4 ms·

I’m apparently unique in this, but I prefer touch screens. Not because I fail to realize the value of buttons, but I don’t find sitting in an airplane cockpit w

I’m apparently unique in this, but I prefer touch screens. Not because I fail to realize the value of buttons, but I don’t find sitting in an airplane cockpit with a few hundred buttons that much better than a screen that is contextual. I like having a few buttons for common tasks like audio controls, and voice control for most else. The rest of the stuff can be on a touch screen for all I care. I get others prefer buttons - but it’s not monolithically preferred.

TrainedMonkey 4y ago
Concur, I am a minimalist and I for one love clean interfaces. If the argument is ergonomics, majority of stuff should be controllable with voice. I often set temperature / enable seat heaters using voice.
- potatofrenzy 4y ago
  Great if you don't have a thick accent, no kids screaming in the back, etc.
- nluken 4y ago
  Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I can’t imagine using a voice command to do something as simple as turn on a seat heater. That feels like way more effort (and honestly more distracting) than one or two button presses that I don’t have to look away from the road for. Don’t you have to hit a button to start the voice command anyway?
  - fnordpiglet 4y ago
    Usually the voice command is a button on the steering wheel.
    - crooked-v 4y ago
      Sure, but you have to already know what the voice command is to turn on the seat heater and reproduce that every time, versus being able to look around and just... see an appropriate button. And that's before getting into the mess of misheard commands that even Google and Apple still can't get right despite having gigantic teams working on it 24/7.
      - fnordpiglet 4y ago
        As is mentioned in a parallel comment this will change dramatically as LLM are introduced to voice assistants. LLM are much more robust in inferring semantic meaning from noisy language. As long as they don’t ask the LLM to solve partial differential equations and confine it’s originating prompt aggressively to only interpret voice text transcriptions to a finite set of actions, it’ll be amazing.
        nluken 4y ago
        I don't doubt that voice recognition will continue to improve, but doesn't it seems kind of ridiculous for automotive manufacturers to pour millions of dollars into R&D (or spend millions licensing someone else's software) and add much more expensive processors to their cars at mass scale to solve an already solved problem? I can already adjust the climate control and other basic things without this sort of interface, and I don't have to look away from the road to do it.
        fnordpiglet 4y ago
        If it sells more cars with more profit I fully expect them to, yes. I’d also note that wiring and layout of all those buttons as well as the manual work necessary to make a static user interface is fairly expensive. The slap a general purpose processor and use the existing AV in the car to control everything greatly simplifies both assembly and supply chain. Perhaps it’s counter intuitive, but buttons aren’t nearly as cheap as you might imagine, and computing resources are decreasing in cost rapidly. Finally LLM and voice recognition model computation costs are falling dramatically - you don’t need a GPT-4 to improve voice recognition outcomes, most of the smaller system scaled models would just as well. The more advanced models are only necessary for significantly more advanced semantic tasks.
netsharc 4y ago
I think "airplane cockpit" is an exaggeration. Sure early 2000's Mercedeses even had a phone keypad[1], because, hey, everyone needed that front and center, but by around 2010 most manufacturers figured out iDrive-style interfaces (maybe a better name would be iPod-style menus with a scroll wheel you click to enter submenus) [1] https://s1.cdn.autoevolution.com/images/gallery/MERCEDESBENZC-KlasseAMG-319_5.jpg https://s1.cdn.autoevolution.com/images/gallery/MERCEDESBENZ...
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  Love the Buick Cascada button explosion https://bestride.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/2016-Buick-Cascada-Infotainment-1024x899.jpg https://bestride.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/2016-Buick-C...
Tagbert 4y ago
I’ve never seen any car dash with more than a few dozen buttons.
- CamperBob2 4y ago
  I counted the buttons within reach while waiting at a long stoplight once. Was up to 55 when the light turned green. Which is awesome. I like buttons. Edit, from grocery store parking lot: 92
- pests 4y ago
  Its not just the dash. The center console. The steering wheel. Door panel. On the headliner.
- bigger_cheese 4y ago
  I've just upgraded from a very old Toyota to a new Mazda. There are so many buttons in my new car and so much more technology it is honestly a little intimidating. Most of the buttons are for features I've never had before. There are buttons for Bluetooth (I think for receiving phone calls while driving and turning up and down audio volume etc) located on the steering wheel, There are a bunch of buttons for cruise control and I think lane keeping assist also on the steering wheel - I've never had a car with cruise control before and honestly I am a little intimidated to try it out. It seems so complicated. There are some buttons for the Front cross traffic sensors it took me a while to figure out what was going on with these. My car would randomly beep at me while at intersections before I finally figured out what was causing it. Then there is buttons to toggle the parking sensors and toggle between the front / reverse parking cameras. On top of that quite a lot of things in the car are automated now too - headlights will automatically turn on, wipers automatically switch on etc. My old car had a radio and heating/AC that was it. I've had the car for just under a month and I've already had to consult the manual 2 or 3 times because I've forgotten what certain buttons do.
ojkelly 4y ago
If I’m fully engaged with a device a touch screen is great, especially when that device needs to do more things than you could reasonably make physical controls for. But when I’m driving and need to adjust something, I don’t want to disconnect with driving to dive into a touch screen. A physical control, in the same location means muscle memory can take over. And as we learnt decades ago, the controls themselves need to be physically distinct so that you can tell them apart without looking or thinking too hard. I don’t think touchscreens need to disappear from cars, there’s a wealth of settings/config/etc they could be useful for. But the core driving aids and temperature/volume control need to be physical.
- stevage 4y ago
  Also, with a physical control, I find that I can glance over to locate the control, return my eyes to the road, then reach over blindly to touch it. That doesn't work with a touchscreen at all.
  - natch 4y ago
    Works for me. 1. Reach over, grasp the screen under the target area using muscle memory. Screen is strong as hell, you could put your full weight on it and it wouldn’t budge. 2. While continuing to hold the edge of the screen, move thumb to hover over suspected target area using muscle memory. 3. Glance and tap in one moment. Done. Not that I ever need to do this. Pretty much everything I need to do has a button. (And this in a car that the internet geniuses including here on HN are convinced does not have buttons). If steps 1, 2, and 3 sounded distracting or hard, see again the part where I said “not that I ever need to do this” and why.
CoolestBeans 4y ago
Voice control is a bit of a nonstarter as the speech recognition (perhaps combined with the weird acoustics of a moving vehicle) has never worked for everyone; eg my father's accent never seems to work in his Honda. My car is from 2014 and definitely has more buttons than necessary. I don't mind infrequently used controls behind a touchscreen, like do the controls to set the time on the clock really need dedicated buttons? But the issue as I see it is that whats frequently used for some is infrequently used for others. For example, I never take my car's drive mode out of eco, but my sister switches to sport when she goes up big hills. Once you get out of the category of obviously frequently controlled things (gear selector, climate control, media controls), you really have to start making judgement calls and picking and choosing who you're going to make uncomfortable. For example, do you prioritize a radio selector? Some people never use the AM/FM radio on their car. Some people only listen to AM/FM radio and never connect their smartphone.
- asdfman123 4y ago
  I never liked voice recognition until I had to test it myself at my job, and seen firsthand just how much better it has gotten over the past few years. I think voice commands would be much more widely used if they hadn’t rolled it out so soon, ironically. But most of us learned early on that it sucks and never tried it again.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- curiousObject 4y ago
  > Once you get out of the category of obviously frequently controlled things (gear selector, climate control, media controls), you really have to start making judgement calls and picking and choosing who you're going to make uncomfortable. User-assignable buttons might mitigate that. With profiles for individual drivers. But perhaps those features would confuse some users even more
  - robszumski 4y ago
karaterobot 4y ago
I'm disappointed that your comment has gotten downvoted. Hard to see why it should be, since it's just your opinion, and you even backed it up with a reason.
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  I think it's because they talk about "hundreds of buttons" and then mention they don't actually use the touch screen, they use voice.
  - fnordpiglet 4y ago
    I do use the touch screen, but when doing complex driving tasks I don’t. I don’t think I specifically am advocating for touch screens as the singular interface. I’m advocating that buttons are a terrible singular interface. In fact, I use the steering wheel buttons extensively while driving. It’s only when I want something not core to the act of driving, like changing the song or some other ancillary function, do I go to voice command. The touch screen I use primarily when I’m stopped or as a passenger. But I’d rather that than have a hundred buttons decorating the center console. It’s not a reasonable user interface for things that aren’t necessary to have at a quick finger index. On the downvoting, don’t be obtuse. On HN people downvote if they disagree with an opinion. I don’t particularly take much notice of either direction on the voting. Internet points don’t count for much, and I’d rather enjoy my discourse than scrounge for points.
    - Dylan16807 4y ago
      I'm not being obtuse when I say you'd have better odds if you stopped saying "hundred(s) of buttons". My car has less than 25 buttons on the center console, plus three dials for climate control. If you removed the buttons dealing with CDs it would be more like 15.
NoPicklez 4y ago
You aren't unique in this. This isn't about the complete removal of touch screens or moving to purely buttons. It's about providing a better balance between physical buttons for driving essentials and then having the rest under a usable touch screen interface. It's not all one or the other.

TrainedMonkey 4y ago

Concur, I am a minimalist and I for one love clean interfaces. If the argument is ergonomics, majority of stuff should be controllable with voice. I often set temperature / enable seat heaters using voice.

potatofrenzy 4y ago
Great if you don't have a thick accent, no kids screaming in the back, etc.
nluken 4y ago
Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I can’t imagine using a voice command to do something as simple as turn on a seat heater. That feels like way more effort (and honestly more distracting) than one or two button presses that I don’t have to look away from the road for. Don’t you have to hit a button to start the voice command anyway?
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  Usually the voice command is a button on the steering wheel.
  - crooked-v 4y ago
    Sure, but you have to already know what the voice command is to turn on the seat heater and reproduce that every time, versus being able to look around and just... see an appropriate button. And that's before getting into the mess of misheard commands that even Google and Apple still can't get right despite having gigantic teams working on it 24/7.
    - fnordpiglet 4y ago
      As is mentioned in a parallel comment this will change dramatically as LLM are introduced to voice assistants. LLM are much more robust in inferring semantic meaning from noisy language. As long as they don’t ask the LLM to solve partial differential equations and confine it’s originating prompt aggressively to only interpret voice text transcriptions to a finite set of actions, it’ll be amazing.
      - nluken 4y ago
        I don't doubt that voice recognition will continue to improve, but doesn't it seems kind of ridiculous for automotive manufacturers to pour millions of dollars into R&D (or spend millions licensing someone else's software) and add much more expensive processors to their cars at mass scale to solve an already solved problem? I can already adjust the climate control and other basic things without this sort of interface, and I don't have to look away from the road to do it.
        fnordpiglet 4y ago
        If it sells more cars with more profit I fully expect them to, yes. I’d also note that wiring and layout of all those buttons as well as the manual work necessary to make a static user interface is fairly expensive. The slap a general purpose processor and use the existing AV in the car to control everything greatly simplifies both assembly and supply chain. Perhaps it’s counter intuitive, but buttons aren’t nearly as cheap as you might imagine, and computing resources are decreasing in cost rapidly. Finally LLM and voice recognition model computation costs are falling dramatically - you don’t need a GPT-4 to improve voice recognition outcomes, most of the smaller system scaled models would just as well. The more advanced models are only necessary for significantly more advanced semantic tasks.

netsharc 4y ago

I think "airplane cockpit" is an exaggeration. Sure early 2000's Mercedeses even had a phone keypad[1], because, hey, everyone needed that front and center, but by around 2010 most manufacturers figured out iDrive-style interfaces (maybe a better name would be iPod-style menus with a scroll wheel you click to enter submenus) [1] https://s1.cdn.autoevolution.com/images/gallery/MERCEDESBENZC-KlasseAMG-319_5.jpg https://s1.cdn.autoevolution.com/images/gallery/MERCEDESBENZ...

fnordpiglet 4y ago
Love the Buick Cascada button explosion https://bestride.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/2016-Buick-Cascada-Infotainment-1024x899.jpg https://bestride.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/2016-Buick-C...

Tagbert 4y ago

I’ve never seen any car dash with more than a few dozen buttons.

CamperBob2 4y ago
I counted the buttons within reach while waiting at a long stoplight once. Was up to 55 when the light turned green. Which is awesome. I like buttons. Edit, from grocery store parking lot: 92
pests 4y ago
Its not just the dash. The center console. The steering wheel. Door panel. On the headliner.
bigger_cheese 4y ago
I've just upgraded from a very old Toyota to a new Mazda. There are so many buttons in my new car and so much more technology it is honestly a little intimidating. Most of the buttons are for features I've never had before. There are buttons for Bluetooth (I think for receiving phone calls while driving and turning up and down audio volume etc) located on the steering wheel, There are a bunch of buttons for cruise control and I think lane keeping assist also on the steering wheel - I've never had a car with cruise control before and honestly I am a little intimidated to try it out. It seems so complicated. There are some buttons for the Front cross traffic sensors it took me a while to figure out what was going on with these. My car would randomly beep at me while at intersections before I finally figured out what was causing it. Then there is buttons to toggle the parking sensors and toggle between the front / reverse parking cameras. On top of that quite a lot of things in the car are automated now too - headlights will automatically turn on, wipers automatically switch on etc. My old car had a radio and heating/AC that was it. I've had the car for just under a month and I've already had to consult the manual 2 or 3 times because I've forgotten what certain buttons do.

ojkelly 4y ago

If I’m fully engaged with a device a touch screen is great, especially when that device needs to do more things than you could reasonably make physical controls for. But when I’m driving and need to adjust something, I don’t want to disconnect with driving to dive into a touch screen. A physical control, in the same location means muscle memory can take over. And as we learnt decades ago, the controls themselves need to be physically distinct so that you can tell them apart without looking or thinking too hard. I don’t think touchscreens need to disappear from cars, there’s a wealth of settings/config/etc they could be useful for. But the core driving aids and temperature/volume control need to be physical.

stevage 4y ago
Also, with a physical control, I find that I can glance over to locate the control, return my eyes to the road, then reach over blindly to touch it. That doesn't work with a touchscreen at all.
- natch 4y ago
  Works for me. 1. Reach over, grasp the screen under the target area using muscle memory. Screen is strong as hell, you could put your full weight on it and it wouldn’t budge. 2. While continuing to hold the edge of the screen, move thumb to hover over suspected target area using muscle memory. 3. Glance and tap in one moment. Done. Not that I ever need to do this. Pretty much everything I need to do has a button. (And this in a car that the internet geniuses including here on HN are convinced does not have buttons). If steps 1, 2, and 3 sounded distracting or hard, see again the part where I said “not that I ever need to do this” and why.

CoolestBeans 4y ago

Voice control is a bit of a nonstarter as the speech recognition (perhaps combined with the weird acoustics of a moving vehicle) has never worked for everyone; eg my father's accent never seems to work in his Honda. My car is from 2014 and definitely has more buttons than necessary. I don't mind infrequently used controls behind a touchscreen, like do the controls to set the time on the clock really need dedicated buttons? But the issue as I see it is that whats frequently used for some is infrequently used for others. For example, I never take my car's drive mode out of eco, but my sister switches to sport when she goes up big hills. Once you get out of the category of obviously frequently controlled things (gear selector, climate control, media controls), you really have to start making judgement calls and picking and choosing who you're going to make uncomfortable. For example, do you prioritize a radio selector? Some people never use the AM/FM radio on their car. Some people only listen to AM/FM radio and never connect their smartphone.

asdfman123 4y ago
I never liked voice recognition until I had to test it myself at my job, and seen firsthand just how much better it has gotten over the past few years. I think voice commands would be much more widely used if they hadn’t rolled it out so soon, ironically. But most of us learned early on that it sucks and never tried it again.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
curiousObject 4y ago
> Once you get out of the category of obviously frequently controlled things (gear selector, climate control, media controls), you really have to start making judgement calls and picking and choosing who you're going to make uncomfortable. User-assignable buttons might mitigate that. With profiles for individual drivers. But perhaps those features would confuse some users even more
- robszumski 4y ago

karaterobot 4y ago

I'm disappointed that your comment has gotten downvoted. Hard to see why it should be, since it's just your opinion, and you even backed it up with a reason.

Dylan16807 4y ago
I think it's because they talk about "hundreds of buttons" and then mention they don't actually use the touch screen, they use voice.
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  I do use the touch screen, but when doing complex driving tasks I don’t. I don’t think I specifically am advocating for touch screens as the singular interface. I’m advocating that buttons are a terrible singular interface. In fact, I use the steering wheel buttons extensively while driving. It’s only when I want something not core to the act of driving, like changing the song or some other ancillary function, do I go to voice command. The touch screen I use primarily when I’m stopped or as a passenger. But I’d rather that than have a hundred buttons decorating the center console. It’s not a reasonable user interface for things that aren’t necessary to have at a quick finger index. On the downvoting, don’t be obtuse. On HN people downvote if they disagree with an opinion. I don’t particularly take much notice of either direction on the voting. Internet points don’t count for much, and I’d rather enjoy my discourse than scrounge for points.
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    I'm not being obtuse when I say you'd have better odds if you stopped saying "hundred(s) of buttons". My car has less than 25 buttons on the center console, plus three dials for climate control. If you removed the buttons dealing with CDs it would be more like 15.

NoPicklez 4y ago

You aren't unique in this. This isn't about the complete removal of touch screens or moving to purely buttons. It's about providing a better balance between physical buttons for driving essentials and then having the rest under a usable touch screen interface. It's not all one or the other.