
The Hidden Cost of Touchscreens - jepityr
https://medium.com/@caseorganic/why-do-we-keep-building-cars-with-touchscreens-alt-the-hidden-lives-of-touchscreens-55faf92799bf
======
NeedMoreTea
I sometimes feel I am in a minority of one these days.

Just about every car I've owned, I develop a muscle memory of where all the
important switches are, and how far to turn to "hot enough" or "cool enough"
etc. Same for most things around - I know fairly well how far to turn the oven
for 180 +-10, no need to look. I might check if it's something especially
sensitive (rare).

Thanks to iPhone (I have one, and like it) touch has become the answer to
everything and that muscle memory doesn't work any more.

My current car is a pain in the arse as despite a dozen switches on the
steering wheel they've forced simple functionality into the centre touch
screen with awful UI where a simple switch would have worked fine.

Only Apple and a handful of others have any idea of usable UI - and even they
aren't as hot as they once were. Anyone making appliances or cars is
especially bad at UI. Worse if they decide to add helpful beeps. I don't want
to be _looking_ at anything in the car except the idiots outside it and the
speedo. Nothing. Ever. Give me the damn switches back!

Heck even smart phones are a step back for use as a camera or phone. Old Sony-
Ericssons had the ergonomics of a camera as well, including button and lens
cover. Every feature phone could be answered (and most of a text written)
without looking even once.

I really would like my stuff to move beyond this cargo cult of touch and keep
it just for the iPhone.

~~~
degenerate
I still drive a 'dumb' car with actual buttons and knobs, because I loathe
(with a passion) almost every car UI I have interacted with. I haven't been in
a Tesla yet, but all the big makers (GM, Nissan, Audi, etc) get the interfaces
so wrong, to the point where I assume it was their intention. I'd be
interested to hear of any cars that get it right.

~~~
Shikadi
I really like the interface Mazda came up with. Right by the shifter there's a
knob that controls everything on the screen, which is as easy to glance at as
the speedometer. Muscle memory still works to an extent

~~~
magduf
They also keep the HVAC controls entirely separate, and there's controls on
the steering wheel too, in addition to the "commander" knob and volume/mute
knob.

------
phlo
This makes you appreciate the attention to detail, and the countless painfully
learnt lessons, that goes into user interface design for airplanes.

Compare a Cessna 400's cockpit [1] to a switch cluster in a recent Mini [2].
The car still has physical switches, which is better than a touchscreen. It's
also styled to resemble an airplane cockpit. But all the switches look the
same, and some of them have two positions while others have three; some of
them disable things while others turn them on.

In the Cessna, each control has a different color, and a different surface
texture. The flap lever is styled to resemble an actual flap. The same goes
for gear levers on planes with retractable landing gears: they are styled as
little wheels. As the pilot, if you touch the wrong lever, you'll immediately
feel the difference, avoiding dangerous mistakes.

In the Mini, all switches have the same color and they feel the same. Their
status is indicated with a little LED on the switch itself. You neither feel
the current status from touching the switch, nor is there any tactile feedback
of whether you are touching the right switch. With a touchscreen, that remains
true, but additionally the location of the switches changes too.

[1] [https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-
qimg-f37712d0cd771d5aee97ac...](https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-
qimg-f37712d0cd771d5aee97ac8dacd745b9-c)

[2] [https://www.gunaxin.com/wp-
content/uploads/2017/10/2017-MINI...](https://www.gunaxin.com/wp-
content/uploads/2017/10/2017-MINI-Countryman-Interior-5.jpg)

~~~
namdnay
I don't think that's a lack of attention to detail from Mini. Just a decision
made with the knowledge that people don't buy premium cars based on rational
decisions. If they did, I'm not sure Mini (or BMW for that matter) would
exist... I don't think this is the case for airplanes.

~~~
namibj
Are there any somewhat affordable cars that skimp on the "bling" to archive
this sort of efficiency?

~~~
joezydeco
I'm happy with my 3rd generation Mazda3.

[http://images.nadaguides.com/ChromeImageGallery/Expanded/Whi...](http://images.nadaguides.com/ChromeImageGallery/Expanded/White/640/2018MAC170010_640/2018MAC170010_640_11.jpg)

The IVI display is out of the way but accessible (there's a jogdial on the
center console to control it while driving). HVAC controls are manual and very
easy to use without looking.

~~~
namdnay
The problem is how to reconcile manual controls (which are great) with
Carplay/AndroidAuto (which is even greater). The only control I have over
Carplay without using the touchscreen is next/previous song and volume :(

~~~
joezydeco
The Mazda unit is supposed to be Carplay-enabled in the next couple of months.
I'm curious as well to see what happens. I would hope the newer versions of CP
allow for use of external control devices like the jogdial.

------
fipple
On my old car I could both read and write any value to the car without looking
at the controls. That's important -- if I was feeling cold, but the
temperature was set to where I wanted it, I'd turn on the seat warmer, as I
knew I'd need to feel warmer only temporarily. Now I have to look at the
controls all the damn time. One important thing was that all of the controls
were asymmetric -- the buttons were all different sizes and positions, which
looked awful if you were looking at it but YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE LOOKING
AT IT. It made it really easy to just reach out a hand and know where on the
surface you were.

There's a reason that many professionals who use computers for repetitive
high-skill tasks (video editing, music production) have custom input hardware
for it.

~~~
dingaling
Was it a SAAB? Pre-GM they had amazing cockpits, well laid-out and as easy to
use at night as day.

~~~
digi_owl
I often wonder how much the environment the designers have to live in affect
their designs.

With the nordics being very dark and cold for half a year or more, being able
to operate the vehicle in limited visibility would be paramount.

Similarly, operating a capacitive touchscreen is not fun in -20C or colder.

------
leejo
Touch screens and mixed user interfaces on things like cash machines, petrol
pumps, etc kind of bother me - maybe later posts will go into this as the blog
ends saying there will be a follow-up.

Just a couple of anecdotes - the first being cash machines where I input the
PIN using the traditional buttons on the numeric pad, then i start using the
touchscreen to make other choices. Pick one or the other, not a mixture of the
two. Or self service petrol pumps that end up covered in grease and dirt,
because they're in that kind of environment.

Once i was waiting in line at the Eurotunnel and the person in front of me was
clearly struggling. It took them about five minutes to get through the
registration process and they kept leaning over out of their car window,
stabbing away at the touchscreen with their finger appearing somewhat
frustrated. I assumed they must have had trouble finding their booking.

When I got to the booth myself I pressed the touchscreen and it was
immediately clear that the calibration was off, by about a couple of finger
widths - this was enough to cause the problems for the user before me, as they
were trying to type in their booking reference but it would always choose the
wrong digits. So when I typed in my booking reference I moved my finger a
little to the side to account for the calibration error. Easy! Well, not so
much if you're not technically inclined enough to recognise this kind of issue
when you see it.

~~~
cesarb
AFAIK, there's a special reason for the PIN pad: it encrypts the PIN, so the
ATM doesn't have access to it. That's why even ATMs with touch screens still
keep the PIN pad.

~~~
hkai
I thought it's just because it's way too easy to spy on the screen.

------
pdkl95
> High contrast, color-coded buttons take less time to mentally digest.

I agree with this strongly and recommend using high-contrast features and
color wherever it can assist in rapid recognition of important UI elements. I
remember being surprised by how much font-lock-mode reduced my bug/typo rate;
I started fixing many errors immediately after typing them because the color
was obviously wrong.

However... it's important to remember that a _lot_ more color blind people
will use your UI than you might suspect (if you even remembered to account for
color blindness at all, which is unfortunately common). Color can still be
used, but remember to _also_ include other no-color based differences and/or
use a tool (or consultant) to verify everything is still high contrast and
easily distinguishable.

edit:

> “and when this one becomes tolerable, they’ll change the software on me.”

I had an echocardiogram a few months ago, and the technician had to restart
after making a minor mistake setting up the first image. Apparently the test
equipment was modular, and the plug-in features would show up on the
touchscreen UI _in the order the hardware was plugged in_. The medical center
had two of these devices, and the technician was used to the other machine.
The one we were using had several buttons in opposite locations. Obviously
this was only a minor problem at the time, but medical equipment is another
situation where it's probably a _very bad idea_ to make the UI layout
unstable.

Having physical buttons has the advantage of limiting how much the UI can be
changed in a software update.

~~~
dredmorbius
Just a few days ago I added to my Pocket IMproved CSS style to 1) put some
distance between the trash and other post icons and 2) colour-distinguish
them.

[https://pastebin.com/raw/bdMw6jkr](https://pastebin.com/raw/bdMw6jkr)

------
kalleboo
I posted this comment 3 days ago on another article but it's just as relevant
here. Touchscreens are great for people unfamiliar with an interface, but they
seem to work poorly for experts.

\---

One place I lived had train ticket machines from the 90's that were an analog
of Teletext. If you knew the 3-digit zone code for your end station, you could
just jam in the zone code, adult, buy ticket, pop in your magstripe card and
have a ticket in 5 seconds flat. It was absolutely perfect.

They were then replaced with user-friendly Windows-powered machines where
buying the most basic ticket took 2 minutes as you had to poke though pages of
stations on a crap resistive display.

------
charleyma
Would also potentially add "voice control" to this list. It's amazing to me
that by trying to be "innovative/modern", most car user interface designs have
become increasingly user unfriendly.

Case in point, the other day I spent 15 minutes trying to figure out how to
connect my phone to a car via bluetooth (I'm still used to there just being a
button for pairing).

Ended up having to search online for the instruction manual to figure it out,
turns out pairing is only available via voice command when the car is in park
¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

~~~
etiam
_A loud clatter of gunk music flooded through the Heart of Gold cabin as
Zaphod searched the sub-etha radio wavebands 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 programme_

Douglas Adams (1979) _The Hitchhiker 's Guide to the Galaxy_

------
dbattaglia
This is exactly why I dislike the new MBP touch bar. I spend much of my
working day in IntelliJ, debugging Scala code. I so badly want to rest my
fingers on the function keys while I step in/out/over code, just as I used to
in Visual Studio debugging C# and C++. I recently tried the native touch bar
support in the Early Access version of IntelliJ and it was really not any
better. It's no fault of Jetbrains either, I just don't care if I'm seeing a
cute arrow icon instead of F9, as I don't want to have to look at anything at
all, I want to rely on muscle memory.

Same goes for audio/DAW control surfaces; as much as I'd love to replace all
equipment with an iPad, it just doesn't come close to the feel of an Ableton
Push (for instance), and I don't see how it ever could.

~~~
carlob
Why did you buy it then? I think that all the marketing of "touchscreen: oooh
shiny!" is working, and there is very little we can do about bad interfaces
unless we vote with our feet.

~~~
sumedh
Is there any other non Mac trackpad which just works. Once you use a Mac
trackpad, its hard going back to something else.

~~~
Shikadi
Personally, no laptop I've ever owned had at trackpad that _didn't_ just work.
Of course there were a handfull in the store at any given time that were
mediocre, but that's why I try before I buy. The Mac trackpad is definitely
great, don't get me wrong, but in my experience poor trackpads only appear on
certain business models and cheap flimsy models. (Currently using a two or
three year old Lenovo thinkpad yoga, the trackpad has always worked great)

------
sitkack
The pinnacle of climate control is the 1988-1991 Toyota Corolla. The controls
are obvious, they literally point to what they are doing, while providing
tactile control and feedback. Everything increases in intensity as it moves to
the right. The detents that a switch pass through allow the user to have full
control while keeping their eyes on the road. All controls are independent
(fan, AC, heat, recirculation). In the Volvo and VW there is literally no way
to have the fan and not set the desired temperature, which will automatically
control the AC or heater depending on the outside temp.

They then made the same regressions as the rest of the industry and moved to a
display with modal buttons.

[https://imgur.com/a/nt0DwwP](https://imgur.com/a/nt0DwwP)

------
oftenwrong
>we never tested it on the road

That is an even bigger issue than the decision to use a touchscreen. Don't
these companies want to make good products? I can't imagine releasing
something without even attempting to put it through some realistic usage.
Given the sorry state of in-car interfaces, I suppose I should not be
surprised.

~~~
RandallBrown
I worked at Microsoft on what would have been the next gen system after Ford
SYNC and MyFord Touch. Our design team put a HUGE effort into making the UI
usable at arms reach and at a glance. They had all this research about button
sizes and how accurate a person could be with their outstretched arm. They
built a full car simulator and we had modified cars in our parking garage we
could actually test on.

Ford decided to go a different direction and I left the project shortly before
it was ultimately scrapped. The ideas were awesome, but for various reasons,
we never really built anything.

------
sliken
Seems like all the car manufactures are failing to learn all the lessons that
Google and Apple have learned about touch screens and voice interfaces.

What's worse is whatever your phone of choice is, it's likely to know a HUGE
amount more about your. Your contact list, what you searched on recently,
tickets you bought, public transit research, etc. So instead of say "Navigate
to Joe Random" you end up hunting and pecking at a terrible on screen keyboard
with a terrible touch interface that doesn't even allow multitouch or swipes.
God forbid you change your mind underway.

Distractions can cause lives, and car manufacturers are doing worse than
Apple/Google. The easiest fix seems like it would be mandate that car
manufacturers allows users to choose their navigation system.

More info on the distraction claims at: [https://www.prnewswire.com/news-
releases/aaa-apple-and-googl...](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/aaa-
apple-and-google-speed-ahead-in-less-distracting-design-of-vehicle-
infotainment-technology-300672764.html)

~~~
WalterBright
I have a patent on using morse code to text people on the phone rather than a
keyboard. The idea is so you can text without looking at the phone.

A rocker switch is added to the edge of the phone, up is dit and down is dah.

I coulda been a billionaire! :-)

------
ronnier
Agreee. Touch screens on cars are infuriating. You must look away to touch
them and any movement might mean you accidentally touch other on sceeen
buttons.

------
MisterTea
Working in industrial automation I can confirm that ugly color coded touch
interfaces are optimal. Group functions by color and/or menus by color.
Operators quickly know where to glance for data and which "buttons" to press.

Most of today's UI's are centered around web/mobile where form over function
is the rule.

------
beat
This makes me think of another field where bad UI decisions took years to
undo... synthesizers! The rise of digital synthesizers in the late 1980s led
to an elimination of knobs and sliders, in favor of buttons and menus. This
made it very difficult to design your own sounds for them, as sound
manipulation was no longer physically intuitive, and working with interacting
parameters could mean a lot of menu-digging rather than just turning two knobs
at once to find the sweet spot.

But it was cheaper. And there's where touch screens really come to the fore.
They're less expensive than the bespoke hardware interfaces that cars
otherwise use.

In cars, though, it's not enough to be hard to use. It's _dangerous_ to use
the unfamiliar touchscreens while driving.

~~~
wilsonnb2
There has been a resurgence in analog and analog-style synths since the 80's
but overall I think synth UX has gotten even worse with the rise of software
synths.

Turning a virtual knob with a mouse pointer is a terrible UX. Mapping
parameters to a midi keyboard is also pretty bad, with the exception of
hardware like the Native Instruments S MK2 midi keyboards or the Maschine that
are specifically built for controlling certain software.

~~~
beat
And even then, midi mapping is a pain. There are a few synth makers who have
figured out good touch-based iPad synths, but for the most part, ugh.
Emulators! Try playing a Minimoog correctly on a touch screen....

------
mirimir
So how are touchscreens OK, but using smartphones while driving isn't OK? I
mean, I got pulled over once for a little lane wandering while adjusting the
radio. Which had knobs.

~~~
stillworks
Playing the devil's advocate here... but it's easier to show advertisements if
a screen is available ?

The skeptical side of me thinks that car manufacturers are simply preparing us
slowly to accept screens in the car so that the next generation accepts it by
default.

I recently switched to a car which is the outgoing generation of that
particular model and (almost ironically) has a _physical button_ on the
dashboard to simply stow the screen away. One cannot even tell that there
could be a screen there !

There still is a screen in the instrument clsuter but it's monochromatic and I
have set it up to display the speed and a "sub-readout screen ?" to display
fuel consumption. The instrument cluster screen is also capable of showing GPS
direction instructions as well if the main screen is stowed away.

Everything else has a physical switch. The HVAC status is dispayed on it's
dedicated LCD on the center console.

 _I like the outdated tech in my "new" car._

~~~
maxsilver
> The skeptical side of me thinks that car manufacturers are simply preparing
> us slowly to accept screens in the car so that the next generation accepts
> it by default.

I'm not quite this cynical. I think car manufactures got all excited by the
tech (in part due to Tesla just lazily slapping in a huge touchscreen and
getting lots of coolness points for it, and in part due to the massive success
of Android / iPhone / iPad), and decided they wanted cars to have that too.
Car manufacturers are roughly 5 years behind current tech, so they rushed into
touchscreens and by the time they got their products to market, the tech felt
dated and the UX was never well thought out.

 _However_ , smarter car manufacturers learned from that and are now moving
_away_ from the touchscreen-only controls now, using them just for auxiliary
needs or for things that really require them (like GPS navigation).

Consider the the Gen 1 Volt, where _99% of all buttons are identical touch-
only pads_.
[http://hanabi.autoweek.com/sites/default/files/styles/gen-12...](http://hanabi.autoweek.com/sites/default/files/styles/gen-1200-675/public/2015-chevrolet-
volt-012.jpg?itok=VmQ_3Qrl) As much as I love this car, this console is a huge
UX disaster every bit as bad as a touchscreen-only car, and doesn't even earn
any 'coolness' points for doing it.

Then in the Gen 2 Volt, they went _back_ and put in lots of distinct physical
buttons and dials for those previously-touch-only actions
[https://electromotivela.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/10/chevy...](https://electromotivela.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/10/chevy-volt-interior2.jpg) Not perfect, but this is a
massive improvement over the prior model.

~~~
stillworks
Some big mainstream brands such as Volvo and Audi have introduced touch screen
based UX. You need to use the screen even to operate HVAC. Range Rover Velar
even has a touch screen _in the steering wheel_ which changes according to the
context.

But I do hope the manufacturers do realise that having touch screens only is
incorrect and physical controls which can be operated by muscle memory are
safer.

------
lowkeyokay
I still miss a physical button on my phone to take a picture. Haven’t had it
since my Nokia Windows Phone.

~~~
ctack
I don't get how jog dials aren't more popular for every interface.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jog_dial](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jog_dial)

There is a 5 direction one from Sony. One or two of these and a small black
and white screen near the gauges should be all you'd ever need.

~~~
AstralStorm
Small jog dials are pretty bad. They require enough precision to force
mistakes, while not giving actual precise input.

Might as well swipe the touchscreen (or a touchpad) with some haptic feedback.

At small sizes, well shaped buttons with all chosen stiffness and press depth
are unbeatable. Not even a lever comes close. (think gamepads and analog
sticks or hat controllers)

For analog input, levers are best, but they have to be big enough (joystick)
though steering wheel comes close.

There is a good reason most vehicles use either a steering wheel, potentially
multiaxis, or a joystick, augmented with buttons and levers. Stepped knobs are
also good.

------
avoutthere
This is why I will never own a Tesla Model 3. If I can't adjust the air
conditioning while looking at the road, I don't want it.

~~~
hatty
You can set auto-climate control and will be able to change climate with voice
in the future:
[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/952750646406426624?s=21](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/952750646406426624?s=21)

~~~
nottorp
They're solving a problem they introduced themselves eh?

Voice command: shout at car to make it cooler. Car doesn't understand. Shout
at car to turn off radio so your voice command is clearer. Car doesn't
understand. Take eyes off road to turn off the damn radio with the touch
screen. Crash!

The button interfaces actually work 100% of the time. Voice command... lol...

~~~
pythonaut_16
It's fine because you can just turn on the Autopilot while you adjust the
radio and everything will be fine.

~~~
macintux
Tesla created an interface that can only be used while driving by handing
control over to software that is unable to recognize when a vehicle in front
of you is at a dead stop.

And everything is just fine?

~~~
mortenjorck
I think the parent comment was intended to be facetious.

------
candiodari
> “The quality of the touchscreen is my fault”, he admitted, “we never tested
> it on the road”. Apparently the management was so convinced that the
> entertainment system’s blue-tinted, rectangular touchscreen interface was
> “the future” that the company didn’t even bother using it on the road before
> releasing it. After all, Tesla had recently debuted (to much acclaim), its
> first model which boasted a similar touchscreen system. Now that this new
> company’s own car was in mass production, it would take many years to undo
> the damage.

So management (of the car company) pushes through a choice they don't
understand, without understanding the implications ... and the problem is
touchscreens ?

Sorry. That's not correct.

Tesla's interface has a good cpu and is quite usable (knowing EU car
manufacturers my bet is that the first problem is woefully underpowered cpu).
I wouldn't say it's at peak performance yet, but it's certainly as usable as a
first stab at lots of buttons would be.

This is in fact the entire premise of the entire article. Management blindly
doing things because "they're the future" ... sucks.

But we all know what the real problem is as well. The opposite attitude in
management ("stay with the classics") also doesn't work.

You NEED management to know the business.

No exceptions !

This is yet one more example of total management failure. It should not
reflect badly on any particular interface design principle.

------
CoolGuySteve
Video games do this the best: you want a game pad like controller on the
steering wheel with a HUD projected on the windshield.

You get the best of both worlds, a context-aware interface without losing
focus on what’s in front of you.

------
jrw
Hahahahahahaha. Cars have some of the worst designed human interfaces known to
man. In fact, virtually no designer of products (physical or virtual) cares
anymore for their UX. It's sad, but in the mad rush to produce more and more,
we've forgotten how to improve what we already have.

------
ph33t
My frustration with automotive controls isn't limited to touch screens, but
I've never used a touchscreen I like. I have two cars with awesome controls -
a 2000 camary and a 20007 suburban. Both have 3 knobs: 1) how hot/cold 2) how
fast is the fan blowing 3) where does it blow. The radio has two nobs - "what
channel" and "how loud". My wife's 2013 (?) "luxury" car is quite the
opposite. All controls are either 1) buttons you have to press or 2) something
on the touchscreen. The user interfaces force you to take your attention from
the road to use. That is bad and _dangerous_ design ... end of story. I know
the world likes to complain about using phones while driving, the the controls
on some cars are just as bad.

------
dirktheman
The latest fad in luxury cars are switches that are actually touchscreens that
look like physical switches, sometimes complete with haptic feedback.

Let the sheer stupidity of that sink in for a while...

Meanwhile in my old Mitsubishi switches rarely break, and if they do it'll
cost a couple of dollar to replace it.

------
digi_owl
I think one reason store chains etc are moving to touch screns is that they
can push various changes centrally.

I recall seeing older systems that used transparent keycaps, and invariably
they would be covered in stickers and whiteout as the employees had tried
their best to implement changes on the fly.

And now that i think about it, were there not a story posted a while back
about a restaurant where the waiters used an age old grease marker on the
screen of their POS to mark reservations that had arrived? This because while
the software had such a feature, it required too many clicks or some such to
be effectively done during a busy day.

------
panic
Related (from 2011):
[http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesi...](http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/)

~~~
ssebastianj
I'd also recommend "Magic Ink: Information Software And The Graphical
Interface":
[http://worrydream.com/#!/MagicInk](http://worrydream.com/#!/MagicInk)

------
garadox
Having driven with the Tesla touchscreen, I can tell you you don't need to use
it much while driving. The dials in the steering wheel can adjust the
temperature, voice control is great for navigation and for selecting music,
and range, performance data is on the dashboard (for non model 3).

If you need to do something complex like select a destionarion on the map, I
don't think there's any interface that would let you do that safely as you
need to visually identify a location.

~~~
philbarr
I have a car with voice control and it's terrible for navigation with my 4
year old in the back seat. Seems it can't understand the phrase, "Drive to
home why are you saying that daddy what did you say are you talking to the car
daddy why?"

------
superbatfish
I'll take this opportunity to complain about my 2017 Honda HR-V. It has all of
the problems described in the above piece.

It's the most dissatisfying thing about my car. In fact, it might be the
_only_ dissatisfying thing about the car, and yet it's still enough to make me
reluctant to recommend the car to a friend!

------
willio58
A good mix of both touchscreens and physical mobs and buttons seems
preferable. Similar to how the Apple Watch is designed.

------
jimmydddd
In the '90's, I worked as a software/systems engineer "upgrading" factory
process lines (think 100 year-old paper mills, plasctic bottle processing,
pharma) from big old buttons and knobs to industrial touch screens. It was a
Disaster! Things that operators used to do in a few twists and pushes now
required toggling between multiple screens. Small on-screen touch buttons that
were the perfect size for computer nerd fingers were way too small for the big
meaty fingers of the operators. Conveyor speed feedback that looked steady on
an analog meter now looked unstable on a digital display with three decimal
places of (un-needed) precision. I should do consulting for these car
companies. I could tell them that a volume control should always be a physical
manual device. :-)

------
spondyl
A coworker of mine often refers to his time of working on a CT scanner which
this reminded me of. One story was around how a new model was released that
used a touchscreen instead of tactile buttons.

As you can imagine, a doctor could previously fully focus on the patient as
they were able to feel the feedback of physical buttons.

With the introduction of a touchscreen, they would have to continually switch
between looking at the positioning of the patient, and looking to their right
at the LCD panel in the CT scanner itself.

A quick look at the website of the large company in question seems to indicate
that they reverted back to a non-touch screen display. I should hope so given
that we're talking about hospital patients here!

~~~
digi_owl
Read about similar where doctors would keep using older DOS based software
because they could operate the keyboard by touch, and thus bring up test
results etc while maintaining the conversation with the patient.

------
wheaties
The new interfaces out of Garmin avionics are all touch screen based. They did
wise up and add a knob and reference bumps around the screen. Still, scary to
think I'd be looking at a screen when landing a plane outside of IFR flights.

~~~
Eugr
Also, touch screens are much harder to use in turbulence.

------
santoshmaharshi
Every screen I guess is a touch screen in some regards, say pointer-n-clik
screen. Many such screens are so overcrowded these days, that you are playing
a game of "Kill this pop up" to consume original content.

Browser notifications, Newsletter, Follow on Social, Special offers, etc etc

Regarding touch screen mentioned in this piece, the problem is those who
created the product never use it and never it in original usage conditions.
Many ATMS machines are filled with alighment problems to over confusing
options.

Even their MENU & Navigation is not thought through

------
sitkack
The Boeing Starliner has a similar problems with its "glass". It seems wrong
on so many levels.

* requires sight (both line of sight and focus)

* fine motor control

* how does it interact with liquids (grease, blood, coolant, vomit) ?

* single point of failure (touch controller)

[https://www.google.com/search?q=boeing+starliner+touch+displ...](https://www.google.com/search?q=boeing+starliner+touch+display&tbm=isch)

------
wazoox
I love the many buttons of my old Volvo dashboard. Rotary ones to set up
temperature, etc.

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/Volvo_S8...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/Volvo_S80_2.4T_2002_Blue%2C_interior_dashboard.jpg)

------
mchahn
It doesn't have to be a touchscreen. I drove my brother-in-law's porsche suv
when it came out. It had physical buttons with a screen. You had to press
through deep menus to do anything. I've used computers for decades and I
couldn't figure out how to turn the radio off. I gave up and turned the volume
to zero.

------
m-p-3
IMO this is a cost that many popular smartwatches seems to forget these days.

Buttons are great for quickly interacting with the device without having to
glance at it.

I shouldn't have to watch my screen to skip/pause a song, dismiss a
notification, etc.

~~~
bartread
The Garmin Fenix 5X uses buttons rather than a touchscreen for interaction,
and it _should_ be awesome as a result. Unfortunately the interface is so damn
slow to respond that you end up having to look at the watch when navigating or
using functions anyway. Also the feel of the buttons is spongey - there's no
satisfying click to tell you when the button has been pressed properly. Again,
a factor that forces you to look at the screen.

Not recommended: expensive, somewhat ugly, painfully slow UI, and frankly not
that awesome in any way other than a relatively impressive battery life
(unless you're using GPS!).

------
joveian
UI latency is also a huge related issue.

------
SN76477
tactile interfaces will be a future trend.

------
orbital-decay
On the other hand, many MFDs in recent plane cockpits, including military
ones, were replaced or at least augmented with touch screens. That's probably
not just a fashionable trend, since the avionics and particularily instrument
displays are subject to much higher scrutiny than car entertainment systems,
and must work and be accessible in much harsher conditions.

That said, I'd love to see some serious research on this topic.

~~~
omeid2
I am learning to fly and know a fair few in aviation, most pilots actually
detest touchscreen and much prefer physical controls that are tactile and
gives _hard-realtime_ feedback.

If you have payed attention to the controls in a cockpit, you will see that
all the switches, knobs, and levers have different sizes, shapes, texture, and
tilt. That is not accidental. It helps with muscle memory and when you have to
alter many many different parameters in a short span of time, knowing where to
look for and getting "instant" and tactile feedback is important, that is
hardly possible with touchscreen interfaces as I know them.

~~~
WalterBright
I love that the landing gear levers have little tires on the top. It's perfect
tactile feedback.

The flap controls have little airfoils on the top.

The cockpit is full of things like that, all learned the hard way. People are
very bad at inventing intuitive interfaces.

For example, aviation has standard phrases for things. Like "takeoff power" is
maximum power, as that's what you use for takeoff. One day, a pilot was
landing and suddenly had to abort. He yelled "takeoff power" to the copilot,
who heard "take off power", and chopped power to the engines at the worst
possible moment, and they crashed.

The phrase was changed to "full power".

How could a generation of pilots and aviation experts never notice the
ambiguity inherent in "takeoff power"? But they didn't, until there was an
accident.

~~~
oftenwrong
An ambiguous use of the phrase "take off" was a key cause of the Tenerife
Airport Disaster.

>As a consequence of the accident, sweeping changes were made to international
airline regulations and to aircraft. Aviation authorities around the world
introduced requirements for standard phrases and a greater emphasis on English
as a common working language.[13]

>Air traffic instruction should not be acknowledged solely with a colloquial
phrase such as "OK" or even "Roger" (which simply means the last transmission
was received[58]), but with a readback of the key parts of the instruction, to
show mutual understanding. The phrase "take off" is now spoken only when the
actual takeoff clearance is given or when cancelling that same clearance (i.e.
"cleared for take-off" or "cancel take-off clearance"). Up until that point,
aircrew and controllers should use the phrase "departure" in its place, e.g.
"ready for departure". Additionally, an ATC clearance given to an aircraft
already lined-up on the runway must be prefixed with the instruction "hold
position".[59]

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster)

[https://web.archive.org/web/20170218144312/http://lessonslea...](https://web.archive.org/web/20170218144312/http://lessonslearned.faa.gov/ll_main.cfm?TabID=3&LLID=52&LLTypeID=2)

~~~
WalterBright
My source for the anecdote was my father, who was a jet pilot for the Air
Force, and spent some duty as an accident investigator. I wouldn't be
surprised if the AF and civil aviation both had to learn that lesson the hard
way.

