11 ms·
The Capacitive Button Cult Must Be Stopped
- blantonl 15y agowhat is a capacitive button?
- mkr-hn 15y agoA button that works on the same principle as the trackpad on your laptop.
- dvdhsu 15y agoJust to clarify, I believe mkr-hn means the trackpad itself, not the buttons on the trackpad. Most trackpad buttons these days are physical. The trackpad itself, however, is capacitive.
- halostatue 15y agoA button you don't push so much as touch because it's got a capacitive touch sensor underneath. It means that random touches suddenly become meaningful. Playing with a friend's Android (probably the Omnia 7 mentioned in the linked article) I'm finding the capacitive buttons on the bottom (the standard Android four buttons) really annoying because once they're active, they're all active and you can brush one meaning to touch the other. EDIT for punctuation.
- walrus 15y agoThe author mentions his experience with capacitive buttons that are too sensitive. I have the opposite problem on my phone—the buttons aren't sensitive enough. I think that capacitive buttons are just too difficult to tune because the conditions they are used in vary so much. My phone doesn't even register touches at all if my hands are slightly sweaty.
- sitkack 15y agoNot to mention that your tusks dont register at all.
- samstokes 15y agotldr: Did they never play a game in landscape mode, and accidentally back out of the whole game by merely holding the device wrong? I really don't get the anti-(physical-)button trend.
- vacri 15y agoless moving parts, less overall parts, cheaper to make, looks cooler in the marketing...
- ed209 15y agoisn't the entire screen of a smart phone a capacitive button? It's pretty hard to accidentally dial my ex or launch the "fart noise" app in a meeting on it so why not link the "capacitive" buttons to the same software unlock as the device already has. (referring to my Android / HTC desire)
- ddagradi 15y agoIn Honeycomb (and presumably 4.0), the capacitive buttons have been replaced with on screen elements, so sort-of yes. The difference, in my opinion, is that there is on-screen feedback when you press a screen button, vs a capacitive button which is just a backlit touch element. I agree with your solution to link their active state to the software unlock, but in practice it seems to not be how devices have been implemented.
- walexander 15y agoI believe I've personally had more issues with misclicks on the honeycomb buttons as there is not as much of a clearly defined delineation between screen and softkeys as with the screen and capacitive buttons on my smartphone. I supposed this depends on the design/location of the capacitive buttons, but speaking for myself, I haven't really had the issues you mention in your post.
- rkalla 15y agoed, I know what you mean -- it seems like an empty argument until you get one of these phones (specifically Android) with the fundamental buttons all touch sensitive. Normal touch-screen phones all have context sensitive operations, for example you are playing a game and no where on the screen can you accidentally press the "Fart noise" app button or the "Hangup" button -- because they just aren't there. With Android there are those 4 or so required buttons (Home, Back, Menu, Call/Search) and moving them from mechanical buttons to capacitive you CAN find yourself in the middle of a YouTube movie or game where your thumb just barely touches the back button, closing the app and taking you home. Or as another user mentioned, you are on the phone talking and part of your chin or face (if you try and neck-cradle the phone while doing something) may hit the hangup button, menu button or Home button to suddenly start activating other things on the phone, ending or interrupting your call. It is absolutely MADDENING. The iPhone never suffered from this because it always had the one single mechanical button and the proximity sensor was good enough that when it got close enough to your face, all input on the pad was deactivated. Most of the Android phones that have mechanical core buttons don't suffer from this either for the same reasons. It's once you get those damn touch-sensitive buttons on there... oh boy, there are a few times a week where you just want to throw your phone right into the ground and wish it a happy birthday.
- binarymax 15y agoI remember when I bought an LG Chocolate when it first came on the scene about 5 years ago. It had capacitive touch buttons that were in such a bad place that if I was talking, and the button brushed against my ear it would hangup the call. It was awful and I vowed never again. Its the very reason I never got an iphone, opting for blackberry instead.
- ddagradi 15y agoWait, I don't understand this argument. iPhones are one of the few phones that don't have this issue.
- binarymax 15y agoIf I can activate a touch button with my finger than why not my ear? EDIT: I didn't know about the proximity sensors and other mechanisms until the replies below informed me. I still prefer tactile though :)
- ddagradi 15y agoThe iPhone's proximity sensor disables the touch screen when it is near your head. Sounds dicey, but in practice has worked nigh flawlessly since launch. The issue here is buttons that you physically press down (like the iPhone home button) vs buttons that are an extended part of the touch screen element (the back button on most Androids).
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- naz 15y agoBecause there is an IR proximity sensor which turns off the screen when your head is against the phone
- msy 15y agoBecause the iphone uses accelerometers and other sensors to work out when the phone is even near your ear when on a call and disbles the screen, both saving battery and disabling input.
- namdnay 15y agoI don't agree with his comment about the stove - Sure it's more fiddly than a real button or dial, but the ease of cleaning more than makes up for it IMHO.
- StavrosK 15y agoThere are some touch buttons (not capacitive, just think mobile phone keypads) that are under a plastic film. Those are really easy to clean as well.
- Zak 15y agoFor most purposes, I find the idea of buttons on a stove inferior to plain old knobs. I can see some merit to the idea of programming an oven to change temperature after a certain amount of time or some such, but a lot of stoves have buttons without any such capabilities. Most stove buttons I've seen are membrane switches with plastic over them, presenting a smooth, easily cleaned surface. These seem to be the optimal way to put buttons on a stove.
- yardie 15y agoI like the concept of knobs on stoves. But there doesn't seem to be any sort of standard so when one breaks or goes missing you're on the hunt for a replacement. Not so bad for a fairly new one, but when you have a 50 year old gas stove.... I'm sure visegrips makes good money on people that need pliers for their hobs.
- Zak 15y agoI figured the knobs on old gas stoves would be roughly interchangeable, but had no particular reason for believing so. As an aside, I'd rather cook on a 50 year old gas stove than most stoves I've used that had any kind of buttons. There's nothing quite like fire for cooking.
- Duff 15y agoBack in the good old days, the old-school knobs weren't made of crappy plastic and were easy to remove and clean.
- sneak 15y agoSounds like /somebody's/ never used an iPhone.
- gte910h 15y agoiPhones don't have capacitive buttons. They have a touchscreen which while capacitive is much more sensitive, relatively expensive, and backed up with a IR proximity sensor and lots of engineering to make it just work. They're just not related to this discussion.
- harshpotatoes 15y agoAnother issue people don't bring up: the weather. Living in Seattle I frequently wore mittens. With the physical buttons it would not be a problem to operate the phone, with the touchscreen there is this long ordeal of pulling off the mitten to answer the phone. If it is raining (or rather, when is it not raining?), the rain will mess with the touchscreen, making it sometimes impossible to answer a call. You might say there is a solution: either cut off the fingers or sew in some conducting thread to the tip of the mittens. This doesn't solve the rain problem though.
- mark_story 15y agoI bought an iPod classic for this very reason. I don't want to have to take off my gloves in the winter to operate a simple machine. Real buttons have the benefit of being usable while the device is in your pocket which is nice as well.
- StavrosK 15y agoI use my nose, it works well if you can aim it.
- Groxx 15y agoMy wife and I just discussed this solution, less than a minute before seeing this, with walk signals in the winter while wearing gloves. We found a problem: what if you get stuck? A cold, runny nose is almost as bad as a tongue (yet another solution).
- Blarat 15y agoI don't think you have to worry about getting stuck due to the cold, I don't think the phone will get cold enough for that to happen.
- Shenglong 15y agoWho answers their phone in the rain with the face up? Isn't that a little ridiculous? I think every piece of technology has its limitations. I could argue that button phones are loud, and I can't text with them during class or meetings. If you answer your button phone while it's raining, the rain will likely also screw up your button-phone... probably with more permanent damage than touch-screens. Also, a lot of touch screen phones (iPhone in particular) have been adapted for modern use. With my Klipsch Image S4i headphones (or with the natural iPhone 4 headphones), you can answer/hang up calls using the headphone controls. I've yet to figure out whether I can activate voice control for dialing, but that'd be even better. When I need to dial on my iPhone in the winter, thin cabretta leather (damascus d302 for example) works wonders, at the same time keeping your hands dexterous and warm. I feel a lot of the problems you're describing are more functions of outdated technology, than poor design in general.
- canistr 15y agoThis is why I liked the older Android devices (as opposed to the new ones). Having physical buttons and a trackball were significantly better than both capacitive buttons and optical trackpads. Trackballs are significantly better than optical trackpads from a use-perspective. They work in all orientation, have finer grains of control, don't require awkward flicks to work, and have a much easier learning curve. The industry really needs to stop trying to the trendy thing and focus on things that work.
- sudonim 15y agoMy guess is capacitive buttons have a lower failure rate than physical buttons. It's probably a decision born of cost.
- Zak 15y agoI don't doubt it. The problem is that consumers are still viewing them as a high-end feature instead of the cost-cutting measure they are, so they keep showing up in high-end products with prices that could support the superior and more costly physical buttons.
- TeMPOraL 15y agoIndeed it is. Data point: until this discussion I too believed that capacitive buttons are much more expensive and much more "high-tech" than physical buttons.
- sitkack 15y agoCapacitive buttons have always been a cost cutting feature and were billed as luxury. They can NOT suck, but the firmware has to be highly tuned.
- mark_story 15y agoOne place I found that capacitive buttons have worked well is on the newer xbox models. The power and tray eject buttons are capacitive and it works well there.
- ddagradi 15y agoIt's more appropriate on a device you're not as likely to brush up against accidentally, or need to interact with very deeply.
- eropple 15y agoNearly broke the CD tray on my 360 when I was leaning over my TV stand to get at the wiring in the back, brushed the power/eject button with my knee, and jammed the tray into my leg. I'd rather a button. The PS3, on the other hand, has its capacitive buttons on a surface that's at right angles to things that might brush up against it. Which is, IMO, the best design.
- ChuckMcM 15y agoIts interesting to hear designers on a rant about capacitive buttons. Switches are the bane of most electrical engineers because they cost a lot and they have a finite lifetime. So generally they are thing that is going to 'kill' the product. And because they are both mechanical and have moving parts (in the non-capacitive variant) when they break the users just push harder trying to get them to work and that can crack traces on the circuit board and end the life of an otherwise working piece of gear. Capacitive buttons can be 'tuned' (which is to say one can adjust how sensitive they are) somewhat depending on their antenna design and the ambient conditions. What is really hard for them is in a high emf environment (think lots of fourescents and shag carpets) there is so much charge available at your fingertip that even turned waay down they fire with the barest touch, reverse the circumstance like a modestly humid day out in a field somewhere and they are lucky if they can see your finger at all. If you're finger is wet (and thus charge will tend to distribute more evenly around you body) they are nearly worthless. I recently saw some interesting 'piezo' buttons where they were effectively capacitive buttons but covered by a bit of piezo material so that you had to push on them to get them to activate. But while better in many ways, the cost difference between a button that is just a trace on the PCB (essentially free) and one that has a bit of piezo material in it (even if it only costs 2 or 3 cents) is easily someones salary when you're activating 500,000 devices a day.
- afiler 15y agoI'm sure my neighbor, who's blind, would appreciate piezo buttons. I had to help her deduce why her screen reader would "die" on her Dell laptop periodically. It turns out that it has capacitive buttons for Mute/Volume, and the only feedback from them is an LED. She would occasionally brush her fingers over the buttons and end up inadvertently muting the laptop.
- ak217 15y agoThe devices themselves have a finite lifetime. As long as the switch outlives the projected time to obsolescence of the device, it's fine. And I know there are switches out there which can do that... What really irks me (and what I'm surprised to see so few people spell out) is that there's no tactile feedback on capacitive buttons (or microwave-like buttons). Tactile feedback makes every aspect of the UI profoundly better. (Tactile feedback is possible on capacitive buttons... the first company which brings capacitive touchscreens with tactile feedback to market will make it huge (and the recent huge investment from Apple may have been into that technology). But no one has come out with a decent implementation yet...)
- Tharkun 15y agoAnything that vaguely pretends it's a button without being one deserves to burn in hell for all eternity. This includes touch screens, capacitive or otherwise, and any other such nonsense. If I'm meant to press it, make it obvious and use a button. If I'm meant to slide it, give me a slider. Turn? Give me a knob. How hard can it be, seriously? As for engineers moaning about the life time of switches, puh-please. Show me one phone with buttons that has outlived its buttons. You can't? Didn't think so. What really needs to go is this touchy cult. It's ridiculous. There are a couple of things where it makes sense. Angry Birds is not one of them. Anything else is just a useless fad. Especially touchy keyboardy crap that NO ONE can type on. Show me one person who can type 150WPM (and I don't mean swipe or predict or any such crap) on a touch screen and I'll go out and buy an iPhone.
- ugh 15y agoAlright then. Nothing wrong with peculiar opinions but you know that your opinion is very peculiar, right? Software keyboards, for example, can be valuable for people even if nobody can type 150 words per minute on them.
- heyimfromreddit 15y agoCan anyone type 150WPM on a non-touch screen phone?
- btilly 15y agoThat's twice what the typical professional typist can do. But I'm sure some people might be able to hit that speed. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute for more.
- cdcarter 15y agoWhat input device would be the best way to play Angry Birds, then? Having played the Mac App and Chrome App versions, I definitely think touch makes the most sense.
- 15y ago
- jasonkester 15y agoThose buttons hit their maximum disaster level when installed on an induction stove. You know, the ones that are one flat shiny panel with areas that magically turn red and hot at the push of a button? Of course, said buttons are always next to impossible to press correctly (except by accident), so the standard use case is to mash your finger onto it until some form of feedback occurs. More often than not, that feedback comes in the form of 3rd degree burns as a result of mashing your finger onto a magically hot stove. I hope there's a special little room in hell where the guy who designed that stove is forced to repeatedly burn his thumbs on it for all eternity.
- digikata 15y agoOn the other hand, on my oven they work great. No worries about grease or flour on your hands to setup a temperature or timer. It all wipes off later.
- Sidnicious 15y agoJust to be clear, I think that the article is about touch-sensitive buttons that provide no feedback — not about the more-common kitchen appliance buttons which live behind a plastic sheet but actually click when you push them.
- digikata 15y agoThose membrane buttons are more common on ovens, but I did mean capacitive buttons on my oven. Honestly, I think there are companies and products lines which take the time and care to do the human factors engineering whatever interface is selected for the design, and there are products which don't have that attention paid to htem - blaming the button technology itself is sort of a side show to the actual focus on user experience which may lead you to optimize the interaction - tune the buttons, or speed up the software, whatever. Physical buttons can be just as bad if the user experience is ignored.
- faboo 15y ago
- georgieporgie 15y agoI absolutely despise the touch-sensitive 'wheel' on my iPod Classic. It's useless if I'm working in the garage with nitrile gloves on. I've resorted to using my elbow or nose at times. It's even pretty useless without gloves, if I've been doing anything that gets my hands dry, or had the iPod in my pocket so that it became relatively moist. I often have to breathe on my fingers before changing the volume!
- Dylan16807 15y agoI can tell you that that's the specific device's fault. My phone's capacitive screen works wet or with nitrile gloves.
- kogir 15y agoThe worst offenders are android phones like my nexus one with capacitive buttons right beneath the software keyboard. Overshoot the space bar just a tiny bit? Hello home screen, goodbye app. Some apps handle this and you can just press back -- others lose all of what you just typed.
- Keyframe 15y agoAs soon as I saw the title, I thought of my Samsung Omnia 7, heh. Back button is manageable, but search button has caused a lot of swear words!
- tzs 15y agoHow about capacitive buttons in elevators? It's very annoying if your hands are full and you can't easily find some other exposed body part to touch the button. With normal buttons you at least have a shot at nailing them with an elbow or a foot.
- tomrod 15y agoWhat is a capacitive button? EDIT: Oh, I see now. They are buttons that respond to electric impulse from the fingers on touchscreens. The solution the author seems to be seeking is: everyone should use the old Nokia bricks?
- dvdhsu 15y agoThe iPhone doesn't look like a Nokia brick, yet it has a hardware home button. Similarly, the Nexus One had hardware buttons below the screen. On the other hand, the Nexus S uses capacitive buttons. Hardware buttons are typically easier to press, have better feedback (even when compared to haptic feedback), and easier to find when your eyes are closed. Hardware buttons do not imply "Nokia bricks".
- kpreid 15y agoThe Nexus One's below-the-screen buttons are capacitive. The Nexus One only has a mechanical trackball.
- notatoad 15y agoas long as my phone's primary interface is a capacitive touchscreen, i don't see a problem with the buttons being capacitive as well. it's really just an extension of the screen interface, dedicated to a specific purpose. yes, it sucks that i can't press the buttons on my phone with mittens on. but i wouldn't give up my capacitive touchscreen in exchange for a phone that operated solely by physical buttons.
- LukasMathis 15y agoThe touch buttons aren't just an extension of the screen. For example, they don't provide visual feedback when they're active or activated, and when you're looking at the screen, they look like they're part of the bezel. Note that while you're using it, you never accidentally hold your phone with a finger covering your screen. That's because you're looking at the screen. You know where it is. It's bright. It's easy to see its edges. It's the focus of your attention. The bezel around the screen, on the other hand, is not, but merely touching it in the wrong place will cause your phone to do unexpected things.
- caf 15y agoMy Samsung TV has capacitive buttons - in the shiny black surround, labelled with tiny iconographs in very, very dark grey. It took me several minutes to even find the 'on' button when I first got it.
- Luc 15y agoMy Samsung monitor is like that. Navigating its on-screen menu is an ordeal. I have to look back and forth between the menu and the bottom right of the bezel, where the 'buttons' are, carefully placing my finger for each 'key press'. Forget about trying to do this in low light conditions. But - it was cheap.
- bugsy 15y agoI would totally buy his book if I didn't find the prices of tech books to be completely absurd. I remember how for 15 years VHS movies cost from $79.95 to $119.95 because they figured their only customers were video rental stores. The problem was they were selling each movie once for $80 instead of selling it 500 times for $20. Since fixing their flawed pricing model, far more movies are sold than before, to the point that rental stores have all but disappeared. Could a similar thing be happening with books? Perhaps they are pricing for library use, where many users are expected to read one book. Or perhaps they are targeting captive audiences like in colleges where impoverished youth are shaken down. Usability failure? Market failure? Or smart pricing model? I'd buy a decently bound paperback as is being offered of this length and interest for $9.95 to $17.95. But I won't pay $35-44, not even close. The question is, how many others are out there like me that represent lost sales. Maybe I am the only one. In that case, $44 is the right price. Or why not even $99.
- LukasMathis 15y agoI didn't set the price, but I will note that tech books typically only sell small numbers, regardless of price. It's a small target market.
- bugsy 15y agoIt's only a small market if your publisher keeps telling himself that. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Sure there are tech books on antenna design for satellites that don't sell many copies. But there are other topics that are of far more board interest. Usability is one of them. As of May, 2002, the U.S. Department of Labor - Bureau of Labor Statistics says there are approximately 562,700 computer programmers in the U.S. That's just one job title and the field has grown since then. There's also software engineers, web designers, programmer-analysts, etc. Easily a couple million jobs. Paperback like you have there costs $2.87 to print in quantity 3000 in Singapore. There's a lot of flexibility in working with the price. I would experiment with it but that's just me. Presumably your publisher has experimented. But maybe he hasn't. Perhaps he assumes that the potential number of people interested is less than 2 million. Perhaps he thinks it is 100 or 200. I bet it's more than that though.
- jvoorhis 15y agoStop putting fruit on your stove.
- chrisjsmith 15y agoAnything which is not tactile is bad if you ask me. That means capacitive buttons, touch screens etc. Even Star Trek shot themselves in an episode when a blind person had to use a panel: http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Tactile_interface http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Tactile_interface Now I'm not partially sighted, but I'm not always looking at the display.
- gavanwoolery 15y agoAmen