12 ms·

The solution to that is simple. Put four/five physical buttons down each side of the screen, maybe along the bottom too, and then you can make everything still

by titzer 4y ago

The solution to that is simple. Put four/five physical buttons down each side of the screen, maybe along the bottom too, and then you can make everything still programmable in software. I have no idea why you absolutely need to put buttons in the middle of the screen to be touched. It's one thing to put items or whatever that can be selected, or allow pinch/zoom, but in reality almost all interaction just boils down to picking between a limited set of options at any given time. With a decent response time and hierarchical menus, it's easy to make a system that is navigable without looking. Throw in some (hopefully non-annoying) audio feedback, and it is extremely accessible--even by a blind passenger! In fact, that's a good benchmark. If a blind passenger could operate the thing, then the driver should be able to as well.

snowbrook 4y ago
Just like every gasoline pump I've used in the last decade.
Angostura 4y ago
Put physical buttons and knobs on and allow configuration of the image displayed on the button - like programmable keyboards.
jlkuester7 4y ago
This. %100 this. The airline industry figured this out years ago with some of the cockpit controls. (admittedly there are a lot of other buttons and switches for the pilot to worry about too, but it seems like the digital display panels always are flanked by rows of buttons which were used for interacting with the panel. Works great even with gloves on and does not lock you into a single feature set.
- NittLion78 4y ago
  I was going to cite the example of the Garmin G1000 glass cockpit. Even moving a cursor around a map requires pushing a physical knob in 360° to guide it.
  - FabHK 4y ago
    I wouldn't call the Garmin G1000 a paragon of UX design though. I wish there were some serious competitors that would give the UX another try (like Avidyne), but Garmin seems to be the standard now. Philip Greenspun wrote about some of its problems (back in 2006): > In some ways this makes life more difficult for the pilot. For example, suppose that you are busily trying to fly the airplane and study an approach plate when ATC gives you a new transponder code. With a less integrated system, you know exactly where the buttons are to enter a transponder code and your fingers will find their way there almost automatically. The buttons are always in the same place, i.e., on the physical transponder box, and they never change their function. With the G1000, you find the soft key labeled "xpdr" and press it. Then some more soft keys take on the function of digits. It is clearly a less direct and more time-consuming procedure. Similarly for entering a frequency into COM 2. With a traditional radio stack, you reach over to COM 2, which is probably underneath COM 1 and labeled "COM 2". You twist the knob that is always there and that always adjusts the COM 2 frequency. With the G1000, you study the COM freqencies display (typically four numbers) and figure out which number is surrounded by a box. This is the number that you are going to be changing if you twist the COM knob. If the box isn't surrounding the number you want to change, you have to think long enough to push the COM knob to toggle between "I'm adjusting COM 1" and "I'm adjusting COM 2" modes. > A 1965 Cessna has what computer nerds would call a "modeless interface". Each switch and knob does one thing and it is the same thing all the time. This is a very usable interface, but it doesn't scale up very well, as you can see by looking at the panel of a Boeing 707. Both the Avidyne and the G1000 have some modal elements. Knobs and switches do different things at different times. The G1000 is more deeply modal and therefore, I think, will always be harder to use. https://philip.greenspun.com/flying/avidyne-versus-garmin https://philip.greenspun.com/flying/avidyne-versus-garmin
    - fjni 4y ago
      > I wouldn't call the Garmin G1000 a paragon of UX design though. In some ways I would. I wouldn't call it "intuitive," but once you understand its semantics, it's phenomenally predictable in its behavior. And quite well thought through I think. Here's one of my favorite examples: On the MFD, in an urgent situation, two of the most helpful pages are the "map page," and the "nearest page." These are (unintuitively) the first and last page. Until you realize that that means you can access both without looking which page you're on by spinning the page knob either all the way left or all the way right. It isn't perfect, but I find it generally well thought through. I certainly can't argue with the points about transponder and com1/com2 inputs, but within the parameters for the device, I consider the UX for the G1000 to be ... maybe not a paragon in its entirety, but certainly much more thoughtful than what I encounter in other life daily.
- falcrist 4y ago
  Lab equipment does the same thing. Decades ago, oscilloscopes started having banks of buttons corresponding to an area of the screen, and knobs that have context sensitive functionality. Those can be placed side by side with buttons that have fixed purposes delineated by printed or debossed lettering. I realize that we're getting pretty far from the automotive use-case, but this style has worked remarkably well over the years, and has made it into all sorts of equipment.
  - hammock 4y ago
    Two more examples that everyone ought to be familiar with- ATMs and electronic voting machines
    - Swenrekcah 4y ago
      ATMs in my area have started to ditch the physical buttons. I’ve never seen an electronic voting machine and hope I never will.
      - CommitSyn 4y ago
        When did you last vote? The 2016 election is when I first experienced them. I asked to vote by paper as I wasn't comfortable with electronic voting machines, so they gave me a paper and pen to fill it out, which I was then to feed into the computer.
        archi42 4y ago
        Not everyone lives in the US ;) Around here we cast votes on paper and then use computer assisted verification & counting.
        Dylan16807 4y ago
        > Not everyone lives in the US ;) I don't see how that affects the comments you're replying to in any meaningful way. They only mentioned a particular election to establish a timeline. > Around here Voting varies wildly between parts of the US too.
- albert_e 4y ago
  many ATM machines I have seen do this as well -- just a blank set of buttons on either side of the screen
  - LeifCarrotson 4y ago
    CNC, robotic, and industrial equipment too: Human-machine interfaces have rows of "Soft keys", buttons whose function changes depending on the context. Many machines used soft keys in the ages before touchscreens were available, but manufacturing is slow to change and even with the advent of multi-touch high-resolution color displays, they've remained. For examples: https://www.fanucamerica.com/images/default-source/cnc-images/cnc-panel-images/0if.jpg https://www.fanucamerica.com/images/default-source/cnc-image... https://www.fanuc.eu/~/media/corporate/products/robots/accessories/400x400/400x400/ipendant-software-screenshot-node-banner.jpg https://www.fanuc.eu/~/media/corporate/products/robots/acces... https://i.imgur.com/3vsHBhl.png https://i.imgur.com/3vsHBhl.png (OK, maybe the AB went a little overboard on the number of function keys...) but these are really effective tools to structure menus and build HMIs.
- eterevsky 4y ago
  I'm not so sure that's an optimal solution. If you are going to use the display to show the UI, you may as well just use touch interface, as long as it is responsive enough. Physical controls make more sense when they are optimized for ergonomics so that they can be used without looking.
  - klyrs 4y ago
    I think the point here is that most people who use the interface a few times will learn the necessary key sequences. This learning can happen with the car at rest, and after that the user can keep their eyes on the road. It's not perfect, as some people have a slower learning rate than others, but it's sure better than a touch screen.
    - marcosdumay 4y ago
      Well, if the control all change in meaning depending on the interface state, you can only memorize sequences if there is a reset somewhere. And those will probably be very cumbersome sequences.
      - klyrs 4y ago
        If there are "back" and/or "home" buttons that's a non-issue. And that's been my experience with oscilloscopes with this kind of interface.
        marcosdumay 4y ago
        A "home" is a reset. A "back" button won't solve the issue. On a second thought, if the options are hierarchical, the sequence of clicks may not be cumbersome at all. Also, in a car the state can be something really easy to keep track of, like "the car is running", but even then, I'm not sure it's safe to rely on this.
        klyrs 4y ago
        mash "back" long enough and you'll get home... it might not be the best thing, but it works.
- singlow 4y ago
  Most of the ones I have used allowed you to navigate the UI using physical buttons on the steering wheel. Something similar to a up/down/select/back button group with some other specific buttons for frequent actions.
  - nuccy 4y ago
    Yes, buttons on the steering wheel are ones of the most useful ones, though even they become capacitive e.g. in new VW, BMW, Tesla Plaid. I have a VW car with a basic HUD (2015-ish era HUD, where a glass pops up). It can show lane keeping state, adaptive cruise control, current speed, recognized signs and navigation directions. Those features are essential for normal driving, so I don't look at all on the instrument cluster (either dials or the screen). The fact that you don't need to look down and change the focus of the eyes makes a significant difference.
- ak217 4y ago
  If you look at those MFDs, many also have rotational controls in the corners (some even have two levels of dials, one sitting on top of the other), which are another key way to keep the UI tactile and promote muscle memory. Things like eliminating lag, organizing menus into predictable paths that can easily be committed to muscle memory, and designing buttons and dials that can be used even in high vibration environments, are all key design criteria for these cockpit controls. It's so sad that automotive design refuses to take any lessons from that industry.
  - QuercusMax 4y ago
    When using the touchscreen in my old Nissan Leaf, I used to anchor my thumb underneath the display so I could hit controls reliably via muscle memory even when the road was bumpy. Preposterous that we have to do these kinds of hacks when there are much better solutions.
- Litost 4y ago
  This comment reminds me of this video, where a F-15C fighter pilot breaks down the "Human Interface" in the cockpit where there are over 250 buttons and various other displays including HUD and panels and a button they aren't allowed to press because it requires an engine rebuild afterwards: https://arstechnica.com/features/2020/06/human-interface-come-on-a-tour-of-an-f-15c-fighter-jet-cockpit/ https://arstechnica.com/features/2020/06/human-interface-com... It suggests it was meant to be part of a series but I've not found any other examples????
- rpdillon 4y ago
  Very common in military systems as well.
- NonNefarious 4y ago
  That's fine if the controls work without significant lag. Last week I drove a minivan whose blower speed was controlled by a multi-purpose knob, and each speed change took several SECONDS to be affected. Pathetic.
fridek 4y ago
FWIW this is what Audi's MMI does. (Or used to do? My car is old.) The control panel has: * 6-8 buttons for switching between different MMI modes, labeled * 4 universal buttons, function contextual to the current screen * 1 return button * Turn/press controller I can navigate 90% of the menus blindfolded. Despite my older MMI not being a marvel of UX, I can access functions 5 actions deep, while driving, from pure muscle memory.
- sithadmin 4y ago
  Audi's phased out the entirely physical-button driven interface in favor of touchscreen and trackpad-based inputs. There was a generation in between that also had an odd and extremely large implementation of the legacy combination dial/joystick/button thing.
  - titzer 4y ago
    That sucks. Touchscreens have become so cheap (because economies of scale), Audi is probably saving manufacturing cost by not having physical buttons, simply because of the custom design cost of integrating buttons into a PCB and then programming it[1]. Touchscreens might even be cheaper than non-touch screens. They often have higher resolution. Audi is probably transitioning to using software stacks designed to build touch-screen apps instead of buttons and don't want their software devs to even think in that outdated mode of "buttons". It's completely self-serving and chasing the design trends, tripping after Tesla tech woo, not consumer demand. [1] Which is totally ridiculous IMHO, because even with my completely amateur skills, wiring up a few buttons to an embedded chip is NBD.
    - detaro 4y ago
      I doubt design cost is relevant, and software stacks also don't really care. Support for hardware buttons is a very thin layer, and widespread.
  - Arrath 4y ago
    I only drove an Audi once, and loved that little joystick thing. It was perfect.
Findecanor 4y ago
BTW, what you are describing has a name: "Soft keys", and had first been developed for use in air plane cockpits. (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_key https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_key>)
- SoftTalker 4y ago
  Computer keyboards have had them for decades also (PF keys, labeled F1--F12), though I've only really seen them used on mainframe terminals and old DOS programs like WordPerfect.
  - _carbyau_ 4y ago
    As you say, not much seems to make deliberate use of them as a constant feature such that you could expect familiarity to be rewarded. So, with the Functions on keyboard they are usually a lucky dip. Soft keys specifically have an intuitively understood relationship - usually through physical placement - with the screen to link them to their purpose. The "softness" is about the keys purpose, as it can change depending on context of the screen. A key without a intuitive link to the patch of screen, is just another F-key...
tablespoon 4y ago
> The solution to that is simple. Put four/five physical buttons down each side of the screen, maybe along the bottom too, and then you can make everything still programmable in software. This, though functions like climate control, audio, and anything needed to operate the car while in motion should still have dedicated buttons. Touchscreens in cars are an abomination. > I have no idea why you absolutely need to put buttons in the middle of the screen to be touched. They don't need to, they're just following the touchscreen all the things UX fad. Turns out capacitive touchscreens were a great fit for cell phones, but that doesn't mean they have a place anywhere else.
- vikingerik 4y ago
  Why are capacitative touchscreens such a great fit for cell phones? Because the physical size is so limited. You want to use the same physical space for output (screen) and input (buttons). For a car instrument panel, physical size mostly isn't a concern. "Touchscreen all the things" was cargo-culting. Apple made a trillion dollars with touch screens, therefore we should use touch screens too.
  - mlyle 4y ago
    There are truly obscure things in cars you don't do often. Changing settings. Programming the radio. Changing a drive mode for specialized off-road use. Getting a report on usage / economy / etc. If an operation is infrequent and doesn't need to be made when driving, burying it in a touchscreen menu sounds great: conserve those physical control surfaces for stuff that matters so you don't have a ridiculous surplus of buttons. You can go and put the majority of functions on touchscreen menu hell. But don't go and put the climate or windshield wipers or even audio modes on touch surfaces, please. :/
    - titzer 4y ago
      > But don't go and put the climate or windshield wipers or even audio modes on touch surfaces, please. :/ I agree with that, but I don't see any added value of a touchscreen for the other things you mention. It could as well be a deep menu that is still accessed with many button presses to drill down into it.
LordKano 4y ago
I think that manufacturers are too busy trying to be the Steve Jobs of cars. They're thinking about making their vehicles look differently than everyone else's instead of thinking about what would work the best?
andrewla 4y ago
General-purpose buttons whose action changes with context are just as bad as touchscreens. The whole point of tactile interfaces is that the buttons and controls have a consistent action regardless of context. A button that sometimes does one thing and sometimes does another depending on what is on the screen is no better than a touchscreen, since it requires active attention to operate.
- romwell 4y ago
  Well, certainly having some buttons with context dependence is still better than having touch screens. Also, hard no to "just as bad". I have no issue with volume control buttons also being camera triggers on my phone, for example. Details matter.
  - andrewla 4y ago
    In the context of operating a vehicle I'm going to stick with "just as bad". When you aren't driving, if you have to set up something (like configure the doors to auto-lock when when you shift into drive or something) then a touchscreen is clearly superior. You can navigate to a menu and read the options and select the appropriate one. But like the camera shutter button, this is a situation where you can afford to pay some attention to the task at hand. While operating a vehicle, if you're trying to turn up the fan on the A/C, then using a button to switch to climate controls, then using a button to switch to fan settings, then clicking the up button three times, is just as bad as a touchscreen, because if you switched to climate but didn't yet switch to fan settings, and you have to put more attention on the road because you're exiting, you've lost context and can no longer know where you are in the navigation with looking and assessing the situation. So dedicated climate controls >>>>>> touchscreen or context-buttons. The difference is close enough to be indistinguishable. If you get a popup saying "there's traffic ahead click here to accept a new route" then dismissing it by jabbing the screen and dismissing by jabbing a button, it's really hard for me to see a lot of air.
    - romwell 4y ago
      Sure, I don't disagree with you here. Climate control should be dedicated buttons. There's a place for middle ground though: sequences of button presses. For instance, keying in 1-3-4 to enable this or that feature (where the buttons are 1 to 5). It can be done purely by touch, but it'd be hard to discover and memorize such sequences without a screen. However, once you discover them, you don't need to look at the screen.
kbenson 4y ago
A central rotating knob or directional jiystick that can be pressed is also fairly intuitive. I fortunately they've futzed that one up often too by making it rotate and a directional pad (such as in Honda Odysseys, at least circa 2017), where you can rotate and also tilt the knob left or right, and I can never remember whether a particular menu section wants one or the other to change selections. To the automakers, when two controls have overlapping things they're good at doing, maybe pick the one that fits best and just include that, but at a bare minimum make sure they are always used consistently and clearly, please.
mywacaday 4y ago
Audi have had this for years, dial with four buttons around it down by the handbreak so you don't have to reach up. Also some industrial pick and place machines work this way, I used to operate them over 20 years ago and the speed you could navigate through the screens once you built a bit of muscle memory beats any touch screen.
- mulmen 4y ago
  Well, "beats a touch screen on input" isn't really a bar as much as a line on the floor. Another comment claims Audi no longer uses this system and went to touch as well.
  - mywacaday 4y ago
    Could well be, my car is over 10 years old.
macspoofing 4y ago
>The solution to that is simple. Put four/five physical buttons down each side of the screen, maybe along the bottom too Absolutely. It's why smart-phones and tablets (the ultimate 'touch' devices) still put some physical buttons (power, volume control). A well designed UI, complemented with physical input (buttons or knobs) is best.
- notriddle 4y ago
  Dedicated, single-purpose buttons that work all the time are clearly superior to touch screens. That's why even smartphones have them. Context-sensitive buttons are less awesome. They might be superior, if you memorize the combination, but they're decidedly inferior to touchscreens for the long tail of infrequently used features. The study linked here focused on "simple" tasks, and the top performing cars probably have dedicated buttons for everything measured. The story would likely be very different for context sensitive buttons, and subjective reporting would likely be unreliable, if studies on the speed of mousing vs keyboarding are anything to go on [1]. [1]: https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/30682/are-there-any-recent-studies-of-the-keyboard-vs-mouse-issue https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/30682/are-there-any-r...
mfer 4y ago
> With a decent response time and hierarchical menus, it's easy to make a system that is navigable without looking. There is a difference between working with a touch screen where you can focus on it and using a touch screen where you need to focus elsewhere (like the road). There is also a difference between something like a plane where you have a great distance from other moving objects most of the time and a car where you are regularly around other cars. My wife has a slightly older car with no touchscreen. We can operate it by feel. Without ever needing to take our eyes or focus off the wheel. My car has a touch screen. I can't operate that by feel. Constant glances are required. These are different experiences. Looking at the situational environment is important when creating a good user experience. I wish I could buy a car with more physical buttons. Would make the whole car driving experience more usable with me as a less distracted driver.
- ak217 4y ago
  Those same systems are used in jet fighters and ground attack planes where they (along with a HUD - another thing now available in cars) are used to support split second decisions. Having tactile, easily memorized controls with screens is a solved problem in the avionics industry. It's just that car makers refuse to learn any lessons from them.
mbjorkegren 4y ago
Encoders are great for this too. Music hardware often uses mappable encoders with LED rings to indicate the current value, and/or with the screen showing what the encoder is controlling. https://www.ableton.com/en/products/controllers/apc40mkii/track-device-control/ https://www.ableton.com/en/products/controllers/apc40mkii/tr... https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/keyboards/komplete-kontrol-s49-s61/ https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/keyb...
- digitallyfree 4y ago
  Even for buttons I've seen small matrix displays beside the button (or even underneath its plastic shell) acting as the label and indicator. This prevents the need of having the programmable buttons next to the screen, but at increased cost.
- Nav_Panel 4y ago
  Yep -- my favorite version of this is in the Ensoniq ESQ-1. 1980s box that helped pioneer the use of digital readouts in synths. Digital readouts eventually became terrible in synths because of "menu diving" (look into the Yamaha TG-33 for an awful example). But the ESQ-1 had a few cool features to keep editing simple: 1. The entire page hierarchy was only one level deep. You had 10 buttons that select a parameter, and a single data entry slider. So, with two hands, you could very rapidly manipulate parameters. I believe the Yamaha DX7 also had this, but what made the ESQ-1 cool was that the button usages were listed right on the digital readout next to the buttons themselves, rather than off to the side and hard-coded to the parameter. So it was like hitting a hardware button that could automatically remap. 2. Again unlike the DX7, there was no button-press needed to "edit" -- you just hit the button and moved the slider. It felt very natural to use even though it was technically a digital parameter being editing. If you needed additional editing power, you could still hunt for the other buttons outside of the 10 "screen" buttons. I had one about 5 years ago, and swapped it for a JP-8000. I regret it. Very cool synth, very innovative UX.
- wildrhythms 4y ago
  I have a Roland FANTOM keyboard which has a touchscreen UI, however it also has a row of knobs and buttons that offer an alternate control surface without having to touch the screen. It's so much better.
kawfey 4y ago
They really should. Even commercial and fighter aircraft -- which have human-interface requirements of incredible depth and complexity -- are transitioning to large touchscreen displays. ALL of which require physical boundary buttons and knobs as a redundancy for touchscreen controls. In fact, controlling the screens via buttons are the preference for many pilots since accurately fiddling with touchscreens during turbulence, pulling Gs, evading missiles, while being task-saturated etc is very hard to do, but doing the same with physical buttons is far more reliable. Button-pushing tasks can be performed from memory in the blind (or while not looking) (a.k.a. "memory items"). There's always been a dichotomy in human-machine interfaces between airplane customers (airlines, charters, governments, and militaries) vs. their own pilots. Airplane builders have to keep up appearances and look cool by putting in putting in flashy, futuristic features like big screens and AI, and ditching old button-laden displays and the "old way of doing things." It too often disregards the needs and wants of pilots and "human factors" engineers. Fortunately, safety comes first, so the buttons and redundancy must stay.
_nalply 4y ago
> even by a blind passenger but not by a deaf driver
ChikkaChiChi 4y ago
Is there a standard for this or any defaults in an OS for this? In the past, I've been monumentally frustrated by the inability to bind inputs to non standard keys. I've tried building out several projects like this, and using HID keyboard as standard, you are relegated to ANSI keystrokes or combos that a user/os wouldn't need, or third party drivers that come with their own headaches. Another option is a video game controller. I never understood why we can have a billion emojis but adding some additional unused input mappings is a bridge too far.
Kye 4y ago
More to the point: the missing physical buttons that really grind people's gears are gimmes. You need some way to control the heating and air. Some way to control audio. Some way to control safety stuff like wipers and signals. These have been around as long as the things they control. Decades! It is known. This is the way. Give those physical buttons and 99.999% of complaints vaporize, and people are happy. Apply your idea for stuff that's up in the air. Boom. Done.
cjohnson318 4y ago
Absolutely. I have a 2016 Outback with a touchscreen that I can't see in sunlight about 90% of the time. I can, however, see the smudge on the screen where I press play for audiobooks. (Plugging a phone in pauses the audiobook.) I'd love more physical buttons because, and this may come as a shock, usually when I need to use these darn things, I'm driving.
djaychela 4y ago
Exactly. Back in the hardware days of music technology, I had an Akai S2000 Sampler. I could navigate the most commonly used functions by touch alone, using actual buttons - even with complex menus. With simple menus (or a custom setup of your own), the common things could be on buttons, instead of taking your concentration off the road.
pavon 4y ago
That's not a panacea. My Honda CRV has buttons along the side of the screen, and after seven years of owning it, I still have to look at the screen to do anything.
mnot 4y ago
Like the Apple Touch Bar. The problem is that it’s contextual, so you still have to look to it you can trust that a hardwired button won’t change purpose; that’s the important property here.
thwarted 4y ago
Another solution is to not make every make and model have a completely custom dashboard interface. The physical interface for turn signals is completely standardized. The physical interface for windshield wipers is about 95% standardized (I wish we would finally decide on if the short bar or the long long bar indicates frequency of activation or delay between activations). The physical interface for the radio is mostly standardized, at least the icons on the buttons are well defined and understood. It just gets worse from there. The climate controls look standardized, and often have well-established icons and coloring, but not standard positioning. Then again, even things that are standardized, people can't fully grok: how many people know how to find out which side of the vehicle the gas tank is on while sitting in the driver's seat? It's so goofy, the Mini I drive regularly is infuriating because the touchscreen has a paddle/joy-knob in the center console for navigation, and you turn it COUNTERCLOCKWISE to move "forward" and "down" through menus/option lists.
- crooked-v 4y ago
  > The physical interface for turn signals is completely standardized. You might think that, but lots of people complain about how BMWs have different turn signal stalk behavior than other cars.
  - _carbyau_ 4y ago
    In my area, Tesla's too. Particularly after they superSpecialZoom off at the lights and then want to change lanes - into me on my motorbike. Easy enough to dodge but it'd be nice if people didn't simply assume they are alone at the front. I don't.
- red369 4y ago
  >> how many people know how to find out which side of the vehicle the gas tank is on while sitting in the driver's seat? Is there actually a way (apart from pulling a lever to open it and looking in a mirror if it is the type which flips open)? The symbol on the fuel gauge indicating the side of the tank opening is a myth isn’t it? Doesn’t consistently hold true for my car, and people seem to remember the version the does - does the hose indicate the side of the flap or the side the hose needs to be on?
th1s1sit 4y ago
Because unlike airline and medical industry, the auto industry does not have regulation around user experience. Normalized functionality is required by law for air and medical to reduce risk of operator error. The auto industry does not have to consider a confused operator killing someone else. That risk is on the individual driver, not a hospital, airline, or airport.
illiac786 4y ago
My dream: * a row of programmable buttons with LED or lit e-ink screens for software developers to go nuts with =) – and for end users to customise to their preference. * static physical buttons for basic functions (climate control, wipers, cruise control, volume, etc.) And of course a large touchscreen with buttons on the sides as well. ok, ok, it’s probably too expensive… As an option maybe? Let the end users vote with their wallets.
LorenPechtel 4y ago
And put different textures on them so you can easily feel which button you have (so long as you don't have gloves on.)
linkdink 4y ago
This is not a solution. You still have to look at (or listen to???) the screen. But now you also have to find and operate one of several identical input devices that are not colocated. This works for cheap oscilloscopes because you're not simultaneously driving a car. What you're proposing would make the safety issues worse, and probably be unacceptably frustrating for most people.

by titzer 4y ago

snowbrook 4y ago

Just like every gasoline pump I've used in the last decade.

Angostura 4y ago

Put physical buttons and knobs on and allow configuration of the image displayed on the button - like programmable keyboards.

jlkuester7 4y ago

This. %100 this. The airline industry figured this out years ago with some of the cockpit controls. (admittedly there are a lot of other buttons and switches for the pilot to worry about too, but it seems like the digital display panels always are flanked by rows of buttons which were used for interacting with the panel. Works great even with gloves on and does not lock you into a single feature set.

NittLion78 4y ago
I was going to cite the example of the Garmin G1000 glass cockpit. Even moving a cursor around a map requires pushing a physical knob in 360° to guide it.
- FabHK 4y ago
  I wouldn't call the Garmin G1000 a paragon of UX design though. I wish there were some serious competitors that would give the UX another try (like Avidyne), but Garmin seems to be the standard now. Philip Greenspun wrote about some of its problems (back in 2006): > In some ways this makes life more difficult for the pilot. For example, suppose that you are busily trying to fly the airplane and study an approach plate when ATC gives you a new transponder code. With a less integrated system, you know exactly where the buttons are to enter a transponder code and your fingers will find their way there almost automatically. The buttons are always in the same place, i.e., on the physical transponder box, and they never change their function. With the G1000, you find the soft key labeled "xpdr" and press it. Then some more soft keys take on the function of digits. It is clearly a less direct and more time-consuming procedure. Similarly for entering a frequency into COM 2. With a traditional radio stack, you reach over to COM 2, which is probably underneath COM 1 and labeled "COM 2". You twist the knob that is always there and that always adjusts the COM 2 frequency. With the G1000, you study the COM freqencies display (typically four numbers) and figure out which number is surrounded by a box. This is the number that you are going to be changing if you twist the COM knob. If the box isn't surrounding the number you want to change, you have to think long enough to push the COM knob to toggle between "I'm adjusting COM 1" and "I'm adjusting COM 2" modes. > A 1965 Cessna has what computer nerds would call a "modeless interface". Each switch and knob does one thing and it is the same thing all the time. This is a very usable interface, but it doesn't scale up very well, as you can see by looking at the panel of a Boeing 707. Both the Avidyne and the G1000 have some modal elements. Knobs and switches do different things at different times. The G1000 is more deeply modal and therefore, I think, will always be harder to use. https://philip.greenspun.com/flying/avidyne-versus-garmin https://philip.greenspun.com/flying/avidyne-versus-garmin
  - fjni 4y ago
    > I wouldn't call the Garmin G1000 a paragon of UX design though. In some ways I would. I wouldn't call it "intuitive," but once you understand its semantics, it's phenomenally predictable in its behavior. And quite well thought through I think. Here's one of my favorite examples: On the MFD, in an urgent situation, two of the most helpful pages are the "map page," and the "nearest page." These are (unintuitively) the first and last page. Until you realize that that means you can access both without looking which page you're on by spinning the page knob either all the way left or all the way right. It isn't perfect, but I find it generally well thought through. I certainly can't argue with the points about transponder and com1/com2 inputs, but within the parameters for the device, I consider the UX for the G1000 to be ... maybe not a paragon in its entirety, but certainly much more thoughtful than what I encounter in other life daily.
falcrist 4y ago
Lab equipment does the same thing. Decades ago, oscilloscopes started having banks of buttons corresponding to an area of the screen, and knobs that have context sensitive functionality. Those can be placed side by side with buttons that have fixed purposes delineated by printed or debossed lettering. I realize that we're getting pretty far from the automotive use-case, but this style has worked remarkably well over the years, and has made it into all sorts of equipment.
- hammock 4y ago
  Two more examples that everyone ought to be familiar with- ATMs and electronic voting machines
  - Swenrekcah 4y ago
    ATMs in my area have started to ditch the physical buttons. I’ve never seen an electronic voting machine and hope I never will.
    - CommitSyn 4y ago
      When did you last vote? The 2016 election is when I first experienced them. I asked to vote by paper as I wasn't comfortable with electronic voting machines, so they gave me a paper and pen to fill it out, which I was then to feed into the computer.
      - archi42 4y ago
        Not everyone lives in the US ;) Around here we cast votes on paper and then use computer assisted verification & counting.
        Dylan16807 4y ago
        > Not everyone lives in the US ;) I don't see how that affects the comments you're replying to in any meaningful way. They only mentioned a particular election to establish a timeline. > Around here Voting varies wildly between parts of the US too.
albert_e 4y ago
many ATM machines I have seen do this as well -- just a blank set of buttons on either side of the screen
- LeifCarrotson 4y ago
  CNC, robotic, and industrial equipment too: Human-machine interfaces have rows of "Soft keys", buttons whose function changes depending on the context. Many machines used soft keys in the ages before touchscreens were available, but manufacturing is slow to change and even with the advent of multi-touch high-resolution color displays, they've remained. For examples: https://www.fanucamerica.com/images/default-source/cnc-images/cnc-panel-images/0if.jpg https://www.fanucamerica.com/images/default-source/cnc-image... https://www.fanuc.eu/~/media/corporate/products/robots/accessories/400x400/400x400/ipendant-software-screenshot-node-banner.jpg https://www.fanuc.eu/~/media/corporate/products/robots/acces... https://i.imgur.com/3vsHBhl.png https://i.imgur.com/3vsHBhl.png (OK, maybe the AB went a little overboard on the number of function keys...) but these are really effective tools to structure menus and build HMIs.
eterevsky 4y ago
I'm not so sure that's an optimal solution. If you are going to use the display to show the UI, you may as well just use touch interface, as long as it is responsive enough. Physical controls make more sense when they are optimized for ergonomics so that they can be used without looking.
- klyrs 4y ago
  I think the point here is that most people who use the interface a few times will learn the necessary key sequences. This learning can happen with the car at rest, and after that the user can keep their eyes on the road. It's not perfect, as some people have a slower learning rate than others, but it's sure better than a touch screen.
  - marcosdumay 4y ago
    Well, if the control all change in meaning depending on the interface state, you can only memorize sequences if there is a reset somewhere. And those will probably be very cumbersome sequences.
    - klyrs 4y ago
      If there are "back" and/or "home" buttons that's a non-issue. And that's been my experience with oscilloscopes with this kind of interface.
      - marcosdumay 4y ago
        A "home" is a reset. A "back" button won't solve the issue. On a second thought, if the options are hierarchical, the sequence of clicks may not be cumbersome at all. Also, in a car the state can be something really easy to keep track of, like "the car is running", but even then, I'm not sure it's safe to rely on this.
        klyrs 4y ago
        mash "back" long enough and you'll get home... it might not be the best thing, but it works.
singlow 4y ago
Most of the ones I have used allowed you to navigate the UI using physical buttons on the steering wheel. Something similar to a up/down/select/back button group with some other specific buttons for frequent actions.
- nuccy 4y ago
  Yes, buttons on the steering wheel are ones of the most useful ones, though even they become capacitive e.g. in new VW, BMW, Tesla Plaid. I have a VW car with a basic HUD (2015-ish era HUD, where a glass pops up). It can show lane keeping state, adaptive cruise control, current speed, recognized signs and navigation directions. Those features are essential for normal driving, so I don't look at all on the instrument cluster (either dials or the screen). The fact that you don't need to look down and change the focus of the eyes makes a significant difference.
ak217 4y ago
If you look at those MFDs, many also have rotational controls in the corners (some even have two levels of dials, one sitting on top of the other), which are another key way to keep the UI tactile and promote muscle memory. Things like eliminating lag, organizing menus into predictable paths that can easily be committed to muscle memory, and designing buttons and dials that can be used even in high vibration environments, are all key design criteria for these cockpit controls. It's so sad that automotive design refuses to take any lessons from that industry.
- QuercusMax 4y ago
  When using the touchscreen in my old Nissan Leaf, I used to anchor my thumb underneath the display so I could hit controls reliably via muscle memory even when the road was bumpy. Preposterous that we have to do these kinds of hacks when there are much better solutions.
Litost 4y ago
This comment reminds me of this video, where a F-15C fighter pilot breaks down the "Human Interface" in the cockpit where there are over 250 buttons and various other displays including HUD and panels and a button they aren't allowed to press because it requires an engine rebuild afterwards: https://arstechnica.com/features/2020/06/human-interface-come-on-a-tour-of-an-f-15c-fighter-jet-cockpit/ https://arstechnica.com/features/2020/06/human-interface-com... It suggests it was meant to be part of a series but I've not found any other examples????
rpdillon 4y ago
Very common in military systems as well.
NonNefarious 4y ago
That's fine if the controls work without significant lag. Last week I drove a minivan whose blower speed was controlled by a multi-purpose knob, and each speed change took several SECONDS to be affected. Pathetic.

fridek 4y ago

FWIW this is what Audi's MMI does. (Or used to do? My car is old.) The control panel has: * 6-8 buttons for switching between different MMI modes, labeled * 4 universal buttons, function contextual to the current screen * 1 return button * Turn/press controller I can navigate 90% of the menus blindfolded. Despite my older MMI not being a marvel of UX, I can access functions 5 actions deep, while driving, from pure muscle memory.

sithadmin 4y ago
Audi's phased out the entirely physical-button driven interface in favor of touchscreen and trackpad-based inputs. There was a generation in between that also had an odd and extremely large implementation of the legacy combination dial/joystick/button thing.
- titzer 4y ago
  That sucks. Touchscreens have become so cheap (because economies of scale), Audi is probably saving manufacturing cost by not having physical buttons, simply because of the custom design cost of integrating buttons into a PCB and then programming it[1]. Touchscreens might even be cheaper than non-touch screens. They often have higher resolution. Audi is probably transitioning to using software stacks designed to build touch-screen apps instead of buttons and don't want their software devs to even think in that outdated mode of "buttons". It's completely self-serving and chasing the design trends, tripping after Tesla tech woo, not consumer demand. [1] Which is totally ridiculous IMHO, because even with my completely amateur skills, wiring up a few buttons to an embedded chip is NBD.
  - detaro 4y ago
    I doubt design cost is relevant, and software stacks also don't really care. Support for hardware buttons is a very thin layer, and widespread.
- Arrath 4y ago
  I only drove an Audi once, and loved that little joystick thing. It was perfect.

Findecanor 4y ago

BTW, what you are describing has a name: "Soft keys", and had first been developed for use in air plane cockpits. (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_key https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_key>)

SoftTalker 4y ago
Computer keyboards have had them for decades also (PF keys, labeled F1--F12), though I've only really seen them used on mainframe terminals and old DOS programs like WordPerfect.
- _carbyau_ 4y ago
  As you say, not much seems to make deliberate use of them as a constant feature such that you could expect familiarity to be rewarded. So, with the Functions on keyboard they are usually a lucky dip. Soft keys specifically have an intuitively understood relationship - usually through physical placement - with the screen to link them to their purpose. The "softness" is about the keys purpose, as it can change depending on context of the screen. A key without a intuitive link to the patch of screen, is just another F-key...

tablespoon 4y ago

> The solution to that is simple. Put four/five physical buttons down each side of the screen, maybe along the bottom too, and then you can make everything still programmable in software. This, though functions like climate control, audio, and anything needed to operate the car while in motion should still have dedicated buttons. Touchscreens in cars are an abomination. > I have no idea why you absolutely need to put buttons in the middle of the screen to be touched. They don't need to, they're just following the touchscreen all the things UX fad. Turns out capacitive touchscreens were a great fit for cell phones, but that doesn't mean they have a place anywhere else.

vikingerik 4y ago
Why are capacitative touchscreens such a great fit for cell phones? Because the physical size is so limited. You want to use the same physical space for output (screen) and input (buttons). For a car instrument panel, physical size mostly isn't a concern. "Touchscreen all the things" was cargo-culting. Apple made a trillion dollars with touch screens, therefore we should use touch screens too.
- mlyle 4y ago
  There are truly obscure things in cars you don't do often. Changing settings. Programming the radio. Changing a drive mode for specialized off-road use. Getting a report on usage / economy / etc. If an operation is infrequent and doesn't need to be made when driving, burying it in a touchscreen menu sounds great: conserve those physical control surfaces for stuff that matters so you don't have a ridiculous surplus of buttons. You can go and put the majority of functions on touchscreen menu hell. But don't go and put the climate or windshield wipers or even audio modes on touch surfaces, please. :/
  - titzer 4y ago
    > But don't go and put the climate or windshield wipers or even audio modes on touch surfaces, please. :/ I agree with that, but I don't see any added value of a touchscreen for the other things you mention. It could as well be a deep menu that is still accessed with many button presses to drill down into it.

LordKano 4y ago

I think that manufacturers are too busy trying to be the Steve Jobs of cars. They're thinking about making their vehicles look differently than everyone else's instead of thinking about what would work the best?

andrewla 4y ago

General-purpose buttons whose action changes with context are just as bad as touchscreens. The whole point of tactile interfaces is that the buttons and controls have a consistent action regardless of context. A button that sometimes does one thing and sometimes does another depending on what is on the screen is no better than a touchscreen, since it requires active attention to operate.

romwell 4y ago
Well, certainly having some buttons with context dependence is still better than having touch screens. Also, hard no to "just as bad". I have no issue with volume control buttons also being camera triggers on my phone, for example. Details matter.
- andrewla 4y ago
  In the context of operating a vehicle I'm going to stick with "just as bad". When you aren't driving, if you have to set up something (like configure the doors to auto-lock when when you shift into drive or something) then a touchscreen is clearly superior. You can navigate to a menu and read the options and select the appropriate one. But like the camera shutter button, this is a situation where you can afford to pay some attention to the task at hand. While operating a vehicle, if you're trying to turn up the fan on the A/C, then using a button to switch to climate controls, then using a button to switch to fan settings, then clicking the up button three times, is just as bad as a touchscreen, because if you switched to climate but didn't yet switch to fan settings, and you have to put more attention on the road because you're exiting, you've lost context and can no longer know where you are in the navigation with looking and assessing the situation. So dedicated climate controls >>>>>> touchscreen or context-buttons. The difference is close enough to be indistinguishable. If you get a popup saying "there's traffic ahead click here to accept a new route" then dismissing it by jabbing the screen and dismissing by jabbing a button, it's really hard for me to see a lot of air.
  - romwell 4y ago
    Sure, I don't disagree with you here. Climate control should be dedicated buttons. There's a place for middle ground though: sequences of button presses. For instance, keying in 1-3-4 to enable this or that feature (where the buttons are 1 to 5). It can be done purely by touch, but it'd be hard to discover and memorize such sequences without a screen. However, once you discover them, you don't need to look at the screen.

kbenson 4y ago

A central rotating knob or directional jiystick that can be pressed is also fairly intuitive. I fortunately they've futzed that one up often too by making it rotate and a directional pad (such as in Honda Odysseys, at least circa 2017), where you can rotate and also tilt the knob left or right, and I can never remember whether a particular menu section wants one or the other to change selections. To the automakers, when two controls have overlapping things they're good at doing, maybe pick the one that fits best and just include that, but at a bare minimum make sure they are always used consistently and clearly, please.

mywacaday 4y ago

Audi have had this for years, dial with four buttons around it down by the handbreak so you don't have to reach up. Also some industrial pick and place machines work this way, I used to operate them over 20 years ago and the speed you could navigate through the screens once you built a bit of muscle memory beats any touch screen.

mulmen 4y ago
Well, "beats a touch screen on input" isn't really a bar as much as a line on the floor. Another comment claims Audi no longer uses this system and went to touch as well.
- mywacaday 4y ago
  Could well be, my car is over 10 years old.

macspoofing 4y ago

>The solution to that is simple. Put four/five physical buttons down each side of the screen, maybe along the bottom too Absolutely. It's why smart-phones and tablets (the ultimate 'touch' devices) still put some physical buttons (power, volume control). A well designed UI, complemented with physical input (buttons or knobs) is best.

notriddle 4y ago
Dedicated, single-purpose buttons that work all the time are clearly superior to touch screens. That's why even smartphones have them. Context-sensitive buttons are less awesome. They might be superior, if you memorize the combination, but they're decidedly inferior to touchscreens for the long tail of infrequently used features. The study linked here focused on "simple" tasks, and the top performing cars probably have dedicated buttons for everything measured. The story would likely be very different for context sensitive buttons, and subjective reporting would likely be unreliable, if studies on the speed of mousing vs keyboarding are anything to go on [1]. [1]: https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/30682/are-there-any-recent-studies-of-the-keyboard-vs-mouse-issue https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/30682/are-there-any-r...

mfer 4y ago

> With a decent response time and hierarchical menus, it's easy to make a system that is navigable without looking. There is a difference between working with a touch screen where you can focus on it and using a touch screen where you need to focus elsewhere (like the road). There is also a difference between something like a plane where you have a great distance from other moving objects most of the time and a car where you are regularly around other cars. My wife has a slightly older car with no touchscreen. We can operate it by feel. Without ever needing to take our eyes or focus off the wheel. My car has a touch screen. I can't operate that by feel. Constant glances are required. These are different experiences. Looking at the situational environment is important when creating a good user experience. I wish I could buy a car with more physical buttons. Would make the whole car driving experience more usable with me as a less distracted driver.

ak217 4y ago
Those same systems are used in jet fighters and ground attack planes where they (along with a HUD - another thing now available in cars) are used to support split second decisions. Having tactile, easily memorized controls with screens is a solved problem in the avionics industry. It's just that car makers refuse to learn any lessons from them.

mbjorkegren 4y ago

Encoders are great for this too. Music hardware often uses mappable encoders with LED rings to indicate the current value, and/or with the screen showing what the encoder is controlling. https://www.ableton.com/en/products/controllers/apc40mkii/track-device-control/ https://www.ableton.com/en/products/controllers/apc40mkii/tr... https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/keyboards/komplete-kontrol-s49-s61/ https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/keyb...

digitallyfree 4y ago
Even for buttons I've seen small matrix displays beside the button (or even underneath its plastic shell) acting as the label and indicator. This prevents the need of having the programmable buttons next to the screen, but at increased cost.
Nav_Panel 4y ago
Yep -- my favorite version of this is in the Ensoniq ESQ-1. 1980s box that helped pioneer the use of digital readouts in synths. Digital readouts eventually became terrible in synths because of "menu diving" (look into the Yamaha TG-33 for an awful example). But the ESQ-1 had a few cool features to keep editing simple: 1. The entire page hierarchy was only one level deep. You had 10 buttons that select a parameter, and a single data entry slider. So, with two hands, you could very rapidly manipulate parameters. I believe the Yamaha DX7 also had this, but what made the ESQ-1 cool was that the button usages were listed right on the digital readout next to the buttons themselves, rather than off to the side and hard-coded to the parameter. So it was like hitting a hardware button that could automatically remap. 2. Again unlike the DX7, there was no button-press needed to "edit" -- you just hit the button and moved the slider. It felt very natural to use even though it was technically a digital parameter being editing. If you needed additional editing power, you could still hunt for the other buttons outside of the 10 "screen" buttons. I had one about 5 years ago, and swapped it for a JP-8000. I regret it. Very cool synth, very innovative UX.
wildrhythms 4y ago
I have a Roland FANTOM keyboard which has a touchscreen UI, however it also has a row of knobs and buttons that offer an alternate control surface without having to touch the screen. It's so much better.

kawfey 4y ago

They really should. Even commercial and fighter aircraft -- which have human-interface requirements of incredible depth and complexity -- are transitioning to large touchscreen displays. ALL of which require physical boundary buttons and knobs as a redundancy for touchscreen controls. In fact, controlling the screens via buttons are the preference for many pilots since accurately fiddling with touchscreens during turbulence, pulling Gs, evading missiles, while being task-saturated etc is very hard to do, but doing the same with physical buttons is far more reliable. Button-pushing tasks can be performed from memory in the blind (or while not looking) (a.k.a. "memory items"). There's always been a dichotomy in human-machine interfaces between airplane customers (airlines, charters, governments, and militaries) vs. their own pilots. Airplane builders have to keep up appearances and look cool by putting in putting in flashy, futuristic features like big screens and AI, and ditching old button-laden displays and the "old way of doing things." It too often disregards the needs and wants of pilots and "human factors" engineers. Fortunately, safety comes first, so the buttons and redundancy must stay.

_nalply 4y ago

> even by a blind passenger but not by a deaf driver

ChikkaChiChi 4y ago

Is there a standard for this or any defaults in an OS for this? In the past, I've been monumentally frustrated by the inability to bind inputs to non standard keys. I've tried building out several projects like this, and using HID keyboard as standard, you are relegated to ANSI keystrokes or combos that a user/os wouldn't need, or third party drivers that come with their own headaches. Another option is a video game controller. I never understood why we can have a billion emojis but adding some additional unused input mappings is a bridge too far.

Kye 4y ago

More to the point: the missing physical buttons that really grind people's gears are gimmes. You need some way to control the heating and air. Some way to control audio. Some way to control safety stuff like wipers and signals. These have been around as long as the things they control. Decades! It is known. This is the way. Give those physical buttons and 99.999% of complaints vaporize, and people are happy. Apply your idea for stuff that's up in the air. Boom. Done.

cjohnson318 4y ago

Absolutely. I have a 2016 Outback with a touchscreen that I can't see in sunlight about 90% of the time. I can, however, see the smudge on the screen where I press play for audiobooks. (Plugging a phone in pauses the audiobook.) I'd love more physical buttons because, and this may come as a shock, usually when I need to use these darn things, I'm driving.

djaychela 4y ago

Exactly. Back in the hardware days of music technology, I had an Akai S2000 Sampler. I could navigate the most commonly used functions by touch alone, using actual buttons - even with complex menus. With simple menus (or a custom setup of your own), the common things could be on buttons, instead of taking your concentration off the road.

pavon 4y ago

That's not a panacea. My Honda CRV has buttons along the side of the screen, and after seven years of owning it, I still have to look at the screen to do anything.

mnot 4y ago

Like the Apple Touch Bar. The problem is that it’s contextual, so you still have to look to it you can trust that a hardwired button won’t change purpose; that’s the important property here.

thwarted 4y ago

Another solution is to not make every make and model have a completely custom dashboard interface. The physical interface for turn signals is completely standardized. The physical interface for windshield wipers is about 95% standardized (I wish we would finally decide on if the short bar or the long long bar indicates frequency of activation or delay between activations). The physical interface for the radio is mostly standardized, at least the icons on the buttons are well defined and understood. It just gets worse from there. The climate controls look standardized, and often have well-established icons and coloring, but not standard positioning. Then again, even things that are standardized, people can't fully grok: how many people know how to find out which side of the vehicle the gas tank is on while sitting in the driver's seat? It's so goofy, the Mini I drive regularly is infuriating because the touchscreen has a paddle/joy-knob in the center console for navigation, and you turn it COUNTERCLOCKWISE to move "forward" and "down" through menus/option lists.

crooked-v 4y ago
> The physical interface for turn signals is completely standardized. You might think that, but lots of people complain about how BMWs have different turn signal stalk behavior than other cars.
- _carbyau_ 4y ago
  In my area, Tesla's too. Particularly after they superSpecialZoom off at the lights and then want to change lanes - into me on my motorbike. Easy enough to dodge but it'd be nice if people didn't simply assume they are alone at the front. I don't.
red369 4y ago
>> how many people know how to find out which side of the vehicle the gas tank is on while sitting in the driver's seat? Is there actually a way (apart from pulling a lever to open it and looking in a mirror if it is the type which flips open)? The symbol on the fuel gauge indicating the side of the tank opening is a myth isn’t it? Doesn’t consistently hold true for my car, and people seem to remember the version the does - does the hose indicate the side of the flap or the side the hose needs to be on?

th1s1sit 4y ago

Because unlike airline and medical industry, the auto industry does not have regulation around user experience. Normalized functionality is required by law for air and medical to reduce risk of operator error. The auto industry does not have to consider a confused operator killing someone else. That risk is on the individual driver, not a hospital, airline, or airport.

illiac786 4y ago

My dream: * a row of programmable buttons with LED or lit e-ink screens for software developers to go nuts with =) – and for end users to customise to their preference. * static physical buttons for basic functions (climate control, wipers, cruise control, volume, etc.) And of course a large touchscreen with buttons on the sides as well. ok, ok, it’s probably too expensive… As an option maybe? Let the end users vote with their wallets.

LorenPechtel 4y ago

And put different textures on them so you can easily feel which button you have (so long as you don't have gloves on.)

linkdink 4y ago

This is not a solution. You still have to look at (or listen to???) the screen. But now you also have to find and operate one of several identical input devices that are not colocated. This works for cheap oscilloscopes because you're not simultaneously driving a car. What you're proposing would make the safety issues worse, and probably be unacceptably frustrating for most people.