7 ms·

Physical buttons outperform touchscreens in new cars, test finds (2022)

112 points by zdw 4y ago

moistofreason 4y ago
I’ll take unsurprising headlines for $200 Alex
mace01 4y ago
All User Input Equals Error
hlieberman 4y ago
Is anyone even a little bit surprised by this? I _hate_ touchscreen controls in a car. At their very best, they're an annoying cost savings measure; in many circumstances, they're actively dangerous.
- danielvaughn 4y ago
  The safety thing is what boggles my mind. How on earth did anyone think this is a good idea.
  - monksy 4y ago
    Moron product owners that want to look progressive and pad their resume.(They do this with bad/needless innovation to sell more product)
  - MrVandemar 4y ago
    Because it looks cool on Star Trek probably ...
- x3n0ph3n3 4y ago
  It's actually the biggest reason I won't buy a Tesla.
  - Brian_K_White 4y ago
    Same for me wrt Rivian. Well that and the reality of charging stations. But I really wanted the suv until I saw the first video of one's cabin. It takes the idea to an utterly obnoxious level.
- msikora 4y ago
  Honestly I hate touch controls just about anywhere. On a smartphone they make sense. But for example I bought a set of BT earbuds with a physical button and it is so much superior (that said, didn't try the Apple earpods yet, maybe that would make me change my mind, they just seem so expensive and I'm not in the iPhone ecosystem anyways). Also just got an M1 MacBook Pro and definitely. don't miss the touch bar! Touch controls on everything are so 2010s...
  - kanzure 4y ago
    > Honestly I hate touch controls just about anywhere. On a smartphone they make sense. https://store.planetcom.co.uk/products/astro-slide https://store.planetcom.co.uk/products/astro-slide
    - rrrrrrrrrrrryan 4y ago
      Never thought I'd see keyboard flip phones come back at a $1000+ price point. That said, I still don't think touch phones have reached the ergonomics of typing an email on a BlackBerry. Like a PC, you could write long sentences (including shit that isn't in autocorrect), without even looking at the screen.
    - Brian_K_White 4y ago
      Still waiting for my fxtec to ship after 2 years and a redesign after the fact to use an even older soc than what I signed up for. If I ever get the thing it will have a 4 or 5 year old soc the day I get it. And a keyboard.
twelvechairs 4y ago
I don't know how this isn't outwardly obvious. When you are looking at the road, you rely on your sense of touch and physical buttons provide so much more feedback here than a touchscreen.
r00fus 4y ago
I'd love for car companies to actually respond to this and the frustration that e.g. Tesla owners express about touchscreens to do everything. I don't mind the infotainment being touchscreen, but climate control and driving operations (Tesla Yoke!!) should have a physical feedback (haptic/etc) loop - all of which is solved problem using physical controls. It's not like they're going to suddenly add a new turn direction so need to make that part dynamic.
- TheSpiceIsLife 4y ago
  Attached a two axis CNC machine to the Tesla touchscreen, with a pad attached to a solenoid. Attach physical buttons to various parts of the interior within reach of the driver. Use some popular hardware + software stack to map the buttons to x,y coordinates on the CNC machine. Publish to YouTube etc. Bask in the glory.
- Brian_K_White 4y ago
  "It's not like they're going to suddenly add a new turn direction so need to make that part dynamic." omg thank you
eptcyka 4y ago
I wonder if the people that end up making decisions about introducing touch controls in cars even drive themselves. Or if they're at all interested in driving a car.
- acchow 4y ago
  I think they’re just using and testing the touchscreen UI while the vehicle is lagged parked
0xC0ncord 4y ago
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32494497 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32494497
LarryMullins 4y ago
This seems obvious to me, but it's still useful to have such research performed because there's a lot of gadgetphiles out there who can't or won't think clearly about it. I can feel physical buttons without taking my eyes off the road. With a touch screen if I want to do the same, I'm forced to reference my fingers off the bezel of the screen, if my hand can even span it, hoping the button is the same place it was before and hoping the software running the display is even in the right mode so the button is there at all. It's a no brainer that physical buttons are easier to use.
- frosted-flakes 4y ago
  > is even in the right mode so the button is there at all. This is actually really important, and it's something that even physical button-based systems can get wrong. Modal interfaces require careful thought because they change things out from under the user, making them unpredictable. Obviously, not all modal interfaces are bad (nobody would suggest that forward and reverse shouldn't use the same accelerator pedal), but in cars, most of them are terrible. It's why those old radios with 15 buttons and 7 dials are a cinch to use, but the newer radios that hide everything behind menus are terrible. Even something as simple as bass/mid/treble/balance/fader/volume/tuner are an absolute pain to use when you have to click a button to switch between modes, and those features might as well not exist due to how hard they are to operate. I've tried tweaking them while driving in some newer cars and it's always a terrible experience, but my current 20-year-old car has 7 separate dials for those functions, and I twiddle them all the time without even thinking about it.
- tzs 4y ago
  > This seems obvious to me, but it's still useful to have such research performed because there's a lot of gadgetphiles out there who can't or won't think clearly about it. When it comes to UI things that seem obvious sometimes turn out wrong so it is a good idea to do the research. Two examples, both from research I read of long before everything was on the internet so have no chance of tracking down citations. First involved a system with a command line interface. It was found that adding delay to some of the faster commands to slow them down made users perceive the overall system as being faster!? Apparently we aren't all that good at actually telling how long things take without actually measuring them. We instead judge fastness and slowness by how things compare to each other. We seem to notice slowness a lot more than fastness. If most commands are about the same time but a few are noticeably faster then we think of most commands as slow and that bothers us. If all the commands take about the same time, we don't perceive any as fast or slow. It just all seems normal and doesn't bother us. The second involved menus vs. keyboard shortcuts. Pretty much everyone feels that using a keyboard shortcut is faster than using a mouse to select a command from a menu. But in the system and users they tested they found it was around the same speed. Everyone tested was sure they were much slower with the mouse. Apparently what was going on here was that to do a command you have to first remember what you have to do to actually invoke the command and then you have to do that. With the menu those two tasks are (1) remember where the menu is you need and where the command is within that menu, and then (2) the moves and clicks to actually get the mouse to that menu item and click it. With the keyboard shortcut those two tasks are (1) remember what key combination invokes the commands, and then (2) pressing those keys. The second part was faster for the keyboard shortcut, but the first part was faster for the menu (my speculation is that because the menus are at specific locations that you have to move the mouse to we remember them spatially but keyboard shortcuts have to be remembered like a list of words, and humans are really good at the spatial memory stuff). The subjects still perceived the keyboard as way faster because the first part, recalling what you need to physically do, is mostly subconscious. They only really consciously perceived the part where they are actually doing the mouse stuff or doing the key pressing and since that part was faster for the keyboard they perceived the keyboard as faster. Note that these results might not generalize beyond the system and users they tested. I remember doing my own test and I found for the commands I tested with I was definitely faster both by the clock and by perception on the keyboard, but I was testing with commands that I used a lot. (I used cut/copy/paste). I can believe the result might have been different with more rarely used commands especially in a system with a large number of commands.
CSMastermind 4y ago
> Vi Bilägare gathered eleven modern cars from different manufacturers at an airfield och measured the time needed for a driver to perform different simple tasks, such as changing the radio station or adjusting the climate control. Not sure about your car but mine has physical buttons for the actions they're talking about. In fact I can increase/decrease my radio volume and seek via buttons on the back of my steering wheel so I never have to take my hands off the wheel. The touchscreen is useful for things like switching between apps, entering things into the GPS, etc. The alternative to that isn't buttons, it's looking at my phone. My biggest complaint, at least about Android Auto is that it tries to force voice commands. The voice interface is horrendous, just let me or my passenger use the touchscreen.
- LarryMullins 4y ago
  If you want to use an app, you should pull over to the side of the road.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Pulling over is often not very practical or especially safe itself. One of my frustrations that voice assistants in cars are still not often that great.
  - godelski 4y ago
    You're probably right, but who's going to actually do that? Especially for a 5 second task. Plus, are we going to do that when there is a passenger who can control the phone without endangering anyone? The notion of pulling over is sane from a logical point of view but absurd from a human point of view. You can be right and wrong at the same time, this is one of those times. We have to consider how humans will actually act, not what they should do. Make the right decisions easy to do and make the wrong decisions as safe as possible.
    - LarryMullins 4y ago
      > You're probably right, but who's going to actually do that? I do, every single time. I place my phone screen-side down in the space in front of my gear shift, under the dash, and I don't even touch it if the car isn't in park. I never look at the screen for GPS or anything when I'm driving. I rely on memorizing the route before I drive, and TTS announcements for upcoming turns. If the phone notifies me of an incoming call or text, I pull over before checking it. I don't think this is unreasonable. If you've been driving for 20 years or so already, then surely you know what it's like to drive like this. What it's like to drive without interacting with a screen, without GPS at all in fact. We had these things called road atlases, big books containing maps for every road in the state, and using one while actively driving was tantamount to suicide. Somehow we all still got where we wanted to go.
ben0x539 4y ago
Yeah sure y'all no one is surprised by this, but it's still good to have studies you can wave in people's faces when they disagree with you.
Izikiel43 4y ago
Mazda is right
- ak217 4y ago
  Yes, but they need to get their EV game on. They're behind.
  - Izikiel43 4y ago
    I agree, an electric CX5/CX50/CX60 would be ideal
29athrowaway 4y ago
Pieces of broken glass sound like a poor addition to a car accident.
numbsafari 4y ago
Shining a bright display in the drivers face and forcing them to reach out blindly is a bad idea? Who would have guessed? I hate the current state of vehicle interiors. All leather. Too much light. Not enough physicality.
- RajT88 4y ago
  I rented an early model Prius once, and this was my biggest gripe. So bright it reduced my low light vision.
jeremy_wiebe 4y ago
Here in BC there are very strict distracted driving laws. You can get a ticket even if you are sitting stopped at a stop light and you do something on your phone. I fail to see how this is _any_ different than interacting with screens on so many of these newer cars.
malshe 4y ago
And in related news water is wet
- readthenotes1 4y ago
  and housing in the flood plain is still being sold as water-front property
anyfoo 4y ago
I'm glad this testing is happening, even if my (like apparently a lot of people's) initial reaction was along the lines of "duh, no shit sherlock, way to state the obvious". Tests that confirm in general what people were suspecting, or knowing to be true for themselves, are a great stepping stone in hopefully helping manufacturing to stop doing this terribleness.
- cryptonector 4y ago
  Sure, but the testing needed to have been done before touchscreens were added to cars, not after, not many years after.
- calvinmorrison 4y ago
  Saab always viewed ergonomics as critical to driver safety. In what world is a hazard button 3 menu levels deep a sane choice?
  - lillecarl 4y ago
    SAAB was ahead of their time, I believe they would be successful if they survived until 2020.
    - calvinmorrison 4y ago
      I love saab. I don't think they had a chance. There's no room to be different in today's car economy.
      - lillecarl 4y ago
        A SAAB (It's SAAB, Svenska Aeroplan/Automobile AB) 95 wouldn't be too different from a car of today though, with superb ride quality, turbocharger, proper deformation zones, extra reinforced A-pillars (moose protection), automatic angle adjustment of front lights (when loading heavy in the trunk), FWD. These are things on top of my head that no "regular" car (that'd be Volvo, I'm Swedish) had at that time (many cheaper cars still don't) that "most" cars has today. My father rides one, and the only different things I'd say are where the key and the window buttons are located, the rest is just like any car you'd buy today, except it's 15-20 years old. "It's a human right to feel safe"! EDIT: What I'm saying is, back then people couldn't afford luxury cars, but that market has boomed since SAAB went out. Volvo used to be "the workers car" in Sweden (still is I guess), but they went from being "cheap and reliable" to expensive and like everything else.
the_black_hand 4y ago
In other news, water is wet. My guess is manufacturers are so drawn towards touchscreens cause they can change things with software updates. From a user POV it's pretty obvious that physical buttons are better.
- moistofreason 4y ago
  It’s a cost thing. Lowering BOM part count is a huge way to lower service and manufacturing cost.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  The easy fix for this would be to regulate that touch screens must be locked while the car is in motion. Advanced functionality which requires a touch screen can be used while the car is stationary.
  - notyourwork 4y ago
    I would literally not buy a car with this functionality. It is beyond irksome for my passenger to not be able to type on a touch screen while the car is in motion.
    - tomrod 4y ago
      Tie it to a weight sensor in the passenger front seat.
      - helf 4y ago
        Then you just stick a heavy object on the seat to trip it.
    - fumeux_fume 4y ago
      Some new cars already do this. It's awful.
    - Gigachad 4y ago
      This has been the case for some functions for a while. A 2010 car my parents have will not let you enter the settings to do things like pair bluetooth while the car is moving.
boc 4y ago
I have the means to buy a much newer car, but I love my old GX470 specifically because it's the last generation of SUV that has a clear gauge cluster, physical dials for everything, a nice sound system + 6 disc changer without the associated garbage infotainment system, and great driver visibility.[1] Almost every new car I've been in recently feels worse - much worse visibility, weird distracting visual elements on the dash/cluster, touchscreens, etc. I feel like I'm going to just try and keep my GX running forever. Already have 260K miles and still runs like new. [1] https://consumerguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/04806091990004.jpg https://consumerguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/0480609...
- schwartzworld 4y ago
  This is how i feel about my xterra. I can work all the audio controls without looking. Contrast with my wife's crv: changing the "fader" requires clicking through 3 different touch menus.
  - twisteriffic 4y ago
    The 2.1 generation CR-V (2005-2006) was the best car Honda ever made. Physical buttons, switches and levers for everything. Bulletproof engine and manual gearbox. Dead simple to work on, aside from unfortunate oil filter placement. Reasonable fuel economy. Side swing hatch door. Built in picnic table. 6 disc changer with a tape deck.
    - antisthenes 4y ago
      I understand the nostalgia for physical buttons, but tape decks and cd changers should go the way of the dodo, and it's baffling to even see them mentioned as an advantage? My car had a CD player that constantly damaged discs that were playing when hitting road bumps, which rendered most CDs unusable within a year. Couldn't have been happier to get a car with a USB port and a bluetooth connection to let me play a library 1000x as what would fit on 6 cds.
      - 4y ago
mabbo 4y ago
I had to pick between the Tesla Model Y and the Ioniq 5, and the user experience of having real physical controls was a major factor in why I decided against the Model Y. It's a fun car, but it felt like I wasn't able to do anything. At the end of the test drive, it took me 5 minutes to figure out how to turn the car off. I just sat there in the parking spot searching through the controls before finally giving up and opening the door- which turned the car off. The preorder wait is three times longer for the Ioniq 5, but I think it's worth the wait.
- calvinmorrison 4y ago
  Had an emergency situation where I had to drive a friend to the hospital. It took like 45 seconds to figure out how to turn the car on and get it in drive... yikes
  - calaei 4y ago
    It would be nice if controls were required by law to be the same "UI" in all cars. e.g. shifter is the same in all cars, turn signals, wipers, etc all the things that distract us when driving. Another pet peeve is microwaves. It takes me a minute to figure out everyone's microwave since none have the same UI. Every microwave designer thinks they know better!
    - calvinmorrison 4y ago
      The most fun cars are the early ones. Nobody had any idea what to do so there were many many different approaches. Gas pedals? Ridiculous when you could have a knob!
      - erik_seaberg 4y ago
        As Stephenson put it, > It’s no longer acceptable for engineers to invent a wholly novel user interface for every new product, as they did in the case of the automobile, partly because it’s too expensive and partly because ordinary people can only learn so much. If the VCR had been invented a hundred years ago, it would have come with a thumbwheel to adjust the tracking and a gearshift to change between forward and reverse and a big cast-iron handle to load or to eject the cassettes.
Philip-J-Fry 4y ago
I want a nice big clear infotainment display for Android Auto/Apple CarPlay, this can be touch screen. But that's it, that's where it ends. Navigating Google Maps, inputting destinations, selecting Spotify tracks, etc. all work fine on a touch screen. And once I'm driving, I rarely need to touch them. But just give me physical climate controls, physical stalks, physical gear selector and all that. There's absolutely no reason to make any of this controlled through a touch screen. It's literally dangerous in my eyes, you use this stuff all the time.
NotYourLawyer 4y ago
“Yeah, no shit.” - everyone who has ever driven a car
helf 4y ago
“No Shit.”
trynewideas 4y ago
Oddly, the No. 2 (Dacia Sandero) and No. 3 (Volvo C40) performers both have touchscreens.
kevinsundar 4y ago
Yep this is why I bought a Mazda. I love the clean look of a touchscreen but man the physical buttons in the Mazda are so well designed that they're quick to use, look elegant, and don't give off a cluttered feel at all. Can't wait till they get in the EV game.
jonathanberger 4y ago
One of my favorite parts from pg's What You Can't Say is The Conformist Test: > Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers? Here's one of my answers if I think of HN readers as peers: Tesla made the right decision by making most of their controls touchscreen-only. HN guidelines suggest comments should get more thoughtful and substantive as a topic gets more divisive. If you disagree with me but acknowledge thought or substance in my comment I'd love to hear why instead of garnering a downvote. The reason I believe Tesla made the right decision is that the physical buttons on the steering wheel and stalks cover the common cases. They've made many things automatic: lights, wipers, garage door, seat heaters (edit: lights and wipers also have physical buttons). Things that aren't buttons and aren't automatic voice handles well (e.g. "set climate to 72"). And finally, and I realize most controversially, while it's still important to monitor Autopilot the technology is already to the point where it's safe in the right conditions to take your eyes off the road for some number of seconds at at time.
- Thorentis 4y ago
  > Things that aren't covered they've made automatic: lights, wipers, garage door, seat heaters. Things that aren't buttons and aren't automatic voice handles well (ex. "set climate to 72"). This is my problem with this argument. I want a good alternative for when voice or automated features go wrong (as they so often do). I don't want the fall back to be a shitty touchscreen. I want the fall back to be something that is safe to use when driving.
  - jonathanberger 4y ago
    Do you mind if I ask if the car you most interact with has touch or physical controls?
- NotYourLawyer 4y ago
  How do you feel about the lack of a physical latch to open the glove compartment? I just LOVE having to go through a fucking menu tree to accomplish a task that’s been effortless and discoverable for the last N decades.
delta_p_delta_x 4y ago
I wish the European makes did not go the Tesla route. BMW iDrive 8 is a noticeable UX downgrade compared to iDrive 7 (which is honestly the nicest infotainment system so far), despite the bigger display. I have no words for Mercedes-Benz's abomination in the EQS and the new S-class. Audi MMI is nice, but touch controls for HVAC is a bad idea.
dathinab 4y ago
Also: Long term UX studies know this since even before the touch scree was invented making the designers behind Tesla touchscreen UX look like fools. (even through they probably are not). EDIT: Digital displays can be nice for rarely used, non safety relevant, never used during driving features. Especially if combined with a menu search.
kderbyma 4y ago
'Obvious common sense proves to be in fact common sense....who da thunk?
jay_kyburz 4y ago
I'd love to setup a car UI with cherry blue switches throughout.
abledon 4y ago
Can't someone 3d-print a 'mold' that you put over your Tesla's screen to give you limited functionality, but provide a rubber/membrane physical interface
larkinrichards 4y ago
Touchscreen designs can be fast. I'd still prefer physical controls because of tactile recognition -- you can find the control without looking, but I ended up choosing a new Volvo over other makes partially because I prefer the simplicity of the interface.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bityard 4y ago
My dream is that some day, some government mandates knobs and sliders for all HVAC controls for safety reasons. These are far more intuitive and safer to operate than buttons because once you know where they are, you don't have to take your eyes off the road. My Prius has nothing but a grid a buttons for all the HVAC controls and I hate it.
cirrus3 4y ago
I hope this trend will die off soon. Touchscreens have are neat and have a place, but nothing beats a nice feeling button in just the right spot for common use cases. Car reviewers have been complaining about this for years so it seem like either I/we are crazy and _most_ people actually like screens for everything, or that the pipeline for implementation of controls is sooo long in duration that manufacturers haven't caught up to the feedback from like-minded users.
Brian_K_White 4y ago
Phase 3 initiated, begin "discovering" that touch screens are bad. I'm not sure how many or what all the steps along the way are but the end is Alexa in a conveyance subscription pod you can't own, modify, or drive.
mbirth 4y ago
They could've noticed that with the GM/Chevy Volt aka. Opel/Vauxhall Ampera already. That thing has lots of identical touch-sensitive buttons with small text labels (no symbols, no colour coding) arranged in a grid. Photo: http://www.canadianautoreview.ca/images/car_photos/2014-Chevrolet-Volt/normal/chevrolet-volt-dashboard.jpg http://www.canadianautoreview.ca/images/car_photos/2014-Chev... So finding the correct button blindly is similarly impossible as with a touchscreen. Great to wipe clean, though.

112 points by zdw 4y ago

moistofreason 4y ago

I’ll take unsurprising headlines for $200 Alex

mace01 4y ago

All User Input Equals Error

hlieberman 4y ago

Is anyone even a little bit surprised by this? I _hate_ touchscreen controls in a car. At their very best, they're an annoying cost savings measure; in many circumstances, they're actively dangerous.

danielvaughn 4y ago
The safety thing is what boggles my mind. How on earth did anyone think this is a good idea.
- monksy 4y ago
  Moron product owners that want to look progressive and pad their resume.(They do this with bad/needless innovation to sell more product)
- MrVandemar 4y ago
  Because it looks cool on Star Trek probably ...
x3n0ph3n3 4y ago
It's actually the biggest reason I won't buy a Tesla.
- Brian_K_White 4y ago
  Same for me wrt Rivian. Well that and the reality of charging stations. But I really wanted the suv until I saw the first video of one's cabin. It takes the idea to an utterly obnoxious level.
msikora 4y ago
Honestly I hate touch controls just about anywhere. On a smartphone they make sense. But for example I bought a set of BT earbuds with a physical button and it is so much superior (that said, didn't try the Apple earpods yet, maybe that would make me change my mind, they just seem so expensive and I'm not in the iPhone ecosystem anyways). Also just got an M1 MacBook Pro and definitely. don't miss the touch bar! Touch controls on everything are so 2010s...
- kanzure 4y ago
  > Honestly I hate touch controls just about anywhere. On a smartphone they make sense. https://store.planetcom.co.uk/products/astro-slide https://store.planetcom.co.uk/products/astro-slide
  - rrrrrrrrrrrryan 4y ago
    Never thought I'd see keyboard flip phones come back at a $1000+ price point. That said, I still don't think touch phones have reached the ergonomics of typing an email on a BlackBerry. Like a PC, you could write long sentences (including shit that isn't in autocorrect), without even looking at the screen.
  - Brian_K_White 4y ago
    Still waiting for my fxtec to ship after 2 years and a redesign after the fact to use an even older soc than what I signed up for. If I ever get the thing it will have a 4 or 5 year old soc the day I get it. And a keyboard.

twelvechairs 4y ago

I don't know how this isn't outwardly obvious. When you are looking at the road, you rely on your sense of touch and physical buttons provide so much more feedback here than a touchscreen.

r00fus 4y ago

I'd love for car companies to actually respond to this and the frustration that e.g. Tesla owners express about touchscreens to do everything. I don't mind the infotainment being touchscreen, but climate control and driving operations (Tesla Yoke!!) should have a physical feedback (haptic/etc) loop - all of which is solved problem using physical controls. It's not like they're going to suddenly add a new turn direction so need to make that part dynamic.

TheSpiceIsLife 4y ago
Attached a two axis CNC machine to the Tesla touchscreen, with a pad attached to a solenoid. Attach physical buttons to various parts of the interior within reach of the driver. Use some popular hardware + software stack to map the buttons to x,y coordinates on the CNC machine. Publish to YouTube etc. Bask in the glory.
Brian_K_White 4y ago
"It's not like they're going to suddenly add a new turn direction so need to make that part dynamic." omg thank you

eptcyka 4y ago

I wonder if the people that end up making decisions about introducing touch controls in cars even drive themselves. Or if they're at all interested in driving a car.

acchow 4y ago
I think they’re just using and testing the touchscreen UI while the vehicle is lagged parked

0xC0ncord 4y ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32494497 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32494497

LarryMullins 4y ago

This seems obvious to me, but it's still useful to have such research performed because there's a lot of gadgetphiles out there who can't or won't think clearly about it. I can feel physical buttons without taking my eyes off the road. With a touch screen if I want to do the same, I'm forced to reference my fingers off the bezel of the screen, if my hand can even span it, hoping the button is the same place it was before and hoping the software running the display is even in the right mode so the button is there at all. It's a no brainer that physical buttons are easier to use.

frosted-flakes 4y ago
> is even in the right mode so the button is there at all. This is actually really important, and it's something that even physical button-based systems can get wrong. Modal interfaces require careful thought because they change things out from under the user, making them unpredictable. Obviously, not all modal interfaces are bad (nobody would suggest that forward and reverse shouldn't use the same accelerator pedal), but in cars, most of them are terrible. It's why those old radios with 15 buttons and 7 dials are a cinch to use, but the newer radios that hide everything behind menus are terrible. Even something as simple as bass/mid/treble/balance/fader/volume/tuner are an absolute pain to use when you have to click a button to switch between modes, and those features might as well not exist due to how hard they are to operate. I've tried tweaking them while driving in some newer cars and it's always a terrible experience, but my current 20-year-old car has 7 separate dials for those functions, and I twiddle them all the time without even thinking about it.
tzs 4y ago
> This seems obvious to me, but it's still useful to have such research performed because there's a lot of gadgetphiles out there who can't or won't think clearly about it. When it comes to UI things that seem obvious sometimes turn out wrong so it is a good idea to do the research. Two examples, both from research I read of long before everything was on the internet so have no chance of tracking down citations. First involved a system with a command line interface. It was found that adding delay to some of the faster commands to slow them down made users perceive the overall system as being faster!? Apparently we aren't all that good at actually telling how long things take without actually measuring them. We instead judge fastness and slowness by how things compare to each other. We seem to notice slowness a lot more than fastness. If most commands are about the same time but a few are noticeably faster then we think of most commands as slow and that bothers us. If all the commands take about the same time, we don't perceive any as fast or slow. It just all seems normal and doesn't bother us. The second involved menus vs. keyboard shortcuts. Pretty much everyone feels that using a keyboard shortcut is faster than using a mouse to select a command from a menu. But in the system and users they tested they found it was around the same speed. Everyone tested was sure they were much slower with the mouse. Apparently what was going on here was that to do a command you have to first remember what you have to do to actually invoke the command and then you have to do that. With the menu those two tasks are (1) remember where the menu is you need and where the command is within that menu, and then (2) the moves and clicks to actually get the mouse to that menu item and click it. With the keyboard shortcut those two tasks are (1) remember what key combination invokes the commands, and then (2) pressing those keys. The second part was faster for the keyboard shortcut, but the first part was faster for the menu (my speculation is that because the menus are at specific locations that you have to move the mouse to we remember them spatially but keyboard shortcuts have to be remembered like a list of words, and humans are really good at the spatial memory stuff). The subjects still perceived the keyboard as way faster because the first part, recalling what you need to physically do, is mostly subconscious. They only really consciously perceived the part where they are actually doing the mouse stuff or doing the key pressing and since that part was faster for the keyboard they perceived the keyboard as faster. Note that these results might not generalize beyond the system and users they tested. I remember doing my own test and I found for the commands I tested with I was definitely faster both by the clock and by perception on the keyboard, but I was testing with commands that I used a lot. (I used cut/copy/paste). I can believe the result might have been different with more rarely used commands especially in a system with a large number of commands.

CSMastermind 4y ago

> Vi Bilägare gathered eleven modern cars from different manufacturers at an airfield och measured the time needed for a driver to perform different simple tasks, such as changing the radio station or adjusting the climate control. Not sure about your car but mine has physical buttons for the actions they're talking about. In fact I can increase/decrease my radio volume and seek via buttons on the back of my steering wheel so I never have to take my hands off the wheel. The touchscreen is useful for things like switching between apps, entering things into the GPS, etc. The alternative to that isn't buttons, it's looking at my phone. My biggest complaint, at least about Android Auto is that it tries to force voice commands. The voice interface is horrendous, just let me or my passenger use the touchscreen.

LarryMullins 4y ago
If you want to use an app, you should pull over to the side of the road.
- ghaff 4y ago
  Pulling over is often not very practical or especially safe itself. One of my frustrations that voice assistants in cars are still not often that great.
- godelski 4y ago
  You're probably right, but who's going to actually do that? Especially for a 5 second task. Plus, are we going to do that when there is a passenger who can control the phone without endangering anyone? The notion of pulling over is sane from a logical point of view but absurd from a human point of view. You can be right and wrong at the same time, this is one of those times. We have to consider how humans will actually act, not what they should do. Make the right decisions easy to do and make the wrong decisions as safe as possible.
  - LarryMullins 4y ago
    > You're probably right, but who's going to actually do that? I do, every single time. I place my phone screen-side down in the space in front of my gear shift, under the dash, and I don't even touch it if the car isn't in park. I never look at the screen for GPS or anything when I'm driving. I rely on memorizing the route before I drive, and TTS announcements for upcoming turns. If the phone notifies me of an incoming call or text, I pull over before checking it. I don't think this is unreasonable. If you've been driving for 20 years or so already, then surely you know what it's like to drive like this. What it's like to drive without interacting with a screen, without GPS at all in fact. We had these things called road atlases, big books containing maps for every road in the state, and using one while actively driving was tantamount to suicide. Somehow we all still got where we wanted to go.

ben0x539 4y ago

Yeah sure y'all no one is surprised by this, but it's still good to have studies you can wave in people's faces when they disagree with you.

Izikiel43 4y ago

Mazda is right

ak217 4y ago
Yes, but they need to get their EV game on. They're behind.
- Izikiel43 4y ago
  I agree, an electric CX5/CX50/CX60 would be ideal

29athrowaway 4y ago

Pieces of broken glass sound like a poor addition to a car accident.

numbsafari 4y ago

Shining a bright display in the drivers face and forcing them to reach out blindly is a bad idea? Who would have guessed? I hate the current state of vehicle interiors. All leather. Too much light. Not enough physicality.

RajT88 4y ago
I rented an early model Prius once, and this was my biggest gripe. So bright it reduced my low light vision.

jeremy_wiebe 4y ago

Here in BC there are very strict distracted driving laws. You can get a ticket even if you are sitting stopped at a stop light and you do something on your phone. I fail to see how this is _any_ different than interacting with screens on so many of these newer cars.

malshe 4y ago

And in related news water is wet

readthenotes1 4y ago
and housing in the flood plain is still being sold as water-front property

anyfoo 4y ago

I'm glad this testing is happening, even if my (like apparently a lot of people's) initial reaction was along the lines of "duh, no shit sherlock, way to state the obvious". Tests that confirm in general what people were suspecting, or knowing to be true for themselves, are a great stepping stone in hopefully helping manufacturing to stop doing this terribleness.

cryptonector 4y ago
Sure, but the testing needed to have been done before touchscreens were added to cars, not after, not many years after.
calvinmorrison 4y ago
Saab always viewed ergonomics as critical to driver safety. In what world is a hazard button 3 menu levels deep a sane choice?
- lillecarl 4y ago
  SAAB was ahead of their time, I believe they would be successful if they survived until 2020.
  - calvinmorrison 4y ago
    I love saab. I don't think they had a chance. There's no room to be different in today's car economy.
    - lillecarl 4y ago
      A SAAB (It's SAAB, Svenska Aeroplan/Automobile AB) 95 wouldn't be too different from a car of today though, with superb ride quality, turbocharger, proper deformation zones, extra reinforced A-pillars (moose protection), automatic angle adjustment of front lights (when loading heavy in the trunk), FWD. These are things on top of my head that no "regular" car (that'd be Volvo, I'm Swedish) had at that time (many cheaper cars still don't) that "most" cars has today. My father rides one, and the only different things I'd say are where the key and the window buttons are located, the rest is just like any car you'd buy today, except it's 15-20 years old. "It's a human right to feel safe"! EDIT: What I'm saying is, back then people couldn't afford luxury cars, but that market has boomed since SAAB went out. Volvo used to be "the workers car" in Sweden (still is I guess), but they went from being "cheap and reliable" to expensive and like everything else.

the_black_hand 4y ago

In other news, water is wet. My guess is manufacturers are so drawn towards touchscreens cause they can change things with software updates. From a user POV it's pretty obvious that physical buttons are better.

moistofreason 4y ago
It’s a cost thing. Lowering BOM part count is a huge way to lower service and manufacturing cost.
Gigachad 4y ago
The easy fix for this would be to regulate that touch screens must be locked while the car is in motion. Advanced functionality which requires a touch screen can be used while the car is stationary.
- notyourwork 4y ago
  I would literally not buy a car with this functionality. It is beyond irksome for my passenger to not be able to type on a touch screen while the car is in motion.
  - tomrod 4y ago
    Tie it to a weight sensor in the passenger front seat.
    - helf 4y ago
      Then you just stick a heavy object on the seat to trip it.
  - fumeux_fume 4y ago
    Some new cars already do this. It's awful.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    This has been the case for some functions for a while. A 2010 car my parents have will not let you enter the settings to do things like pair bluetooth while the car is moving.

boc 4y ago

I have the means to buy a much newer car, but I love my old GX470 specifically because it's the last generation of SUV that has a clear gauge cluster, physical dials for everything, a nice sound system + 6 disc changer without the associated garbage infotainment system, and great driver visibility.[1] Almost every new car I've been in recently feels worse - much worse visibility, weird distracting visual elements on the dash/cluster, touchscreens, etc. I feel like I'm going to just try and keep my GX running forever. Already have 260K miles and still runs like new. [1] https://consumerguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/04806091990004.jpg https://consumerguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/0480609...

schwartzworld 4y ago
This is how i feel about my xterra. I can work all the audio controls without looking. Contrast with my wife's crv: changing the "fader" requires clicking through 3 different touch menus.
- twisteriffic 4y ago
  The 2.1 generation CR-V (2005-2006) was the best car Honda ever made. Physical buttons, switches and levers for everything. Bulletproof engine and manual gearbox. Dead simple to work on, aside from unfortunate oil filter placement. Reasonable fuel economy. Side swing hatch door. Built in picnic table. 6 disc changer with a tape deck.
  - antisthenes 4y ago
    I understand the nostalgia for physical buttons, but tape decks and cd changers should go the way of the dodo, and it's baffling to even see them mentioned as an advantage? My car had a CD player that constantly damaged discs that were playing when hitting road bumps, which rendered most CDs unusable within a year. Couldn't have been happier to get a car with a USB port and a bluetooth connection to let me play a library 1000x as what would fit on 6 cds.
    - 4y ago

mabbo 4y ago

I had to pick between the Tesla Model Y and the Ioniq 5, and the user experience of having real physical controls was a major factor in why I decided against the Model Y. It's a fun car, but it felt like I wasn't able to do anything. At the end of the test drive, it took me 5 minutes to figure out how to turn the car off. I just sat there in the parking spot searching through the controls before finally giving up and opening the door- which turned the car off. The preorder wait is three times longer for the Ioniq 5, but I think it's worth the wait.

calvinmorrison 4y ago
Had an emergency situation where I had to drive a friend to the hospital. It took like 45 seconds to figure out how to turn the car on and get it in drive... yikes
- calaei 4y ago
  It would be nice if controls were required by law to be the same "UI" in all cars. e.g. shifter is the same in all cars, turn signals, wipers, etc all the things that distract us when driving. Another pet peeve is microwaves. It takes me a minute to figure out everyone's microwave since none have the same UI. Every microwave designer thinks they know better!
  - calvinmorrison 4y ago
    The most fun cars are the early ones. Nobody had any idea what to do so there were many many different approaches. Gas pedals? Ridiculous when you could have a knob!
    - erik_seaberg 4y ago
      As Stephenson put it, > It’s no longer acceptable for engineers to invent a wholly novel user interface for every new product, as they did in the case of the automobile, partly because it’s too expensive and partly because ordinary people can only learn so much. If the VCR had been invented a hundred years ago, it would have come with a thumbwheel to adjust the tracking and a gearshift to change between forward and reverse and a big cast-iron handle to load or to eject the cassettes.

Philip-J-Fry 4y ago

I want a nice big clear infotainment display for Android Auto/Apple CarPlay, this can be touch screen. But that's it, that's where it ends. Navigating Google Maps, inputting destinations, selecting Spotify tracks, etc. all work fine on a touch screen. And once I'm driving, I rarely need to touch them. But just give me physical climate controls, physical stalks, physical gear selector and all that. There's absolutely no reason to make any of this controlled through a touch screen. It's literally dangerous in my eyes, you use this stuff all the time.

NotYourLawyer 4y ago

“Yeah, no shit.” - everyone who has ever driven a car

helf 4y ago

“No Shit.”

trynewideas 4y ago

Oddly, the No. 2 (Dacia Sandero) and No. 3 (Volvo C40) performers both have touchscreens.

kevinsundar 4y ago

Yep this is why I bought a Mazda. I love the clean look of a touchscreen but man the physical buttons in the Mazda are so well designed that they're quick to use, look elegant, and don't give off a cluttered feel at all. Can't wait till they get in the EV game.

jonathanberger 4y ago

One of my favorite parts from pg's What You Can't Say is The Conformist Test: > Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers? Here's one of my answers if I think of HN readers as peers: Tesla made the right decision by making most of their controls touchscreen-only. HN guidelines suggest comments should get more thoughtful and substantive as a topic gets more divisive. If you disagree with me but acknowledge thought or substance in my comment I'd love to hear why instead of garnering a downvote. The reason I believe Tesla made the right decision is that the physical buttons on the steering wheel and stalks cover the common cases. They've made many things automatic: lights, wipers, garage door, seat heaters (edit: lights and wipers also have physical buttons). Things that aren't buttons and aren't automatic voice handles well (e.g. "set climate to 72"). And finally, and I realize most controversially, while it's still important to monitor Autopilot the technology is already to the point where it's safe in the right conditions to take your eyes off the road for some number of seconds at at time.

Thorentis 4y ago
> Things that aren't covered they've made automatic: lights, wipers, garage door, seat heaters. Things that aren't buttons and aren't automatic voice handles well (ex. "set climate to 72"). This is my problem with this argument. I want a good alternative for when voice or automated features go wrong (as they so often do). I don't want the fall back to be a shitty touchscreen. I want the fall back to be something that is safe to use when driving.
- jonathanberger 4y ago
  Do you mind if I ask if the car you most interact with has touch or physical controls?
NotYourLawyer 4y ago
How do you feel about the lack of a physical latch to open the glove compartment? I just LOVE having to go through a fucking menu tree to accomplish a task that’s been effortless and discoverable for the last N decades.

delta_p_delta_x 4y ago

I wish the European makes did not go the Tesla route. BMW iDrive 8 is a noticeable UX downgrade compared to iDrive 7 (which is honestly the nicest infotainment system so far), despite the bigger display. I have no words for Mercedes-Benz's abomination in the EQS and the new S-class. Audi MMI is nice, but touch controls for HVAC is a bad idea.

dathinab 4y ago

Also: Long term UX studies know this since even before the touch scree was invented making the designers behind Tesla touchscreen UX look like fools. (even through they probably are not). EDIT: Digital displays can be nice for rarely used, non safety relevant, never used during driving features. Especially if combined with a menu search.

kderbyma 4y ago

'Obvious common sense proves to be in fact common sense....who da thunk?

jay_kyburz 4y ago

I'd love to setup a car UI with cherry blue switches throughout.

abledon 4y ago

Can't someone 3d-print a 'mold' that you put over your Tesla's screen to give you limited functionality, but provide a rubber/membrane physical interface

larkinrichards 4y ago

Touchscreen designs can be fast. I'd still prefer physical controls because of tactile recognition -- you can find the control without looking, but I ended up choosing a new Volvo over other makes partially because I prefer the simplicity of the interface.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

bityard 4y ago

My dream is that some day, some government mandates knobs and sliders for all HVAC controls for safety reasons. These are far more intuitive and safer to operate than buttons because once you know where they are, you don't have to take your eyes off the road. My Prius has nothing but a grid a buttons for all the HVAC controls and I hate it.

cirrus3 4y ago

I hope this trend will die off soon. Touchscreens have are neat and have a place, but nothing beats a nice feeling button in just the right spot for common use cases. Car reviewers have been complaining about this for years so it seem like either I/we are crazy and _most_ people actually like screens for everything, or that the pipeline for implementation of controls is sooo long in duration that manufacturers haven't caught up to the feedback from like-minded users.

Brian_K_White 4y ago

Phase 3 initiated, begin "discovering" that touch screens are bad. I'm not sure how many or what all the steps along the way are but the end is Alexa in a conveyance subscription pod you can't own, modify, or drive.

mbirth 4y ago

They could've noticed that with the GM/Chevy Volt aka. Opel/Vauxhall Ampera already. That thing has lots of identical touch-sensitive buttons with small text labels (no symbols, no colour coding) arranged in a grid. Photo: http://www.canadianautoreview.ca/images/car_photos/2014-Chevrolet-Volt/normal/chevrolet-volt-dashboard.jpg http://www.canadianautoreview.ca/images/car_photos/2014-Chev... So finding the correct button blindly is similarly impossible as with a touchscreen. Great to wipe clean, though.