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I have a VW (ID.4) and they took the touch craziness to another level. There are things that don't look like buttons, but are touch-sensitive, and there are als

by jwr 3y ago

I have a VW (ID.4) and they took the touch craziness to another level. There are things that don't look like buttons, but are touch-sensitive, and there are also buttons, that apart from being pressure-sensitive, are also touch sensitive. Like volume buttons on the steering wheel, where if you try to feel for them without looking, you end up accidentally "swiping" and turning your volume up to the max. The whole touch cluster on the left of the steering wheel, just below the vent, is a disaster, too. If I want to check the temperature of the air that's blowing into the cabin, I end up accidentally turning off the lights, turning on rear antifog lights, and turning on defroster heating for the windshield. The next minute or so is spent trying to get everything back to normal. The rule should be that everything in the car needs to be a physically actuated button, and touching those buttons without pressing them should only ever light them up or show help messages, never perform any action.

arlcode 3y ago
I ultimately decided against an MEB based model because the (steering wheel) UX felt almost unusable during my test drive. I partcularily struggeled with the cruise control swipe-click and hilariously the window switch. The car i ultimately settled on has worse overall infotainment software but physical controls which can be operated blindely and reliably. No wonder VW is already in the process of correcting this disastrous, budget driven, decision.
- hef19898 3y ago
  VW went so far into left field with their controls on the ID-series, it is embarassing. Good to hear that they correct.
  - arlcode 3y ago
    Just my own thought but I believe they were under immense pressure to achieve similar (or even some) margins with their very first broad market BEV, as they are getting with comparable ICE models. As a car the MEB siblings are not bad at all and by now the software is fine I hear, but they cut just to many ergonomic corners instead of accepting the costs of getting started in a slightly different market segment.
    - hef19898 3y ago
      Funny thing is, Skoda is doing better (no real news so), despite using the same platform. What definitely didn't help, was putting a self-declared Tesla fanboy in the CEO seat. Only Tesla is Tesla, no other brand can get away with Tesla stuff. Should have been clear for VW, as they lived of marketing to sell overpriced cars for decades.
      - foobarian 3y ago
        I think you're right, this is not a financial decision but cargo culting at its best. Just look at what happened to phones after iPhone 1 came out.
- Maakuth 3y ago
  And how much cheaper can this stuff really be than real buttons?
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Enough. Also, these design changes were advocated for by the CEO at the time.
  - heavyset_go 3y ago
    Can the buttons show you ads and upsell you on features?
    - Maakuth 3y ago
      That's just it - these are no more customizable than real buttons! They come with preprinted symbols for their function, so no cost advantage of customization.
  - Bluestrike2 3y ago
    We're talking a few dollars per unit for the various capacitive buttons, if that. Steering wheel controls already connect over CAN bus so it's not like you're saving a great length of wire, for example. They still connect to controllers, etc. Even tiny savings add up, but the cost of non-capacitive buttons is something they could recoup with almost zero effort. Instead, it's almost certainly a design choice: they're easier to design around and 'feel' futuristic. Or that's what the designers and marketers think, anyhow. The bigger cost-savings are in the touchscreen infotainment systems, where they get to eliminate the physical cost of a ton of buttons while simplifying manufacturing and parts inventory (no having to deal with a bunch of different trim parts to accommodate buttons for various options, etc.). That's probably the biggest reason why consumer pushback against touchscreens has taken so damn long to barely start having an effect.
- moogly 3y ago
  Doesn't Skoda have pretty sensible steering wheels still?
  - arlcode 3y ago
    Yes I should have limited my comment to VW, Cupra and Seat(?)
  - arethuza 3y ago
    They do but I would say the design of the two scroll/click wheels has got worse in the last couple of years.
  - ack 3y ago
    The Skoda I just rented in Portugal has real controls but they were really horrible. Even once I got used to their locations, I regularly made something happened than I wanted. Rear windows open instead of front, etc. There's even a control for the digital dashpanel enticing one to play with the display while driving.
    - moogly 3y ago
      I really wonder how much money you can save by removing the individual rear window buttons and instead adding a modal touch "rear" button, like VAG has started doing.
    - a_gnostic 3y ago
      Had an old Chevy with similar problems. Ended up taking a Dremel to the rear window controls, a bit of roughness is all it took.
kevincox 3y ago
> The machine was rather difficult to operate. For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive--you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure, of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same program. By Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
- ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
  Can people please stop implementing ideas that were intended as satire?
  - drewzero1 3y ago
    Or as social criticism! A lot of tech giants seem to be trying to bring about the techno-future of scifi and completely missing the point that a lot of it is a dystopian hellscape serving as a thin veil over commentary on contemporary society.
    - ChainOfFools 3y ago
      The sense that you're being asked, or coerced, to participate in realizing someone's shallow, misunderstood, but aggressively peddled reading of a dystopian social commentary fantasy scenario is very near to the heart of what makes tech bro culture so obnoxious for everyone else.
  - MR4D 3y ago
    No. That's the only way we know we're in a simulation. Reality could never be this stupid.
- Silasdev 3y ago
  Did Douglas Adams travel in time.... this is scarily accurate!!! My BMW keeps turning off the volume if I wave at anything in the direction of the touchscreen. There is a little infrared camera near the roof that can sense hand-gestures and turn volume up or down ... and lots of other things. Douglas Adams so spot on I want to cry!
maxerickson 3y ago
I bet you get bad controls even with a rigid prescription. And then your rigid rule would prevent something like having a touch menu for a setup function that you would never have good reason to adjust while driving. Likely making it worse.
parchley 3y ago
I took and ID3 for a test drive, an accidentally activated the speed limiter on the highway. That got quite scary, and it took ages to realize I had to swipe on one of the fake buttons to disable it. Compared to ID4, ID3 has another epic cost saving measure: They removed the two switches for the rear windows from the driver door, and replaced it with a toggle switch that decides whether the switches for the front windows really control the front windows, or the rear ones. So in total they saved one physical switch, but made the user experience much worse. I also skipped the entire ID-family due to that. At least the Enyaq (Skoda's ID4) has a much better setup with physical buttons on the steering wheel, and more physical buttons for the console.
- matsemann 3y ago
  Same. Rented an ID3 for a weekend. Will never drive one again. Almost lethal design decisions on that car.
btown 3y ago
An ability to turn volume up to the max, unintentionally, is a safety issue, IMO. And more generally, I wonder how many “took my eye off the road for the radio” accident reports are actually a result of bad physical UX.
jval43 3y ago
I was in the market for a car, and initially really wanted a Tesla or VW / ID, but with no buttons, no dials, and on the Tesla additionally no parking sensors, wonky rain sensors combined with missing stalks and no straight-on speedometer, it quickly became clear to me these were all potential usability and safety issues. I found a nice Toyota instead with a button for every function, and everything just works.
- helij 3y ago
  May I ask which Toyota. Did you go with their EV model?
andix 3y ago
I think it’s really hard to get good UX by setting up some simple rules. In the end we need good UX, however this is done. For things like lights or wipers the solutions from the past are quite good I would say. For things like the Tesla turn signal buttons I would actually prefer to have both buttons and the traditional stalk. Depending on the situation one is superior of the other.
marginalien 3y ago
I have been driving an ID.4 for almost three years by now. I consider much of what others criticize here in terms of UI, touch-sensitive buttons etc. to be „not great“ either but it did work for me. I didn’t really care to be honest. What did not work for me was the re-charging experience on longer trips. I do not want to „subscribe“ to anything just to recharge my car in a reasonable amount of time. But even with a hypercharger it still takes way too long and without the „right“ subscription you feel like they steal your money from you. This is the worst from my POV when it comes to EVs, this is where they felt like inferior technology and business model to me as a consumer. Guess what, even though I was always a fan of EVs and hybrids (even drove three different models of Toyota Prius prior to my ID.4) my next car will be a traditional one (Hyundai Tucson to be precise).
dang 3y ago
(We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39600257 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39600257)

by jwr 3y ago

arlcode 3y ago

I ultimately decided against an MEB based model because the (steering wheel) UX felt almost unusable during my test drive. I partcularily struggeled with the cruise control swipe-click and hilariously the window switch. The car i ultimately settled on has worse overall infotainment software but physical controls which can be operated blindely and reliably. No wonder VW is already in the process of correcting this disastrous, budget driven, decision.

hef19898 3y ago
VW went so far into left field with their controls on the ID-series, it is embarassing. Good to hear that they correct.
- arlcode 3y ago
  Just my own thought but I believe they were under immense pressure to achieve similar (or even some) margins with their very first broad market BEV, as they are getting with comparable ICE models. As a car the MEB siblings are not bad at all and by now the software is fine I hear, but they cut just to many ergonomic corners instead of accepting the costs of getting started in a slightly different market segment.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Funny thing is, Skoda is doing better (no real news so), despite using the same platform. What definitely didn't help, was putting a self-declared Tesla fanboy in the CEO seat. Only Tesla is Tesla, no other brand can get away with Tesla stuff. Should have been clear for VW, as they lived of marketing to sell overpriced cars for decades.
    - foobarian 3y ago
      I think you're right, this is not a financial decision but cargo culting at its best. Just look at what happened to phones after iPhone 1 came out.
Maakuth 3y ago
And how much cheaper can this stuff really be than real buttons?
- hef19898 3y ago
  Enough. Also, these design changes were advocated for by the CEO at the time.
- heavyset_go 3y ago
  Can the buttons show you ads and upsell you on features?
  - Maakuth 3y ago
    That's just it - these are no more customizable than real buttons! They come with preprinted symbols for their function, so no cost advantage of customization.
- Bluestrike2 3y ago
  We're talking a few dollars per unit for the various capacitive buttons, if that. Steering wheel controls already connect over CAN bus so it's not like you're saving a great length of wire, for example. They still connect to controllers, etc. Even tiny savings add up, but the cost of non-capacitive buttons is something they could recoup with almost zero effort. Instead, it's almost certainly a design choice: they're easier to design around and 'feel' futuristic. Or that's what the designers and marketers think, anyhow. The bigger cost-savings are in the touchscreen infotainment systems, where they get to eliminate the physical cost of a ton of buttons while simplifying manufacturing and parts inventory (no having to deal with a bunch of different trim parts to accommodate buttons for various options, etc.). That's probably the biggest reason why consumer pushback against touchscreens has taken so damn long to barely start having an effect.
moogly 3y ago
Doesn't Skoda have pretty sensible steering wheels still?
- arlcode 3y ago
  Yes I should have limited my comment to VW, Cupra and Seat(?)
- arethuza 3y ago
  They do but I would say the design of the two scroll/click wheels has got worse in the last couple of years.
- ack 3y ago
  The Skoda I just rented in Portugal has real controls but they were really horrible. Even once I got used to their locations, I regularly made something happened than I wanted. Rear windows open instead of front, etc. There's even a control for the digital dashpanel enticing one to play with the display while driving.
  - moogly 3y ago
    I really wonder how much money you can save by removing the individual rear window buttons and instead adding a modal touch "rear" button, like VAG has started doing.
  - a_gnostic 3y ago
    Had an old Chevy with similar problems. Ended up taking a Dremel to the rear window controls, a bit of roughness is all it took.

kevincox 3y ago

> The machine was rather difficult to operate. For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive--you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure, of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same program. By Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
Can people please stop implementing ideas that were intended as satire?
- drewzero1 3y ago
  Or as social criticism! A lot of tech giants seem to be trying to bring about the techno-future of scifi and completely missing the point that a lot of it is a dystopian hellscape serving as a thin veil over commentary on contemporary society.
  - ChainOfFools 3y ago
    The sense that you're being asked, or coerced, to participate in realizing someone's shallow, misunderstood, but aggressively peddled reading of a dystopian social commentary fantasy scenario is very near to the heart of what makes tech bro culture so obnoxious for everyone else.
- MR4D 3y ago
  No. That's the only way we know we're in a simulation. Reality could never be this stupid.
Silasdev 3y ago
Did Douglas Adams travel in time.... this is scarily accurate!!! My BMW keeps turning off the volume if I wave at anything in the direction of the touchscreen. There is a little infrared camera near the roof that can sense hand-gestures and turn volume up or down ... and lots of other things. Douglas Adams so spot on I want to cry!

maxerickson 3y ago

I bet you get bad controls even with a rigid prescription. And then your rigid rule would prevent something like having a touch menu for a setup function that you would never have good reason to adjust while driving. Likely making it worse.

parchley 3y ago

I took and ID3 for a test drive, an accidentally activated the speed limiter on the highway. That got quite scary, and it took ages to realize I had to swipe on one of the fake buttons to disable it. Compared to ID4, ID3 has another epic cost saving measure: They removed the two switches for the rear windows from the driver door, and replaced it with a toggle switch that decides whether the switches for the front windows really control the front windows, or the rear ones. So in total they saved one physical switch, but made the user experience much worse. I also skipped the entire ID-family due to that. At least the Enyaq (Skoda's ID4) has a much better setup with physical buttons on the steering wheel, and more physical buttons for the console.

matsemann 3y ago
Same. Rented an ID3 for a weekend. Will never drive one again. Almost lethal design decisions on that car.

btown 3y ago

An ability to turn volume up to the max, unintentionally, is a safety issue, IMO. And more generally, I wonder how many “took my eye off the road for the radio” accident reports are actually a result of bad physical UX.

jval43 3y ago

I was in the market for a car, and initially really wanted a Tesla or VW / ID, but with no buttons, no dials, and on the Tesla additionally no parking sensors, wonky rain sensors combined with missing stalks and no straight-on speedometer, it quickly became clear to me these were all potential usability and safety issues. I found a nice Toyota instead with a button for every function, and everything just works.

helij 3y ago
May I ask which Toyota. Did you go with their EV model?

andix 3y ago

I think it’s really hard to get good UX by setting up some simple rules. In the end we need good UX, however this is done. For things like lights or wipers the solutions from the past are quite good I would say. For things like the Tesla turn signal buttons I would actually prefer to have both buttons and the traditional stalk. Depending on the situation one is superior of the other.

marginalien 3y ago

I have been driving an ID.4 for almost three years by now. I consider much of what others criticize here in terms of UI, touch-sensitive buttons etc. to be „not great“ either but it did work for me. I didn’t really care to be honest. What did not work for me was the re-charging experience on longer trips. I do not want to „subscribe“ to anything just to recharge my car in a reasonable amount of time. But even with a hypercharger it still takes way too long and without the „right“ subscription you feel like they steal your money from you. This is the worst from my POV when it comes to EVs, this is where they felt like inferior technology and business model to me as a consumer. Guess what, even though I was always a fan of EVs and hybrids (even drove three different models of Toyota Prius prior to my ID.4) my next car will be a traditional one (Hyundai Tucson to be precise).

dang 3y ago

(We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39600257 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39600257)