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We should NOT have touch screen interfaces in cars. Full stop. If the driver has to divert their gaze from the road to operate e.g. the heating/AC[0], that is a

We should NOT have touch screen interfaces in cars. Full stop. If the driver has to divert their gaze from the road to operate e.g. the heating/AC[0], that is a failure of UX sufficiently egregious to keep the car off the road. It is not a toy, it is not a fashion statement, it is a thousand pound chunk of steel that will indiscriminately kill and maim if not operated with care and diligence. [0] This is the complaint I have with my wife's Honda Civic. If I want to do something as simple as turn on the fan but turn off the AC, it means navigating into a sub menu and correctly hitting one of several choices on a touch screen.

aurareturn 2y ago
I wonder if Gen Alpha will prefer pure touchscreen controls in cars.
- dageshi 2y ago
  The youngest in gen alpha are just being born, there's a real chance they may not learn to drive at all because self driving is ubiquitous.
  - WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
    > there's a real chance they may not learn to drive at all because self driving is ubiquitous. I don't see unattended self-driving becoming the norm during the next 20 years. I'm skeptical it'll happen in 50 years. There are an uncountable number of non-foreseeable driving events and road conditions. I believe we'd have to rethink/redesign roads to adjust to limitations of FSD. Past that: A top reason for late teens not driving now is parents can't afford car insurance rates that approach their housing costs.
- VyseofArcadia 2y ago
  Preference is irrelevant. It's demonstrably dangerous. Maybe Gen Alpha will also prefer cars without functioning headlights, but those are thankfully banned.
lucideng 2y ago
100% agree
MaximilianEmel 2y ago
While I much prefer physical buttons, I do think gestures could be made to work.
- VyseofArcadia 2y ago
  This would require a level of polish and sophistication that I have no reason to suspect car manufacturers would ever by capable of. I can only imagine making some sort of awkward swiping gesture while frequently glancing at the screen to verify that it worked.
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  Let’s start by making gestures preferable to buttons while sitting on a couch to control the TV channel okay buddy
- sillywalk 2y ago
  I'm forced to quote from The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy: "A loud clatter of gunk music flooded through the Heart of Gold cabin as Zaphod searched the sub-etha radio wave bands for news of himself. 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." As a side note, the F-35 has a touchscreen interface that has been described as difficult to use when the jet is in motion.
  - ossm1db 2y ago
    I wonder if the touchscreen was a factor in recent crashes? They never say more than "in-flight malfunction."
- wongarsu 2y ago
  Tactile feedback is still a big issue with gestures. With a physical button you can feel that you have hit the button, can easily find it by touch if you missed it, and you can feel that you successfully actuated it. All of those are difficult on touch surfaces. Not insurmountable, but you have to put a lot of effort into things you get for free with physical interfaces
MrLeap 2y ago
Some really nice haptics could mitigate this somewhat, but by the time you succeed at that where others have failed, why not just give me a knob.
jeffbee 2y ago
We shouldn't have 89-year-old drivers in cars, either. Full stop. In my city we've had three pedestrian fatalities in less than a year and all the drivers were aged 79 or older.
- VyseofArcadia 2y ago
  100% agree.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  At least make them pass a road test. Make sure they can operate the car safely at the posted speed limit. Give them a vision test, maybe limit them to daytime driving. Some 90 year olds are fine to drive, but I agree many are not. And driving around 10-20 mph under the limit is a hazard in itself.
  - WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
    > At least make them pass a road test. Make sure they can operate the car safely at the posted speed limit. ... and perform 3 controls-based actions (ex: climate adjustment, audio). The testee commonly provides their own car for OTR tests. If they drive a model with physical controls, it could better for everyone.
- ballenf 2y ago
  Mandatory regular (every 5-10 years) driving tests seem like a no-brainer regardless of age. Also seems like the driving tests should be more stringent.
  - ericjmorey 2y ago
    The fact that people who passed the test 40+ years ago barely know the laws that have been introduced since is reason enough for regular retesting.
  - tuna74 2y ago
    Yes a million times to this! It is crazy that you never have to retake your drivers license.
Liquix 2y ago
that's the issue with industries like this.. no one asked for touchscreen controls, but they're cheaper and make the manufacturers more money. no one asked for their private conversations to be recorded and sold, but that juicy data is profitable. it's not like people can stop buying cars until the situation improves. joe q public can't be expected to start a grassroots movement and go lobby, he needs to get to work to feed his four kids, which means he's buying whichever car is available. it's also impossible to vote with your wallet when every [0] auto company places profit above safety/functionality. [0] https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/ https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/article...
- trod1234 2y ago
  If business is unable to self-regulate, it is the job of government to step in and force them to correct. Unfortunately for us, government has largely failed in its official capacities and responsibilities, nearly all of them, and so things will continue breaking until loss of life and limb becomes common, where no one can sit on the sidelines any more if they want to survive. This is what happens when corrupt people are allowed to warp existing systems for personal gain, and cannot be removed except in egregious violations of law.
- tuna74 2y ago
  If people did not buy cars with touch screens when they started to get introduced, they would be gone by now. But they seem to be accepted by new car buyers which is the market that matters to manufacturers.
- BeetleB 2y ago
  > no one asked for touchscreen controls When they first came out in cars, most people wanted one. Even I did. Then I got one and learned how terrible it is.
  - anonymousiam 2y ago
    I remember test driving a Buick Reatta in the late 80's. At the time, I thought it was the first car to get a touch screen interface, but it turns out that the Buick Riviera had one a year earlier. It was an interesting gimmick, but not practical. I did not buy the car. I had learned about the GM touch screen interface because I worked for Hughes at the time, and after GM's purchase of Hughes in 1985, they recruited a bunch of engineers from Hughes to automate and improve the vehicle designs and production lines. I had been offered a TDY position in Flint, MI, but who would want to leave Southern California for a job in that place? Just one of many offers that I never regretted turning down.
_yb2s 2y ago
Might be fine for non-critical entertainment systems which nowadays also take voice control, but never critical vehicle functions. Things like hazard lights and HVAC should be illegal to be on touch screens.
- Lammy 2y ago
  > Might be fine for non-critical entertainment systems which nowadays also take voice control As someone who uses a lot of greasy sunscreen lotion during long sunny-day drives: no, they still aren't. I don't want to talk to my car in the first place, and it probably couldn't hear me anyway with the music loud and the windows down.
  - Diti 2y ago
    Owner of a 2017 Peugeot 208 with Apple CarPlay support here. Siri can discriminate voices against loud music and outside noise just fine.
  - _yb2s 2y ago
    I drive a convertible with the top almost always down, and have an unusually deep voice, and also hate talking to phones/cars. With my voice, I could never get Alexa or similar things to work at all- until the last few months when Apple's Siri started working perfectly at recognizing everything I say. I don't love it, but I have to begrudgingly emit it works, and is safer to use. It works even with the top down on the freeway, and music is auto paused while it listens. I have it on a button so I have to press it first for it to listen, and basically only use it for selecting navigation destinations and music.
- lelandbatey 2y ago
  Add "turning on the windshield wipers" and "indicating with your blinker" to that list. Looking at you Tesla with your death-trap touch screen controls.
  - _yb2s 2y ago
    You have to use a touch screen for those on a Tesla? If true that is asinine, those cars aren't safe to drive.
sammoe13 2y ago
I think we smoothly transitioned from touchscreens in cars being a luxury signifier, to them being both pretty cheap and STILL kind of a luxury signifier, though to a smaller extent nowadays.
legitster 2y ago
The only counterpoint to this - when it comes to interacting with managing audio and navigation, the alternatives to a touchscreen are probably more dangerous. Maybe the worst offender was Lexus who offered a mouse pointer in lieu of touchscreen until quite recently. But I agree that there should be a federally mandated set of commonly-used buttons while driving that have to be tactile - windows, HVAC, audio, etc.
- illwrks 2y ago
  I’ve not used the mouse pointer but the previous models had a rotary encoder which is easier to work with. What isn’t mentioned is that there are hardware controls on the steering wheel for volume, next previous etc so you don’t need to interact with things very much
  - legitster 2y ago
    Hardware controls are not useful if you listen to lots of audiobooks/podcasts/etc.
    - WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
      > Hardware controls are not useful if you listen to lots of audiobooks/podcasts/etc. Presently, that's what I exclusively listen to. I get in my car and the narration auto-starts where it left off. I occasionally adjust the physical volume knob. I tweak the library at home every couple of months.
    - illwrks 2y ago
      I guess the missing context here is how long the podcasts/playlist is vs how long your journey will take. I can see it being an issue if they are short, in a mixed order and you need to skip ahead etc. I've a habit of stopping every two hours on longer journeys for a rest so that's when I would organise content for the next leg of the trip.
- Johnny555 2y ago
  >when it comes to interacting with managing audio and navigation Depends what you mean by managing audio - 90% of my audio interaction is adjusting volume and pressing the next/previous buttons. All easily done on my steering wheel buttons, though there are buttons near the radio to do the same thing (though they are capacitive buttons that are barely better than a touchscreen). I recently discovered that the "mute" button on the steering wheel is actually a "pause" button which is perfect since I rarely want to actually mute audio, but just pause it.
grues-dinner 2y ago
My car has a little sub menu area on the dash board behind the steering wheel with panels for media, phone, navigation and something else. These can be navigated with the steering wheel buttons. The climate controls cannot be controlled that way. Really annoying and dangerous to have to tap about on a touchscreen to just turn the fan up or down. Sometimes I'll try to use the voice thing but it rarely works even when I do guess a valid command phrase. At least if I have to drive about with a bug in the car, I should get use out of it!
- BeetleB 2y ago
  > The climate controls cannot be controlled that way. Really annoying and dangerous to have to tap about on a touchscreen to just turn the fan up or down. Other than Tesla, which car manufacturer is stupid enough to put climate control behind a touchscreen?
  - grues-dinner 2y ago
    Which car manufacturers aren't? Ford: https://youtube.com/shorts/Q512IeZ3DEA https://youtube.com/shorts/Q512IeZ3DEA VW: https://youtube.com/watch?v=rALQoMiZhag https://youtube.com/watch?v=rALQoMiZhag Volvo: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ryIfmyiiETQ https://youtube.com/watch?v=ryIfmyiiETQ BMW: https://youtube.com/watch?v=73zGfLmlx0I https://youtube.com/watch?v=73zGfLmlx0I Mercedes: https://youtube.com/shorts/PIO5n1b_Z0Y https://youtube.com/shorts/PIO5n1b_Z0Y
- thefz 2y ago
  The three knobs for air temp, air force and outlet were already pretty much perfect for the job.
31337Logic 2y ago
100% this. The good news is that we're in the majority. The bad news is hardly anything seems to be done about it. Maybe we should push back more? I'd happily "vote with my wallet" but it seems all the major auto manufacturers are going this route. Sad.
m463 2y ago
Too late. Tesla has set the example of removing the turn signal and drive selector stalks. I believe there is a law that the emergency flashers need a physical control, which is why teslas have a dedicated button.

aurareturn 2y ago

I wonder if Gen Alpha will prefer pure touchscreen controls in cars.

dageshi 2y ago
The youngest in gen alpha are just being born, there's a real chance they may not learn to drive at all because self driving is ubiquitous.
- WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
  > there's a real chance they may not learn to drive at all because self driving is ubiquitous. I don't see unattended self-driving becoming the norm during the next 20 years. I'm skeptical it'll happen in 50 years. There are an uncountable number of non-foreseeable driving events and road conditions. I believe we'd have to rethink/redesign roads to adjust to limitations of FSD. Past that: A top reason for late teens not driving now is parents can't afford car insurance rates that approach their housing costs.
VyseofArcadia 2y ago
Preference is irrelevant. It's demonstrably dangerous. Maybe Gen Alpha will also prefer cars without functioning headlights, but those are thankfully banned.

lucideng 2y ago

100% agree

MaximilianEmel 2y ago

While I much prefer physical buttons, I do think gestures could be made to work.

VyseofArcadia 2y ago
This would require a level of polish and sophistication that I have no reason to suspect car manufacturers would ever by capable of. I can only imagine making some sort of awkward swiping gesture while frequently glancing at the screen to verify that it worked.
llamaimperative 2y ago
Let’s start by making gestures preferable to buttons while sitting on a couch to control the TV channel okay buddy
sillywalk 2y ago
I'm forced to quote from The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy: "A loud clatter of gunk music flooded through the Heart of Gold cabin as Zaphod searched the sub-etha radio wave bands for news of himself. 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." As a side note, the F-35 has a touchscreen interface that has been described as difficult to use when the jet is in motion.
- ossm1db 2y ago
  I wonder if the touchscreen was a factor in recent crashes? They never say more than "in-flight malfunction."
wongarsu 2y ago
Tactile feedback is still a big issue with gestures. With a physical button you can feel that you have hit the button, can easily find it by touch if you missed it, and you can feel that you successfully actuated it. All of those are difficult on touch surfaces. Not insurmountable, but you have to put a lot of effort into things you get for free with physical interfaces

MrLeap 2y ago

Some really nice haptics could mitigate this somewhat, but by the time you succeed at that where others have failed, why not just give me a knob.

jeffbee 2y ago

We shouldn't have 89-year-old drivers in cars, either. Full stop. In my city we've had three pedestrian fatalities in less than a year and all the drivers were aged 79 or older.

VyseofArcadia 2y ago
100% agree.
SoftTalker 2y ago
At least make them pass a road test. Make sure they can operate the car safely at the posted speed limit. Give them a vision test, maybe limit them to daytime driving. Some 90 year olds are fine to drive, but I agree many are not. And driving around 10-20 mph under the limit is a hazard in itself.
- WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
  > At least make them pass a road test. Make sure they can operate the car safely at the posted speed limit. ... and perform 3 controls-based actions (ex: climate adjustment, audio). The testee commonly provides their own car for OTR tests. If they drive a model with physical controls, it could better for everyone.
ballenf 2y ago
Mandatory regular (every 5-10 years) driving tests seem like a no-brainer regardless of age. Also seems like the driving tests should be more stringent.
- ericjmorey 2y ago
  The fact that people who passed the test 40+ years ago barely know the laws that have been introduced since is reason enough for regular retesting.
- tuna74 2y ago
  Yes a million times to this! It is crazy that you never have to retake your drivers license.

Liquix 2y ago

that's the issue with industries like this.. no one asked for touchscreen controls, but they're cheaper and make the manufacturers more money. no one asked for their private conversations to be recorded and sold, but that juicy data is profitable. it's not like people can stop buying cars until the situation improves. joe q public can't be expected to start a grassroots movement and go lobby, he needs to get to work to feed his four kids, which means he's buying whichever car is available. it's also impossible to vote with your wallet when every [0] auto company places profit above safety/functionality. [0] https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/ https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/article...

trod1234 2y ago
If business is unable to self-regulate, it is the job of government to step in and force them to correct. Unfortunately for us, government has largely failed in its official capacities and responsibilities, nearly all of them, and so things will continue breaking until loss of life and limb becomes common, where no one can sit on the sidelines any more if they want to survive. This is what happens when corrupt people are allowed to warp existing systems for personal gain, and cannot be removed except in egregious violations of law.
tuna74 2y ago
If people did not buy cars with touch screens when they started to get introduced, they would be gone by now. But they seem to be accepted by new car buyers which is the market that matters to manufacturers.
BeetleB 2y ago
> no one asked for touchscreen controls When they first came out in cars, most people wanted one. Even I did. Then I got one and learned how terrible it is.
- anonymousiam 2y ago
  I remember test driving a Buick Reatta in the late 80's. At the time, I thought it was the first car to get a touch screen interface, but it turns out that the Buick Riviera had one a year earlier. It was an interesting gimmick, but not practical. I did not buy the car. I had learned about the GM touch screen interface because I worked for Hughes at the time, and after GM's purchase of Hughes in 1985, they recruited a bunch of engineers from Hughes to automate and improve the vehicle designs and production lines. I had been offered a TDY position in Flint, MI, but who would want to leave Southern California for a job in that place? Just one of many offers that I never regretted turning down.

_yb2s 2y ago

Might be fine for non-critical entertainment systems which nowadays also take voice control, but never critical vehicle functions. Things like hazard lights and HVAC should be illegal to be on touch screens.

Lammy 2y ago
> Might be fine for non-critical entertainment systems which nowadays also take voice control As someone who uses a lot of greasy sunscreen lotion during long sunny-day drives: no, they still aren't. I don't want to talk to my car in the first place, and it probably couldn't hear me anyway with the music loud and the windows down.
- Diti 2y ago
  Owner of a 2017 Peugeot 208 with Apple CarPlay support here. Siri can discriminate voices against loud music and outside noise just fine.
- _yb2s 2y ago
  I drive a convertible with the top almost always down, and have an unusually deep voice, and also hate talking to phones/cars. With my voice, I could never get Alexa or similar things to work at all- until the last few months when Apple's Siri started working perfectly at recognizing everything I say. I don't love it, but I have to begrudgingly emit it works, and is safer to use. It works even with the top down on the freeway, and music is auto paused while it listens. I have it on a button so I have to press it first for it to listen, and basically only use it for selecting navigation destinations and music.
lelandbatey 2y ago
Add "turning on the windshield wipers" and "indicating with your blinker" to that list. Looking at you Tesla with your death-trap touch screen controls.
- _yb2s 2y ago
  You have to use a touch screen for those on a Tesla? If true that is asinine, those cars aren't safe to drive.

sammoe13 2y ago

I think we smoothly transitioned from touchscreens in cars being a luxury signifier, to them being both pretty cheap and STILL kind of a luxury signifier, though to a smaller extent nowadays.

legitster 2y ago

The only counterpoint to this - when it comes to interacting with managing audio and navigation, the alternatives to a touchscreen are probably more dangerous. Maybe the worst offender was Lexus who offered a mouse pointer in lieu of touchscreen until quite recently. But I agree that there should be a federally mandated set of commonly-used buttons while driving that have to be tactile - windows, HVAC, audio, etc.

illwrks 2y ago
I’ve not used the mouse pointer but the previous models had a rotary encoder which is easier to work with. What isn’t mentioned is that there are hardware controls on the steering wheel for volume, next previous etc so you don’t need to interact with things very much
- legitster 2y ago
  Hardware controls are not useful if you listen to lots of audiobooks/podcasts/etc.
  - WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
    > Hardware controls are not useful if you listen to lots of audiobooks/podcasts/etc. Presently, that's what I exclusively listen to. I get in my car and the narration auto-starts where it left off. I occasionally adjust the physical volume knob. I tweak the library at home every couple of months.
  - illwrks 2y ago
    I guess the missing context here is how long the podcasts/playlist is vs how long your journey will take. I can see it being an issue if they are short, in a mixed order and you need to skip ahead etc. I've a habit of stopping every two hours on longer journeys for a rest so that's when I would organise content for the next leg of the trip.
Johnny555 2y ago
>when it comes to interacting with managing audio and navigation Depends what you mean by managing audio - 90% of my audio interaction is adjusting volume and pressing the next/previous buttons. All easily done on my steering wheel buttons, though there are buttons near the radio to do the same thing (though they are capacitive buttons that are barely better than a touchscreen). I recently discovered that the "mute" button on the steering wheel is actually a "pause" button which is perfect since I rarely want to actually mute audio, but just pause it.

grues-dinner 2y ago

My car has a little sub menu area on the dash board behind the steering wheel with panels for media, phone, navigation and something else. These can be navigated with the steering wheel buttons. The climate controls cannot be controlled that way. Really annoying and dangerous to have to tap about on a touchscreen to just turn the fan up or down. Sometimes I'll try to use the voice thing but it rarely works even when I do guess a valid command phrase. At least if I have to drive about with a bug in the car, I should get use out of it!

BeetleB 2y ago
> The climate controls cannot be controlled that way. Really annoying and dangerous to have to tap about on a touchscreen to just turn the fan up or down. Other than Tesla, which car manufacturer is stupid enough to put climate control behind a touchscreen?
- grues-dinner 2y ago
  Which car manufacturers aren't? Ford: https://youtube.com/shorts/Q512IeZ3DEA https://youtube.com/shorts/Q512IeZ3DEA VW: https://youtube.com/watch?v=rALQoMiZhag https://youtube.com/watch?v=rALQoMiZhag Volvo: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ryIfmyiiETQ https://youtube.com/watch?v=ryIfmyiiETQ BMW: https://youtube.com/watch?v=73zGfLmlx0I https://youtube.com/watch?v=73zGfLmlx0I Mercedes: https://youtube.com/shorts/PIO5n1b_Z0Y https://youtube.com/shorts/PIO5n1b_Z0Y
thefz 2y ago
The three knobs for air temp, air force and outlet were already pretty much perfect for the job.

31337Logic 2y ago

100% this. The good news is that we're in the majority. The bad news is hardly anything seems to be done about it. Maybe we should push back more? I'd happily "vote with my wallet" but it seems all the major auto manufacturers are going this route. Sad.

m463 2y ago

Too late. Tesla has set the example of removing the turn signal and drive selector stalks. I believe there is a law that the emergency flashers need a physical control, which is why teslas have a dedicated button.