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Touchscreens seem to me to be wrongheaded primarily because they inevitably end up with multiple screens and layouts that require "navigation" to perform a task

Touchscreens seem to me to be wrongheaded primarily because they inevitably end up with multiple screens and layouts that require "navigation" to perform a task. Every navigation action is a hand-eye-brain coordination problem to be solved. Moving common tasks to a touchscreen multiplies the cognitive and re-focus burdens very quickly, and sometimes by quite a lot. Environmental controls are a great example of this. I can turn down the heat on my Tacoma with at most a single glance at the dash, followed by a "muscle memory" action to turn a knob counterclockwise, with haptic feedback as to how far (one, two, three clicks). Put that on a slider on a touch screen and I may have two or three purely navigation steps to get to the right screen, and find the slider, and then a visually engaging task to move it. This is nuts, as the Swedish study shows.

beambot 4y ago
With my touchscreen, I can set the temperature controls to precisely 72F and never touch it again. Perhaps I'm a counter narrative -- I find touchscreens vastly simpler than a bunch of old buttons: you have vastly superior configuration potential, connecting to other technology is easier, the few buttons you have make scrolling through options easy (eg steering wheel for audio & channel select), and the UIs are constantly improving via software updates. Yes, you lose some of the physical affordances, but the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. (Speaking specifically to Tesla Model-3.)
- amluto 4y ago
  That has nothing to do with this touchscreen issue. Any car with a decent thermostat works like that, going back to at least 1991 (the model year of the oldest car I recall with a decent thermostat). There are plenty of cheap cars today with physical, non-thermostat climate controls.
- walnutclosefarm 4y ago
  > ith my touchscreen, I can set the temperature controls to precisely 72F and never touch it again. Sure. I can do the same. That doesn't eliminate the fact that I frequently do want to adjust the environment controls. And the temperature, was, of course, just an example. My argument goes for any common control operation that gets stuck onto a touch screen for the manufacturer's convenience.

beambot 4y ago

With my touchscreen, I can set the temperature controls to precisely 72F and never touch it again. Perhaps I'm a counter narrative -- I find touchscreens vastly simpler than a bunch of old buttons: you have vastly superior configuration potential, connecting to other technology is easier, the few buttons you have make scrolling through options easy (eg steering wheel for audio & channel select), and the UIs are constantly improving via software updates. Yes, you lose some of the physical affordances, but the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. (Speaking specifically to Tesla Model-3.)

amluto 4y ago
That has nothing to do with this touchscreen issue. Any car with a decent thermostat works like that, going back to at least 1991 (the model year of the oldest car I recall with a decent thermostat). There are plenty of cheap cars today with physical, non-thermostat climate controls.
walnutclosefarm 4y ago
> ith my touchscreen, I can set the temperature controls to precisely 72F and never touch it again. Sure. I can do the same. That doesn't eliminate the fact that I frequently do want to adjust the environment controls. And the temperature, was, of course, just an example. My argument goes for any common control operation that gets stuck onto a touch screen for the manufacturer's convenience.