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Study finds that buttons in cars are safer and quicker to use than touchscreens

• janandonly 4y ago
  To me this feels like station the obvious. A touchscreen gives no tangible feedback. Also having buttons “move” or at least be at unexpected places means you need to look at a screen. I am happy with my old car wherein I can manage the heating, the lighting, and my radio without taking my eyes off the road.
• JoeAltmaier 4y ago
  Other news: sun rises in morning; sets in evening
  • cpcallen 4y ago
    Pope is catholic…
    • 988747 4y ago
      Actually, with Pope Francis that's debatable...
  • pelagicAustral 4y ago
    Unless you’re in Rothera.
• PaulHoule 4y ago
  I am starting to wonder if the definition of a ‘luxury car’ in 2030 will be ‘no touchscreens’ and if economy cars will be chock full of cheap android devices just to shame the people who buy them into spending more to get a car with buttons and mechanical indicators.
  • GuB-42 4y ago
    The Bugatti Chiron has no touchscreen, in fact it made a point to look like it has no screen at all. It is a deliberate choice, they didn't want people to look at the window and see a lifeless black screen, and one that will look outdated a few years from now. No need to wait for 2030, look at the top end luxury cars, while they don't all have as strong a stance as Bugatti, you will see a lot of physical buttons and not too many screens there. Personally, I have already associated touchscreens with cheapness.
    • masklinn 4y ago
      The screen (and its interface elements) are definitely one of the faster aging elements of cars (especially luxury). For instance the Jaguar XK(R) is a rather good looking car, but the central touchscreen is just horrible.
  • Rury 4y ago
    Seems to happen often in business. Replace a feature people love, with something people don't want. Then later, return with that feature people used to love for extra profit.
    • therealdrag0 4y ago
      What other examples are there?
  • lawn 4y ago
    Similar to how you can only find a TV without the crappy snart functionality if you pay a hefty premium.
• goda90 4y ago
  Will regulators act on this? I really want them to, but I feel like they won't and we'll continue to see a trend of car makers taking the cheap route and doing touch screens. At least it feels that way wherever I look into an evening l exciting EV. What do the choices look like in the new car market these days?
  • hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
    > Will regulators act on this? If they do, it will happen in the EU. I doubt anyone in the USA would have the courage to touch this subject. It's very clear for everyone involved: touchscreens look more shiny to the user and at the same time let the manufacturer make significant cost savings - hardware switches don't seem like a big cost until you realize how many of them you need and how reliable they need to be over a number of years, and that the part you switch is just a small element of the whole system.
  • dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    Touch screens are only the cheap route so long as you are required to have a backup camera. If you're gonna spend the resources to put a screen in the cost conscious way to do that is to use it for everything you possibly can. Look at 3rd world cars. No screens.
    • randerson 4y ago
      I'd argue that 3rd world cars don't have screens because they're cheaper to maintain, not cheaper to build. Buttons are dead simple and reliable, and can be fixed by any mechanic, computers cannot.
    • omginternets 4y ago
      Are backup cameras required now?
• PedroBatista 4y ago
  That's some breakthrough research right there! Only outdone by the geniuses of the car industry and their really (too) close pals of the safety agencies who find it OK to put touch screens in everything short of pedals and a steer mechanism ( some aren't even wheels anymore! really modern advanced stuff.. )
• TekMol 4y ago
  The same could be said for mobile phones. Some things can be done quicker with physical buttons. That's why people thought phones with just a screen would never become popular: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U But with a screen you can do many more things.
  • _visgean 4y ago
    but should you be doing many more things while driving? (the answer is no)
    • More-nitors 4y ago
      also, reaction time == safety
    • TekMol 4y ago
      Should you be doing many more things while having a phone call? Turns out the concept of a phone changed. It seems the concept of cars also change: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X9XyHHTTQI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X9XyHHTTQI I watched this in the morning today, and in the 38 minute ride, the guy was mostly doing other things. Recording a video etc. In the whole ride, I think he only did something related to "driving" for a few seconds.
      • richbell 4y ago
        > Should you be doing many more things while having a phone call? Turns out the concept of a phone changed. Being distracted during a phone call doesn't pose a risk of grievous injuries or death to yourself or others. Unless the nature of cars fundamentally changes, they should not under any circumstances be cool entertainment devices. Your focus should be on your mirrors and the road ahead. Full stop.
        • TekMol 4y ago
          Isn't that an argument to let computers handle the driving rather than humans? Computers are extremely good at calculating physics. And they never get distracted.
• jherskovic 4y ago
  Well, duh.
• everdrive 4y ago
  As folks noted in the other thread on this topic: This is self-evident to most of the HN audience, but the more studies and more awareness is brought to this topic the likelier things are to improve.
  • DoingIsLearning 4y ago
    Awareness in my view is useless because touchscreens in auto infotainment are far more visually impressive so they will always be preferred from a buyer's perspective. What we need is to build a body of scientific evidence to support regulating Auto infotainment within some form of safety-critical guard rails. It is obvious that touch without mechanical/haptic feedback is dangerous both in terms of decreasing eyes-on-the-road and increasing cognitive load. Mazda had it right first time around the industry needs to catch up.
    • Ma8ee 4y ago
      > Awareness in my view is useless because touchscreens in auto infotainment are far more visually impressive so they will always be preferred from a buyer's perspective. Except that the HN audience also buys cars, and prefers something else. And we aren't that unique or exceptional.
      • tialaramex 4y ago
        All ordinary televisions are now advertising-filled garbage, technical people I know just don't buy televisions. If they need a display they buy either the panel or a projector. But if my mother or sister buy a television it will be advertising-filled garbage. There is a tiny niche of people who care, and for some reason insist on buying a TV, as a result on a very small scale it is technically possible to buy a TV without built-in advertising - but it's a small enough niche that ordinary people aren't even really aware it's an option. Think medium format landscape camera in say the 1980s. Your parents (or grandparents if you're old enough) probably owned something that used standard cartridge film, they knew vaguely what an SLR was (even if not what "SLR" stands for) but they had no idea medium format landscape cameras even existed. If the local camera shop doesn't have them, they'd never notice.
• temporallobe 4y ago
  They needed a study for this?
  • SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
    On the one hand, "no kidding, we knew that. Duh." On the other hand, doing a study to confirm what we think we know to be true is not always wasted effort. For the simple reason that we are sometimes wrong. And for the reason that studies can measure magnitude of such an effect. And variation. And for the reason that for many contexts (e.g. safety legislation or safety standards) a study is proof and a call to act, in ways that "everybody knows that" is not. I don't know if this will result in legislation, but it is a step on that path.
    • temporallobe 4y ago
      Of course I was being facetious, and I agree that studies needed (and need) to be done in order to “prove” that tactile controls are safer. It has always been extremely hypocritical to me that certain states like Maryland crack down harshly on mobile device usage but basically ignore distracted driving because of engagement with a screen in your vehicle, which can be just as dangerous. In my opinion, screens per se aren’t bad, however there should be a set of standards (possibly international) for a core set of redundant tactile controls such as audio volume/mute, any and all essential vehicle functions, ALL climate control functions, and obvious preset buttons for major infotainment functions such as audio, climate, navigation, and communication. I drove a vehicle recently that didn’t have an easy way to switch between Waze on CarPlay and the vehicle’s built-in SiriusXM audio. And some makes have moved to a completely screen-based gauge cluster, which is neat in concept but allows for shenanigans such as the possibility of accidentally choosing a “theme” that hides basic information or is confusing with no obvious way to revert. Mercedes is especially guilty of this. There are so many more examples. Essentially, we need a Vehicle Control Bill of Rights.
• bamboozled 4y ago
  What about, programmable buttons? Seems like a happy medium?
  • mannykannot 4y ago
    All too often, that just adds to the cognitive load of figuring out how to do what needs to be done right now.
    • bamboozled 4y ago
      I meant pre-programmable of course.
      • mannykannot 4y ago
        Ah - point taken. I have spent too much time dealing with modal consumer goods where usability is sacrificed for the purpose of minimizing the number of buttons.
        • bamboozled 4y ago
          I'm talking like, play a certain playlist etc type of buttons, which are physical.
• PreInternet01 4y ago
  I would love to see some EU legislation about car dashboards. As an occasional driver of many different brands and types of vehicles, I continue to be amazed at the usability crimes being committed in the name of 'looking cool' (stated reason) as well as 'cost savings' (most likely the real reason). Any function that needs to be invoked or setting that needs to be changed by a reasonable person while driving should have dedicated hardware in a predictable position. So, that's direction indicators, outside lights (incl. high beams and fog lights), windshield wipers, cruise control, window defrost/defog, interior temperature/fan, media volume (am I forgetting anything?). There is nothing more utterly annoying and outright dangerous than having to navigate some crappy touchscreen when your windows start fogging up or you need to turn off the radio in order to talk to that nice cop that just pulled you over. Offenders here do not only include the T-brand, but also the B-brand, which has seen it fit to replace most of the controls in some of its cars with a single multi-function stalk (iDrive, I think?) that isn't good for anything, except as a reason to return your car for a refund...
  • misnome 4y ago
    When we bought our last car we specifically avoided touchscreen-heavy interfaces. Worst we looked at was Peugeot, which not only had framerate stuttering _on the actual digital dashboard_, the radio turned on loud for us and although the digital volume button was large, you couldn’t just hold it down - you needed to repeatedly tap/lift/tap/lift/… to move it more than just one volume notch. We bought a (non-peugeot) car with a physical dial in the end.
    • PreInternet01 4y ago
      Oh, thank you for mentioning digital dashboards, I completely forgot about those! So, in addition to mandatory physical controls for common functions, my imaginary EU legislation would also prescribe that all essential vehicle information (speed, outside light status, fuel level) has a physical representation (lights, dials, etc., in the sense that there is nothing that could be described as 'software' driving these). The last 'owned' car that I drove was my wife's quite-high-end Audi. It had a digital dashboard, which was OK and looked extremely cool... until those moments when it froze mid-drive, requiring an engine off/on cycle to recover. Which was really lovely on the highway, cruising along at an unknown speed... (Another charming feature of this car was that the AC would sometimes decide that going into full-blast, no-you-can't-turn-this-off, full-heat mode was a really great idea. This only took, like, five software updates and 18 months to be resolved. The issue where you couldn't cancel the keyfob-based seat personalization was never fixed, so whenever I (6'5") grabbed my wife's (5'2" on a warm day) car keys by mistake, there was lots of grinding of seat motors, trying to drive my knees and head into the car interior, while ignoring my desperate inputs to the 'move the seat back and down please' controls. Comfort feature indeed!)
• cs702 4y ago
  The actual "study" (really, an unscientific test) is here: https://www.vibilagare.se/english/physical-buttons-outperform-touchscreens-new-cars-test-finds https://www.vibilagare.se/english/physical-buttons-outperfor... At home we have both traditional vehicles with lots of knobs, and vehicles (Tesla) with mainly touchscreen buttons and voice commands. My personal experience: * It takes at least a few weeks to become familiar enough with the touchscreen buttons and voice commands that they become second-nature. * Commonly used functions are accessed by pushing a physical button on the steering wheel or on one of the stalks, or by pressing a touchscreen button that is always where you expect it to be. * Once your body memorizes a small subset of commonly used functions, you use them without even thinking about them. * Less common functions are hard to find in all vehicles, and are often nested in obscure sub-menus. I'm OK with going "all-in" on touchscreen buttons and voice commands, complemented by a small number of physical buttons for commonly used functions.
  • smt88 4y ago
    I could do almost anything with the buttons in my car without looking away from the road. That's never going to be possible with a touchscreen.
    • cs702 4y ago
      How do you, say, check tire pressure? Setup a new garage-door opener? View your calendar for today? Do you have physical buttons for those things? A car that does everything (or "almost anything") via physical buttons would be insanely hard to use. It would look like, and be about as easy to use as, a jet cockpit. The best approach is clearly not all-physical-buttons, nor all-touchscreen-buttons, nor all-voice-commands, but a sensible mix of all three, depending on context (e.g., whether you're driving or the car is parked). My perception is that all car manufacturers, including Tesla, are trying to figure out the best possible combination of the three -- at least until self-driving renders human attention unnecessary.
      • acdha 4y ago
        Those are not things you need to do while driving. There’s no reason why, say, garage door pairing can’t use a button like my 2006 Subaru does for the one time most people will do it in the life of the vehicle. Checking a calendar is distracted driving and should be illegal.
• Overtonwindow 4y ago
  I really don't like the touchscreens, they are very hard to operate in motion.
• mojuba 4y ago
  So the last bastion is the steering wheel it seems. Will it be replaced with a pair of arrow buttons on the screen? /s
  • randerson 4y ago
    There are already manufacturers, including luxury German ones, using capacitive touchscreen-like buttons on steering wheels. Ugh.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• rpmisms 4y ago
  Which is why physical controls are critical for anything you need to do fast. I recently switched from a classic Model S to a recent Model 3, and I think the 3 is about as button-light as I could go. The driver's controls are all manual, and work very well. Anything non-critical is on the screen. The Plaid would be too much. I require a physical shifter, horn, and turn signals.
• ardel95 4y ago
  I admit, I’m having a hard time holding back a sarcastic reply to this article. Was there really any doubt ever that a button, which one can usually push without looking is superior to touchscreen, which for an average human requires both hands and eyes?
• detrites 4y ago
  2028: Study finds that cars without any human controls are safer than those with
  • Mikeb85 4y ago
    When the whole transportation system is built to eliminate drivers then yes, it'll be safer. For now though, a driver in control is better than our flawed software.
    • detrites 4y ago
      I disagree. Currently available retail FSD is already driving "in the ballpark" today. Add to that 5 years of continual large-scale data harvest, plus AI in general undergoing widespread research and innovation.
  • EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
    2038: Study finds that cars without any humans are safer than those with
• byyll 4y ago
  Already posted, the original: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34283385 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34283385
• cainxinth 4y ago
  I liked what Ford did with its new Mach-E. They literally glued a physical knob to the touchscreen: https://electrek.co/2023/01/06/ford-finds-unique-knob-control-solution-in-new-mach-e-ota-update/ https://electrek.co/2023/01/06/ford-finds-unique-knob-contro...
  • kylec 4y ago
    It's better than nothing, but I would prefer more physical controls than a single volume knob
• KingOfCoders 4y ago
  Duh.
• redsummer 4y ago
  [dead]
• acd 4y ago
  Usability is another reason air cockpits have physicall knobs and buttons. Physical knobs and buttons are preferred because they are easy to locate and use, even in high-stress situations. Why sudennly would car dashboards be different? We have had physicall knobs controlling car functions before.
• zdw 4y ago
  Previous discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32494497 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32494497 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34283385 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34283385
• samch 4y ago
  I’d like to offer a possibly controversial alternative viewpoint on this. On a longer time horizon than just the past few years, we saw the introduction of touchscreens for drivers way back in the early 2000s. We just called them smartphones. Before that, rush hour commuters could be spotted reading newspapers, shaving, applying makeup, and eating breakfast while driving. All of those pose real dangers to themselves and others. My point is that the fundamental issue at hand is more significant than the UI / haptics of the car, but the attention paid by the driver. Humans have already cast their vote on this. As drivers, broadly speaking, we do not want to give the action of driving our full attention. There are simply too many other things vying for our focus. The solution, in my opinion, is not about the controls in the vehicle. Rather, it’s about removing the distracted driver from the equation altogether and finally mastering the immense challenge of truly autonomous vehicles. We are at a point in history where the UI/UX has advanced faster than true self-driving. If the latter can catch up, the UI will become a non-issue, the screens will continue to grow, and the driver will merely be an operator.
  • throwingrocks 4y ago
    I got distracted reading this comment, and I wish my AI companion was here to explain it to me!
  • javajosh 4y ago
    Maybe there is a sense in which this is an awkward transition period to fully autonomous vehicles. Because you're right, most of us don't want to pay attention to the road, which is boring. However, we don't know the risk/reward associated with ceding control over our safety and the safety of others to an internet controlled computer. Over time, human controls (and skills) atrophy, so that when another Carrington event happens humans will not be able to recover. It also makes us even more susceptible to hacking attacks - wide-spread use of autonomous vehicles will mean that a sufficiently skilled hacker can kill you from afar. If not with your car, with someone else's. So, no, I'm not particularly excited giving computers control over my car, my home, my life, even if it seems like a good idea. The downsides are just too substantial, and honestly humans can and should retain some responsibility for their own well-being, on first principle.
  • 4y ago
• jonplackett 4y ago
  Funny that a study was needed to determine this incredibly obvious thing but j guess good it was done. Touch interfaces basically suck compared to physical. The only exception being if an interface has to change a lot - and is meant to be looked at 100% of the time while in use (or smartphone screen) Any other touch interfaces is just dumb. Examples: - a lot of new very expensive cookers have touch buttons that are a lot more fiddly than dials and dont work when your hands are wet - a lot of very expensive SLR cameras now have touch screens that hide functionality that used to be instantly available on a dial in a submenu. - MacBook Touch Bar (no explanation necessary)
• jskrablin 4y ago
  That's something Mazda studied a few years back. There's no active touchscreens in their cars once they start moving since ~ 2015 I think. While everyone else is still learning this lesson.
• vel0city 4y ago
  I have a car with many buttons[0] and a car with few buttons[1]. I'd take the few button one every time. While my few button car doesn't have many buttons, all to the critical to driving inputs have physical controls. Lights, wipers, defrosters, volume, etc is all on or immediately around the wheel. Meanwhile, on my many button car, sure there's a button for most things this car can do. But almost all those buttons in the middle never get pressed. They're essentially a waste of space. And most of them, even if I were to press them I wouldn't be doing so while the car is in motion. I shouldn't be messing with the navigation system while the car is in motion. I shouldn't be flipping through folders on the mp3 CD or flash drive. I shouldn't be messing with the phone functions, I shouldn't be messing with the Blue link stuff, etc. Having all those buttons aren't a positive while driving, they're a negative. They make the map I do use while driving much smaller. And when stopped, they make the Android Auto interface I interact with much smaller and overall worse. Don't get me wrong, some manufacturers have gone way overboard and put things like glove compartments and AC vents and shifters on a screen or eliminated the stalks. There should be a balance for sure, but having a screen in a car is nice. [0] https://www.autoguide.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/2017-Hyundai-Santa-Fe-Interior-696x426.jpg https://www.autoguide.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/20... [1] https://www.macheforum.com/site/attachments/screen-shot-2021-01-31-at-5-18-24-pm-png.14226/ https://www.macheforum.com/site/attachments/screen-shot-2021...
  • atoav 4y ago
    I don't think any person that wants physical interfaces (buttons, knobs, levers, sliders, ...) doesn't also think (touch-)screens can be nice for certain tasks. Being an electrical engineer there is one thing that I can tell you about electromechanical parts: They are expensive — especially in the good and reliable variant. That means car manufacturers have a real incentive to make you believe you don't need them and put everything on a touch screen instead.
• karaterobot 4y ago
  There was that story about the U.S. Navy removing touch screens from their destroyers after their horrible usability was implicated in some very embarrassing collisions. That was in 2019. If that doesn't change anything, it's not a question of car manufacturers just not being aware touch screens are more error prone. As I think most people know, the main reason they use touch screens is because it's cheaper to develop than physical buttons: you don't have to redesign the dashboard and wiring in order to change the UI. That's important to them. Secondary to that, there are still some people who see a big colorful touchscreen on the dashboard and think "golly, this car's fancy", and might be more likely to buy a car with a shiny (greasy, coffee-splattered, fingerprint-laden) touchscreen on it. When you upgrade the trim level on a car, a lot of times they just give you a bigger touch screen, as though it were a status symbol for some people. I think the internal term for these people is 'rubes', but I'd need to check that.
  • mattmcknight 4y ago
    > a lot of times they just give you a bigger touch screen, as though it were a status symbol for some people. The big screen in the Tesla is very useful for the map. In the olden times, I used pretty large map books, and the screens are about the page size of those books. I use it to search for locations, get a list of results, select one, choose a navigation path, etc. When the car isn't moving, it is quite useful as a configurator UI for the various settings available in the vehicle itself. I certainly wouldn't want those pages of options to be all represented as buttons. > As I think most people know, the main reason they use touch screens is because it's cheaper to develop than physical buttons: you don't have to redesign the dashboard and wiring in order to change the UI. It allows for new features to be delivered quite easily in an existing car as the software improves. It also allows for more buttons as cars have more capabilities than could fit on a single physical panel. All that said, I vastly prefer physical buttons, and mostly use the buttons on the steering wheel to control things when driving. I think a better design for the instrument panel would feature small screens on physical buttons, so that you could program the switches or dials to control different functions and display their purpose. This could allow for the most frequently adjusted features to retain physical controls. If we take the steering wheel as an inspiration, that small set of physical controls can be applied to many functions, but it uses the screen behind the steering wheel as a mode indicator. The other modality is voice, but it suffers from a bit of the command line problem, in that it isn't immediately obvious to the user what commands are allowed.
• epolanski 4y ago
  To add on that: digital tech in cars is god awful and ages very poorly. Entering some top end cars like the newest S class and even more the electric counterparts seems like entering a night club filled with tablets[1] https://www.carbibles.com/uploads/2021/04/15/laser.jpg?auto=webp&width=1440&height=810 https://www.carbibles.com/uploads/2021/04/15/laser.jpg?auto=...
  • spacemadness 4y ago
    I feel the same way when I see these vehicles. All I can think about is how dated it will look in five years. However, it seems that the leasing crowd prefers to get rid of their cars in three years tops anyway which is a huge chunk of this market.
    • epolanski 4y ago
      I've recently entered a 2017 C class, top of the line. Feels like entering in a 10+ year old car with that UI. On top of that, some features already do not work anymore (like calling the Mercedes concierge or the automatic incident localizer). https://www.netcarshow.com/Mercedes-Benz-C-Class_Cabriolet-2017-1280-1f.jpg https://www.netcarshow.com/Mercedes-Benz-C-Class_Cabriolet-2...
• throw__away7391 4y ago
  Many people including me will say that this is obvious, but even if it took a study, why wasn't this study done at some point _before_ incorporating this major design change into nearly every new car on the market?
  • lifeinthevoid 4y ago
    Companies are mostly interested in earning money and not in undermining new ways of making money.
  • throwaway0asd 4y ago
    A couple of reasons: * Most people will never voluntarily measure things. Instead people form intuitive assumptions and extrapolate performance and potential from that. This happens all the time for almost everybody. * Business people need corporate promotions and incentive pay. The best way to achieve such is to pitch a popular idea full of shine and glitter. As an example have you ever participated in a "hack day" event? It does not matter what your final product is (or isn't). What matters is the 2 minute pitch at the end.
• xwowsersx 4y ago
  This article from August 2022 had a lot of good detail: "Physical buttons outperform touchscreens in new cars, test finds" https://www.vibilagare.se/english/physical-buttons-outperform-touchscreens-new-cars-test-finds https://www.vibilagare.se/english/physical-buttons-outperfor...
• jasmer 4y ago
  Most of those interfaces are total UI disasters - to the point where I think given a leading cause of death is car accidents, I think they are a material cause of death.
• alchemist1e9 4y ago
  My friends called me a Luddite when I list this as a reason I bought a Nissan Leaf over Tesla. I’m very happy with it as it’s perfect for around town, was a lot cheaper, and for my teenage children a lot safer for learning to drive as it’s basically a traditional car.
• dec0dedab0de 4y ago
  This is the number one reason I have not bought a Tesla yet.
• robga 4y ago
  The last car I rented wouldn't permit navigation destinations to be set or amended by touchscreen while in motion. It was infuriating as it was the passenger who was safely trying to adjust the destination and we were having to pull over on busy roads to re-route away from closures. Eventually, we found the driver while in motion could use a physical "joystick" in the center console to work the UI. It felt far more dangerous than a few taps of a touchscreen.
• nextlevelwizard 4y ago
  Next study: water is in fact wet!
• karmelapple 4y ago
  As a junior systems engineer, I thought touchscreens and iPhone-like animations would be really neat, and give pilots more context, for helicopter GUIs. My senior human factors engineer told me no way. I begrudgingly agreed. Then I tried riding in a helicopter. Oh my gosh my eyes were opened. Real buttons. No animation. Everything else is vibrating and busy enough already. Human factors engineers working on airplanes and helicopters have known touchscreens aren’t good for this for decades.
  • croes 4y ago
    Touchscreens always require eye contact, knobs don't. Ever used a remote control with touchscreen instead of buttons?
    • karmelapple 4y ago
      Apple TV tactile remote that ships with it, vs the simulated one you can use on an iPhone. One requires no looking, one totally requires it. I hope for tactile screens in the future, something I tried designing into a hardware prototype over 10 years ago for an Android phablet prototype to be used in scenarios to enable not looking at the touchscreen. I’m honestly still amazed tactile affordances in some way haven’t made it to the mass market yet.
• meltyness 4y ago
  This is obviously subjective. There's much more practice and education with buttons since they have historically been simpler to construct, and touchscreen native individuals arent even driving age yet.
• hbogert 4y ago
  I have a VW Id.3. it's not just touchscreen interfaces. It's the haptic less buttons as well. Ridiculous design choices. They at least backtraced on the steering wheel buttons which in fact were haptic feedback, but it was a god awful implementations
• luxurytent 4y ago
  Related writing: https://jenson.org/tesla/ https://jenson.org/tesla/
• croes 4y ago
  Time for touchscreens with tactile feedback
• Marazan 4y ago
  Duh!
• colordrops 4y ago
  In this thread: a bunch of people with uninformed opinions who haven't driven a Tesla daily.
• Scubabear68 4y ago
  I have 2022 Kia Telluride that gets a lot of this right, it there is one major issue - Google maps on Car Play starts falling behind where I am on the route. Like you to half a mile. It has put me in some very dangerous situations where I am in an unfamiliar town or area.
  • judge2020 4y ago
    Could you try another device? This could be caused by anything from the phone's GPS to Google Maps running slow.
    • Scubabear68 4y ago
      Not sure where the problem is. If I stop at a light I see it slowly catching up.
      • Tagbert 4y ago
        Sounds like a problem with your phone’s GPS system not updating quickly enough. Alternately, if this is a very urban area with lots of skyscrapers GPS may wander significantly as the signals bounce around the buildings.
• ourmandave 4y ago
  Plus you have the element of surprise with buttons. Imagine going down the road trying to find the sub menu for the ejector seat while the bad guy is holding a gun on you.
  • omginternets 4y ago
    Been there. It was very awkward.
• meindnoch 4y ago
  Study finds water is wet.
• hallidave 4y ago
  On commercial aircraft, which have more of a safety culture than cars, they go so far as to have different knobs and buttons with different shapes so that a pilot can tell by feel that they have right one. For example, the knob to change speed is a different shape than the knob to change heading. Here's the autopilot panel of an Airbus A320: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/overhead-panel-airbus-a320-switches-1101635933 https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/overhead-panel-airb...
  • karmelapple 4y ago
    Exactly the kind of systems I worked on. The human factors engineering that goes into these is typically fantastic, with most aspects of interaction very thoughtfully crafted.
• onewheeltom 4y ago
  This has descended to an argument about maps. It’s actually about touchscreens vs buttons which covers much more ground than just maps. While I consider dedicated buttons safer than a screen for often used functions, a hybrid of a front facing screen and steering wheel controls would fall somewhere inbetween
• sleepybrett 4y ago
  File under 'no fucking shit'.
• RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u 4y ago
  Now that it's 2023 I can say this without reprisal: no shit Sherlock! /s This is the automotive analog to the removal of headphone jack on smartphones. Except I was never all that bothered with the removal. I've been using BT headphones almost exclusively before AirPods. I guess I'm not sure what my point is; maybe that even if it's objectively worse other factors dominate in consumer purchase decisions. Thankfully, some automakers are beginning to dial back a bit on all-touch interfaces. I'm cautiously optimistic that within the decade most will find the right balance.
  • klyrs 4y ago
    Sometimes, you need to do a formal study to convince legislators that obvious problems are worth acting on.
  • musicale 4y ago
    > This is the automotive analog to the removal of headphone jack on smartphones The big issue with cars removing buttons is that buttons are useful tactile affordances - they are operational controls that tend to have a single, clear and discoverable purpose, and can be located and operated by touch/feel without having to look at them, which is particularly advantageous when operating a vehicle.
    • alphazard 4y ago
      This is really understated. The primary interface to most of a car is tactile. Consider a vehicle, which had touchscreens instead of pedals. It required bare feet to operate. Advertised as totally ground-breaking, users could adjust the width between pedals, and switch between automatic and manual modes of transmission. The pedals have beautiful typography displaying the text "gas", "brake", and "clutch" on their icons. Wrong for the all same reasons as blinkers, wipers, defrost, audio power on/off being on a touch screen.
• gchamonlive 4y ago
  May a two stage pressure confirmation would alleviate the issue somehow. You won't have the exact feedback physical buttons give, but you would be able to touch, adjust your finger, then press a little harder to confirm the action. The problem for me with smartphones is that I commit an action as soon as I touch the screen so more often then not I have to aim well at the UI before touching the screen, which sometimes fails.
• slater- 4y ago
  we didn't need to study this.
• nottorp 4y ago
  What I wonder is: any car company has a CEO that still does their own driving? I guess the answer is "no".
• nashashmi 4y ago
  The Mercedes Benz from 2019 has a screen that spans from one end to the other to make up the driver's display and the radio display but it does not have a touch screen. It instead has a dial and touch based device to navigate the touch screen. The Nissan Rogue has a touch screen and small display. IMO, the Nissan Rogue touch screen is better, especially for carplay and android auto. The comparisons between both are futile, because they are both touch based and do not give feedback when the function of the touch successfully works. I wish the Rogue also did have a dial/hard button device to navigate the touch screen from the steering wheel. I think we got steered in the wrong direction when car-mounted GPS devices were touch (albeit infrared). And the car industry was more copycat than innovative. It is the reason why I cringe at the tesla's big giant screen. We need a Steve Jobs to take the messup of these industry players and fix it. Start off with incredibly limited, but perfect functions, and then grow from there once people's heads are rewired to understand how it should work.
• swlkr 4y ago
  I own a 2018 4Runner, best purchase I've ever made. The touchscreen is small and only for music or nav. The controls for A/C and cruise and everything real are large, beautiful buttons.
• rawgabbit 4y ago
  A diesel locomotive has my ideal user interface[1]. (a) For non critical operations, it has smart displays similar to an airplane cockpits. Physical function keys perform different things depending on the screen the smart display is presenting. (b) For critical operations, physical switches and levers are clearly labelled to show what they do,. I would say the best UI is one where you can talk someone through an emergency over the phone. e.g., "Mayday. Help. The locomotive engineer just passed out and I don't know how to stop this thing." "Are you sitting on the right seat? The operator's seat? Look to your left, you will see two blue levers marked throttle and dynamic braking etc." [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIQ0yIZgQeE&list=LL&index=14&t=29s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIQ0yIZgQeE&list=LL&index=14... (skip to the 20 minute mark)
• helf 4y ago
  “No shit”. “Oh golly gee guys stop using phones while driving! Tell ya what, we will give you a touchscreen for fucking every other function in the car except actual steering so you won’t have enough spare eye time to look at a phone!!”
• double2helix 4y ago
  I bet younger age groups do better with the touch screens though. This is just another generational thing that comes easier to those that grew up with touch screens vs those of us that didn't.
• jk_i_am_a_robot 4y ago
  I was shocked at how many keypresses it takes to make it slightly warmer in a Tesla.
  • kwhitefoot 4y ago
    In my Tesla Model S it takes precisely one to raise the cabin temperature by 0.5°C; press again and again to raise it by whatever amount you want, or I can use a voice command "Increase drivers temperature" to raise it by 1.5°C.
• ndneighbor 4y ago
  I am a proud car enthusiast and I daily drive one of the latest Volkswagen models with the latest infotainment, they have removed all the physical buttons from the car. VW's have always had reliability issues with their radio buttons for some reason. It was common for Mk6 or Mk7 GTIs radio power buttons to suddenly not work after a year or two. I am sure this is what caused the edict from on high to transition to their new disastrous infotainment. The thing is, nearly every company who went all in on touch, always had to backtrack at some point. (Like Honda in 2015) Friend of mine who used to work as a SWE in an automotive company mentioned that one of the pesky issues when it came to developing a new car was the long pole of waiting on your vendor to give you test units of your interior hardware. I assume the push there is primarily coming from that issue as well as the cost savings they get. The touch issues don't bother me insofar as how slow nearly all the units and interactions are within the car. Delays of 500ms after interaction are frankly unacceptable when it comes to operating anything at high speeds. I would hate for the automotive industry to just completely focusing on iPadifing your commute rather than focusing on driver/passenger experience, but I assume thats the direction where we are headed regardless.
• berlinbambi 4y ago
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• deleted 4y ago
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• strawhatguy 4y ago
  Eh, this test is timing how long it took to complete a defined set of tasks in a certain way as fast as possible. While taking longer to do a secondary task indirectly may indicate safety concerns, I’m a little skeptical that it is necessarily so, or that safety was what the test was actually testing The test did require the drivers to be moving at the same time. I often change things when I want to at natural stopping points anyway.
• jabthedang 4y ago
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• deleted 4y ago
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• cryptoegorophy 4y ago
  Comments by old people complaining. Seriously if you people had power we would still be on blackberries
• WalterBright 4y ago
  Why would one need a study for this? It's obvious. I always have to look at the touchscreen to press a button on it, not so for buttons. The touchscreen doesn't always "take" it, either, and I have to try several times.
  • richbell 4y ago
    We shouldn't shame people for performing obvious studies: studying it can either disprove false beliefs, or yield more insight. There is a very real problem in the sciences that doing "unsexy" science is treated a waste of time.
    • WalterBright 4y ago
      I might actually agree with you, because if anyone did a study on icons in cars that are "obviously" better, they'd find they are much worse than using language. For example, the fuel icon is a picture of a fuel pump with an arrow on one side of it, say on the right side pointing to the right. Does this mean: 1. The fuel pump goes on the left side of the car and one inserts the pump to the right 2. The fuel pump goes on the right side of the car and one inserts the pump to the left Both are quite reasonable interpretations. I always have to stop and think which one it is. If it said "cap on right" then there's no ambiguity.
  • rootusrootus 4y ago
    This gets said a lot, but I'd like to see a study that suggests that people use buttons in their car without looking. It's reasonable to say it's easier to hit the button, and might require less looking, but I'd bet almost everyone looks at the button before pressing it.
    • WalterBright 4y ago
      You are mostly right. I do glance to find a physical button, but I have to look to find the touchscreen button and keep looking to verify my finger is on it. It's a large difference in time. Properly designed buttons should also have various shapes and textures so your fingers learn which ones are which by feel. Airplanes do this - for example, the knob to lower the landing gear is a little tire. The knob to lower the flaps has a knob shaped like a wing on it. I come from the aircraft industry where this is a big deal, but the auto people go for a "cool" look rather than a "safe and reliable" look.
• mancerayder 4y ago
  "Study finds that leaning over to adjust the heating while driving is less quick and safe than twisting a button while keeping the eyes on the road ahead." Sources please. This can't possibly be true, we need studies to back this up.
• mrtweetyhack 4y ago
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• Kalanos 4y ago
  they should have measured time eyes on/off the road
• osigurdson 4y ago
  Seems like voice would make sense. “Hey car, turn up the heat”.
  • Our_Benefactors 4y ago
    Sure, changing to sleet driving mode…
• dang 4y ago
  Physical buttons outperform touchscreens in new cars, test finds (2022) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34283385 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34283385 - Jan 2023 (104 comments) Physical buttons outperform touchscreens in new cars, test finds - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32494497 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32494497 - Aug 2022 (953 comments)
• BrandoElFollito 4y ago
  I would love to have an interface where I could choose what I want to see. Obviously the speed meter would be a requirement with a minimal size, and probably the "danger, something is wrong with your car" one. But I would like to change the size and position. My dream setup would be a large digital speed meter, and the gas level (and how far I can go on that). And that's all. I have zero use in the engine temperature, or my consumption, or whether I am efficient with the EV mode, or whatnot. These are the only information I ever cared about.
• tobyhinloopen 4y ago
  I hate touch screens for anything else but settings or entering navigation. Mazda hit the sweet spot for me
• oblib 4y ago
  I grew up working on cars, repairing them, modifying them, and building them from the ground up, including race cars and advanced driving systems for severely handicapped folks that drove while sitting in their wheelchairs. Did that until I was in my early 30s. I've worked with and for some fairly famous racers. Tony Nancy, Sonny Easly, Larry Fullerton to name a few. Built custom driving systems for Teddy Pendergrass and Jill Kilmont (and a few 100s of others. I learned a lot very fast doing that. Safe driving requires the ability to predict what drivers around you will do. Almost everyone of those folks I met who were involve in a crash were at least partially responsible and most often distracted by something. When those touchscreens first came out I was stunned because there is no way a driver can focus on those and driving at the same time. That's obviously impossible and it only takes a second of driver distraction to get into a crash situation ("accident" is not a valid description for this). A driver can learn how to change the radio station on those old manual push button/twist knob interfaces while keeping their eyes on the road. But you cannot do that with a touchscreen (even though the original Apple interface used those physical interfaces as a design model for their graphic interface widgets). And some of those screens are obnoxiously huge and are not very intuitive. So the root of the problem is the driver must focus on the screen to find the option they want to interact with and that is a huge distraction from "driving" the vehicle. So what's really concerning is their are there a fast growing number folks who think they can safely use them. A quick search on that brought this up: "a recent study by the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) indicates that distracted driving-related fatalities are on the rise, increasing nearly ten percent from 2018 to 2019." [] Fair to say close to nothing is being done to address that. I started building my 1st custom car for myself when I was 14 years old and had it street legal and registered shortly after I turned 16 and got my license. It was a "Hot Rod 50 Ford" coupe with a 350 Chevy engine and auto trans. I lived in LA and there was a vibrant "Street Racing" culture there, but I never raced. By then I'd already seen so much death and injury from car crashes that I knew every car on the road with me was dangerous. I am 63 years old now. I have never been in an accident. Never gotten a moving violation citation, or any kind of "ticket". It's not been difficult but I have had to dodge a few car and truck sized bullets over the years. [] https://www.dkinglaw.com/distracted-driving-increasing/ https://www.dkinglaw.com/distracted-driving-increasing/ https://www.npr.org/2017/10/09/556701181/touch-screens-are-distracting-drivers-what-are-carmakers-doing-to-help https://www.npr.org/2017/10/09/556701181/touch-screens-are-d...
• maury91 4y ago
  "Study finds out that water is wet" Jokes aside, I always found the touchscreen to be annoying to use in specific conditions: 1. I have to watch the touchscreen to find the button, with physical button I can just feel where the button is while watching the road 2. On bumpy roads touchscreen is almost unusable, it is so hard to press on the right point that I'm forced to use voice commands
• michele_f 4y ago
  Fucking really?
• michele_f 4y ago
  Fucking really?!
• recursivequine 4y ago
  Do they really outperform a car while it’s on autopilot?
• id02009 4y ago
  I recently had to rent a car, and oh boy. I knew I need to set up mirrors etc for safety. But I did not foresee the need to familiarize myself with a radio. And when it started blasting a little too loud, finding a volume option on the touchscreen was an adventure when driving on a road i couldn't immediately stop on. I'm never buying touchscreen car...