all the buttons with a touchscreen and letting some underpaid intern design the interface for it.
eru 7y ago
Cockpit design is strictly regulated by some very risk averse and conservative people. (And not just the cockpit, the passenger space as well.) So it's hard to tell which parts of he design stem from being conservative and which parts actually enhance safety. (I get your overall point. But your argument isn't really a good one for the point.)
collyw 7y ago
Indeed when phones started moving over to touchscreen dial pads i always thought it was a step backward usability wise. I had one phone where I couldn't hang up calls easily as you needed to swipe in a particular direction and a number of my calls went though a VOIP number so that had a different way of hanging up. Same with whatsapp calls now answering and hanging up is different from a normal call. It's a real shitshow.
- nswest23 7y ago
  Touchscreens on phones are great for usability! There are so many things that are enabled by touchscreens that you couldn't do with an array of physical buttons or whatever. OP's comment was specifically for mission critical hardware where safety is paramount.
  - collyw 7y ago
    For making a phonecall they are crap in comparison to buttons.
    - mastre_ 7y ago
      One could argue that, despite still being called "phones," their primary purpose is not making phone calls anymore. I personally use my device for making phone calls less than 1% of the time I use it (and this includes talk time).
      - nswest23 7y ago
        yeah the phone thing is just another app that I use about 5 times a month. it's nice that they include that app but if it wasn't there i'd prob still buy it!
mihaaly 7y ago
"The US Navy will replace its touchscreen controls with mechanical ones on its destroyers After a deadly 2017 crash between a destroyer and an oil tanker" https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/11/20800111/us-navy-uss-john-s-mccain-crash-ntsb-report-touchscreen-mechanical-controls https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/11/20800111/us-navy-uss-john...
neuralRiot 7y ago
I see many people comparing automotive electronics to avionics, but there’s a big difference, in flight you can take your eyes off the “road” and in some situations even fly with 0 visibility, whereas in a car your next obstacle is only milliseconds away from you.
mattr47 7y ago
Nope, not anymore. Honeywell is making the new Gulfstream’s Symmetry Flight Deck for the G700 and it is touchscreen enabled.
davidhariri 7y ago
All the latest Garmin avionics include touch screens. Airplane cockpits aren't the right metaphor because they are largely driven automatically.
titzer 7y ago
Not to mention, touchscreens really disadvantage the visually impaired.
- ricardobeat 7y ago
  True, but they are already a little disadvantaged when flying an airplane.
  - titzer 7y ago
    I was thinking more of essentially everything else, from working a stereo to an oven.

by hnarn 7y ago

hinkley 7y ago

Electronic Flight Bag is one of the biggest screens, right? And that's used for navigation, which is largely strategic, not tactical.

hnarn 7y ago
I'd love for someone who's in the industry or an actual pilot to comment on this because I'm frankly not sure about what common scope AFBs have on commercial airliners, and what the backup procedures are if they fail. For private pilots, I know bringing an iPad up is common these days, but I think (and sure hope) commercial flight is a lot more risk averse and slow to adopt these things without thorough procedure.
- benhurmarcel 7y ago
  80 to 90% of airlines worldwide use EFBs, based on iPad or Microsoft Surface.

CivBase 7y ago

I work for an avionics manufacturer and I can assure you most of our upcoming comercial systems (and even a healthy portion of government ones) feature touch screen inputs.

hnarn 7y ago
What exact type of input is being grabbed by these screens? "Critical pilot systems"? Touchscreens already exist in airliners, for systems used by crew and passengers, but that's beside the point.
- chc 7y ago
  Critical driver systems (i.e. steering, signaling, acceleration and brakes) aren't controlled by touchscreen in any car I know of either, so if non-critical systems are beside the point, what is the criticism here? Or are you thinking of some particularly extreme cars that are even more reliant on touchscreen than the Model 3?
  - hnarn 7y ago
    I was just trying to make an illustrative example of why I think static interfaces are safer and therefore better, at the end of the day it comes down to subjectivity for the part of a positive user experience, but when it comes to safety the trend is, to me, worrying. I also imagine that there are other reasons for both airliners and cars to replace buttons with touchscreens, namely that of cost instead of prioritizing safety and stability, and in general I am not a fan of that trade-off. But I'm also not claiming to be representative of the automobile market in general.
    - light_hue_1 7y ago
      If you believe that aviation not having touch screens means that cars should not either, then evidence to the opposite should change your mind. The A350 and 777X both have touch screens now. It's not just Boeing, who you accused of being backwards who are doing this, Airbus is too, along with every other manufacturer. Garmin and BendixKing now offer touch screens and it's clearly the future of GA as well not just commercial aviation. Everyone believes that this will increase safety. That showing only the relevant information in a tunable and interactive way will decrease distractions and help focus on what matters. The idea that this is to save money is totally absurd! A 777X is $350 million dollars. Any accident would cost an astronomical amount compared to the cost of switches. Even leaving that aside. The touchscreens are actually far more expensive than the old instruments. This is just a way for Honda to cover up the fact that they can't write software, can't design a reasonable UX, don't want to spend money on it, and want to live as if it's 1999 forever.

d_silin 7y ago

Too late! Boeing 777-X will have touch screen interfaces for pilots. Personally, I think information display can and should use touch interface, but actions should be tied to physical switches or buttons.

hnarn 7y ago
The problem is not "having touch interfaces", the problem is "having touch interfaces for critical systems".
- d_silin 7y ago
  I can assure you that PFD (primary flight display) interfaces are very much safety-critical. And they will be touch interfaces.
  - hnarn 7y ago
    Personally I think it's an awful idea. I just watched the promotional video that I expected to give some answers as to why this design decision was made and I frankly ended up even more worried.[1] I can accept that I'm somewhat of a luddite when it comes to this and I might be wrong, I just hope these are thoroughly tested and actually solve real world problems, and aren't just a way for Boeing to save money or solve the problem of "hey why aren't there any cool touchscreens in here". [1]: https://www.boeing.com/777x/reveal/touchscreens-come-to-777x-flight-deck/ https://www.boeing.com/777x/reveal/touchscreens-come-to-777x...
    - spaceandshit 7y ago
      You would have a difficult time finding an airborne system that does not already do this: > I just hope these are thoroughly tested and actually solve real world problems Changing from a legacy style to a new one is not cheap, and aerospace companies are not the type to spend money on useless, less reliable technology.
      - deleted 7y ago

derefr 7y ago

> The problem that touch interfaces solve, ever since the advent of the first smart phone, is that the interface is now dynamic. You can change it without having to replace the hardware. I mean, the other point of a dynamic interface is that you can now have more controls than would fit on a static interface. Touchscreen fit-to-purpose controls might suck more than hardware fit-to-purpose controls, but either option is better than a single set of generic controls that control multiple systems that "should" have different control paradigms, translating to the generic controls being a compromised bad fit for any use-case. E.g. a hardware English-language keyboard is probably better than a touchscreen English-language keyboard (though people with modern Blackberries might dispute this); but both are better than entering English text through T9 on a dial pad. And the touchscreen has the benefit of allowing you to have more keyboards (for e.g. the multiple native languages you type that use different alphabets), which wouldn't even fit on the phone as hardware keyboards. I bring this up, because eventually you run out of space to stuff additional controls. As airplanes become ever-more advanced, their cockpits will approach that point. At that point, dynamic affordances may be necessary, just so you can have some kind of "pagination" allowing you to squeeze more controls in. (Hopefully it'd just be for the non-time-critical switches to flip.)

hnarn 7y ago
I'm not disagreeing with anything you're saying and despite my somewhat ranting comment I am not completely opposed to a mix of touchscreens and hardware interfaces: but I think you'll agree that there needs to be a decision made in terms of safety when you decide to use a touchpad for input. If you're adjusting the screen brightness on your smart phone, that slider doesn't have to be perfect, and maybe adjusting the cabin lights for an airliner doesn't have to be either: I'm just dreading the day when things like navigational headings and airspeed creeps into a touch interface because of "convenience". But if my observation about this trend is wrong, which I hope, that separation of concerns will stay in future designs as well.
jsight 7y ago
> I mean, the other point of a dynamic interface is that you can now have more controls than would fit on a static interface. I think this point is lost sometimes, but is also useful. My car has a lot of physical controls. Some of the ones that are useful during driving are tucked inconveniently below my left knee! Moving some less frequently used controls to a touch screen might actually benefit some of these designs.

cbhl 7y ago

Sure, but there are still tons of touchscreens in the cabin -- controlling the climate, the lighting, and the playback of the safety video.

hnarn 7y ago
Yes, and I have no problem with that. I don't imagine that an imprecise control of the climate, lighting or video playback will bring the plane down. I mean, I sure hope not.

jasondclinton 7y ago

This comment is off-topic: the article is about physical buttons for non-safety-critical systems. E.g. the article explicitly mentions climate control.

hnarn 7y ago
I'm sorry if I wasn't clear enough about this but I was more trying to make a point that physical input is safer, and that the trend towards touchscreens in general worries me. So a return to "normal", which I guess is not so normal these days, is for me very welcome. Touchscreens in cars cause safety issues for other reasons, namely those of distraction, but my concern is what the future will look like if touchscreen normality takes the upper hand over safety concerns.
KotlinFan554001 7y ago
I am really sorry but foggy windshield is definitely safety critical.
daotoad 7y ago
You can still die if the driver spends too long messing with air conditioner settings instead of focusing on the road. CarPlay and Android Auto make this problem worse, IMO. Now you have app publishers writing arbitrarily complex UIs for cars. Spotify is a bitch to use while driving and because of Apple's reluctance to enable Siri support for third party apps, it's not very controllable by voice.
- diydsp 7y ago
  yup, just rented a cool modern car and was distraught at how much menu-diving there was. and even if you memorize it, the lag was still huge vs. real-time controls!
- sigspec 7y ago
  "Siri, play the Eagles on spotify" Been available for a little bit now. https://www.tomsguide.com/how-to/how-to-use-siri-to-control-spotify-ios-13 https://www.tomsguide.com/how-to/how-to-use-siri-to-control-...

gok 7y ago

I suppose you don't include the flight manuals as a critical system, since those have been touch screens for almost a decade?

sgustard 7y ago

An airplane cockpit has two pilots and literally several hundred physical buttons. No one wants to drive that car. In cars we're mainly talking about the volume and fan speed. Personally I much prefer knobs for those. But I wouldn't call those critical safety systems.

bialpio 7y ago
Someone already mentioned this: climate control becomes safety critical when your windshield fogs up. Good luck finding that goddamn touch button then... Additionally, I sometimes hear radio ads that have honk or siren sounds in them that immensely piss me off and cause me to immediately turn the radio off just to be able to hear if something's actually happening or not.

jariel 7y ago

Great points. BUT - touch screens can be used if people are trained, the layout is rational, the device is responsive. There are two underlying things: 1) Tactile. As you spelled out. 2) Changing interfaces. This is the real killer. 100 screens, don't know what's what, supposed to be driving. These UIs need some thinking but I suggest that the 'knobs and buttons' can possibly be mapped to different functions depending on.

cosmotic 7y ago

> The problem that touch interfaces solve, ever since the advent of the first smart phone, is that the interface is now dynamic. You can change it without having to replace the hardware. They also enable the completion of hardware design before the interface design is completed. While the plastic molds and mechanical designs are worked out, the interface and software development can continue.

downerending 7y ago
That sounds good, but for some reason, design of "virtual" controls always seems to end up far inferior to physical ones. Perhaps the thought is "We'll just toss something out there and we can fix it later", as opposed to "We only have one shot at this so we better get it right". I'm reminded as well of web "app" interfaces. In the early days, with relatively fixed controls, one could often navigate sites more easily since there just weren't that many ways they could work. Now, with a blizzard of JS UI kits and an oh-so-wonderful variety of ways of doing everything, each site works differently. And it's not an improvement.
- cosmotic 7y ago
  Yeah, sorry, I should have been clearer on my opinion on the matter: virtual controls are almost always worse than physical ones.

parsimo2010 7y ago

> Touch screens will hopefully never make it into any critical pilot systems For one, you're too late, touchscreens are prevalent in modern avionics, and unlabeled buttons on the border of a screen that change function depending on what screen you're viewing are the second most common. The more relevant part to the Honda discussion is that there are different considerations for a car and airplane interfaces, and they are so different it's not a good argument to say "planes don't/shouldn't do this so cars shouldn't either." The issue with a car isn't the interface, it's the fact that people look inside their vehicle for too long to fiddle with the radio. Even if the buttons/knobs could be operated entirely without looking, most people would still stare at their radio while they are doing it. Pilots learning to fly are trained to look outside after pretty much any action, they shouldn't ever stare inside the plane. They do a quick instrument scan and look outside. They glance at their chart and look outside. If they need to change frequency they do it and then look back outside. It's kind of hard to break the habit of looking outside when you start instrument training. But most car drivers don't have the same amount of training and fixate on things inside the car, like the radio or climate controls. TBH, pilots still get fixated on things, it's just that they usually snap out of it and regain situational awareness before anything bad happens because the skies are pretty spacious. But car drivers don't have spacious roads. There's another car right next to you going 75 mph and if you drift out of your lane you'll cause an accident. The issue isn't the design of the buttons at all. That matters to a fighter pilot, but the issue for a car driver is the fact that the screen is even on and the radio is accessible while driving down the road. The real critical safety feature would be disabling the screen while driving, and either locking out controls or only allowing voice control. But people would never buy a car that doesn't let them fiddle with the radio or stare at their little screen, so the actual safety feature that needs to be implemented won't happen. Edit: When I say "fiddle with the radio" I'm including all activities that take place in a car's center stack- audio, navigation, climate control, etc. I'm also a pilot, have designed tests for avionics upgrades for multiple fighter jets, and own my own plane. I have lamented the introduction of touchscreens into modern avionics at a professional level and the personal level. I own three cars with varying levels of touchscreen invasion. So I've thought about the issues surrounding touchscreen quite a bit, and have concluded that the interfaces in a car are so simple that the issue isn't whether you can operate it without looking, it's the fact that people aren't trained to do so.

ciconia 7y ago

Pilots already use iPads for checklists.

dewey 7y ago
That's a different ballpark though as you can fall back to the paper version at any time.
- storyinmemo 7y ago
  More often than not, navigation charts are now on iPads and there is no paper backup carried anymore.

johnflan 7y ago

While not touch many Airbus aircraft feature a full keyboard and trackball for operating those screens.

friendly_fren 7y ago

The f35 has a large touch screen that pilots use. Maybe the $1m helmet has a way to interact without touching.

squaresmile 7y ago
For some more info: https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/cmypjd/the_finger_prints_on_the_f35_touch_screen_display/ https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/cmypjd/the_finger... It's fun thread. You can catch some actual military pilots there.

deleted 7y ago

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fitzn 7y ago

I was about to ask if there are any pilots on this thread who could weigh in because this was my intuition as a non-pilot. Just to drive one of your points home further, you don't want the interface to change because that could confuse the pilot. Toyota's braking fiasco is an example where unfamiliarity led to mis-operation even though the hardware or the device itself was functioning "to spec".

deleted 7y ago

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nimrody 7y ago

I am not a pilot, but it seems like MFD (multi-function displays, a sort of touch screen with touch points at the edge of the screen) are very common even in fighter planes. Yes, the basic controls do not change. But more advanced functionality is easier presented through menus and screens which guide you through a process -- instead of adding tons of switches for every possible function. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-function_display https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-function_display

TheKarateKid 7y ago

The problem here is not with the technology - it's from the people implementing it. Instead of leaving the design and software to tech companies, we have car companies trying to do it on their own. The result is terribly designed software that looks like it's from 2000.

stevehawk 7y ago
The arrogance of that statement is amazing. I recently bought an iPad for the first time in 5+(?) years.. before multi touch and pressure sensitive screens. I have no f'n clue what I'm doing anymore. I accidentally had Safari running two windows side by side with no idea how to stop that. I'm still not sure what I did to make it go back to one window.. My friends and I decided to try out a (new to us) game which required Microsoft Store / Xbox PC Game Console or whatever the shit it is. 4 of us cannot figure out how to add someone as a friend. It's not in any menu anywhere. I can follow, I can favorite.. I have no idea how to "friend".. which means we can't figure out how to invite people to games. I'm convinced if Silicon Valley were to design car interfaces I'd be stuck in some sort of pay per action dark pattern captivity hell. And as a student pilot nothing scares me more than touch screen controls. Maybe I spend too much time down low in the thermals but it's so much easier to hold on to a knob and turn it, while counting clicks, than trying to press a touch screen and hope you hit the right finger sized button the right number of times to change radio frequencies. Different story on heavy planes since they don't bounce around as much as GA planes but it sucks to fight the fight while trying to maintain control/coordination.
- spaceandshit 7y ago
  Unfortunately, that kind of arrogance is common on this forum.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  While working from home, I was trying to figure out how to mute my Android phone on a conference call the other day. I eventually did, but the sequence of actions to get to the menu was very strange. I'm pretty sure it was more intuitive just a few years ago, but of course, you don't control whether you update software anymore. Interface design is accelerating downhill, and it's amazing how things have regressed since Apple and Microsoft published guidelines for good design in the 80s and 90s.

clSTophEjUdRanu 7y ago

I'd argue that humans have evolved to physically manipulate their environment. Safety critical systems are the last place you want UI variation. Things need to be predictable and tactile to build muscle memory.

WalterBright 7y ago

> Touch screens will hopefully never make it into any critical pilot systems Touch screens in the cockpit seem like madness to me. Cockpits sometimes fill with smoke and the pilot has to be able to find and operate the controls. Ever notice that the flap levers have little flaps on top of them? The nosewheel steering control has a little tire on the top? That's so the pilot knows without looking what his hands are on. These designs were not the result of some study group following fashion, but were the result of accidents.

astrodust 7y ago
Not just smoke. During explosive decompression the air turns to thick fog, and that's when you'll need to fumble around for the correct controls the most.
ondravn 7y ago
Another consideration is vibration; trying to press a virtual button while in a high turbulence situation can be non-trivial, for example. Critical functions will (hopefully) always remain on tactile controls for these and other reasons.

pascalxus 7y ago

well said. I for one don't like all those touchscreen buttons. Screens should be for maps and other non-interactive stuff.

tomc1985 7y ago

Didn't the US Navy try this and end up crashing a destroyer or something?

heymijo 7y ago
You are correct. > The US Navy is replacing touch screen controls on destroyers, after the displays were implicated in collisions. Unfamiliarity with the touch screens contributed to two accidents that caused the deaths of 17 sailors, said incident reports. Poor training meant sailors did not know how to use the complex systems in emergencies, they said. Sailors "overwhelmingly" preferred to control ships with wheels and throttles, surveys of crew found. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49319450 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49319450

SAI_Peregrinus 7y ago

The thing I'd like to see more of is OLED buttons (Optimus Keyboard style). Physical, clicky, mechanical buttons, but each button is a screen. MFD buttons already change their function depending on what mode the screen is in, having the button also be an icon of what it will do can be very nice. Otherwise I agree. You need the use of the interface to be as automatic as possible, and exploiting muscle memory & tactile feedback are very important for that. Touch screens fail there.

deleted 7y ago

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jrockway 7y ago

I don't think this is entirely true. The GA glass panels love touchscreens, and they are just as FAA-certified as their non-touchscreen counterparts. You are right that they are flaky. Here's Martin Pauly (great YouTube channel!) using his touchscreen transponder and it just stops working: https://youtu.be/bopcQSJKcD8?t=732 https://youtu.be/bopcQSJKcD8?t=732

rurounijones 7y ago

> Touch screens will hopefully never make it into any critical pilot systems The F-35 Fighter Jet has basically only touch-screens (apart from Hands-on-throttle-and-stick controls for when you are busy pulling Gs) Depends on your definition of "critical" but I don't think this is a great example.

Dahoon 7y ago
And the F-35 is a great example of how not to do things, so of course it has touchscreens.

jread 7y ago

Perhaps, but on many pilot's knees will be a digital touchscreen kneeboard which having learned with paper approach plates and map books myself was a godsend.

danbolt 7y ago

I think that’s partially why the market for handheld game devices didn’t get crowded out by smartphones. Tactile inputs let the player’s muscle memory work as a more direct shorthand into the product for a lot of video games. It helps the repeated interactions of a video game be more accessible over a “look, then touch” method of input.

jchw 7y ago

Dynamic interface can still be useful in some cases. Cars do require the driver’s active attention, but certainly not the passenger’s, who can operate the touchscreen. Further, undoubtably part of what makes controls intuitive is familiarity, and thanks to smartphones, tablets, and to some degree even modern laptops, it’s hard to argue against it from a familiarity standpoint. I’m sure it’s been attempted but, It’s hard to imagine a good mapping interface in a car with no touchscreen at all. I’m still glad for what Honda is actually doing, which is not unilaterally removing touch screen controls but instead moving climate control back to physical buttons. These are things a driver ought to be able to operate safely while in motion, and touch controls only ever made them more complicated I think.

viklove 7y ago

I think you're missing something pretty major -- a touchscreen can support multiple UIs, menus, and controls, with minimal hardware. If I have 20 user adjustable inputs, I would need 20 dials/buttons scattered around the cockpit. On the other hand, with a screen, I can display 5 on each page and allow the user to swap between pages.

pbreit 7y ago

It's not useful to compare cars to planes since cars can easily pull over to the side of the road.

storyinmemo 7y ago

Check out all the latest Garmin aviation equipment. Touch is here for critical systems including GPS systems used on instrument approaches. Super fun to reprogram in turbulence.

0x262d 7y ago

Pretty sure this has everything to do with planes being old. Boeing pretty clearly demonstrated that planes being planes doesn't mean they're immune from bad design, corruption, or any other problem.

solinent 7y ago

One time I had to create a button for a in-flight software which would control a lidar instrument. The button would enable you to select when to turn on and off the instrument. We went for a few iterations where the button would light up when the laser was on. There were tons of issues--the state of the laser was not stored in the hardware, so every time the button would disconnect briefly, the state would get reset and lost. After months of back and forth dealing with algorithms to save the state and deal with spurious button presses when the device disconnected, we ended up with a completely useless button, as disconnects would happen very often inside helicopters, rendering the button useless due to the spurious presses near disconnect/reconnect. Finally, we decided to go with a hardware switch (which I wanted from the start). In about one day the whole thing blew over.

mkhpalm 7y ago

> Touch screens will hopefully never make it into any critical pilot systems, because safety and stability matters to airline manufacturers, current ongoing scandals notwithstanding. You might want to take a look at garmin's general aviation product lineup. They're pretty popular.

friendlybus 7y ago

Look at the upcoming TEMPEST fighter to see touch screen displays in full force.

slavak 7y ago

I'm afraid I have some bad news for you: https://youtu.be/wfOD2y_AD_w?t=190 https://youtu.be/wfOD2y_AD_w?t=190 https://www.dynonavionics.com/SkyView-HDX/ https://www.dynonavionics.com/SkyView-HDX/ https://youtu.be/1oyCzT6sB_4 https://youtu.be/1oyCzT6sB_4 Just a few examples. Aviation very much uses touch screens quite extensively. The difference usually is that more thought is put into when and how to use them; you're not just replacing all the buttons with a touchscreen and letting some underpaid intern design the interface for it.

eru 7y ago

Cockpit design is strictly regulated by some very risk averse and conservative people. (And not just the cockpit, the passenger space as well.) So it's hard to tell which parts of he design stem from being conservative and which parts actually enhance safety. (I get your overall point. But your argument isn't really a good one for the point.)

collyw 7y ago

Indeed when phones started moving over to touchscreen dial pads i always thought it was a step backward usability wise. I had one phone where I couldn't hang up calls easily as you needed to swipe in a particular direction and a number of my calls went though a VOIP number so that had a different way of hanging up. Same with whatsapp calls now answering and hanging up is different from a normal call. It's a real shitshow.

nswest23 7y ago
Touchscreens on phones are great for usability! There are so many things that are enabled by touchscreens that you couldn't do with an array of physical buttons or whatever. OP's comment was specifically for mission critical hardware where safety is paramount.
- collyw 7y ago
  For making a phonecall they are crap in comparison to buttons.
  - mastre_ 7y ago
    One could argue that, despite still being called "phones," their primary purpose is not making phone calls anymore. I personally use my device for making phone calls less than 1% of the time I use it (and this includes talk time).
    - nswest23 7y ago
      yeah the phone thing is just another app that I use about 5 times a month. it's nice that they include that app but if it wasn't there i'd prob still buy it!

mihaaly 7y ago

"The US Navy will replace its touchscreen controls with mechanical ones on its destroyers After a deadly 2017 crash between a destroyer and an oil tanker" https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/11/20800111/us-navy-uss-john-s-mccain-crash-ntsb-report-touchscreen-mechanical-controls https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/11/20800111/us-navy-uss-john...

neuralRiot 7y ago

I see many people comparing automotive electronics to avionics, but there’s a big difference, in flight you can take your eyes off the “road” and in some situations even fly with 0 visibility, whereas in a car your next obstacle is only milliseconds away from you.

mattr47 7y ago

Nope, not anymore. Honeywell is making the new Gulfstream’s Symmetry Flight Deck for the G700 and it is touchscreen enabled.

davidhariri 7y ago

All the latest Garmin avionics include touch screens. Airplane cockpits aren't the right metaphor because they are largely driven automatically.

titzer 7y ago

Not to mention, touchscreens really disadvantage the visually impaired.

ricardobeat 7y ago
True, but they are already a little disadvantaged when flying an airplane.
- titzer 7y ago
  I was thinking more of essentially everything else, from working a stereo to an oven.