4 ms·

I'm always surprised how defeatist and negative the tech community's attitude towards computerized UX in cars is. Often the opinions are simplistic and dismissi

by sho_hn 5y ago

I'm always surprised how defeatist and negative the tech community's attitude towards computerized UX in cars is. Often the opinions are simplistic and dismissive instead of zooming into the details. It's similar to when onscreen keyboards in phones where "obviously never going to work" when now, most people probably wouldn't want to give up the screen real estate for a hardware keyboard, except even more one-note. I find it much more true that most car software simply isn't very good yet on average. Let's say most existing implementations of touch UIs in cars don't add value and are cumbersome to use, for example - but that just means they're individually badly realized, not that it's not worth trying. And in reality, it's also a much more nuanced "depending on the use case and the situation" or "impacted by bad performance". There are quality differences out there. And there's plenty of use cases in cars that benefit from a thorough software approach. This is an area with interesting problems to solve and plenty of innovation left to happen, and where hard and good work makes a mark.

chucksta 5y ago
Then they are charging their buyers 30k to beta test, and leaving buyers with no other option, which, I don't think most people are comfortable with. I think it's easily identifiable to the HN crowd, because most readers are very familiar with this process and the discomfort it can cause. Then you add on the argument of what they are doing with the information, and if they can be trusted..
- sho_hn 5y ago
mavhc 5y ago
The problem is hardware people can't write software, nor can they put in decent hardware so the software is fast. Nor make it secure. That's why people buy Teslas, they're a software company that makes hardware on the side. And participates in hacker challenges, offering cars to the winners. No one actually wants cars with no computers, they just think they do because they don't realise how much computers do, like reduce the amount of wires by 10x, and output error messages on the level of a crappy microcontroller instead of maybe a flashing light if you're lucky
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  No, I really want a car with no computers. I want analog gauges, a real gear selector lever, and switches and knobs for other accessories. A tactile environment that doesn't demand my visual focus to use is what I want. I have no need for a computer in my car, and to the extent I do, my phone is perfectly capable.
  - mavhc 5y ago
    No engine control, no brake control, no airbags, no power steering, no engine starter, no automatic windows, no intermittent wipers, no central locking, no alarm system, no automatic lights
    - hilbert42 5y ago
      - Engine control - unnecessary, cars ran for 100 years without it. - Brakes work perfectly well without computers. - Airbags don't need computers, they work perfectly well by mechanical means. - Power steering works perfectly without computers or any electrics at all. Every car I've ever owned had mechanical power steering without any fancy electroics including my latest one. Why tamper with something that works perfectly well? - Engine starter? Cars have starter motors since just after the hand crank ers, computers were still nearly 100 years away when starter motors were introduced. - Automatic windows are a damn menace, they are reliably unreliable. When one failed - fortunately the driver's side - I had my garage man retrofit a traditional hand windup one. On the three remaining windows I got him to isolate them so they only worked on their individual switches. - Mechanical intermittent wipers have been around since at least WWII. No computers or electronics to go wrong and complicate matters. - Central locking on my last two cars has been a disaster. You obviously have never experienced a situation where the locking gets out of sync and some doors remain unlocked - unlock the others and then the unlocked ones lock and vice versa. - Where I live alarm systems are likely to get you a brick through your windscreen - not from burglars but from annoyed residents who are fed up with car alarm noise. - Automatic lights are another menace, you often can't control them, they switch off when you want to leave the lights and so on. (It seems to me that the designers of these systems never anticipate what we drivers actually need. Perhaps they only test them in the most tame and predictable environments.) All this gumph is unnecessary, it makes the car less reliable and more expensive to buy and fix. Moreover, they're impossible to fix when you're in places where there's no service mechanic or garage (out on the open road for instance - I've some excellent instances from long trips 3,000 - 4,000 miles anf of cars in convoy on rough roads. Cars with all these unnecessary gadgets were, without fail, the first to break down. And they were a disaster because none of us techies could improvise in the usual manner that we could do with a more traditional car, often we could be stranded for days whilst waiting a tow truck to come from hundreds of miles away. What's more that's hellishly expensive. You people are just gadget mad.
bonestamp2 5y ago
The big difference between cars and smartphones is that you can focus all of your attention on your smartphone screen to use it. That's not true for the driver of an automobile. The best automobile interfaces use knobs of different sizes and with different textures so that you can find them without looking. Buttons should be arranged in rows, so they are easy to find with a short look. Extremely common buttons should be located on the steering wheel. Etc. Until screens can offer some kind of dynamic tactile experience, where you can feel what you're about to control, they can't be better than real tactile buttons and knobs. Don't get me wrong, I love a big screen in my car for advanced features (360 camera, vehicle settings, navigation, music, etc). But the basics need to be tactile.
- sho_hn 5y ago
  That's kind of what I mean: The discussion always starts and too often ends there. A couple of thoughts: - Already in the pre-touchscreen, button-dominated area, plenty of more complicated use cases had terrible UX, and in many cases touchscreens have made them much easier. For example, do you remember how difficult it often was to program radio presets in 80s head-units? There were a lot of real clunkers there. - There's plenty of newer use cases that would be hard or impossible to make easy with traditional hardware button UX, such as route and EV charge planning. - Good software offers many possibilities to avoid interactions altogether, or make them single-step instead of multi-step. A good screen-based system will now often suggest interactions pro-actively and situationally at the top-level of the system and reduce interaction to a single multi-modal (touch/gesture/speech) confirmation on what used to be multi-step processes. - Screens can offer tactile experiences - most recently with the introduction of screens that can do permanent haptic feedback via electrostatic friction coefficient modulation, emulating different surface feels as the finger moves. - You already mentioned features such as 360 degree cameras: If nothing else, screens are great for showing information. Interactions aside, this alone has a lot of legs left and there's absolutely quality differences between good and bad implementations. - There's absolutely nothing wrong with a good physical button (on the contrary - few things are more satisfying than a good, solid, weighty button) and having both for use in the appropriate situation. It doesn't mean there's no possible benefits from further investment into good car software. I feel a lot of this is rooted in first-hand experience with bad systems - which I agree are plentiful, and just as awful as a bad, clunky, unrefined phone onscreen keyboard. Dare to imagine a good one. Working on car systems means getting to own the form factor and the entire surroundings of a user, much more than working on software targeting rarely-changing phone and PC devices. It's an open field for software and hardware innovation and deserves a little more professional excitement and ambition to do it well.
everdrive 5y ago
> It's similar to when onscreen keyboards in phones where "obviously never going to work" when now, most people probably wouldn't want to give up the screen real estate for a hardware keyboard, except even more one-note. I absolutely hate my screens keyboard, and wish I could just buy a phone with a real physical keyboard. I get so angry trying to use this thing. It’s far less useful than a regular keyboard.
- RunSet 5y ago
  A keyboard that can snitch on you is a privacy invader's wet dream.

by sho_hn 5y ago

chucksta 5y ago

Then they are charging their buyers 30k to beta test, and leaving buyers with no other option, which, I don't think most people are comfortable with. I think it's easily identifiable to the HN crowd, because most readers are very familiar with this process and the discomfort it can cause. Then you add on the argument of what they are doing with the information, and if they can be trusted..

sho_hn 5y ago

mavhc 5y ago

The problem is hardware people can't write software, nor can they put in decent hardware so the software is fast. Nor make it secure. That's why people buy Teslas, they're a software company that makes hardware on the side. And participates in hacker challenges, offering cars to the winners. No one actually wants cars with no computers, they just think they do because they don't realise how much computers do, like reduce the amount of wires by 10x, and output error messages on the level of a crappy microcontroller instead of maybe a flashing light if you're lucky

throwawayboise 5y ago
No, I really want a car with no computers. I want analog gauges, a real gear selector lever, and switches and knobs for other accessories. A tactile environment that doesn't demand my visual focus to use is what I want. I have no need for a computer in my car, and to the extent I do, my phone is perfectly capable.
- mavhc 5y ago
  No engine control, no brake control, no airbags, no power steering, no engine starter, no automatic windows, no intermittent wipers, no central locking, no alarm system, no automatic lights
  - hilbert42 5y ago
    - Engine control - unnecessary, cars ran for 100 years without it. - Brakes work perfectly well without computers. - Airbags don't need computers, they work perfectly well by mechanical means. - Power steering works perfectly without computers or any electrics at all. Every car I've ever owned had mechanical power steering without any fancy electroics including my latest one. Why tamper with something that works perfectly well? - Engine starter? Cars have starter motors since just after the hand crank ers, computers were still nearly 100 years away when starter motors were introduced. - Automatic windows are a damn menace, they are reliably unreliable. When one failed - fortunately the driver's side - I had my garage man retrofit a traditional hand windup one. On the three remaining windows I got him to isolate them so they only worked on their individual switches. - Mechanical intermittent wipers have been around since at least WWII. No computers or electronics to go wrong and complicate matters. - Central locking on my last two cars has been a disaster. You obviously have never experienced a situation where the locking gets out of sync and some doors remain unlocked - unlock the others and then the unlocked ones lock and vice versa. - Where I live alarm systems are likely to get you a brick through your windscreen - not from burglars but from annoyed residents who are fed up with car alarm noise. - Automatic lights are another menace, you often can't control them, they switch off when you want to leave the lights and so on. (It seems to me that the designers of these systems never anticipate what we drivers actually need. Perhaps they only test them in the most tame and predictable environments.) All this gumph is unnecessary, it makes the car less reliable and more expensive to buy and fix. Moreover, they're impossible to fix when you're in places where there's no service mechanic or garage (out on the open road for instance - I've some excellent instances from long trips 3,000 - 4,000 miles anf of cars in convoy on rough roads. Cars with all these unnecessary gadgets were, without fail, the first to break down. And they were a disaster because none of us techies could improvise in the usual manner that we could do with a more traditional car, often we could be stranded for days whilst waiting a tow truck to come from hundreds of miles away. What's more that's hellishly expensive. You people are just gadget mad.

bonestamp2 5y ago

The big difference between cars and smartphones is that you can focus all of your attention on your smartphone screen to use it. That's not true for the driver of an automobile. The best automobile interfaces use knobs of different sizes and with different textures so that you can find them without looking. Buttons should be arranged in rows, so they are easy to find with a short look. Extremely common buttons should be located on the steering wheel. Etc. Until screens can offer some kind of dynamic tactile experience, where you can feel what you're about to control, they can't be better than real tactile buttons and knobs. Don't get me wrong, I love a big screen in my car for advanced features (360 camera, vehicle settings, navigation, music, etc). But the basics need to be tactile.

sho_hn 5y ago
That's kind of what I mean: The discussion always starts and too often ends there. A couple of thoughts: - Already in the pre-touchscreen, button-dominated area, plenty of more complicated use cases had terrible UX, and in many cases touchscreens have made them much easier. For example, do you remember how difficult it often was to program radio presets in 80s head-units? There were a lot of real clunkers there. - There's plenty of newer use cases that would be hard or impossible to make easy with traditional hardware button UX, such as route and EV charge planning. - Good software offers many possibilities to avoid interactions altogether, or make them single-step instead of multi-step. A good screen-based system will now often suggest interactions pro-actively and situationally at the top-level of the system and reduce interaction to a single multi-modal (touch/gesture/speech) confirmation on what used to be multi-step processes. - Screens can offer tactile experiences - most recently with the introduction of screens that can do permanent haptic feedback via electrostatic friction coefficient modulation, emulating different surface feels as the finger moves. - You already mentioned features such as 360 degree cameras: If nothing else, screens are great for showing information. Interactions aside, this alone has a lot of legs left and there's absolutely quality differences between good and bad implementations. - There's absolutely nothing wrong with a good physical button (on the contrary - few things are more satisfying than a good, solid, weighty button) and having both for use in the appropriate situation. It doesn't mean there's no possible benefits from further investment into good car software. I feel a lot of this is rooted in first-hand experience with bad systems - which I agree are plentiful, and just as awful as a bad, clunky, unrefined phone onscreen keyboard. Dare to imagine a good one. Working on car systems means getting to own the form factor and the entire surroundings of a user, much more than working on software targeting rarely-changing phone and PC devices. It's an open field for software and hardware innovation and deserves a little more professional excitement and ambition to do it well.

everdrive 5y ago

> It's similar to when onscreen keyboards in phones where "obviously never going to work" when now, most people probably wouldn't want to give up the screen real estate for a hardware keyboard, except even more one-note. I absolutely hate my screens keyboard, and wish I could just buy a phone with a real physical keyboard. I get so angry trying to use this thing. It’s far less useful than a regular keyboard.

RunSet 5y ago
A keyboard that can snitch on you is a privacy invader's wet dream.