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> So what do product designers have against knobs? Several things. ... Then the piece omits the two overwhelmingly important reasons: cost and reliability. Kn

> So what do product designers have against knobs? Several things. ... Then the piece omits the two overwhelmingly important reasons: cost and reliability. Knobs definitely are much better to use, but things with moving parts that stick out from the surface are not as reliable in population terms. Most people never have trouble, but that quintile that gives their stuff a hard time costs manufacturers a lot.

bluedino 5y ago
I'll take knobs over membrane buttons. Can't believe the entire appliance industry switched.
- Wistar 5y ago
  High-end ovens, such as those above, say, $5k, almost always have knobs. I sure appreciate tuning knobs on car audio systems but almost no one besides Toyota and Lexus offer them any more.
  - destitude 5y ago
    Even though I have a "last gen" Subaru Outback I would never replace it with a new one because they put in a huge center console screen and removed the knobs for climate control. What is odd is the Subaru Ascent actually has knobs for all of this.
  - SyzygistSix 5y ago
    Old toaster oven took one action to change the temp - turn the knob. New toaster oven takes multiple actions to change the baking temperature. It's ridiculous.
  - finnh 5y ago
    Huh. When remodeling my kitchen in 2016 the highest priced ovens all had crappy touchscreens. I had to "downgrade" from Miele to Bosch to get knobs.
    - jeffbee 5y ago
      Yep. All the expensive electric cooktops have touch controls and were obviously designed by people who have never cooked anything in their lives, not even once. I got so fed up with mine that I had my gas cooktop re-installed, even though it was totally contrary to my personal GHG emissions goals.
      - bluGill 5y ago
        I've been holding off replacing an old stove I hate for that reason. If someone wants my thousand dollars they will make a stove that is easy to control.
    - macNchz 5y ago
      Yeah I have a relative who renovated their kitchen recently and got a fairly high end induction range with touch controls...it was quite expensive and has possibly the worst user experience of any appliance I've ever used. As the touch areas get wet or oily they start to act weird, and they're right next to the cooking surfaces so they always get wet and oily if you're actually cooking anything. You have to lock the touch controls after using it because even a single drip of water can make it think you're doing some kind of invalid input and it'll start beeping loudly in the middle of dinner. Sometimes if you don't lock it it will start beeping endlessly in the middle of the night. After lots of back and forth it doesn't seem that this particular unit is defective, just the product itself is badly designed. I love cooking on it when it works properly–the induction technology is amazing, but I will absolutely never buy one with out real knobs.
      - jdr23bc 5y ago
        That sounds like the appliance at my new place. It's got a wall mounted microwave / oven unit with touchscreen controls at the top. such a terrible design. whenever the appliance is in use and you open at door the controls get steamed up and become useless. at least I can turn it on over WiFi (I have no idea what the use case for that feature is).
    - Wistar 5y ago
  - markdown 5y ago
    I have a 2019 Toyota Hilux (called Tacoma's in the US) and it doesn't have any knobs or buttons at all. However, the 2021 brought them back. https://imgur.com/a/Qtfartc https://imgur.com/a/Qtfartc
    - genewitch 5y ago
      As ghastly as that is, your uri is qt fartc.
    - bitbckt 5y ago
      A Hilux and Tacoma are two different vehicles: different engine options, different chassis, and almost zero interchangeable parts. Try taking a Tacoma to a parts counter outside the US, or Hilux to one in the US, and you’ll just get blank stares.
      - markdown 5y ago
        Thanks for that. I've always just assumed it was just a rebrand plus cosmetic (body+interior) changes.
        throwaway0a5e 5y ago
        Originally they sold the Hilux in the US but they realized that basically nobody who was buying one in the US needed that much truck right around the same time it became obvious they were gonna need to drop some serious coin on safety and emissions hence they just developed a new vehicle that was a better fit.
- at_compile_time 5y ago
  Appliances used to be way more reliable too. I grew up in the 90s with appliances from the 70s and 80s that still worked when they were replaced a few years ago. The new oven has already shit the bed and needs a new board. Everything is more complicated than it used to be, more likely to break as a result, and requires specialized parts to fix. And if the manufacturer doesn't sell that part anymore, your stuck buying a new appliance. What a racket.
  - Aloha 5y ago
    While I don't really disagree with you, don't underestimate survivorship bias, how many of that old stuff died early and needed parts, yes the parts were cheaper, but the repairs took usually took more labor.
  - monocasa 5y ago
    Same. I bought a house recently, and the appliances are all from the early 90s except a couple from the late 50s. My parents asked when I'm going to replace them, and I reminded them that they've had to replace their oven twice in the past ten years because none of the new stuff works for any time period. Meanwhile my appliances are at their youngest old enough to be talking to their little appliance friends about their appliance 401k.
mojuba 5y ago
> Then the piece omits the two overwhelmingly important reasons: cost and reliability. Plus that not all industrial designers can create great designs. Often times when I look at e.g. my Bosch electric cooktop I can only imagine its awful touch panel was an afterthought in the design process. It's so bad, awkward and hard to use, it makes me feel sorry for those who created this thing. And for all its users just as well. Cost savings? I mean, you don't replace the car's steering wheel with a pair of buttons - like on the hilarious picture in the article - just to save on production costs.
- tuatoru 5y ago
  No, you don't replace the steering wheel because that's safety critical and the superiority of the UI is overwhelmingly important. You don't get to sell the product at all with a defect like that, so the "cost to the manufacturer" is pretty big. The entertainment system, or a phone? Not safety critical, no need to provide real-time interaction. Cost dominates.
  - mojuba 5y ago
    Both your car stereo and your phone contribute to (un)safety during driving.
  - MereInterest 5y ago
    My car has a physical knob for the volume, which can also be pushed in to disable the entertainment system entirely. If I need to turn off the radio in order to give full concentration to driving, I don't need to navigate through menus in order to turn it off. I'd consider that safety critical.
Amezarak 5y ago
> but things with moving parts that stick out from the surface are not as reliable in population terms. I would be really delighted to know if auto manufacturers in particular really have data on this, and what they count as a failure. I've seen a lot more electronics failures than I have mechanical failures in cars and appliances, and the trend seems to stick with displays and knobs. For example, the first thing to break on my car was a display, which I still haven't fixed because it would be hundreds of dollars. I have an old truck with some broken knobs, but the posts they sat on still work, so they're still usable. If I did need to fix them I suspect it'd be a lot cheaper. Color me skeptical that increasingly fancy touchscreen displays are going to have any staying power. This has always kind of smelled like it was simply based on a logical axiom that "less moving parts is better and more reliable" rather than practical reality in the late 2010s-2020s.
YeBanKo 5y ago
That seems like a claim without data support. Cost, sure. Reliability, I doubt there is a difference in reliability within product lifecycle. My anecdotal experience: every car I owned had a knob for music volume. It never broke. Other things broke, sometimes making car repair economically unviable. But the knob did not break.
AshamedCaptain 5y ago
There is a shitton of very crappy rotary encoders out there that attest to that. For example, most microwaves I've seen that use knobs tend to wear them down pretty fast. Mine has a pretty much analog timer and just cannot be set for anything less than 1 min since it will randomly stop somewhere in the 0-60s interval due to wear. A relative's oven has a digital relative rotary encoder, but again due to wear it tends to skip some positions from time to time. Meaning you'll rotate 180 degs and some days that will mean 30min, some days it will mean 10min, and then some other days it means 2 seconds. It also uses the same knob to set the RTC, and with the knob in such state it is so much of a chore they have basically succumbed to the 12:00 phenomena. I am a big fan of "knobs" (specially compared to capacitive buttons) but these days they are no longer reliable at all.
- duped 5y ago
  Automotive and aviation grade pots/encoders/switches are a different class of product and a good deal more expensive than the garbage they'll put on consumer electronics.
- koofdoof 5y ago
  Sometimes that behaviour can be the result of a poorly written interrupt service routine that isnt reading the encoder pulses correctly. Ive found it to be a surprisingly common issue regardless of how new an item is.
NikolaNovak 5y ago
I guess I don't have big-picture number. I have literally not had anybody replace a knob, ever. My car is 18yo and knobs are working fine. Whereas, number of people in my immediate friends & family who had to replace $2500 touchscreens... I mean, I'm astonished that given temperature variations and sun and elements, touchscreens survive AT ALL.
SavantIdiot 5y ago
100+ years of knobs and the argument is "we still can't get it right"? I don't believe that.
- Kye 5y ago
  A 100 year old knob is not a 50 or 25 year old knob. They're as different as the wheels on a horse carriage and the wheels on a Model T. They're not working from the same 100 year old design with the same expectations. Ford likely expected the crank handle knob to take some abuse.
  - SavantIdiot 5y ago
    I don't understand the point of this comparison: I sounds like you're assuming I don't realize a knob from 50 years ago is different form one today. Are you aware how dismissive that tone is? The point is we've had 100 years to make the better, and the claims from automakers that they break too easily doesn't hold water.
amonavis 5y ago
We own a car (Honda Accord), 1983 model. The light switches in our house date to the 1950's. Never has anything broken.

bluedino 5y ago

I'll take knobs over membrane buttons. Can't believe the entire appliance industry switched.

Wistar 5y ago
High-end ovens, such as those above, say, $5k, almost always have knobs. I sure appreciate tuning knobs on car audio systems but almost no one besides Toyota and Lexus offer them any more.
- destitude 5y ago
  Even though I have a "last gen" Subaru Outback I would never replace it with a new one because they put in a huge center console screen and removed the knobs for climate control. What is odd is the Subaru Ascent actually has knobs for all of this.
- SyzygistSix 5y ago
  Old toaster oven took one action to change the temp - turn the knob. New toaster oven takes multiple actions to change the baking temperature. It's ridiculous.
- finnh 5y ago
  Huh. When remodeling my kitchen in 2016 the highest priced ovens all had crappy touchscreens. I had to "downgrade" from Miele to Bosch to get knobs.
  - jeffbee 5y ago
    Yep. All the expensive electric cooktops have touch controls and were obviously designed by people who have never cooked anything in their lives, not even once. I got so fed up with mine that I had my gas cooktop re-installed, even though it was totally contrary to my personal GHG emissions goals.
    - bluGill 5y ago
      I've been holding off replacing an old stove I hate for that reason. If someone wants my thousand dollars they will make a stove that is easy to control.
  - macNchz 5y ago
    Yeah I have a relative who renovated their kitchen recently and got a fairly high end induction range with touch controls...it was quite expensive and has possibly the worst user experience of any appliance I've ever used. As the touch areas get wet or oily they start to act weird, and they're right next to the cooking surfaces so they always get wet and oily if you're actually cooking anything. You have to lock the touch controls after using it because even a single drip of water can make it think you're doing some kind of invalid input and it'll start beeping loudly in the middle of dinner. Sometimes if you don't lock it it will start beeping endlessly in the middle of the night. After lots of back and forth it doesn't seem that this particular unit is defective, just the product itself is badly designed. I love cooking on it when it works properly–the induction technology is amazing, but I will absolutely never buy one with out real knobs.
    - jdr23bc 5y ago
      That sounds like the appliance at my new place. It's got a wall mounted microwave / oven unit with touchscreen controls at the top. such a terrible design. whenever the appliance is in use and you open at door the controls get steamed up and become useless. at least I can turn it on over WiFi (I have no idea what the use case for that feature is).
  - Wistar 5y ago
- markdown 5y ago
  I have a 2019 Toyota Hilux (called Tacoma's in the US) and it doesn't have any knobs or buttons at all. However, the 2021 brought them back. https://imgur.com/a/Qtfartc https://imgur.com/a/Qtfartc
  - genewitch 5y ago
    As ghastly as that is, your uri is qt fartc.
  - bitbckt 5y ago
    A Hilux and Tacoma are two different vehicles: different engine options, different chassis, and almost zero interchangeable parts. Try taking a Tacoma to a parts counter outside the US, or Hilux to one in the US, and you’ll just get blank stares.
    - markdown 5y ago
      Thanks for that. I've always just assumed it was just a rebrand plus cosmetic (body+interior) changes.
      - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
        Originally they sold the Hilux in the US but they realized that basically nobody who was buying one in the US needed that much truck right around the same time it became obvious they were gonna need to drop some serious coin on safety and emissions hence they just developed a new vehicle that was a better fit.
at_compile_time 5y ago
Appliances used to be way more reliable too. I grew up in the 90s with appliances from the 70s and 80s that still worked when they were replaced a few years ago. The new oven has already shit the bed and needs a new board. Everything is more complicated than it used to be, more likely to break as a result, and requires specialized parts to fix. And if the manufacturer doesn't sell that part anymore, your stuck buying a new appliance. What a racket.
- Aloha 5y ago
  While I don't really disagree with you, don't underestimate survivorship bias, how many of that old stuff died early and needed parts, yes the parts were cheaper, but the repairs took usually took more labor.
- monocasa 5y ago
  Same. I bought a house recently, and the appliances are all from the early 90s except a couple from the late 50s. My parents asked when I'm going to replace them, and I reminded them that they've had to replace their oven twice in the past ten years because none of the new stuff works for any time period. Meanwhile my appliances are at their youngest old enough to be talking to their little appliance friends about their appliance 401k.

mojuba 5y ago

> Then the piece omits the two overwhelmingly important reasons: cost and reliability. Plus that not all industrial designers can create great designs. Often times when I look at e.g. my Bosch electric cooktop I can only imagine its awful touch panel was an afterthought in the design process. It's so bad, awkward and hard to use, it makes me feel sorry for those who created this thing. And for all its users just as well. Cost savings? I mean, you don't replace the car's steering wheel with a pair of buttons - like on the hilarious picture in the article - just to save on production costs.

tuatoru 5y ago
No, you don't replace the steering wheel because that's safety critical and the superiority of the UI is overwhelmingly important. You don't get to sell the product at all with a defect like that, so the "cost to the manufacturer" is pretty big. The entertainment system, or a phone? Not safety critical, no need to provide real-time interaction. Cost dominates.
- mojuba 5y ago
  Both your car stereo and your phone contribute to (un)safety during driving.
- MereInterest 5y ago
  My car has a physical knob for the volume, which can also be pushed in to disable the entertainment system entirely. If I need to turn off the radio in order to give full concentration to driving, I don't need to navigate through menus in order to turn it off. I'd consider that safety critical.

Amezarak 5y ago

> but things with moving parts that stick out from the surface are not as reliable in population terms. I would be really delighted to know if auto manufacturers in particular really have data on this, and what they count as a failure. I've seen a lot more electronics failures than I have mechanical failures in cars and appliances, and the trend seems to stick with displays and knobs. For example, the first thing to break on my car was a display, which I still haven't fixed because it would be hundreds of dollars. I have an old truck with some broken knobs, but the posts they sat on still work, so they're still usable. If I did need to fix them I suspect it'd be a lot cheaper. Color me skeptical that increasingly fancy touchscreen displays are going to have any staying power. This has always kind of smelled like it was simply based on a logical axiom that "less moving parts is better and more reliable" rather than practical reality in the late 2010s-2020s.

YeBanKo 5y ago

That seems like a claim without data support. Cost, sure. Reliability, I doubt there is a difference in reliability within product lifecycle. My anecdotal experience: every car I owned had a knob for music volume. It never broke. Other things broke, sometimes making car repair economically unviable. But the knob did not break.

AshamedCaptain 5y ago

There is a shitton of very crappy rotary encoders out there that attest to that. For example, most microwaves I've seen that use knobs tend to wear them down pretty fast. Mine has a pretty much analog timer and just cannot be set for anything less than 1 min since it will randomly stop somewhere in the 0-60s interval due to wear. A relative's oven has a digital relative rotary encoder, but again due to wear it tends to skip some positions from time to time. Meaning you'll rotate 180 degs and some days that will mean 30min, some days it will mean 10min, and then some other days it means 2 seconds. It also uses the same knob to set the RTC, and with the knob in such state it is so much of a chore they have basically succumbed to the 12:00 phenomena. I am a big fan of "knobs" (specially compared to capacitive buttons) but these days they are no longer reliable at all.

duped 5y ago
Automotive and aviation grade pots/encoders/switches are a different class of product and a good deal more expensive than the garbage they'll put on consumer electronics.
koofdoof 5y ago
Sometimes that behaviour can be the result of a poorly written interrupt service routine that isnt reading the encoder pulses correctly. Ive found it to be a surprisingly common issue regardless of how new an item is.

NikolaNovak 5y ago

I guess I don't have big-picture number. I have literally not had anybody replace a knob, ever. My car is 18yo and knobs are working fine. Whereas, number of people in my immediate friends & family who had to replace $2500 touchscreens... I mean, I'm astonished that given temperature variations and sun and elements, touchscreens survive AT ALL.

SavantIdiot 5y ago

100+ years of knobs and the argument is "we still can't get it right"? I don't believe that.

Kye 5y ago
A 100 year old knob is not a 50 or 25 year old knob. They're as different as the wheels on a horse carriage and the wheels on a Model T. They're not working from the same 100 year old design with the same expectations. Ford likely expected the crank handle knob to take some abuse.
- SavantIdiot 5y ago
  I don't understand the point of this comparison: I sounds like you're assuming I don't realize a knob from 50 years ago is different form one today. Are you aware how dismissive that tone is? The point is we've had 100 years to make the better, and the claims from automakers that they break too easily doesn't hold water.

amonavis 5y ago

We own a car (Honda Accord), 1983 model. The light switches in our house date to the 1950's. Never has anything broken.