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Touch screens are cheap and lazy design. Worse, it's more dangerous because physical interfaces have tactile feedback so you can use them to some degree without

by jmyeet 3y ago

Touch screens are cheap and lazy design. Worse, it's more dangerous because physical interfaces have tactile feedback so you can use them to some degree without looking at them. It's more dangerous too. On a phone it makes sense because of limited real estate and mixed utility. The real reason car manufacturers do it is to push design problems into being software problems. Sucky UI? We can fix it in a software update! We can ship sooner too because we can update later. This is cheaper and faster than having to think through the UI/UX before you build it. I don't know anyone who likes driving a giant iPad.

norir 3y ago
I think an interesting approach might be a hybrid system that works with both touch and physical buttons. The bottom of the screen could have some generic buttons that could be used to navigate the interface eyes free with some optional audio feedback. For example, I'd imagine a row of buttons like in the OP where maybe the left two buttons are up and down. Depending on the context, the buttons do different things but those two always mean up and down although up and down might mean volume up/down, fans up/down or menu scroll up and down. The screen could then give huge display feedback for those things that wouldn't require much if any driver attention. The nice thing about the touch is that it allows for a giant display that requires less visual attention when used in conjunction with buttons. It also gives flexibility to add (hopefully inessential but pleasant) functionality or fix interface design mistakes after the fact. It just shouldn't be the primary interface while driving. Like I have no problem with the audio system having an eq app with just a touch ui because I probably don't need to adjust eq when driving, unlike say volume which ideally would just be a physical knob or rocker. But yes I agree that most current touch interface are horrible lowest common denominator solutions. They are easyish to learn but tend to require significant visual attention which is obviously poor design for something that is used when driving.

by jmyeet 3y ago

norir 3y ago

I think an interesting approach might be a hybrid system that works with both touch and physical buttons. The bottom of the screen could have some generic buttons that could be used to navigate the interface eyes free with some optional audio feedback. For example, I'd imagine a row of buttons like in the OP where maybe the left two buttons are up and down. Depending on the context, the buttons do different things but those two always mean up and down although up and down might mean volume up/down, fans up/down or menu scroll up and down. The screen could then give huge display feedback for those things that wouldn't require much if any driver attention. The nice thing about the touch is that it allows for a giant display that requires less visual attention when used in conjunction with buttons. It also gives flexibility to add (hopefully inessential but pleasant) functionality or fix interface design mistakes after the fact. It just shouldn't be the primary interface while driving. Like I have no problem with the audio system having an eq app with just a touch ui because I probably don't need to adjust eq when driving, unlike say volume which ideally would just be a physical knob or rocker. But yes I agree that most current touch interface are horrible lowest common denominator solutions. They are easyish to learn but tend to require significant visual attention which is obviously poor design for something that is used when driving.