3 ms·

It's not just the touch screens, it's the contextual menus & moving buttons from version to version (ahem, Tesla). It completely breaks your muscle memory. I

It's not just the touch screens, it's the contextual menus & moving buttons from version to version (ahem, Tesla). It completely breaks your muscle memory. I had to take my car to the dealer for service and they gave me a loaner. Both my car & the loaner had physical buttons, knobs and dials in addition to touch screen (BMW iDrive). However they were different model years / models / iDrive versions so all the buttons/dials were in slightly different places. It felt like driving my Tesla again where the muscle memory is lost for adjusting HVAC/wipers/radio since suddenly moved on me. It is noticeably more distracting and less safe since you need to take eyes off the road more often, for longer. The ultimate for me is the on-wheel controls & HUD for some basic radio, nav, ADAS, speed, etc so you barely even need to look at your dashboard, let alone center touch screen.

davidthewatson 4y ago
Great point, along with the top 3 comments making the case that latency and design are huge issues in a moving vehicle, because without good will, it's a weapon. Why do we cover the brake lever with the index and middle finger of the right hand on a motorcycle hurtling at barely legal speeds? Because the coming impact is the space between your fingers and the brake lever, plus reaction time. Reaction time is a function of focus, but the fact that you'll hit the stationary object in about a second at 60 MPH depending on its distance, governs everything else, save for traction. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/fitts-s-law-the-importance-of-size-and-distance-in-ui-design#:~:text=Put%20simply%2C%20Fitts%27%20Law%20states%3A%20%22...the%20time%20to,as%20the%20size%20decreases%20selection%20again%20takes%20longer https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/fitts-.... Sadly, in UI/UX design this is well understood. For whatever reason, in the last several decades of the ascendance of design, we've not seemed to apply Fitts' Law to car driving design, presumably because cup holders. I had hope when Peter Schreyer left Audi and became one of the presidents at Kia years later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Schreyer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Schreyer However, given the current state of affairs, it's clear that cars have won the battle for our hearts and minds. The kids had a point when they stopped getting driver's licenses. Much like autonomy as a general design idea in the culture. I can only hope that we have an inflection point where the realization is that, as cars get smarter, the resultant behavior of the car is a collaboration between car and driver. That may not have been true when a car was just a mechanical object governed by physics, but it clearly is true now. We could quote any one of McLuhan, Postman, or one of their contemporaries, but while their insights portended the dark future we occupy, none of their contemporaries intended that future.

davidthewatson 4y ago

Great point, along with the top 3 comments making the case that latency and design are huge issues in a moving vehicle, because without good will, it's a weapon. Why do we cover the brake lever with the index and middle finger of the right hand on a motorcycle hurtling at barely legal speeds? Because the coming impact is the space between your fingers and the brake lever, plus reaction time. Reaction time is a function of focus, but the fact that you'll hit the stationary object in about a second at 60 MPH depending on its distance, governs everything else, save for traction. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/fitts-s-law-the-importance-of-size-and-distance-in-ui-design#:~:text=Put%20simply%2C%20Fitts%27%20Law%20states%3A%20%22...the%20time%20to,as%20the%20size%20decreases%20selection%20again%20takes%20longer https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/fitts-.... Sadly, in UI/UX design this is well understood. For whatever reason, in the last several decades of the ascendance of design, we've not seemed to apply Fitts' Law to car driving design, presumably because cup holders. I had hope when Peter Schreyer left Audi and became one of the presidents at Kia years later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Schreyer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Schreyer However, given the current state of affairs, it's clear that cars have won the battle for our hearts and minds. The kids had a point when they stopped getting driver's licenses. Much like autonomy as a general design idea in the culture. I can only hope that we have an inflection point where the realization is that, as cars get smarter, the resultant behavior of the car is a collaboration between car and driver. That may not have been true when a car was just a mechanical object governed by physics, but it clearly is true now. We could quote any one of McLuhan, Postman, or one of their contemporaries, but while their insights portended the dark future we occupy, none of their contemporaries intended that future.