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> from TFA: "Designers want a "clean" interior with minimal switchgear" Speaking as someone with an Interaction Design (IxD) degree: no we fucking don't. Tacti

> from TFA: "Designers want a "clean" interior with minimal switchgear" Speaking as someone with an Interaction Design (IxD) degree: no we fucking don't. Tactile buttons being superior has been known for ages. For example, Bret Victor wrote "A Brief Rant On The Future Of Interaction Design" in 2011, so over a decade ago[0]. Not that anyone with the power to change things listened, because these decisions aren't made by the designers. This is mostly a consequence of people higher up trying to save costs by using touchscreens, which is cheaper to buy and cheaper to develop for. HCI and IxD have always had this issue that we're asked to fix things up after everything else has already been decided. Basically, we're mistaken for graphic designers who decide on what the final product will look like. So we're given a touchscreen to develop an interface for, not a blank-slate car interior (or whatever) for which we get to decide the button layout. At the risk of pulling a "no true Scotsman", this is a consequence of cost-cutting first and foremost. Don't blame the people who actually have a background HCI or Interaction Design. We all knew this was coming, and we hated it. If we're told to make do with the touchscreens we are given, with the alternatives of actual physical buttons being ignored before we even get to make decisions, then don't blame us for the lack of those buttons. [0] http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/ http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesi...

potamic 4y ago
How are touchscreens cheaper? On my phone replacing the screen costs way more than replacing a physical button.
- vanderZwan 4y ago
  The cost of fixing hardware failure in a final product is not the same thing as the cost of developing and mass-producing the product. For example, we're not talking about one button, we're talking about a lot of buttons, usually custom-made for the car in question. The whole dashboard physically has to be designed around them. Meanwhile Tesla just slaps a screen on a mount in the middle of the car and calls it a day. It's basically "we have to get everything right the first time" vs "fuck it, we can always fix things in a later software update". Which is a way to save costs by cutting corners. The buttons all have their own complicated logic too, although I suppose that even with physical buttons one can handle almost all of that purely through software these days, so that's not really as much of an issue any more as it used to be (it does make me terrified that cars can be hacked and bricked, but I digress). Speaking of a lot of buttons, that's the other thing: if all your buttons are virtual, you can have infinite buttons! The only thing we have to do is introduce a ton of mode switches! Which is absolutely terrible when you're driving, but nobody seems to care! So we can cram a ton of features into a screen that would otherwise require a million buttons, and use that in marketing. Even though we'd probably be better off if some time was spent to whittle things down to the essentials and design the interface around those cleanly.
  - Groxx 4y ago
    Many buttons also means many more pieces to physically install, and many many more wires. And each one (or small cluster) is often accompanied by even more independently-wired small information displays (small LCDs and LEDs for showing the state / temperature / etc) which are yet more wires. A touchscreen is largely just a single fused physical unit with ~two cables: a data ribbon and power. Utterly trivial to install and wire up in comparison. The total assembly cost adds up very quickly.
philwelch 4y ago
By "designers" I don't think they mean interaction designers.
- vanderZwan 4y ago
  Fair enough, but even then it's blame-shifting away from the actual cause of the problems. I don't think we're going to get physical interfaces back until car manufacturers (or whatever) are forced to because of said cost-cutting.
  - philwelch 4y ago
    Most executives don't have the vision or creativity to come up with these trends; they have to pick them up from somewhere. I think there's plenty of blame to go around though.
    - vanderZwan 4y ago
      The trends adapt to the requirements of the customer. See also: the appeaiance desktop interfaces having phone interfaces that don't fit desktop affordances at all. Note that "customer" can be a manager or similar higher up in the hierarchy.
nonrandomstring 4y ago
Bret Victor article is very good. Thanks for sharing. Some remarks stood out for me: > talk about technology. That's the easy part, in a sense, because we control it. (my emphasis) Yes, I agree with him strongly. But - there's been a dreadful anti-intellectual tide this past decade - a descent into "technological determinism", or the idea that technology is its own process to which humans must bend. It's the idea that we don't control it. It comes along with the overuse of words like "inevitable", "ubiquitous", "unavoidable" and endless talk of cats escaping from bags and genies refusing to go back into bottles. It's a defeatist and lazy creed that seeks to excuse a race to the bottom of cheapness, as you describe, with a narrative about how we "have no choice". > if a tool isn't designed to be used by a person, it can't be a very good tool, right? Increasingly, tools are designed to be used by other tools. Humans are being sidelined amidst the interplay between machines. For example; the demise of the Web is largely due to bots and the arms race to create other gatekeeping bots to defeat them. > Hands Bravo! Not "a finger" or "your thumbs". That's why I use a keyboard, interact through text-based technology, and cannot fathom thumb-twitching smartphone users. I totally get what he's saying, having worked in sonic interaction design with musical instruments (NIME) stuff like the ROLI seaboard (or whatever they changed the name to)... hands and touch, with mechanical haptic feedback is the way to go. I wish more people payed attention to this understanding of our relation to technology as embodied beings, instead of chasing a "clean" disembodied dream - which I think hides within sublimated Orthodox Dualism in the tech community - but that's another story.

potamic 4y ago

How are touchscreens cheaper? On my phone replacing the screen costs way more than replacing a physical button.

vanderZwan 4y ago
The cost of fixing hardware failure in a final product is not the same thing as the cost of developing and mass-producing the product. For example, we're not talking about one button, we're talking about a lot of buttons, usually custom-made for the car in question. The whole dashboard physically has to be designed around them. Meanwhile Tesla just slaps a screen on a mount in the middle of the car and calls it a day. It's basically "we have to get everything right the first time" vs "fuck it, we can always fix things in a later software update". Which is a way to save costs by cutting corners. The buttons all have their own complicated logic too, although I suppose that even with physical buttons one can handle almost all of that purely through software these days, so that's not really as much of an issue any more as it used to be (it does make me terrified that cars can be hacked and bricked, but I digress). Speaking of a lot of buttons, that's the other thing: if all your buttons are virtual, you can have infinite buttons! The only thing we have to do is introduce a ton of mode switches! Which is absolutely terrible when you're driving, but nobody seems to care! So we can cram a ton of features into a screen that would otherwise require a million buttons, and use that in marketing. Even though we'd probably be better off if some time was spent to whittle things down to the essentials and design the interface around those cleanly.
- Groxx 4y ago
  Many buttons also means many more pieces to physically install, and many many more wires. And each one (or small cluster) is often accompanied by even more independently-wired small information displays (small LCDs and LEDs for showing the state / temperature / etc) which are yet more wires. A touchscreen is largely just a single fused physical unit with ~two cables: a data ribbon and power. Utterly trivial to install and wire up in comparison. The total assembly cost adds up very quickly.

philwelch 4y ago

By "designers" I don't think they mean interaction designers.

vanderZwan 4y ago
Fair enough, but even then it's blame-shifting away from the actual cause of the problems. I don't think we're going to get physical interfaces back until car manufacturers (or whatever) are forced to because of said cost-cutting.
- philwelch 4y ago
  Most executives don't have the vision or creativity to come up with these trends; they have to pick them up from somewhere. I think there's plenty of blame to go around though.
  - vanderZwan 4y ago
    The trends adapt to the requirements of the customer. See also: the appeaiance desktop interfaces having phone interfaces that don't fit desktop affordances at all. Note that "customer" can be a manager or similar higher up in the hierarchy.

nonrandomstring 4y ago

Bret Victor article is very good. Thanks for sharing. Some remarks stood out for me: > talk about technology. That's the easy part, in a sense, because we control it. (my emphasis) Yes, I agree with him strongly. But - there's been a dreadful anti-intellectual tide this past decade - a descent into "technological determinism", or the idea that technology is its own process to which humans must bend. It's the idea that we don't control it. It comes along with the overuse of words like "inevitable", "ubiquitous", "unavoidable" and endless talk of cats escaping from bags and genies refusing to go back into bottles. It's a defeatist and lazy creed that seeks to excuse a race to the bottom of cheapness, as you describe, with a narrative about how we "have no choice". > if a tool isn't designed to be used by a person, it can't be a very good tool, right? Increasingly, tools are designed to be used by other tools. Humans are being sidelined amidst the interplay between machines. For example; the demise of the Web is largely due to bots and the arms race to create other gatekeeping bots to defeat them. > Hands Bravo! Not "a finger" or "your thumbs". That's why I use a keyboard, interact through text-based technology, and cannot fathom thumb-twitching smartphone users. I totally get what he's saying, having worked in sonic interaction design with musical instruments (NIME) stuff like the ROLI seaboard (or whatever they changed the name to)... hands and touch, with mechanical haptic feedback is the way to go. I wish more people payed attention to this understanding of our relation to technology as embodied beings, instead of chasing a "clean" disembodied dream - which I think hides within sublimated Orthodox Dualism in the tech community - but that's another story.