2 ms·

"That physical button that takes 500ms to respond is still as dangerous" No it's not. With mechanical buttons you have tactile feedback, that is you don't have

"That physical button that takes 500ms to respond is still as dangerous" No it's not. With mechanical buttons you have tactile feedback, that is you don't have to look except in the broadest sense to get the general direction. Tactile feedback not only tells you that you have the correct position but also lets you know when the job is complete. That's why rotary potentiometers with knobs make much better volume controls and so on. Can you imagine trying to play a piano with a glass keyboard? It'd be damn near impossible even for the most skilled pianist as nearby keys wouldn't provide tactile positioning. Same goes for a typewriter or computer keyboard. If you've ever used a flat panel keyboard you'll understand the problem.

hinkley 4y ago
I have a memory from the 90's of sitting in someone's car and fiddling with the ventilation system. The blower would take seconds to respond to changes of the fan speed dial. I don't know if that was electronic or if the fan blade was made out of depleted uranium. I know it was distracting, which is not something you want in a cabin control system. Luckily I was just the passenger. If I'd have been driving that car my distraction level would be higher until I got used to it. You don't want people crashing in general, but crashing their brand new cars is ugly.
- hilbert42 4y ago
  That's a totally different problem and it can apply to analog or digital systems and those with and without tactile feedback. I had a car radio with volume, tone, balance controls etc. that used rotary knobs for adjustment. The trouble was that instead of the knob being connected to a rotary potentiometer which adjusted an analog circuit that responded instantly to rotation, it was connected to a digital rotary shaft encoder which converted the rotation of one's hand—an analog function—into digital which then changed the level of the analog audio. So what you may ask. When I rotated the knob a finite and very annoying delay occurred, one's hand could be already off the knob before the volume altered. This is not a slur on digital systems but on bad shoddy design. First, one questions why bother with such digital complexity in an otherwise analog radio, the second why put a complex digital system in place of about the simplest adjustable system around—a variable resistor. Third, if one designs a digital replacement for an analog system then one would expect it to be better or at least as good as the system it is replacing. In this case the digital system was far substandard to an equivalent analog one. We see shitty design like this everywhere and it's very annoying. I could spend considerable time outlining why but that's a whole topic of itself. I'll just say this, if enough customers complain then it wouldn't happen. This story shows that consumers can get bad design problems fixed if enough complain, however garbage design would be rectified much faster if many more did so. Unfortunately, many people have high tolerance, it takes a lot to make them complain (manufacturers know this and use the fact and there's essentially no laws to stop them getting away with building crap products).

hinkley 4y ago

I have a memory from the 90's of sitting in someone's car and fiddling with the ventilation system. The blower would take seconds to respond to changes of the fan speed dial. I don't know if that was electronic or if the fan blade was made out of depleted uranium. I know it was distracting, which is not something you want in a cabin control system. Luckily I was just the passenger. If I'd have been driving that car my distraction level would be higher until I got used to it. You don't want people crashing in general, but crashing their brand new cars is ugly.

hilbert42 4y ago
That's a totally different problem and it can apply to analog or digital systems and those with and without tactile feedback. I had a car radio with volume, tone, balance controls etc. that used rotary knobs for adjustment. The trouble was that instead of the knob being connected to a rotary potentiometer which adjusted an analog circuit that responded instantly to rotation, it was connected to a digital rotary shaft encoder which converted the rotation of one's hand—an analog function—into digital which then changed the level of the analog audio. So what you may ask. When I rotated the knob a finite and very annoying delay occurred, one's hand could be already off the knob before the volume altered. This is not a slur on digital systems but on bad shoddy design. First, one questions why bother with such digital complexity in an otherwise analog radio, the second why put a complex digital system in place of about the simplest adjustable system around—a variable resistor. Third, if one designs a digital replacement for an analog system then one would expect it to be better or at least as good as the system it is replacing. In this case the digital system was far substandard to an equivalent analog one. We see shitty design like this everywhere and it's very annoying. I could spend considerable time outlining why but that's a whole topic of itself. I'll just say this, if enough customers complain then it wouldn't happen. This story shows that consumers can get bad design problems fixed if enough complain, however garbage design would be rectified much faster if many more did so. Unfortunately, many people have high tolerance, it takes a lot to make them complain (manufacturers know this and use the fact and there's essentially no laws to stop them getting away with building crap products).