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I disagree wholeheartedly that cockpit touchscreens (as a concept) are worse than physical knobs and switches. What are you doing in an FMC that requires you to

I disagree wholeheartedly that cockpit touchscreens (as a concept) are worse than physical knobs and switches. What are you doing in an FMC that requires you to split focus between operating the plane and operating the FMC? In what scenario are you going to need to create a new flight plan while pulling stunt maneuvers? When are you going to need to do anything involving navigation if you do not first have control (i.e. straight and level) of the airplane? >This is a cost saving measure disguised as a feature. Cost saving is not bad. Cost saving allows thousands of new aviators to enter into a field they otherwise would be price locked out of, and enables them to have a safe and enjoyable experience. Consider the AV-20 and AV-30 touch screen instruments: https://youtu.be/hhRrNQsBl2w https://youtu.be/hhRrNQsBl2w https://uavionix.com/product/av-30-exp/ https://uavionix.com/product/av-30-exp/ For $1600 they provide in one instrument what you usually would need 10-13 instruments for. These instruments are not cheap; they all cost multi-hundred dollars to buy on top of drilling the holes in the cockpit and the associated maintenance to keep them all airworthy. If one component of your AV-20 fails? Who cares; throw it away and install a new one. It's dead simple. As for UX, physical interfaces are not immune either. There have even been fatal crashes attributed to putting a lever in a stupid place, labeling a button incorrectly, not flipping a switch on time, etc. Just because you may see some horrible touchscreen interfaces out there does not mean that touchscreens are horrible. The difference is that the touchscreen can receive software updates. At any point you can completely rearrange menus and control to address shortcomings in the interface. Doing this is practically free; the only downtime is waiting for the firmware update to complete. Addressing shortcomings in physical interfaces? You're looking at dozens to hundreds of man hours on top of buying the new equipment to replace the old. It costs Tesla $0 per vehicle to add a new button to their cars. It costs millions for everyone else. This is not a useless capability; it makes a difference every single day.

serf 6y ago
>It costs Tesla $0 per vehicle to add a new button to their cars. It costs millions for everyone else. This is not a useless capability; it makes a difference every single day. Complaint #1 about Teslas' from owners that I have spoken to is that the UI/UX requires total re-learning as opposed to other cars, and then when the re-learning phase is complete, it's still difficult to operate without full attention. Sure, the argument 'Oh, they shouldn't be dividing their attention from driving.' is all well and good; but try convincing normal commuters that they should pull over to adjust the volume on their stereo. I don't think you'll win that one. Tactile/physical components are just easier to operate without know-how, and without focus being pulled to them in its' entirety. The linear movement of a volume jogging dial is intuitive; there are two diretions on both the knob and the mechanism which is being affected -- it's direct, and obvious. Touchscreens, usually, are none of these. Using a touch screen telephone is not an eyes off exercises, but dialing and talking to someone on any of my old flip phones or Nokias was. There was a fundamental shift from worrying about being able to do one thing very well to doing all things OK in the cell phone world, and I think that it's a shame that companies like Tesla think that this is a philosophy that should be pursued among auto-makers. Thankfully, many automakers that were dead set on touch interfaces have begun to realize that they're not good everywhere. Mercedes/BMW/Audi went away from buttons just to find themselves crawling back... and i'm okay with that. It makes the cars easier to operate, and less focus dividing on the road.
- nexuist 6y ago
  > but try convincing normal commuters that they should pull over to adjust the volume on their stereo. But they don't have to. On a Tesla you can adjust the volume using the physical knob on the steering wheel; similarly you can activate or deactivate turn signals using the stalks. This is an example of touchscreens and physical controls working together, just like it would be outlandish to expect pilots to touch-and-drag on a screen rather than using a joystick. > Using a touch screen telephone is not an eyes off exercises, but dialing and talking to someone on any of my old flip phones or Nokias was Is it not? Can't you use Siri or Google Assistant to call a contact, or in the case of Tesla the on board voice control? Of course the voice control may suck; but that again can be fixed with software updates just as we've seen in the mobile phone space. > Mercedes/BMW/Audi went away from buttons just to find themselves crawling back... Because their implementations sucked. Try using an iPad vs whatever you found in their cars; why is the iPad so much better? It doesn't have to be. You could very well have had an iPad-like experience with your car's touchscreen if the manufacturer actually put in the effort to refine it. Instead we got menus in menus in menus: a horrible experience. In the aviation world, one of the most popular apps is ForeFlight, which enables you to navigate and perform common tasks on an iPad: https://www.foreflight.com/products/foreflight-mobile/ https://www.foreflight.com/products/foreflight-mobile/ It is popular precisely because you can interact with information on the iPad, rather than having to deal with the shitty UX on your on board GPS or weather instrument. ForeFlight is an example of touch done right, as opposed to doing touch for the sake of touch.
  - fomine3 6y ago
    Touchscreen (lack of physical response, unable to locate position without seeing) is really bad for while driving cars. I won't saying for other use cases like airplanes, tables. IANAP but I suspect that pilot needs less continuous attention for the air during fly compared to driving a car.

serf 6y ago

>It costs Tesla $0 per vehicle to add a new button to their cars. It costs millions for everyone else. This is not a useless capability; it makes a difference every single day. Complaint #1 about Teslas' from owners that I have spoken to is that the UI/UX requires total re-learning as opposed to other cars, and then when the re-learning phase is complete, it's still difficult to operate without full attention. Sure, the argument 'Oh, they shouldn't be dividing their attention from driving.' is all well and good; but try convincing normal commuters that they should pull over to adjust the volume on their stereo. I don't think you'll win that one. Tactile/physical components are just easier to operate without know-how, and without focus being pulled to them in its' entirety. The linear movement of a volume jogging dial is intuitive; there are two diretions on both the knob and the mechanism which is being affected -- it's direct, and obvious. Touchscreens, usually, are none of these. Using a touch screen telephone is not an eyes off exercises, but dialing and talking to someone on any of my old flip phones or Nokias was. There was a fundamental shift from worrying about being able to do one thing very well to doing all things OK in the cell phone world, and I think that it's a shame that companies like Tesla think that this is a philosophy that should be pursued among auto-makers. Thankfully, many automakers that were dead set on touch interfaces have begun to realize that they're not good everywhere. Mercedes/BMW/Audi went away from buttons just to find themselves crawling back... and i'm okay with that. It makes the cars easier to operate, and less focus dividing on the road.

nexuist 6y ago
> but try convincing normal commuters that they should pull over to adjust the volume on their stereo. But they don't have to. On a Tesla you can adjust the volume using the physical knob on the steering wheel; similarly you can activate or deactivate turn signals using the stalks. This is an example of touchscreens and physical controls working together, just like it would be outlandish to expect pilots to touch-and-drag on a screen rather than using a joystick. > Using a touch screen telephone is not an eyes off exercises, but dialing and talking to someone on any of my old flip phones or Nokias was Is it not? Can't you use Siri or Google Assistant to call a contact, or in the case of Tesla the on board voice control? Of course the voice control may suck; but that again can be fixed with software updates just as we've seen in the mobile phone space. > Mercedes/BMW/Audi went away from buttons just to find themselves crawling back... Because their implementations sucked. Try using an iPad vs whatever you found in their cars; why is the iPad so much better? It doesn't have to be. You could very well have had an iPad-like experience with your car's touchscreen if the manufacturer actually put in the effort to refine it. Instead we got menus in menus in menus: a horrible experience. In the aviation world, one of the most popular apps is ForeFlight, which enables you to navigate and perform common tasks on an iPad: https://www.foreflight.com/products/foreflight-mobile/ https://www.foreflight.com/products/foreflight-mobile/ It is popular precisely because you can interact with information on the iPad, rather than having to deal with the shitty UX on your on board GPS or weather instrument. ForeFlight is an example of touch done right, as opposed to doing touch for the sake of touch.
- fomine3 6y ago
  Touchscreen (lack of physical response, unable to locate position without seeing) is really bad for while driving cars. I won't saying for other use cases like airplanes, tables. IANAP but I suspect that pilot needs less continuous attention for the air during fly compared to driving a car.