

The Capacitive Button Cult Must Be Stopped - ddagradi
http://ignorethecode.net/blog/2011/07/04/the_capacitive_button_cult_must_be_stopped/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+IgnoreTheCode+%28ignore+the+code%29

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ChuckMcM
Its interesting to hear designers on a rant about capacitive buttons. Switches
are the bane of most electrical engineers because they cost a lot and they
have a finite lifetime. So generally they are thing that is going to 'kill'
the product. And because they are both mechanical and have moving parts (in
the non-capacitive variant) when they break the users just push harder trying
to get them to work and that can crack traces on the circuit board and end the
life of an otherwise working piece of gear.

Capacitive buttons can be 'tuned' (which is to say one can adjust how
sensitive they are) somewhat depending on their antenna design and the ambient
conditions. What is really hard for them is in a high emf environment (think
lots of fourescents and shag carpets) there is so much charge available at
your fingertip that even turned waay down they fire with the barest touch,
reverse the circumstance like a modestly humid day out in a field somewhere
and they are lucky if they can see your finger at all. If you're finger is wet
(and thus charge will tend to distribute more evenly around you body) they are
nearly worthless.

I recently saw some interesting 'piezo' buttons where they were effectively
capacitive buttons but covered by a bit of piezo material so that you had to
push on them to get them to activate. But while better in many ways, the cost
difference between a button that is just a trace on the PCB (essentially free)
and one that has a bit of piezo material in it (even if it only costs 2 or 3
cents) is easily someones salary when you're activating 500,000 devices a day.

~~~
ak217
The devices themselves have a finite lifetime. As long as the switch outlives
the projected time to obsolescence of the device, it's fine. And I know there
are switches out there which can do that...

What really irks me (and what I'm surprised to see so few people spell out) is
that there's no tactile feedback on capacitive buttons (or microwave-like
buttons). Tactile feedback makes every aspect of the UI profoundly better.

(Tactile feedback is possible on capacitive buttons... the first company which
brings capacitive touchscreens with tactile feedback to market will make it
huge (and the recent huge investment from Apple may have been into that
technology). But no one has come out with a decent implementation yet...)

~~~
VladRussian
an idea for tactile feedback if used in low power version, well below "pain"
level:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System#Effects>

Developed by CPI here in Palo Alto.

~~~
cshesse
I thought you were going to say an electric shock. Although an electric shock
would also use a lot of power and probably be a terrible idea just like
microwave heating of the skin, at least the shock would provide fast feedback

------
jasonkester
Those buttons hit their maximum disaster level when installed on an induction
stove. You know, the ones that are one flat shiny panel with areas that
magically turn red and hot at the push of a button?

Of course, said buttons are always next to impossible to press correctly
(except by accident), so the standard use case is to mash your finger onto it
until some form of feedback occurs.

More often than not, that feedback comes in the form of 3rd degree burns as a
result of mashing your finger onto a magically hot stove.

I hope there's a special little room in hell where the guy who designed that
stove is forced to repeatedly burn his thumbs on it for all eternity.

~~~
jrockway
_Those buttons hit their maximum disaster level when installed on an induction
stove. You know, the ones that are one flat shiny panel with areas that
magically turn red and hot at the push of a button?_

That's not an induction stove. An induction stove uses electromagnetism to
heat a ferromagnetic cooking device positioned above a coil. The stove surface
only becomes hot due to conduction away from the pot or pan. If you put
nothing above the induction coil, nothing gets hot.

Here's a picture from Wikipedia. It's boiling water through a newspaper
positioned between the induction coil and pot, with no damage to the
newspaper:
[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a6/Induction_Cook...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a6/Induction_Cooktop_Rolling_Boil.jpg)

The kind of stove you're thinking of is a glass-ceramic resistive cooktop.
It's just a piece of glass that sits between a big old resistor and your food.
(Annoying about how easy it is to burn yourself, but very easy to clean!)

~~~
rdtsc
He probably meant smooth cook-top as someone else already pointed out.

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harshpotatoes
Another issue people don't bring up: the weather. Living in Seattle I
frequently wore mittens. With the physical buttons it would not be a problem
to operate the phone, with the touchscreen there is this long ordeal of
pulling off the mitten to answer the phone. If it is raining (or rather, when
is it not raining?), the rain will mess with the touchscreen, making it
sometimes impossible to answer a call. You might say there is a solution:
either cut off the fingers or sew in some conducting thread to the tip of the
mittens. This doesn't solve the rain problem though.

~~~
Shenglong
Who answers their phone in the rain with the face up? Isn't that a little
ridiculous? I think every piece of technology has its limitations. I could
argue that button phones are loud, and I can't text with them during class or
meetings. If you answer your button phone while it's raining, the rain will
likely also screw up your button-phone... probably with more permanent damage
than touch-screens.

Also, a lot of touch screen phones (iPhone in particular) have been adapted
for modern use. With my Klipsch Image S4i headphones (or with the natural
iPhone 4 headphones), you can answer/hang up calls using the headphone
controls. I've yet to figure out whether I can activate voice control for
dialing, but that'd be even better.

When I need to dial on my iPhone in the winter, thin cabretta leather
(damascus d302 for example) works wonders, at the same time keeping your hands
dexterous and warm. I feel a lot of the problems you're describing are more
functions of outdated technology, than poor design in general.

~~~
nodata
> Who answers their phone in the rain with the face up?

Or put to break this question into two parts:

1\. Who would like to answer their phone when it rings, whatever the weather?

2\. Could the phone sometimes be the "other" way up when you take it out of
your pocket?

~~~
Shenglong
I think you're misunderstanding.

1\. You already can, by using headphone controls. 2\. Sure (if you don't feel
it out), but how does a buttoned phone eliminate this problem? The issue is
not mutually exclusive to touch-screen phones, and I'd argue it's worse on
buttoned phones, since you risk the water seeping in between the button
cracks.

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canistr
This is why I liked the older Android devices (as opposed to the new ones).
Having physical buttons and a trackball were significantly better than both
capacitive buttons and optical trackpads. Trackballs are significantly better
than optical trackpads from a use-perspective. They work in all orientation,
have finer grains of control, don't require awkward flicks to work, and have a
much easier learning curve. The industry really needs to stop trying to the
trendy thing and focus on things that work.

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namdnay
I don't agree with his comment about the stove - Sure it's more fiddly than a
real button or dial, but the ease of cleaning more than makes up for it IMHO.

~~~
Zak
For most purposes, I find the idea of buttons on a stove inferior to plain old
knobs. I can see some merit to the idea of programming an oven to change
temperature after a certain amount of time or some such, but a lot of stoves
have buttons without any such capabilities.

Most stove buttons I've seen are membrane switches with plastic over them,
presenting a smooth, easily cleaned surface. These seem to be the optimal way
to put buttons on a stove.

~~~
yardie
I like the concept of knobs on stoves. But there doesn't seem to be any sort
of standard so when one breaks or goes missing you're on the hunt for a
replacement. Not so bad for a fairly new one, but when you have a 50 year old
gas stove.... I'm sure visegrips makes good money on people that need pliers
for their hobs.

~~~
Zak
I figured the knobs on old gas stoves would be roughly interchangeable, but
had no particular reason for believing so.

As an aside, I'd rather cook on a 50 year old gas stove than most stoves I've
used that had any kind of buttons. There's nothing quite like fire for
cooking.

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sudonim
My guess is capacitive buttons have a lower failure rate than physical
buttons. It's probably a decision born of cost.

~~~
Zak
I don't doubt it. The problem is that consumers are still viewing them as a
high-end feature instead of the cost-cutting measure they are, so they keep
showing up in high-end products with prices that could support the superior
and more costly physical buttons.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Indeed it is. Data point: until this discussion I too believed that capacitive
buttons are much more expensive and much more "high-tech" than physical
buttons.

------
samstokes
tldr: _Did they never play a game in landscape mode, and accidentally back out
of the whole game by merely holding the device wrong?_

I really don't get the anti-(physical-)button trend.

~~~
vacri
less moving parts, less overall parts, cheaper to make, looks cooler in the
marketing...

------
walrus
The author mentions his experience with capacitive buttons that are too
sensitive. I have the opposite problem on my phone—the buttons aren't
sensitive enough.

I think that capacitive buttons are just too difficult to tune because the
conditions they are used in vary so much. My phone doesn't even register
touches at all if my hands are slightly sweaty.

~~~
sitkack
Not to mention that your tusks dont register at all.

------
binarymax
I remember when I bought an LG Chocolate when it first came on the scene about
5 years ago. It had capacitive touch buttons that were in such a bad place
that if I was talking, and the button brushed against my ear it would hangup
the call. It was awful and I vowed never again. Its the very reason I never
got an iphone, opting for blackberry instead.

~~~
ddagradi
Wait, I don't understand this argument. iPhones are one of the few phones that
_don't_ have this issue.

~~~
binarymax
If I can activate a touch button with my finger than why not my ear?

EDIT: I didn't know about the proximity sensors and other mechanisms until the
replies below informed me. I still prefer tactile though :)

~~~
raganwald
This is an example of Apple's design brilliance. They have a feature that
_just works_ , and it's perfectly normal for users to have no idea why it just
works or why other products that seem to have the same features are so
frustrating to use.

Of course, the downside is that people sometimes buy a product that seems to
be "as good as an iPhone," and they have no idea that their user experience is
worse than the iPhone's, they just assume the iPhone works just as poorly as
theirs.

~~~
WrkInProgress
I think this is a standard feature of most modern touchscreen smartphones and
not some "design brilliance" relegated to only Apple devices.

I currently have to carry two phones, one is an Android device and the other
is a Windows Phone 7 device, they both implement the proximity sensor and it
works the same way as the iphone.

IIRC correctly HTC (back in the days of Windows Mobile 5) already employed
this feature in their "slate" phones before the original iPhone was released.
They then improved it by adding some rather unique features, like being able
to flip the phone over (i.e. laying screen side up on a table) to
silence/reject an incoming call.

~~~
qq66
I didn't use the HTC phone that you mention, but it would be interesting to
know if the feature was implemented as well as it is in the iPhone. This
feature has literally never failed for me in 2 years of using my iPhone (it
sometimes gets false positives when the phone is in my hand, but it's not too
bothersome).

------
tzs
How about capacitive buttons in elevators? It's very annoying if your hands
are full and you can't easily find some other exposed body part to touch the
button.

With normal buttons you at least have a shot at nailing them with an elbow or
a foot.

------
bugsy
I would totally buy his book if I didn't find the prices of tech books to be
completely absurd.

I remember how for 15 years VHS movies cost from $79.95 to $119.95 because
they figured their only customers were video rental stores. The problem was
they were selling each movie once for $80 instead of selling it 500 times for
$20. Since fixing their flawed pricing model, far more movies are sold than
before, to the point that rental stores have all but disappeared.

Could a similar thing be happening with books? Perhaps they are pricing for
library use, where many users are expected to read one book. Or perhaps they
are targeting captive audiences like in colleges where impoverished youth are
shaken down.

Usability failure? Market failure? Or smart pricing model?

I'd buy a decently bound paperback as is being offered of this length and
interest for $9.95 to $17.95. But I won't pay $35-44, not even close.

The question is, how many others are out there like me that represent lost
sales. Maybe I am the only one. In that case, $44 is the right price. Or why
not even $99.

~~~
LukasMathis
I didn't set the price, but I will note that tech books typically only sell
small numbers, regardless of price. It's a small target market.

~~~
bugsy
It's only a small market if your publisher keeps telling himself that. It
becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

Sure there are tech books on antenna design for satellites that don't sell
many copies. But there are other topics that are of far more board interest.
Usability is one of them.

As of May, 2002, the U.S. Department of Labor - Bureau of Labor Statistics
says there are approximately 562,700 computer programmers in the U.S. That's
just one job title and the field has grown since then. There's also software
engineers, web designers, programmer-analysts, etc. Easily a couple million
jobs.

Paperback like you have there costs $2.87 to print in quantity 3000 in
Singapore. There's a lot of flexibility in working with the price. I would
experiment with it but that's just me. Presumably your publisher has
experimented. But maybe he hasn't. Perhaps he assumes that the potential
number of people interested is less than 2 million. Perhaps he thinks it is
100 or 200. I bet it's more than that though.

~~~
LukasMathis
Fair enough. You make a good argument. Maybe lowering the price would increase
revenue; I don't know.

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Keyframe
As soon as I saw the title, I thought of my Samsung Omnia 7, heh. Back button
is manageable, but search button has caused a lot of swear words!

------
caf
My Samsung TV has capacitive buttons - in the shiny black surround, labelled
with tiny iconographs in very, very dark grey. It took me several minutes to
even find the 'on' button when I first got it.

~~~
Luc
My Samsung monitor is like that. Navigating its on-screen menu is an ordeal. I
have to look back and forth between the menu and the bottom right of the
bezel, where the 'buttons' are, carefully placing my finger for each 'key
press'. Forget about trying to do this in low light conditions. But - it was
cheap.

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Tharkun
Anything that vaguely pretends it's a button without being one deserves to
burn in hell for all eternity. This includes touch screens, capacitive or
otherwise, and any other such nonsense. If I'm meant to press it, make it
obvious and use a button. If I'm meant to slide it, give me a slider. Turn?
Give me a knob. How hard can it be, seriously?

As for engineers moaning about the life time of switches, puh-please. Show me
one phone with buttons that has outlived its buttons. You can't? Didn't think
so.

What really needs to go is this touchy cult. It's ridiculous. There are a
couple of things where it makes sense. Angry Birds is not one of them.
Anything else is just a useless fad. Especially touchy keyboardy crap that NO
ONE can type on. Show me one person who can type 150WPM (and I don't mean
swipe or predict or any such crap) on a touch screen and I'll go out and buy
an iPhone.

~~~
cdcarter
What input device would be the best way to play Angry Birds, then? Having
played the Mac App and Chrome App versions, I definitely think touch makes the
most sense.

~~~
kilburn
A custom device including one knob to control the angle and one (physical)
slider to control the strength. I know this is stupid when thinking about a
casual game, but it would totally make sense to me if my job was to "play
angry birds 8 hours a day".

My point is that proper "physical" controls are better for almost every task
out there. The obvious downside is that you can't make them appear and
disappear depending on the current application being executed ;)

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mark_story
One place I found that capacitive buttons have worked well is on the newer
xbox models. The power and tray eject buttons are capacitive and it works well
there.

~~~
eropple
Nearly broke the CD tray on my 360 when I was leaning over my TV stand to get
at the wiring in the back, brushed the power/eject button with my knee, and
jammed the tray into my leg. I'd rather a button.

The PS3, on the other hand, has its capacitive buttons on a surface that's at
right angles to things that might brush up against it. Which is, IMO, the best
design.

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kogir
The worst offenders are android phones like my nexus one with capacitive
buttons right beneath the software keyboard. Overshoot the space bar just a
tiny bit? Hello home screen, goodbye app. Some apps handle this and you can
just press back -- others lose all of what you just typed.

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blantonl
what is a capacitive button?

~~~
mkr-hn
A button that works on the same principle as the trackpad on your laptop.

~~~
dvdhsu
Just to clarify, I believe mkr-hn means the trackpad itself, not the buttons
on the trackpad. Most trackpad buttons these days are physical. The trackpad
itself, however, is capacitive.

------
tomrod
What is a capacitive button?

EDIT: Oh, I see now. They are buttons that respond to electric impulse from
the fingers on touchscreens.

The solution the author seems to be seeking is: everyone should use the old
Nokia bricks?

~~~
dvdhsu
The iPhone doesn't look like a Nokia brick, yet it has a hardware home button.

Similarly, the Nexus One had hardware buttons below the screen. On the other
hand, the Nexus S uses capacitive buttons.

Hardware buttons are typically easier to press, have better feedback (even
when compared to haptic feedback), and easier to find when your eyes are
closed. Hardware buttons do not imply "Nokia bricks".

~~~
kpreid
The Nexus One's below-the-screen buttons are capacitive. The Nexus One only
has a mechanical trackball.

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notatoad
as long as my phone's primary interface is a capacitive touchscreen, i don't
see a problem with the buttons being capacitive as well. it's really just an
extension of the screen interface, dedicated to a specific purpose.

yes, it sucks that i can't press the buttons on my phone with mittens on. but
i wouldn't give up my capacitive touchscreen in exchange for a phone that
operated solely by physical buttons.

~~~
LukasMathis
The touch buttons aren't just an extension of the screen. For example, they
don't provide visual feedback when they're active or activated, and when
you're looking at the screen, they look like they're part of the bezel.

Note that while you're using it, you never accidentally hold your phone with a
finger covering your screen. That's because you're looking at the screen. You
know where it is. It's bright. It's easy to see its edges. It's the focus of
your attention. The bezel around the screen, on the other hand, is not, but
merely touching it in the wrong place will cause your phone to do unexpected
things.

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ed209
isn't the entire screen of a smart phone a capacitive button? It's pretty hard
to accidentally dial my ex or launch the "fart noise" app in a meeting on it
so why not link the "capacitive" buttons to the same software unlock as the
device already has. (referring to my Android / HTC desire)

~~~
rkalla
ed, I know what you mean -- it seems like an empty argument until you get one
of these phones (specifically Android) with the fundamental buttons all touch
sensitive.

Normal touch-screen phones all have context sensitive operations, for example
you are playing a game and no where on the screen can you accidentally press
the "Fart noise" app button or the "Hangup" button -- because they just aren't
there.

With Android there are those 4 or so required buttons (Home, Back, Menu,
Call/Search) and moving them from mechanical buttons to capacitive you CAN
find yourself in the middle of a YouTube movie or game where your thumb just
barely touches the back button, closing the app and taking you home.

Or as another user mentioned, you are on the phone talking and part of your
chin or face (if you try and neck-cradle the phone while doing something) may
hit the hangup button, menu button or Home button to suddenly start activating
other things on the phone, ending or interrupting your call.

It is absolutely MADDENING.

The iPhone never suffered from this because it always had the one single
mechanical button and the proximity sensor was good enough that when it got
close enough to your face, all input on the pad was deactivated. Most of the
Android phones that have mechanical core buttons don't suffer from this either
for the same reasons.

It's once you get those damn touch-sensitive buttons on there... oh boy, there
are a few times a week where you just want to throw your phone right into the
ground and wish it a happy birthday.

~~~
seabee
FWIW I haven't had a single problem like this since I got a hard case for my
phone (HTC Desire HD) with raised edges. Of course this changes the aesthetic
quite a bit - a trade I'll make for the protection of the case - and doesn't
help if your phone has no proximity sensor, but it is at least a partial
solution.

------
jvoorhis
Stop putting fruit on your stove.

------
gavanwoolery
Amen

------
georgieporgie
I absolutely despise the touch-sensitive 'wheel' on my iPod Classic. It's
useless if I'm working in the garage with nitrile gloves on. I've resorted to
using my elbow or nose at times.

It's even pretty useless _without_ gloves, if I've been doing anything that
gets my hands dry, or had the iPod in my pocket so that it became relatively
moist. I often have to breathe on my fingers before changing the volume!

~~~
Dylan16807
I can tell you that that's the specific device's fault. My phone's capacitive
screen works wet or with nitrile gloves.

------
chrisjsmith
Anything which is not tactile is bad if you ask me. That means capacitive
buttons, touch screens etc. Even Star Trek shot themselves in an episode when
a blind person had to use a panel:

<http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Tactile_interface>

Now I'm not partially sighted, but I'm not always looking at the display.

------
sneak
Sounds like /somebody's/ never used an iPhone.

~~~
gte910h
iPhones don't have capacitive buttons. They have a touchscreen which while
capacitive is much more sensitive, relatively expensive, and backed up with a
IR proximity sensor and lots of engineering to make it just work.

They're just not related to this discussion.

