
Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls - trenning
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motor-shows-geneva-motor-show/honda-bucks-industry-trend-removing-touchscreen-controls
======
hnarn
Look at the cockpit of any modern airliner and you will see screens, but they
are never interactive. There are hardware buttons, dials and lights all over
the place. A tactile interface is both more obvious, sturdy and more stable,
and therefore safer. The problem that touch interfaces solve, ever since the
advent of the first smart phone, is that the interface is now dynamic. You can
change it without having to replace the hardware. Here's the catch: for safety
critical interfaces, YOU DO NOT want the interface to change. The point is
moot.

Touch screens will hopefully never make it into any critical pilot systems,
because safety and stability matters to airline manufacturers, current ongoing
scandals notwithstanding. I only wish automobile manufacturers took their job
equally seriously.

~~~
CivBase
I work for an avionics manufacturer and I can assure you most of our upcoming
comercial systems (and even a healthy portion of government ones) feature
touch screen inputs.

~~~
xt00
The sad but real reason a ton of this is happening is one very big word that
is typically not present in things like car / airplane design: flexibility...
flexibility to change the user controls, flexibility to fix problems,
flexibility to let the SW team work up until the last minute to get stuff
working, and the second part that goes with this is cost. Touchscreens mean
increased flexibility for the design and better control over cost to deliver
features. Unfortunately, if the display dies and you can't see anything, then
the car or plane may crash... so sadly it will probably take a couple of those
events happening for this to be changed to have some kind of redundant systems
that the pilot can use when the display dies suddenly.

~~~
paulyg
If something needs that much flexibility in it's UI that people are messing
with it at the last minute it doesn't belong as something people should be
messing with while driving. The OP talks about HVAC controls. How much
flexibility do you really need for that? The interface has been standardized
for a long time. It's a known quantity both from a design perspective and user
perspective. Ditto for common audio controls like volume, pause/play, skip.

------
samizdis
Eminently sensible call by Honda. Knobs, dials and switches work well and do
not demand that a driver takes their eyes off the road. I suppose that voice
controls would be a reasonably safe tech option, but probably not cost-
effective.

~~~
Robotbeat
Is taking your hands off the steering wheel much better?

Ideally, all controls would be available on the steering wheel without
removing either hand. Or, as you say, voice controls.

~~~
dijit
This is a great example of when "perfect is the enemy of good".

Humans have pretty good spatial reasoning (proprioception); the notion that
touch controls should replace tactile well-spaced controls is dependent on the
fact that both senses (sight, spatial awareness) are uncontested.

I would argue the point that sight is already in-use and must not be
interfered with, if there's an alternative that does not use the same
resources.

I think of it like hardware acceleration and parrelelisation; the brain has a
hardware accelerator for sight, but only one, and has a bunch of cores ready
for other tasks, and those other tasks can happen in parallel.

~~~
fastball
Or you could go for Tesla's strategy, which is try to get self-driving ASAP so
you don't have the problem anymore.

------
jetrink
I will never understand how this trend started in the first place. If you look
at e.g. digital cameras, they all have touch screens these days, but they also
still have buttons and dials everywhere. The one in front of me has eight
physical buttons, seven dials and a power switch. The reason is obvious: when
you're taking photos, you don't want to be looking down at a screen; you want
to be focused on the task at hand and aware of what is happening around you.
If camera designers know this, why don't automotive designers, where the task
at hand is a matter of life and death?

~~~
izacus
They make cars significantly cheaper to produce - both in terms of parts and
construction time. Evey button you lose is a button you don't have source and
install when building the car. There's less wiring, less replacement parts to
stock. It's a win in all kinds of situations for the manufacturer.

It's no coincidence that the company with most manufacturing issues - Tesla -
also went with completely touchscreen based cabin with pretty much no
additional cost. This is further confirmed by the fact that they didn't offset
the screen issue by installing a projected HUD display (which is these days
available in most 20.000$ cars) - it's complicated to install.

~~~
mywittyname
What kills me is when "legacy" automakers have dashboards with 40 buttons on
them, of which you use may 5 regularly. It's especially annoying when the
functions I use every day are buried in nested menus, but the button for
setting the clock, sending a text, or satellite radio is right there front and
center.

~~~
nikanj
It works better in a sales pitch. "If you want to text your broker to punch in
a few trades, it's just one button away!".

Nobody bothers to write sales copy saying "You can actually change the cabin
temperature and the radio volume on this car"

------
woozyolliew
Always seemed like a cargo cult: iphone good; touch good; buttons bad (steve
said).

Let’s hope it’s a new trend! I love that my Audi still has tactile buttons and
wheels, and was a big factor in choosing it. My previous car had a touch
screen and it was so dangerous having to brace my hand for accuracy and stare
at my fingers while driving.

~~~
closeparen
How do you feel about the MMI scroll wheel? I don’t feel safe using that
either; it still requires eyes on the screen to see what you’re selecting.
Even my passengers, who can give it their full attention, are routinely
stymied by the process of pairing their phones for Bluetooth audio playback.

At least I can get the volume and temperature knobs by feel.

~~~
basch
Whats interesting about Honda going with a dial, is that they designed, what I
thought, was a pretty brilliant absolutely positioned touchpad for Acura. Have
peopled used these, what is there feedback. It seems much more natural,
intuitive, and fast compared to a dial.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScWOFtlLCyI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScWOFtlLCyI)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcKa9apjOX8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcKa9apjOX8)

~~~
flamtap
Lexus also has a touchpad, and an interesting "tactile joystick" type of
solution. Takes some getting used to but the tactile feedback goes a _long_
way to reducing the need to look at the screen.

------
cletus
Any monitor manufacturers want to follow suit?

What I'd give for hardware input source buttons. This is a ridiculous UX:

1\. Touch button to open menu

2\. Select "Input Source"

3\. Click up/down (possibly multiple times) to find your source

4\. Click OK

...when your monitor has TWO sources. Just give me 2 buttons: HDMI and
DisplayPort.

I don't care that this would be marginally more expensive. I'd pay it.

Touch screen controls strike me as not being about cost but being about
incredibly lazy UI and a good example of worrying about problems you'll never
have like "what if you have 10 input sources? That'd mean 10 buttons". But YOU
DON"T. You can't add an input source with software after the fact.

/rant

Touch screens make complete sense for phones. You're looking at it. There is
limited screen real estate. The second is why hardware keyboards died. It's
even why the Home button on iPhones died, which makes me sad because I loathe
Face ID with a passion (compared to Touch ID).

Touch screens require you to look at them. This seems bad when driving.
Physical controls are tactile and you can learn to use them without looking.
People seem to forget how important this is.

It's also why I prefer keyboards that split function keys into groups of 4
over the terrible design of putting them all together. Function keys are
really too far to touch type effectively so you need a non-visual cue of which
is which.

Beyond that, every touch interface I've seen in a car is objectively terrible.

Kudos to Honda for bucking this stupid trend.

~~~
whywhywhywhy
> Touch screen controls strike me as not being about cost but being about
> incredibly lazy UI

It's almost always about cost. Touch screens are shocking cheap thanks to
smartphones driving the prices down and physical controls can be shockingly
expensive per control.

~~~
rland
Do you have an idea of why dials and buttons are so expensive? That surprises
me. The components aren't particularly high tech.

~~~
president
I would imagine it's more the one-time cost of the R&D for developing the
digital menu system vs per-unit hardware costs for the dials/buttons over
time.

------
mey
[https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-mazda-is-
pur...](https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-mazda-is-purging-
touchscreens-from-its-vehicles)

A more in-depth article last year on why Mazda is doing this.

~~~
pentae
Yep, Mazda were the most vocal about rejecting the touch screen trend, and
Honda and Toyota are losing a lot of customers to Mazda who have been
producing the best cars in their class in the last several years so it makes
sense that they are jumping on the bandwagon.

~~~
woobar
Since peaking in 2015 Mazda is not growing. They are steadily losing market
share over the last 10 years. They make attractive cars, but they bet on
pretending that they are a "premium" brand and priced themselves out.

[https://carsalesbase.com/us-mazda/](https://carsalesbase.com/us-mazda/)

[https://www.autonews.com/sales/mazdas-complicated-journey-
pr...](https://www.autonews.com/sales/mazdas-complicated-journey-premium)

~~~
kenhwang
In terms of sales volume in the US, you are correct: Mazda is not selling more
cars. If you look at their financial reporting, they're making more money from
car sales. Looks like ~60% more.

Anyone with a lick of business sense would happily trade -10% sales volume for
+60% profit from higher margins. They didn't price themselves out, they just
decided to not play the loss-leader volume game Ford/Honda/Toyota is playing.

~~~
woobar
Looks like ~60% loss to me. (From $1.1B net in 2015 to $572M net in 2019)

[https://money.cnn.com/quote/financials/financials.html?symb=...](https://money.cnn.com/quote/financials/financials.html?symb=MZDAF)

EDIT: $1.1B in 2016. In 2015 net income was $1.45B :-(

~~~
kenhwang
From what I can tell from the investor docs, the overall loss was from
exchange rates and tariffs from losing access to sharing Ford's factories and
costs and the high capex to building a replacement factory and generally
transitioning to a fully independent automaker.

Every shareholder report in the last couple years stated that their premium
offerings are doing better than they expected and they're making more money
than they expected given the capex.

~~~
woobar
JPY/USD rate changed 9% over the last 5 years, are you sure it explains 70%
lower net income?

You stated that they make 60% more money. If the point you are trying to make
is that they make 60% more _than they expected_ , I won't argue with you.

~~~
kenhwang
Mass market automakers usually target ~7% margin, so a 9% change in exchange
rate without adjustment in price would make an automaker flip from profitable
to unprofitable (observable with Nissan as a real world example). It doesn't
decrease their profit by 9%.

Mazda raised their margin target to ~10% per vehicle, which is pretty standard
for the premium segment. Which if they performed to expectations, would mean
40% more profit; they're slightly overperforming at ~60%.

------
isaacaggrey
> Honda has done what no other car maker is doing,

Huh? The author is not familiar with Mazda - their latest models of the CX
line (possibly others) have full control of the interface with a very
functional physical knob / dial along with other tactile controls.

Also, the headline is a bit misleading - they aren't removing touchscreen
controls entirely - only removing them from "some" controls as their preface
text indicates, which to be clear is solely A/C controls.

~~~
otherme123
I have a Mazda from 2019 (not the CX), and I can do _everything_ with a couple
of knobs. Even the extra buttons you mention (volume up/down in the wheel or
quick access to media/navigation/radio in the center console) are redundant
and nearly useless. Just a couple of weeks after I got the car, I have never
touched the screen again.

A/C controls are completely manual. Mazda got it right from the beginning.

------
Shivetya
I will defend the screen in the Tesla 3, the simple fact is that you really
never have to use on your typical drive and yes muscle memory works for simple
UIs like what the Tesla employs.

Compared to 40+ buttons in my previous Volt AND a screen. Many cars have that
many or more buttons and this is easier? Where screen's become distracting is
when the UI is shit, having more than one or two clicks to do anything, and
worse duplicating features there are physical buttons for but naturally
distract the driver who thinks they should use that screen.

From automatic headlamps, climate control, and wipers, I really have no reason
to interact with the screen except as glances while I do the standard look
around while driving.

My favorite test... put a sticky on every button and only remove one if you
truly had to use the function. bonus points for not having to remove the
sticky to find out what the button did.

edit: spelling error

~~~
gnicholas
Touchscreens that are huge are somewhat less of an issue because tap targets
are much bigger. But most non-luxury vehicles come with 7 or 8 inch screens,
so tap targets are small/clustered. Layer on that the fact that many screens
aren't capacitive (and instead require a certain amount of pressure from your
finger/fingernail), and things get even more annoying/dangerous.

~~~
pmontra
With physical buttons we can keep eyes on the road, one hand on the wheel and
the other one looks for the right button. With a touch screen we have to look
at the screen, hoping we made the right decision about what's going to happen
on the road. If there are laws against texting there should be laws against
using touchscreens when the car is moving.

~~~
Shivetya
Just how many controls are you manipulating that are not duplicated to your
steering wheel on your drive? Modern cars feature nearly automatic everything,
set and forget.

Just a note about laws against texting. So my state recently, finally last
year, put in place a law which said you must use hands free.

Guess what happened, now half the dolts have their phone mounted to their
windshield in their field of view or on their dash. So yeah, its hands free
but even more distracting. Apparently this loop hole exists in many states!

------
anderspitman
I work in data visualization. Every programmer who gets into datavis goes
through a "3D all the things" phase where they look around and realize that 3D
visualizations aren't used in a lot of areas where it seems like they should.
Eventually you realize that there are big tradeoffs and 3D is very difficult
to get right for the human brain.

Touchscreens are similar. The appeal is obvious. Screens are space efficient,
customizable, upgradeable, flashy, etc. But they simply aren't as nice as
physical controls with tactile feedback. Not only should we not be forcing
touchscreens into every HCI situation, I think we should be moving the other
direction, adding more physical buttons, dials, sliders etc to our computers
and smartphones. In school a couple years back I worked on a project[0] for
adding generic bluetooth buttons on a wrist device.

Imagine if you had 4 extra physical buttons, a scroll wheel, and a slider all
sitting on your wrist, and your phone and apps were designed in such a way
that you could map these to whatever you wanted.

[0]:
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lTOxHxHFjwJXeCLROAPf6OJD...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lTOxHxHFjwJXeCLROAPf6OJDonKZ9pliw2NMhQ-8QLw/edit#heading=h.52vufnqzfry9)

~~~
audunw
> Imagine if you had 4 extra physical buttons, a scroll wheel, and a slider
> all sitting on your wrist, and your phone and apps were designed in such a
> way that you could map these to whatever you wanted.

Well this is kind of what Tesla is doing isn't it? You have some general
purpose scroll-wheels/buttons on the steering wheel

~~~
anderspitman
I've never driven a Tesla, but if so that's cool.

------
solatic
Last year I bought a motorcycle (Honda CB300R) and it was a revelation.

No touch screens. No stereo. No GPS. No Bluetooth. No automatic transmission.
No cupholders. Basically no "modern car features". And it's a much, much
better road experience than any car I've ever been able to afford to drive.

Get rid of all the distractions at a price point under $30k with an engine
that doesn't feel sluggish and maybe I'll consider buying a car again.

(Necessary disclaimer: I live somewhere where it's sunny and warm the majority
of the year and where car parking is nigh impossible. Maybe I'd feel
differently if I lived in rural Canada.)

~~~
pp19dd
Toyota GT-86. Starts around 27k, three flavors (Scion FR/S, Subaru BRZ).
Excepting some radio controls, all button (has steering wheel volume, tuning,
etc.) And as a bonus, it's a six-gear rear wheel drive.

Eject button sold separately:
[https://i.imgur.com/wHL5Xnc.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/wHL5Xnc.jpg)

------
jerf
I buy cheaper cars, because I don't really care about any of the high-end
features that cars offer, and this has been one legitimate advantage, at least
as of the last time I was shopping; cheap cars cheaped out on the display, so
they still had physical controls for things like volume. I hope this trend
takes off before I buy another.

I think it would be possible to make a decent touch screen, but it seems like
the only people who give even a quantum of a damn about latency are the video
game folks. A UI with 95th-percentile or 99th-percentile multi-second latency
is an active hazard on the road, even if it is normally acceptable, which
itself is fairly rare and expensive.

------
achenatx
Interfaces to the car should have standardized use cases/requirements that are
interface independent.

There should be requirements like - user should be able to rapidly change
stations manually without looking at the interface.

For example I have a dial for my XM radio in my tundra, if I want to go from
station 10 to station 100, I can easily do it by spinning the dial really fast
two or three times without looking at the screen.

In my honda, to get to that UI where I can arbitrarily tune, I have to hit 3-4
buttons all in different places. Then I have to hit the up button 90 times.

I could imagine a digital tuner that is a bar that lets you simply touch where
on the spectrum you want to select a station. But up/down arrow to tune should
be banned.

------
dron57
Funny coming from Honda. My parents own a 2017 (I think) Civic and the only
way to adjust volume is by tapping +/\- on the touchscreen. It's the most
unusable volume adjustment I've ever experienced. It was completely unusable
with a glove in the winter.

So while most other companies only implemented touchscreen controls for
secondary features Honda did it for the most widely used one. Now they are
backtracking 100%, go figure.

~~~
jermaustin1
I have a 2015 Fit (Jazz in the not US), and it has the +/\- on the touch
screen, but also physical buttons on the steering wheel. I guess the
compromise is that the driver doesn't need to use the touch buttons because
they have the ones on the wheel, and the passenger can take their eyes off the
road.

~~~
fenwick67
I'm curious to know if the buttons are in the base model or are an upgrade.

~~~
jermaustin1
I DO have the highest trim level, so maybe that's why.

~~~
thedance
At least in the US models of the Fit there's no difference in the interior
trim levels. I think part of the confused nature of this discussion is that
Honda never shipped the touch-only dashboard that this article is talking
about in the US market. The Fit and as far as I have seen every model Honda
sells in the US has always had real knobs and switches for the climate
controls. The touch climate controls were available in Japan and elsewhere.

ETA:

Non-USA interior: [https://img.sm360.ca/images/article/the-honda-
way/58810//the...](https://img.sm360.ca/images/article/the-honda-
way/58810//the-new-2016-honda-fit-goes-beyond1555083156624.jpg)

USA interior:
[https://file.kelleybluebookimages.com/kbb/base/evox/StJ/1082...](https://file.kelleybluebookimages.com/kbb/base/evox/StJ/10826/2016-Honda-
Fit-aux-mp3_10826_123_640x480.jpg)

~~~
nereye
For the 2016 year model, the base model has a volume knob but the higher
models do not. The 'USA interior' link above seems identical to the Non-USA
link vs audio volume knob not being there. This is what the dash looks like
for models with the knob (could only find 2015 lx but looks identical to 2016
lx):
[https://cdn.jdpower.com/ChromeImageGallery/Expanded/White/64...](https://cdn.jdpower.com/ChromeImageGallery/Expanded/White/640/2015HON009c_640/2015HON009c_640_11.jpg)

~~~
thedance
Oh yes, I'd quite forgotten about the base model radio. Almost surprised it
has no tape deck.

------
voyager2
Bout time this started happening. Now, the rest of the industry just needs to
follow suit.

~~~
kart23
BMW and Mercedes have always had physical dials to control the infotainment
system.

------
DonHopkins
The first and best microwave I ever had simply had a dial, a cook button, and
an open button: that's it. The more you turned the dial, the longer your food
would cook, and the hotter it would get. That's all you needed to know or do.
And you could even turn it back or forth while it is microwaving, to change
the time after you start, or finish cooking immediately. But it's almost
impossible to find one with a dial, now.

Microwaves with digital keypads are terrible, even with those "convenient" +10
sec / +1 min / hot dog / peep buttons, you still have to hit a little target
you can't feel, instead to twisting a big knob you can.

Entering time by touching digital buttons isn't a rapid, reversible, and
incremental action with continuous feedback -- i.e. "direct manipulation",
like turning a dial is.

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

------
ddingus
Great! I may actually consider a newer car for the first time in a long while.

I rent regularly and the last decade or so of car UX has been pretty terrible.

Some features are compelling, but distraction limits their effective value.

Feels a lot like early smart TVs to me. Better experiences are had by turning
all the crap off.

With a car, the stuff is just there, often does not stay off, requiring
constant attention to push out of the way, etc...

An older vehicle, equipped with a bluetooth capable radio, smartphone with
voice is better than just about all the new car goodies nearly always.

Frankly, the metrics, mpg, other performance data and sound processing where
present are great! I use them when present.

The rest is just a mess.

My other quibble is LEDs. The flicker used to prolong LED life and power use
is very seriously distracting both in car, and outside to other drivers.

In car, lots of bright things will often inhibit night vision. Displays, dash
lighting, indicators all increasingly bright and many flicker.

As a driver, a quick glance to and fro results in a field of dots. I have
asked others about that and have done a few tests when road conditions and
traffic present an opportunity.

Older car dashes are not distracting much at all. Can run very dim too. Newer
dashes distract far more. Won't always dim, or worse, will dim, sans for one
bright thing, usually a little display.

The always on bulbs do leave a vision trail, compared to the dots from LED
lights. For many, that trail appears to be processed in a less distracting
way.

LED tail lights are the big offender here.

Over time, as I land in various airports, the conversion to LED has been
completed. The pattern of speckles are crazy! Various colors, and modest duty
cycle rates make for a mess.

Any pilots care to comment?

------
numlock86
Mazda also did this. Long ago.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20200335](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20200335)

------
tibbon
Thank god.

I just got a 2005 Porsche Boxster with a CDR-24 radio, and one of my favorite
things about it is how simple the interior controls are. Knobs, buttons,
switches. The PCM radio I think might have had touch screen, but anyway...

My main point is that my 15 year old car doesn't feel anywhere near as dated
as many cars from 2009, that have slow, low resolution, or awkward touch
screens. The only car I've used with an acceptable (but still flawed in many
ways) touch screen is a Tesla 3 or S.

An absence of features often for me turns out to be a feature. It's a car; do
I even really need that many buttons or controls?

------
beat
My spouse has a 2019 Honda HRV and I _hate_ dealing with the touchscreen while
driving. It's cognitively very difficult to do the degree of fine motor
control and visual attention the touchscreen requires while also driving
safely. It's actually a little terrifying.

I remember reading an article a while back about some manufacturer, can't
remember which one, adding a clickable knob to control the "smart" functions.
Since so much of what we use a touchscreen for is actually menu selection,
that could cover most of what we need to "touch".

------
neya
Let me give you another perspective - I own a Suzuki SX4 S-Cross that comes
with a fluid, super responsive and intuitive touchscreen with voice commands
in it, which can also be controlled from the steering. You can do stuff like
ask to call someone's phone, or read a text message or ask you to give
directions.

But the real highlight is the UI + UX. It's super intuitive in that the volume
controls, although touch, are always in a fixed location and you just drag
over towards the edge of the screen up or down. In addition, you also have
steering mounted controls to control the volume. The whole screen is divided
into 4 quadrants and clicking anywhere in those quadrants will take you to
either of the main screen (Eg. Navigation or FM Radio). It doesn't take long
to get used to remembering which quadrant is for which. Also, for safety, you
can't use some core features of navigation while driving the car. It will ask
you to stop first if you want to say, type for a certain address.

I have never seen such fantastic UX in such mid-tier cars. To me, it seem's
Honda's move is backward - perhaps it could be solved by simple UX..which
Suzuki and Bosch (the supplier of their infotainment units) have already
solved?

I find it super convenient because I don't even need to take my eyes off the
road...while enjoying the convenience of a touch screen.

A picture (or video is worth a thousand words):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvERUKfjufg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvERUKfjufg)

~~~
cinbun8
That's only one control though. You can still accidentally touch something
else while you fish for this control. I'm sure most users would prefer dials
that provide touch feedback.

------
adrianmonk
> _The new Audi A3’s electronics boss Melanie Limmer told Autocar recently its
> decision to remove some physical buttons was made as “more and more people
> are getting into touch functions with smartphones”_

That is totally the wrong lesson to take from the popularity of touchscreens
on smartphones.

Hardware buttons were eliminated from smartphones for one reason: the devices
are small and screen real estate is critically important. So the screens need
to take up 100% of the usable area of the front of the device, leaving no room
for buttons. (The first iPhone proved how game-changing it was to be able to
any web site.)

It's not because touching the screen is better than pressing a button. It's
because eliminating buttons is an acceptable sacrifice for something even more
important.

But in a car, of course, you don't have these constraints on size, so the
reasoning doesn't translate from one type of device to another.

It's the equivalent of saying, hey, we noticed that having only one burner is
overwhelmingly popular on camping stoves, and campers really seem to prefer it
that way, so for all our new models of kitchen ranges, we are going to just
have one burner too.

Of course, I am assuming it even is a sincere belief. It's also possible they
have some other reason (maybe cheaper?) and this is just a way of justifying
the choice.

------
mcescalante
I have a 2013 Accord with a touch screen (bought it used and it's what came
with it) instead of button controls. The latency on the screen is terrible and
my father's Acura RDX which does not have a touch panel is much more user-
friendly. I would love if more manufacturers started to put more analog
controls back into their cars, but kept the non-touch screens for info
display/backup cameras.

------
getpolarized
There is a trend to assume new technology will always replace old technology.

During the Vietnam war the F4 ditched its cannons for the sidewinder air to
air missile.

The sidewinder is fire and forget for the most part and somewhat of a no
brainer whereas cannons require more skill and training in dogfighting.

It also gave the US a MAJOR advantage (in theory) vs the MiG.

The problem is that the Vietnamese picked up on this and changed their
tactics.

Before this the US had air superiority and a significantly higher kill ratio.

The Vietnamese built 'hidden' airfields and would dispatch their MiGs when the
F4 was directly overhead and engage them in head to head dogfights.

The F4s needed to build distance to launch a sidewinder and this dramatically
rebalanced the kill ratio and during this time it came out to close to 1:1
with the US having a slight advantage.

They US realized their mistake and subsequent F4s had cannons...

Same thing here with cars. When the new screens came out everything was done
through software but it's just NOT a good design.

When I'm driving I want to push a button and be done. IF just for safety.

When the UI locks up or is slow it's literally a safety risk.

~~~
fitzn
Wasn't another factor of the drop in head to head kills and then the
subsequent improvement due to the energy-maneuverability of the fighter jets?
John Boyd's biography
([https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38840.Boyd](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38840.Boyd))
talks a lot about his work while an instructor at the Air Force.

EM theory:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy%E2%80%93maneuverability...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy%E2%80%93maneuverability_theory)

------
ragebol
Funny anecdote: when I was working on the Ultimaker S5 touch screen interface,
there were lots of tests done with new users. Many people had trouble figuring
out that the previous version did not have a touch screen but a tiny, tiny
OLED display that was controlled by a rotating button. People poking their
finger at this tiny OLED which was not giving a damn about what they did
there. Really funny to look at, but made it very clear customers expected us
to have a touch screen.

That allowed for a much nicer interface (we won some award with it), but the
only thing that was not better with a touchscreen (IMO) was manual bed
leveling, where you look at the print head and not the screen. We did our best
on that and to make it as unneeded as possible. I don't have a such an S5
3D-printer and I don't work for Ultimaker anymore, so I'd be glad if anyone
here could tell me how they like the bed leveling UI, if they ever used it :-)

------
bluetomcat
The best "driver UX" I've ever had is on a 1995 Rover Coupe, with its
dashboard and switchgear carried over from a 1988 Honda Concerto:

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

Just 3 knobs for regulating blower fan speed, blown-in heat level, and flow
direction. One switch for letting/stopping incoming air flow, another for
recirculating/capturing cabin air. A single on/off button for the AC.

Left steering column switch is entirely light-related, right switch is
entirely dedicated to the wiper system.

Three buttons just below the dials: emergency lights, fog lights and rear
screen heating.

Just the bare essentials that you'll be using 99% of the time, easily
discoverable at the most sensible locations, with a solid mechanical
"clicking" feedback. It's a significantly safer car simply by virtue of
lacking distracting controls.

~~~
frosted-flakes
That is very similar to early-2000s Volkswagens (mk4) except for the addition
of a radio and seat heater dials, and cruise control on the left stalk (or the
steering wheel):

[https://justdrivethere.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/dscf1441....](https://justdrivethere.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/dscf1441.jpg)

The only (IMO) necessary features these cars lack compared to modern cars are
audio Bluetooth/line in, and navigation. But both are easily added: audio
bluetooth/line in with a module that plugs into the CD changer port on the
back of the OEM radio, and navigation using a separate GPS unit (such as the
ones Garmin make). Maybe a backup camera too, but you can buy a wireless one
that works with a Garmin GPS screen.

------
1970-01-01
Fuck Honda. I'm never buying another "new" Honda:

While their new and "certified" inventory is rusting on dealer lots, they have
declared [0][1] that peons owning Takata NADI inflators (SHRAPNEL BOMBS
sitting inches from our faces) should just wait (NO FREE RENTAL) a few MONTHS
(sometime in 2021) for them to redesign, test, manufacture, ship, and
ultimately replace said shrapnel bomb.

[0] [https://hondaairbaginfo.com/nadi](https://hondaairbaginfo.com/nadi)

[1] [https://hondanews.com/en-US/honda-
corporate/releases/release...](https://hondanews.com/en-US/honda-
corporate/releases/release-0bbc009838e0b24882489e7843003c25-statement-by-
american-honda-regarding-nadi-airbag-inflator-recall)

------
2bitencryption
Unrelated, but this line stood out, and now I have a question:

> Honda’s decision to return to physical controls will be popular with some -
> including, no doubt, its ageing owner base in the UK

Ageing? Is there some stat showing Honda owners are older than owners of other
models? Or that young people aren't buying Hondas?

~~~
asdfman123
I'm young and I love tech, but I'd rather feel for the volume control knob
while I'm watching the road than stare at a touch screen and try to position
my finger to hit an icon in a moving car. Those interfaces were just a
terrible idea.

In my brother's old Prius it would randomly switch to a diagram showing how
cool its power train system was/energy transfer etc. Just what I need while
I'm driving - a useless distraction which I have to close before I get access
to the controls I need!

(I don't remember exactly how it worked though because I haven't driven it in
a while.)

------
sebastianconcpt
Excellent move. I totally support this. Touchscreens removes all the accurate
tactile feedback of what you are doing to a control and that forces the user
to fallback to taking a look, hence deviating the center of the sight from the
ideal zone for a really unjustifiable reason.

------
ellard
Good. Touch screen controls are a good tool for communicating visual
information while having some way to still give users some controls. Tactile
controls are good tools for when the operator needs to visually focus on
something else and feedback can be sensed in other ways. For cars, the only
visual information it should show to the driver are either things that are
controlled outside of a touch screen (speedometer, tach) or can't be
controlled while the vehicle is in operation anyway (oil temp gauge, etc).
Everything else can be intuitively sensed by the driver's other senses and the
important part of the control is the feedback saying that you are in fact
manipulating the controls properly.

------
vearwhershuh
_> While Honda’s decision to return to physical controls will be popular with
some - including, no doubt, its ageing owner base in the UK - the predicted
move towards more voice-controlled actions in cars could eliminate the debate
around touchscreens versus analogue controls in the future._

No, I will not be talking to my car.

Knobs and buttons with tactile feedback were great and should be used for
major functionality.

My favorite fan controller of all time was a fan pull knob on a FJ40, which
had physical clicks for each fan setting as you pulled it out:

[https://forum.ih8mud.com/attachments/p13-jpg.509941/](https://forum.ih8mud.com/attachments/p13-jpg.509941/)

It was intuitive and deeply satisfying.

------
viburnum
The way my brains works, it’s hard for me to even read road signs when I’m
driving (excepting simple ones like speed limits and one-word signs).
Switching contexts is just really slow. If I try to use voice recognition I
basically go blind for three seconds.

------
alkonaut
Just and knobs for everything I need when driving. But please keep touchscreen
for everything complex I can do while standing still. Complex setup of display
options, car setups or whatever is infuriating without touch.

This is how every other device works such as a digital camera. You can’t have
an unlimited amount of knobs and buttons but you can have a dozen so you
choose very carefully which functions need direct manipulation.

I don’t think it’s so bad currently in many cars to be honest. My VW does what
I want, there are knobs and buttons for climate and radio, but setup and other
things are touch. Only complaint is that switching source between line in and
bt is touch only (and is used a lot).

------
hindsightbias
Car audio systems pose greater dangers than texting, pot

[https://techxplore.com/news/2020-03-car-audio-pose-
greater-d...](https://techxplore.com/news/2020-03-car-audio-pose-greater-
dangers.html)

------
anonytrary
Who thought of the "touch-screen in cars" idea and how did he bait the entire
industry into copying such a shitty idea? Touch screens in cars don't _even_
make sense in fully self-driving cars, since you'd just lay down in the
backseat on your phone on your way to work.

I still have no idea how to work the screen in my dad's old car. I would
literally have to pull over and whip out my phone to Google how to use the
damn thing. It made setting/changing the music _way_ harder than it should've
been. No one wants to pull over to look up a dissertation on how to use change
the channel on your radio.

------
taurath
Thank goodness. I bought a Honda quite a few years ago and got the top trim,
but insisted that they remove the navigation system as just using it as a
radio was far worse because it was entirely touchscreen focused. This might
keep on me on Honda's for a while.

Edit: Wait... they're just talking about climate controls here. They're not
adding any dials. Apparently other carmakers are going just touchscreen for
everything. I guess its just gotten worse over the last few years. Tesla can
sort of get away with it. But goodness a huge part of the reason I liked a lot
of luxury cars was they tended to do more dials instead of touchscreens.

------
fulldecent2
Did you know that in a car you can change the climate control temperate for
when the system is "off"?

Try it today. In an old car, set the fan speed to off. Then adjust the
temperature. Switch it back and forth a few times and test it.

In a new car you need to turn the fan on, then change the temperature and then
turn it off again, in order to change the "off" temperature.

On a touch screen this task requires many seconds of eyes-off-the-road-time to
accomplish.

But hey, designers need flexibility because changing temperature is a new
concept and they couldn't possibly handle a deadline to work with component
selection and other parts of the product team.

------
tikiman163
All they did was put the analogue A/C controls back. I don't see this as a big
deal and I kind of like that some of the basic controls don't require digging
through menus. One of the drawbacks of touchscreen controls is you have
limited screen space to cram everything that used to cover the whole
dashboard.

New features like navigation and music makes sense when moved to the touch
screen, but adding things you don't need to just means I have to switch away
from navigation or music controls just to change the A/C.

I think Honda is making a good choice in terms of User Interface design.

------
EastSmith
I think what Tesla did was cost cutting by putting everything in one big
screen - no need to think about hardware knobs and buttons - have the screen
UI and update it remotely if it is not intuitive.

~~~
hinkley
It seems like the middle way would be:

Build your console with a big hole in the middle. Mount the buttons to the
insert, figure out your UI and adjust the button placement, so really most of
the last minute design is producing a new mounting bracket for the electronics
and physical controls.

The biggest problem I see there is that you are very limited in button
placement without resizing the panel. But if you pick a clever panel size to
console hole ratio you could buy yourself some flexibility. For example, an
almost square panel could allow you to rotate it and move some buttons from
vertical to horizontal.

------
djhaskin987
I have a touch screen in my Nissan and it's almost useless when I'm driving
down the road at 60 miles an hour and trying to navigate menus 8 layers deep
to do something simple that used to be a button press on my old Honda.

Relatedly, the US Navy removed touchscreens from all vessels after a collision
happened because someone couldn't navigate the interface in time.
[https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49319450](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49319450)

------
srg0
Touch controls in the car should not be used for anything that is supposed to
be used while driving. 1) They give no haptic feedback and require to look at
them to do anything. 2) They are very finicky if the hands are
wet/dirty/sweaty/cold. Knobs can be rotated and buttons pressed without
looking. Physical objects can be manipulated as long as you can move your
fingers.

One more reason to consider Honda when the time comes to buy a new car.
Another reason is their outstanding reliability ratings.

------
baybal2
The dirty secret of the electronics industry is that the reason for moving to
sensor buttons is cost.

When first capacitive touch devices appeared around 2005-2006, everybody
immediately noticed that you only need a single digitizer for the whole front
panel of the device, or dirt cheap cap sens circuits for point sensors.

For as long as the sensor is just a piece of polyimide pcb you can glue to
anything, but a metal surface, things get really cheap without mechanical
buttons, holes in the case to cut, and PCB to hold the buttons.

------
snarfy
I recall Mazda doing this a while back. [1]

[1] -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20200335](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20200335)

------
gertrunde
Mazda have also announced the same thing.
([https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-mazda-is-
pur...](https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-mazda-is-purging-
touchscreens-from-its-vehicles))

Favorite quote: “Doing our research, when a driver would reach towards a
touch-screen interface in any vehicle, they would unintentionally apply torque
to the steering wheel, and the vehicle would drift out of its lane position,”

------
c3534l
I understand the problem that touch-screens solve on cell phones. How do you
squeeze the most functionality onto the smallest surface? By doubling up on
functions, and reusing existing functionality to be context-sensitive. The
trend of moving designs from where they make sense to where they do not
because the inferior design is seen as more modern since the devices with
these constraints are modern has been a very annoying one. Designers have been
making software and technology progressively worse. It isn't in any way
surprising, it's just annoying that when a piece of equipment or technology
can fully utilize the features and interfaces that cheap and mobile technology
is forced to do without, they _choose_ not to use it. It'd be like if bicycles
became really popular all of a sudden, so auto industry stopped putting in
seatbelts and airbags in cars, because bicycles are modern and they don't have
those things in bicycles. You're building a car with a fixed set of controls
for the machine you're driving in: you can afford to use a physical UI, what
are you doing putting in touch-screen?!

------
zoom6628
IMHO the physical controls invoke muscle memory and haptic feedback which
enables driver to keep attention on the road. Touchscreen does not give this
to same/any degree. I should not have to take eyes, or attention, off the road
for longer than it takes my hand to find the right control. Physical controls
current significant advantage over digital is "no interpretation required" \-
feel or microsecond glance tells you the state. Digital, other than big dials
and flashing colors, needs you to think. Those thoughts take focus away from
the act of driving.

Im summary i think Honda is right - digital controls for things with no time
and attention pressure (like music channel), and physical for those that need
near immediate action (like defogging a window or wipers).

FTR been driving cars, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles for nearly 50 years - 2
accidents, no hospital trips, and that includes plenty of 'hooning about' well
into danger-zone for conditions/environment (wont say more or might get a
visit from authorities :-p )

~~~
Gibbon1
I've been driving for 40 years. I totally agree with you. Old school controls
you can operate reflexively. Often with barely any conscious thought. Your
brain adapts to treat the car an an extension of your body.

That simply does not happen with modal controls.

------
sarah180
More accurately, they're putting back dials for temperature control in one of
the only cars the make that doesn't already use dials. They're not getting rid
of touch screens, nor are they pushing against the industry: they're aligning
temperature controls in one of their cars with their other cars and much of
the rest of the industry.

------
m-p-3
I do hope other automakers follow, because why should a head-unit should be
considered safe to operate while driving, while touching a smartphone display
isn't.

Both lacks the tactile feedback buttons are offering, both don't work with
gloves and both requires you to look at the display (and stop looking at the
road) to know what action you're making.

------
rs23296008n1
My preference in cars is touchscreen for rarely used functionality, and then
dials, buttons and sliders for everything else.

Messing with audio is a peripheral task so expecting me to take my eyes off
the road etc is still unacceptable. Especially to change the track or adjust
volume.

That said, we're all used to _small_ touchscreens. These tend to require the
user to maintain the current context on what is on screen. The whole screen is
subject to change and this complicates / weakens muscle memory. I've used
larger touchscreens where controls don't change around so much and muscle
memory can easily kick in if the design is sane. The difference is tangible.
Eg you can blind press using peripheral vision and it can work well.

The real answer might just be that we're in the early days of touchscreen use.
The technology and application thereof is still immature. The design language,
for want of a better term, is still evolving.

------
fossuser
Not all touch controls are created equal.

I'm really happy with the interface in my Model 3 and I've found every other
car interface I've used to be on the spectrum from terrible to okay (BMW,
Mercedes, Mazda, VW, Porsche).

I think you can probably do either well, but it seems like the car companies
(other than Tesla) just don't have this capability.

------
Nemi
Weird how the article says that Honda is the only manufacturer doing this when
I read about Mazda doing it in Feb

[https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-mazda-is-
pur...](https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-mazda-is-purging-
touchscreens-from-its-vehicles)

------
woodpanel
If Honda is "bucking a trend" here it just shows how much professionals,
experts and decision-makers can be fooled by trends.

I speculate that Tesla made it something other luxury brands wanted too, and
then those brands went bezerk: E.g. the newest Range Rover models feature
multiple touch screens, they turned your AC-control-knobs into touch-screens
as well, and even the once-handy controls on your steering wheel. What's the
point then of still having a phisical gear shift?

I applaud Honda for making common sense an official statement again. I ditched
the newest lineups of all new premium brands (also) because of that touch-
screen nonsense and choosed a cheaper brand instead where it's at least just
_one_ touch device.

Premium brands still don't seem to get how un-premium a dashboard full of
thumbprints and smudges looks like, even less if everything else has a piano
finish.

~~~
fastball
I thought TSLA was doing it because they want self-driving now and this makes
it easier.

~~~
woodpanel
I didn't meant TSLA as a part of premium brands. Rather that TSLA using those
large touch screens in their Model S, I think, to a large part drove premium
brands into buying into touch screens as a trend.

BTW installing a large touch-screen under the premise of soon-to-be fully
self-driving vehicles in 2013's Model S has to be a _loooong_ waiting for "
_making it easier_ " ;-)

But I guess the car-makers touch screen folly might be even more attributable
to the impact the iPhone made at that time.

------
dublin
I've designed hardware and software for a number of touchscreen devices and
applications. I even invented the double-sided touchscreen, which may show up
in phones in another few years.) So I love touchscreens, BUT, he lack of feel
makes knobs, buttons and switches a far better choice for moving environments
- I hate most new cars that lack real controls for at least commonly used
functions. It's hard to beat the knobs and sliders in most 50-60 year-old cars
for easy work-by-feel operation.

(FWIW, I always thought it would have been cool if someone in StarTrek
TNG/DS9/Voyager had sat down at one of those smooth glass LCARS interface
panels and been surprised that they could "feel" 3D controls on them. That
seems to be the sort of thing that would be done given the obvious
capabilities of their holo/forcefield generators...)

------
bitcurious
To be fair to touch screen controls, Honda had exceptionally poor ones.
There’s always at least a second delay on brightness/volume/etc. adjustments
in our 2018 Honda. I think the unit is just incredibly underpowered, because
CarPlay (phone driven) doesn’t suffer from the same issues.

------
smsm42
Hallelujah, at least one auto maker is willing to publicly come out against
this insane trend of making car controls visual only. I mean, one would think
that when you are inside a ton of metal speeding along the road at 60 mph, you
would insist on controls that allow you to have 100% of your visual attention
on the road and rely on your other senses to change the channel on the radio
or adjust the AC. But somehow people think driving a car should be something
like playing candy crush on your tablet. That means going forward I'll always
have a car manufacturer I can rely on to not sacrifice my safety for a
marketing coolness. Too bad makers like Tesla (who have a lot of leadership in
other areas) completely drop the ball in this regard.

------
LeicaLatte
Not all touchscreens are same. There are few touchscreens that are good. Most
Honda touchscreens are bad.

~~~
randcraw
All touchscreens provide zero tactile feedback or spatial info about its
setting. Thus to use any touchscreen, you _always_ must take your eyes off the
road to look at it. Thus no matter how logical or attractive or fast the
display, screens are always less safe than _any_ tactile alternative control
that lets you keep your eyes on the road.

Also, for car devices that provide intuitive feedback on their activity (wiper
motion, fan noise, air temperature from outlets, audio volume, etc), you don't
need a screen to confirm that it has changed.

And since these devices are the ones that I change most often (and music), I'd
much prefer to control them on the steering wheel or verbally, and never use a
screen.

------
dbg31415
"Honda is doing what no other car company is doing..."

Except Mazda. 6 months ago. Oof.

[https://www.motoringresearch.com/car-news/mazda-getting-
rid-...](https://www.motoringresearch.com/car-news/mazda-getting-rid-of-
touchscreens-cars/)

------
mataug
This is a great decision by Honda. Touchscreens are a terrible UX when
driving. Its difficult to be accurate with the touchscreen in a car when its
moving, even as the passenger. Physical controls are much easier to control,
less distracting, and we develop muscle memory for knobs dials and switches
easily.

As an example, I personally am not a fan of the extreme minimalism in Tesla
cars. A fully touchscreen experience makes sense only after a car is capable
of fully autonomous self driving. As long as a human is responsible for
controlling/monitoring the car, physical controls are better than touch
controls.

To be fair, touch screens are better for changing settings, monitoring the
health of the car, and any other action that we do while the car is parked.

------
fma
I recently purchased a 2020 Honda Odyssey. I hate the touchscreen controls,
and I hate the button gear shifter (i.e. press a button to reverse...)

For example, it's so difficult to change AC controls w/o looking at the
screen. It's very dangerous. I don't do it unless I'm at a light, or if on the
highway, no one is around me.

Toyota Sienna still has their AC controls as buttons/knobs, still has a
regular shifter, and probably more traditional controls.

But the Sienna was lacking in many other areas...so we went with Odyssey.
Looks like we coulda waited a few more years!

The article also refers to "voice control". No, I don't want to yell at my car
to lower the AC when my baby is sleeping.

I'm all for innovation...but please leave controls as it is!

------
PythonicAlpha
Wasn't it the US marine that moved back from touch screens to physical
controls in their ships?

While the actual reason could be a case for discussions, the decision is
correct in my humble opinion. The reason was, the loss of (I think) one
destroyer, that crashed with a civil ship (a big freighter or tanker), because
of misinterpretations of the steering control on the bridge of the destroyer.

In my humble opinion, when it comes to mission critical and distraction free
control, nothing is better than physical control systems. In a good car, not
only you have physical control systems, but also buttons and switches are of
different shape or size or way of control (pressing, twisting, ...), so they
can be identified simply by touching them.

------
iamphilrae
In my opinion, we need a mix of both. Trying to interact with an entertainment
unit with some type of abstracted/bastardised joystick or touch pad is just
plain awful. Whereas interacting using touchscreen is just so much simpler,
plus allows for UIs that weren’t part of the original product development (e.g
Apple CarPlay).

But for other things, we need dedicated physical controls that mean we don’t
have to take our eyes off the road to use; for example, climate control,
volume control, cruise control, hazard lights, etc.

A good manufacturer will integrate a mix of both, and user test at each stage
of the manufacturing process to ensure what they’re doing is in the best
interest of the user.

------
manmal
I very recently bought a BEV Hyundai Ioniq of the first Generation, and one of
the reasons I chose the 1st gen was that it still has some knobs and dials.
The new generation has almost only touch controls, and this feels kinda wrong.
Notably, it’s not a pure touch screen, but the knobs and dials have been
replaced by a lot of capacitive touch elements with backlights. When it’s dark
outside, it would take me a few hundred ms to find the right button, and then
I still have to visually guide my finger there. And then there’s no physical
feedback when pressing.

There are other reasons for why I chose the 1st gen (better fast charging
capability), but the touch elements were the last straw.

------
GrumpyNl
Me in my bit older Mercedes, my gears, lights, whipers all go automatic, im
left with radio control and temperature. Audios is easy, it on the steering
wheel, so is answering the phone. Two knobs for warm/cold and airco. No need
for touchscreen.

------
JakeAl
If my blood is on the touchscreen, it shouldn't break my car or prevent me
from getting to the hospital. Who needs more controls? I want physical levers
and switches on the dash. Case in point, Ford Mustangs have electronic
controls to pull heat off the engine, but the valve only opens when the
thermostat says it okay so when it breaks (and costs $250 to fix, and breaks
regularly) you're stuck with cold air in the winter until you exceed 50MPH.
Just give me a freaking lever that manually/physically opens the valve to and
pull the heat off the engine. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

------
numbers
My Prius prime has the worst controls possible. During spring and fall, when
one part of the day is cold and the other warm, it’s annoying to turn on the
car. For instance, if I commute home and used A/C, turning on the car in the
morning will have the A/C blasting when it’s also cold outside. And I have to
sit through the animation and boot up of the screen and then go to the climate
control settings which usually is a very uncomfortable 30 seconds every time.
And then, the touch is not as smooth as a modern smartphone. This is a 2019
Prius too so idk what Toyota was thinking going all touch on this one.

------
highmastdon
My 2018 Opel Insignia also has mechanical dials and buttons for climate
control and answering phone, setting cruise control and other “critical”
things. But if you want to do detailed configuration for radio, sound balance,
music etc you have a rich touch screen available with big buttons to hit. I
find navigating between radio stations and navigation so much more accessible
with touchscreen that I wouldn’t want these things in another way. Anything
that has to be accessed using a joystick like interface should be on the
touchscreen and critical one dial features on mechanical where possible.

------
sizzle
My Mazda 3 sGT (and current year model) already does this and it's a joy to
use, no touchscreen climate control!

Pics: [http://www.2wired2tired.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/03/Mazda...](http://www.2wired2tired.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/03/Mazda3-Dual-Climate-Control.jpg)

[https://blogmedia.dealerfire.com/wp-
content/uploads/sites/45...](https://blogmedia.dealerfire.com/wp-
content/uploads/sites/455/2016/08/2016-Mazda-Mazda3-Hatchback-B3_O.jpg)

------
huffmsa
Good. Those damn things were clearly never tested on real roads with bumps.

> _" Oops you fat fingered the main menu icon while you were 5 layers deep!
> Guess you have to start over!"_

Physical controls have their place, and in a car is one of them

------
thrownaway954
I could only image being blind and having to navigate a world that is
completely flat. Knobs and controls add something to grab onto. to me it's
also safer, if I'm driving and want to change the radio channel, i can feel
for the knob without having to take my eyes off the road. i can't do this with
a flat, touchscreen display and I also find that voice command work most times
but, on the time they don't, i get frustrated and that's not good when driving
either as it can cause road rage.

innovation is wonderful, however sometimes the old ways win out.

------
ryanmcbride
I like touchscreen controls for my apple car play, but literally nothing else.

I can adjust the climate control temperature with dash buttons, but if I want
to control which vents the air comes through, I have to use the touch screen.

Same for if I want to turn on the heated steering wheel. I don't use it too
often so that doesn't bug me _too_ much, but sometimes if it's cold when I
start my car, it turns it on for me. So when my hands get too hot I have to
minimize apple car play, select the ford app, select climate control, and tap
the tiny button for the steering wheel.

Seems way more dangerous than reading a text.

------
ballenf
I really wish Bevi (and similar kiosk type coffee or dispensing machines)
would add physical buttons for dispensing and use the screen only for flavor
information. I think our machine's screen isn't properly grounded or insulated
from the refrigeration motors. I'm appreciative we have one in the office,
however, and look forward to getting to see it again sometime.

Definitely agree with the sentiment that touch screens have gone too far.
Feels kind of like the over use of plastic as we got better at manufacturing
it. Hopefully the pendulum will swing back on touchscreens too.

------
thunderbong
I don't think anybody even bothered to read the article!

It explicitly states, right below the top image -

>> The new Jazz has a touchscreen for many functions, but not temperature
control

So, only the temperature control is via a dial. Everything else is still on
the touchscreen.

Image -
[https://www.autocar.co.uk/sites/autocar.co.uk/files/styles/g...](https://www.autocar.co.uk/sites/autocar.co.uk/files/styles/gallery_slide/public/images/car-
reviews/first-drives/legacy/honda-jazz-2020-interior.jpg)

------
aloukissas
Until voice control (or fully autonomous vehicles) is 100% awesome, nothing
beats tactile, physical controls. If designed right, you never have to leave
your eyes from the road (good luck doing that with a Tesla, for example) and
you know 100% what you're controlling.

What also nobody discusses (except for maybe Doug DeMuro): digital screens and
controls age POORLY. Any car that's 10-ish years old with tons of tech looks
ancient, where an even older one with mostly-analog controls can still look
sharp. This obviously mostly matters for high-end cars.

------
blaser-waffle
Good. There is no way to use a touchscreen effectively while going 80km/h.

It would have to be the smartest touch screen ever, and be able to make
assumptions as to what i'm trying to press -- fudge a lot of precision -- and
even then I wouldn't know if what I'm touching and what the machine thinks I'm
touching are correct without taking my eyes off the road. Meanwhile, I can
feel for the 3rd knob or 3rd button and be sure what it is without taking my
eyeballs off of the bumper of the car in front of me.

------
_trampeltier
My mom she has a Honda Jazz and the UI is one oft the most terrible from all
cars I have seen so far. A few things at least like Audio volume, some radio
channels and temperature should have hardware knobs or buttons, so I easy can
change it without looking on the screen. Then also should be a place under the
screen where i can rest my hand (like has something, at least in a new car I
drove recently), so I can touch the screen with a single finger multiple times
on the same spot without looking on the screen.

------
bfirsh
My 30 year old Land Rover has one of my favourite user interfaces.

For example, the cooling system. It's a big lever on the dash connected
directly to a big flap on front of the car. You pull down the lever and it
opens the flap, and air gets rammed in through the vent. The only moving part
is the lever.

Everything is just so _tactile_. The cooling system, the gear stick, the
transfer box, the switches. The user interface goes CLUNK and you can feel the
thing on the other end doing the thing you made it do.

------
bryanmgreen
Great.

I think voice controls are obviously the theoretical best for automotive and I
hope that in the near future every car will have built-in functionality - that
will even work offline.

Obviously Siri can't control my AC right now but it infuriates me that CarPlay
voice controls don't work without internet.

I have a hard time imagining it would be difficult to increase offline
functionality when in my old 2010 Ford I had Microsoft Sync with the
functionality to voice control an iPod offline and it worked pretty much
perfectly.

------
nabla9
Another fad that should go away is blue light dashboards. They give horrible
afterimages in dark conditions. BMW's red-orange lights are so relaxing to
look at in comparison.

~~~
randcraw
If a car uses blue dash lights, that will stop me from buying it instantly and
unquestionably. Blue is extremely saturating to my eyes' receptors and
uncomfortable to look at in darkness even for a moment. Red is 100x more
forgiving.

------
franksvalli
I was somewhat dreading what the interface would look like on my next car
purchase. On the one hand I'd love the idea that the navigational map on my
phone may be displayed on the car's "big screen", but I didn't know what to
make about this touchscreen stuff.

Makes a lot of sense! Right now I can adjust almost everything by touch alone:
cruise control, volume, etc. I would hate for those to get buried in an
inevitable submenu on a touchscreen.

------
bouncycastle
Touchscreens are not the only UI problem in recent cars. I have a recent
Honda, it suffers from the problem that they decided to make the crucial
buttons below the touchscreen touch sensitive (with no tactile feedback). So
for eg. if you wipe them should some dirt land on them, you set them all
off/on by accident! What's worse, they are glossy, and hard to see with glare.
It looks good though and sells cars, I call it "the iPhone" design.

------
F_J_H
I see the benefits of touch screens, but I really miss tactile controls, like
the temperature controls on my Dad's 1978 GMC pickup truck, which is the
vehicle I learned to drive in. Three super simple, super intuitive slider type
controls for all temperature settings:
[https://i.ytimg.com/vi/iVtb4z2QozY/maxresdefault.jpg](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/iVtb4z2QozY/maxresdefault.jpg)

------
zchrykng
I for one will be really glad if this sparks and industry wide trend to go
back to buttons and shift levers rather than buttons or levers that aren't
actually good.

------
jordache
GM had it right!

[http://carphotos.cardomain.com/ride_images/2/4797/3641/24491...](http://carphotos.cardomain.com/ride_images/2/4797/3641/24491820095_large.jpg)

[https://bestcarmag.com/sites/default/files/65564525286387311...](https://bestcarmag.com/sites/default/files/65564525286387311_ded3d988e0.jpg)

------
semerda
Ha! This reminds me of Navy and it’s destroyer doing the same thing.

“The US Navy will replace its touchscreen controls with mechanical ones on its
destroyers” [https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/11/20800111/us-navy-uss-
john...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/11/20800111/us-navy-uss-john-s-
mccain-crash-ntsb-report-touchscreen-mechanical-controls)

------
pier25
I own a Honda HRV and I agree. The fucking touch-slider for volume control is
absolutely atrocious.

There are buttons on the wheel but these are slow compared to a good old knob.

------
wil421
I like the UConnect system in my ‘19 Jeep Grand Cherokee. It has a mix of
touch features and dials/buttons. Some features you can control with both
touch and dials/buttons. Front seat warmers and coolers do no have physical
buttons and I dislike it a lot.

Physical and touch controls should complement each other. Too much touch is
bad and too many buttons are bad. I remember looking at Acura’s with to many
buttons a few years ago.

------
samirsd
“The new Audi A3’s electronics boss Melanie Limmer told Autocar recently its
decision to remove some physical buttons was made as ‘more and more people are
getting into touch functions with smartphones’ and added that the new system
is as user-friendly as the previous one.” - her model is the thing that is
responsible for countless distracted driving deaths... great

------
nateburke
This is fantastic news. Reminds me of this GREAT READ:
[https://www.amazon.com/Hand-Shapes-Brain-Language-
Culture/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Hand-Shapes-Brain-Language-
Culture/dp/0679740473)

I would not be surprised if this decision resulted in even greater brand
loyalty, e.g. drivers becoming attached to the "feel" of a Honda.

------
miguelmota
I'm glad they're going in this direction. Mostly all BMWs use the screen for
simply displaying informational content and for input and navigation it uses a
multi-direction knob right by the arm rest and it's best most intuitive way to
navigate the screen imo. Car screens are either matte and less responsive or
glossy and more responsive but less visible in sunlight.

------
kuon
What I really hate about touchscreen, and love with analog input, is the
"speed control" of rotary dials.

For example, if you want to change the air speed of your ventilation system
down to zero from max, a quick rotation of your vent speed knob will bring it
back to zero and you can rotate it back to put it to one, without looking.

With touchscreen, it's hard to do the same without looking.

------
emilfihlman
Physical devices are far superior to touch controls. Not only can you operate
them much more reliably under movement and vibration, you can reliably control
them without looking.

Or would you replace your (_mechanical_) keyboard with a touch keyboard of
current tech?

Anyone pushing touch screens to replace physical input devices in situations
where you need to be doing other things at the same time is just insane.

------
SamReidHughes
I've always been very happy with Honda's car interfaces. Everything from basic
driving stuff to climate control and the radio seem... well, not great, but
simply, fine. Most other manufacturers seem to have some trick up their
sleeve, with crazy turn signal mechanisms or some other nonsense. I think they
have relatively sensible people working in that department.

------
kogus
The only feedback I've seen has echoed my own sentiment: "Good". What is the
opposing point of view? Is there anyone out there who is willing to defend
touch-screen interfaces in vehicles? What's the advantage to the driver? Is it
even that much cheaper to the manufacturer? Surely plastic knobs are not a big
hit to the bottom line of car makers.

~~~
tills13
Repairability and features as software instead of hardware. For example, Tesla
was able to enable Spotify in all its cars with an OTA update. Hell, you can
enable rear heated seats in the Model 3 SR+ via an OTA.

~~~
dpedu
Tesla also takes away features via OTA updates. It's a double-edged sword.

~~~
tills13
You're referring to the AP / FSD situation?

I believe that was a misstep and was rectified. The "features" I'm talking
about are different.

------
PascLeRasc
Unfortunately we won't get this car in the US. I love my 1st gen Honda Fit and
plan to keep it pretty much forever, they're such a great vehicle. Incredible
gas mileage and they're actually fun to drive with the short wheelbase. In
tune with the article I put the only Carplay receiver with a physical volume
knob in it and it's perfectly easy to use.

~~~
jfengel
I gotta say... I got a Fit in 2007, pre-ordered before they were available,
and at 300k+ miles it's doing great. The guy at the oil change place literally
turned his eyes to the heavens and said that he couldn't find any service to
recommend. He'd never seen a car of such age that clean; it should surely be
leaking something.

I've heard Honda has gone downhill in the last decade, and my next car
probably won't be a Honda. But at this rate, my next car will drive itself.
(Especially since I'm no longer putting miles on it at the rate that got me to
300k in a decade.)

------
vijucat
Now let's go back from this flat UI nonsense everywhere to the kind of solid
look that Windows '95 had and make my decade, not just day!

[https://socket3.wordpress.com/2018/02/03/designing-
windows-9...](https://socket3.wordpress.com/2018/02/03/designing-
windows-95s-user-interface/)

~~~
kristopolous
Hardware graphics acceleration on High quality, high resolution displays are
to blame. And then designers started pretending computers was like paper, they
used the same design principles

Interfaces became flat well, because paper design isn't interactive.

I know this sounds stupid, who'd make such a mistake! Look at where the
trendsetters cribbed their design inspirations from, and you'll find a classic
2d printed world.

If we relimit ourselves to EGA16/640x480 thinking, at least in thought as an
exercise, we'd be good.

------
babypuncher
The only touch screen in any car should be a dumb terminal for CarPlay/Android
Auto. Everything else should be dials and buttons.

------
azepoi
Real buttons provide tactile feedback. Plus they don't move around for each
menu screen and with software updates. They can be operated by muscle memory.
Buttons also provide information about the current state (think
ventilation/heat). It's not about comfort but security that is maintaining
visibility while keeping eyes on the road.

------
nixpulvis
As far as I'm concerned, there is nothing inherently wrong with "touchscreen
controls", it's the usage and user interface assumptions.

Make a touchscreen slider and who knows, perhaps it's even more durable and
reliable than a moving part. It's the whole sets of modal interfaces, and
jenky controls which make this stuff unsafe, and irritating.

------
adamc
Touchscreens unfortunately only provide visual feedback. I can _feel_ the
wheel turn without taking my eyes off the road.

There are lots of development-related reasons touchscreens are appealing, but
in situations where the user cannot reasonable look at the screen much, it's
not obvious a touchscreen is a good solution. Maybe with haptic feedback of
some kind.

------
FillardMillmore
I believe Mazda made this decision not too long ago.

I hope this is a sign of things to come for the automobile industry.

Essentially, why I don't like touchscreens in automobile media interfaces:

-no tactile response

-more distracting due to the increased dexterity required to get where you need and the greater necessity to focus your eyes

-less intuitive than button/wheel controls (in my experience)

-uglier interfaces (again, in my experience)

------
fizixer
There should be UX research about an ideal combination of tactile physical
interfaces (knobs, dials, push buttons, whatever) and voice-activated and
voice-feedbacked control while driving.

I we're missing out on not only voice-activated commands, but AI responding
and updating about the situation through speakers, not just through the screen
updates.

------
nthnclrk
From the article, “ Honda has done what no other car maker is doing”.

False, Mazda started this with the Mazda 3 in 2019
([https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-mazda-is-
pur...](https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-mazda-is-purging-
touchscreens-from-its-vehicles)).

------
sethammons
> We changed it from touchscreen to dial operation, as we received customer
> feedback that it was difficult to operate intuitively. You had to look at
> the screen to change the heater seating, therefore, we changed it so one can
> operate it without looking, giving more confidence while driving.

Finally, logic, reason, and listening to customers.

------
Stinkachu
I'd like to point out Mazda has been doing this for a while.
[https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-mazda-is-
pur...](https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-mazda-is-purging-
touchscreens-from-its-vehicles)

------
nojvek
This is #1 reason why I still love my Toyota over Tesla. Physical buttons make
a huge difference in driving experience.

If only someone invented a tactile touchscreen, i.e it would bulge where user
can interact. like dynamic braille. Material design where different elevation
levels are literally popping out of screen at different levels.

------
jkbr
Apple should follow and ditch the Touch Bar. Also, the excellent The Best
Interface is No Interface book [0] talks quite a bit about unnecessary touch
screen controls in cars and related topics.

[0] [http://www.nointerface.com/book/](http://www.nointerface.com/book/)

------
didibus
What you need is both. The screen should still be a touch screen, and there
should be buttons and toggles around it.

For example, I hate it when I can't pan/scroll through the map on the car
screen for lack of touch screen. But I also hate it when I have to use touch
buttons to change the music that's playing.

------
dorkwood
Is there a name for this phenomenon where manufacturers build harmful features
into their products purely for the technical credibility? It's the same with
motion smoothing and televisions -- the experience is massively degraded, but
the technology is impressive, so presumably sales will increase.

------
larrik
> the predicted move towards more voice-controlled actions in cars could
> eliminate the debate around touchscreens versus analogue controls in the
> future.

Oh yuck, voice controls are the absolute worst. Anyone who thinks otherwise
probably only drives alone (or at least without kids yelling in the
background).

------
jchw
I find the climate control on my Honda Civic to be maddeningly confusing for
reasons that aren’t really too related to the fact that it has some
touchscreen elements, but I’m glad nonetheless. I feel like forcing things to
physical buttons forces certain design decisions that you want anyways.

------
tmaly
I have a 2019 civic. even with the non touch screen option, a weird glitch in
bluetooth freezes the entire media center. I have to pull over and park the
car and turn the engine off to reset.

Hitting the power button does not solve this. So in some sense having hardware
buttons does not solve everything.

------
nickik
It seem like what I would really want is a big screen in the middle Tesla
style and glue an xbox pad on the steering wheel. And give me a fold out
keyboard if I need to type something real. And maybe a minimal hud with just
the speed and top speed. That's at least what I would do.

------
chiefalchemist
My parents have a Subaru with a touch screen for the radio, and I guess some
apps.

For the radio, it's crap. For anything else, why would I want something built
into the dashboard that'll cost 10x what it's worth to repair?

I don't understand what's so appealing about an in-dash touch screen.

------
dirtyid
I remember years back there was a company that had and inflatable layer ontop
of touch screens for flexible "buttons". I'm sure there's ergonomic pros/cons
of different kinds of physical switches but seems like we need to move on
better touch screen haptics.

------
tomp
Wow, this is easily the most annoying site I've come across recently. Not only
does it block the whole page if I'm using adblock, but it doesn't even start
working when I disable it (I'm using uBlock Origin).

We really need to figure out a proper anti-anti-adblock technology...

------
anderspitman
See also: [https://features.propublica.org/navy-uss-mccain-
crash/navy-i...](https://features.propublica.org/navy-uss-mccain-crash/navy-
installed-touch-screen-steering-ten-sailors-paid-with-their-lives/)

------
chanux
"Honda has done what no other car maker is doing, and returned to analogue
controls for some functions on the new Honda Jazz."

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20200335](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20200335)

------
realradicalwash
Isn't this the perfect application for ASR technology? Instead of fiddling
around with buttons, or worse, a touchscreen, you could just say "Honda: heat
up", "Honda: heat two down", "Honda: aircon off". I would love that in my car.

------
berti
Mazda began doing this last year [0]. If anything Honda are jumping on the
trend they started, and I'm really happy to see it.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20200335](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20200335)

------
cwkoss
I'm hoping to get an EV or hybrid for my next car - probably a sedan. My
biggest apprehension with most of the ones I've seen is the excessive
dependency on software/touchscreen based controls.

Does anyone have experience with Honda EV or hybrids? Would you recommend?

------
A4ET8a8uTh0
In an odd way that Douglas Adams predicted this weird evolution of controls
making fun of how manual controls were eventually replaced by controls that
forced a pilot to sit perfectly still so as not to change a radio station.

I applaud Honda. Touch screen is a distraction in my car.

------
dgudkov
Didn't Mazda do it first?

[https://www.express.co.uk/life-
style/cars/1148040/Mazda-3-to...](https://www.express.co.uk/life-
style/cars/1148040/Mazda-3-touchscreen-display-new-cars-distraction)

------
siliconunit
Why not do a standard benchmark, perform a number of actions in different
conditions and configurations, and see whether humans can react faster and
more precisely with 2 touchscreens (let's level the 2 hands advantage) or
multiple hardware controllers...

------
tills13
Probably the one thing that bugs me about my M3. 90% of the time, it's fine...
but that once or twice a week where I'm actively driving and need to turn on
AC or whatever and have to navigate while trying to interact with the
touchscreen is rough.

------
frogpelt
Tactile buttons and switches are much easier to use by muscle memory. There is
very little muscle memory with touch buttons and touch screens.

Also, touch screens are much harder (thus more dangerous) to use while you are
in motion, hitting bumps, going around curves.

------
Grepsy
"Honda has done what no other car maker is doing" isn't correct. For the
latest Mazda 3 (2019) Mazda has made the same decision. There's a non-touch
screen which can only be controlled by a center knob for safety.

------
product50
The Audi MMI system consisting of a central dial is still the most intuitive
and least distracting of all car systems I have seen in the market. And, as a
bonus, it also works really well with Android Auto and CarPlay - without
touchscreen.

------
kats
I wonder if you could take existing touchscreens and just have them vibrate
differently depending on where the user is touching. Or have them vibrate
differently as the user's hand moves across different buttons.

------
devy
The physical dial and nobs and the tactile feedback when human drivers get
from operating them is much better than touch screen controls. I applaud
Honda's the design, as well as some German automakers' design in the same
vein.

------
huhtenberg
Touch controls have their place in the car - they are a MUST for a quick map
navigation and they are very handy for entering addresses.

Otherwise - yes, 100%, physical buttons and knobs are far superior. Especially
for making adjustments without looking.

------
cdent
Good. I recently told my local honda dealer I wouldn't be buying another of
any car because of touchscreens exactly because of the need to look and lack
of tactile interaction.

Clearly this change is because of me, specifically, only me. ;)

------
kristopolous
I've long wanted to create an after market midi style controller that people
can put on their dash to give their car the spatial, tactile control again.

Integrating it with the vehicle though... Somewhat dubious if you're just CAN
writing

------
csours
What physical controls are an ABSOLUTE MUST for you?

Leaving aside Legally mandated: Wipers, Headlights, Gear Selector, Brake,
Accelerator, Horn, Hazards.

Me: Required: Mute Music, HVAC temperature and fan speed. Strongly preferred:
All audio controls, Cruise control.

------
arkh
> Honda has done what no other car maker is doing, and returned to analogue
> controls

It's what I like with the Up! no touchscreen, no stupid added function: just a
good mobile phone fixation for the infotainment and good old buttons.

------
yourapostasy
I wouldn't mind a tactile touch screen [1] with optional voice prompting, and
a jog dial.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiM0u79fals](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiM0u79fals)

------
snitzr
I bought a Kia minivan in 2018 just because it had the most real buttons and
dials.

------
eximius
Odd article as this isn't _new_. Is it new in that other manufacturers have
started and they have no plans to? My current Honda has a very comfortable
interface, probably my favorite of any car I've driven.

------
intrepidhero
Yay Honda!

I've never been in a car that had a better designed interface than my '91
Accord. I'm sure they're out there but if a budget car can have such a
pleasant interface there's no reason they all can't.

------
kazinator
I just need a basic stereo, manually cranked windows, and a 5-6 speed
stickshift.

------
Vladius
It ia a about usability and safety of operation, not reliability. Touch
screens need eye contact to operate. Knobs and physical buttons can be
operated on muscle memory only, so your eyes can stay on the road.

------
kwhitefoot
Without seeing the buttons and knobs in question it's really hard to see
whether this is a good or bad move. I've been in plenty of cars with
conventional controls that were horrible to use.

Edit: fixed typo.

------
tw04
I'm pretty happy with the newest Rams - large screen with touch controls, but
things like volume and temp are physical buttons. Volume is the one thing that
should NEVER be a touch control (IMO).

------
plodman
Tell that to my 2019 HRV. Doesn’t even have CarPlay so I can’t use Siri to do
anything for me. All AC controls are touch screen so I have to look away from
the road just to change the fan speed.

~~~
aembleton
Why did you buy it?

------
bilalq
The headline had me alarmed. This is just moving heating and whatnot to
physical controls. That's awesome. I was worried they were getting rid of the
touchscreen entirely.

Android Auto has been an absolute game changer, and it works so much better
with touchscreen. Voice controls actually do cover the majority of use cases,
but things like being able to quickly see the next turn or zooming out on the
map with one hand are simple, and can be done without really looking at the
screen until you need to see the info.

Unfortunately, the car I ended up buying (Acura TLX) had Android Auto, but was
controlled by a dial knob. It was really the worst of both worlds, since
heating was still managed through a second screen that was a touchscreen.

------
therealdrag0
A lot of mention of Mazda, but my 2018 Ford Escape has buttons/knobs for all
the standard car features. I also have Apple CarPlay which is great for
maps/media. Very happy with it.

------
emiliosic
New Mazda models also no longer have touchscreens. We lease one of the newer
models and honestly do not miss the touchscreen at all. The rotary controls
are intuitive and less distracting

------
dang
Related (re Mazda) from last year:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20200335](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20200335)

------
adelHBN
Good for Honda. Frankly, some of these touch screen features were getting out
of hand - no pun intended. I miss the tactile experience of touching a knob, a
dial, flip a switch.

------
blackrock
Finally! Bring back some sanity to machine controls.

I much prefer knobs, dials, and switches to control things inside the car. And
especially if I need to modulate it while operating the car.

------
montjoy
Mazda waves hi. Touchscreens auto- disable when driving but buttons/ knobs are
still usable to control it. Last I heard they wanted to move to a HUD system.

------
cpcallen
Hopefully other manufacturers will follow suit. In my view the large
touchscreen / lack of mechanical controls is the single biggest deficiency of
the Model 3.

------
dayaz36
I'm baffled by the insane number of upvotes this post has. "Honda is putting
knobs in their cars" is the least interesting thing posted in HN history

------
nazgulnarsil
Dear Honda, my next car is now much more likely to be a Honda. I am literally
at less risk of dying with controls I don't need to look at. Thank you.

------
muzika
Every single car - except Tesla - does a bad job implementing touchscreens,
from my experience. They are generally a pain to use and unintuitive.

------
liquidify
At least it's good that honda has been thinking about this kinda stuff. Some
of their UI's have been pretty atrocious in the past.

------
whyage
Their touchscreen implementation is so horrible, that this sounds like the
right move. This is the only thing I hate about my 2019 Clarity.

------
AdamN
Solution here is generic knobs that can be assigned to different functions:
Temp, fan speed, volume, for those with kids fader control :-)

------
egberts1
Best thing that ever happened in the automotive industry. Thank you, Honda.
The many accident victims will thank you for the rest of us.

------
ggm
Honda has good safety and UX in this. Touchscreens are sexy but distracting
and probably not sensible. Tesla will fight back I am sure.

------
malinens
Voice control maybe works for folks in silicon valley but it is very lacking
in quality for smaller languages or even non-existent

------
Gollapalli
God bless em.

RWD electric car, and tactile controls, and all the other cool stuff they're
doing? Honda is becoming cool again.

------
tomohawk
A friend bought a Tesla and he was very pleased with it. He insisted I drive
it. I couldn't stand it. It was obviously designed to not have a human drive
it. My friend doesn't care for driving, but I love it.

I think that's where the touch screen comes in. The driver is secondary. They
have to let the driver access things, but they don't have to make it safe or
convenient.

Now that the self driving hype is dying down, perhaps the driver will be put
first again.

------
furiousjulius
Top complaint of my Civic, touchccreen controlled volume/mute. TS buttons just
don't cut it for some things.

------
neogodless
I'm surprised there's no mention of Mazda, who started doing this a year ago
in more mainstream models.

------
modzu
hallelujah!

the controls were a big reason i got a subaru; its a car you can drive the
____ out of with eyes on the road/dirt/gravel. the layout on the honda looks
astonishingly similar. i duno how it is formalized in business terms, but it
seems neat how all the japanese auto companies seem to cooperatively share
tech

------
crimsonalucard
The steering wheel and acceleration pedals should be made into touch screens.
Physical interfaces are so old school.

------
DrScientist
Hurrah!

I am suppose to be looking at the road, not a screen when I want to adjust the
air con.

Give me something I can feel every day of the week.

------
chanmad29
Although I do not drive around much, fully hardware buttons + Siri voice
controls(maps, music) does not sound bad.

------
luxuryballs
Hooray! That’s why I didn’t get the EX-L and went with the EX, didn’t want a
touchscreen, give me knobs and dials!

------
jiveturkey
[https://outline.com/VugcGV](https://outline.com/VugcGV)

------
turdnagel
This article talks about using dials for climate control. I have a 2019 CR-V
and it still uses dials for that.

------
sreejithr
Never liked the touchscreen on my car. Tactile buttons are easier to control
when your eyes are on the road.

------
sica07
Mazda did it first :) The new Mazda 3 2019 model (launched in october 2018)
has no tuchscreen control.

------
WalterBright
Yay for Honda and common sense! Touchscreens are no good when you gotta keep
your eyes on the road.

------
rcardo11
I still don't get it. For me banning touchscreens from every car interface is
a no-brainer.

------
rkagerer
Well done!

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I'm going to repeat a comment I
made a few times before, as I think it's relevant:

In one of the talks at Google I/O a few years ago a VP from Audi (or Volvo?)
spoke in a thick and lofty German accent about how "ve haf completely
oferhauled ze driver exzperienze". He played a sexy video clip showcasing
their new Android infotainment system (something like
[https://youtu.be/h_7_fKJ0PNs](https://youtu.be/h_7_fKJ0PNs)), and the first
thing I noticed is how they'd taken away my traditional temperature knobs and
replaced them with digital touchscreen ones. They looked just like physical
ones, and were in the exact same place you would expect
([https://9to5google.com/2017/05/15/android-cars-
audi/](https://9to5google.com/2017/05/15/android-cars-audi/)). So, I've gained
absolutely nothing, and now I have to take my eyes off the road and look down
at the stupid console just to change the temperature.

TLDR: Tacticle feedback is a Good Thing(tm) and designers should cultivate -
not fight - muscle memory.

------
bookofjoe
The elegance of the Apple Watch Series 5 crown with haptic feedback for scroll
function.

------
leptoniscool
The trend towards a touchscreen interface seems like a nod to startrek and the
LCARS OS.

------
hosanex
I think Land Rover has made one of the neatest and most balanced yet useful
interior designs with Land Rover Defender 2020.
[https://carbuzz.com/cars/land-rover/defender](https://carbuzz.com/cars/land-
rover/defender)

------
grillvogel
honda generally gets called out for having some of the most touch heavy
interface of any cars in their reviews, im not sure if finally responding to
that feedback counts as "bucking the trend"

------
Spooky23
Good, the Honda touchscreen controls in my 2016 Pilot are incredibly awful.

------
wmeredith
Mazda started doing this a couple years ago. Glad to see it spreading.

------
32gbsd
This is a thread of people arguing about touch vs physical buttons.

------
duxup
I love me some good switches and buttons.

Sadly cars are kinda bad at those too.

------
OOPMan
IIRC, Mazda are also pushing back against the touchscreen fad

------
the_other_b
good, can't count how many times I've had to mash a touch-screen (not in
Honda, so may be different) to get something to "click."

i'm all for physical UX.

------
jszymborski
a great reason to buy a Honda... if this becomes the new normal, I wonder how
much this will hurt Tesla since it'd be a pretty drastic change for them.

------
dmlittle
It takes courage to remove the touchscreen.

------
solidist
Larry Tesler would be pleased today.

------
caconym_
Nice. I see a Honda in my future...

------
ammanley
All I can say is, thank f __k

------
tomlin
They're not _wrong_.

------
schempet
these days I am having very difficult time unlocking my iphone with my
facemask on

------
vintagedave
This link is better: [https://jalopnik.com/honda-follows-mazda-by-ditching-
some-to...](https://jalopnik.com/honda-follows-mazda-by-ditching-some-
touchscreen-contro-1842564375)

Autocar requires you to disable your ad blocker in order to view the website.
Jalopnik does not, and does not even show a GDPR cookie popup.

------
adreamingsoul
UX designer here, I approve.

------
DonHopkins
Bret Vector's classic paper "Magic Ink: Information Software and the Graphical
Interface" boldly states: "Interactivity considered harmful"!

When I first read that, I was flabbergasted and offended, because I love
interactivity. But he's right.

"Interaction should be used judiciously and sparingly, only when the
environment and history provide insufficient context to construct an
acceptable graphic." -Bret Victor, Magic Ink

This is a critically important lesson to apply to automotive user interfaces.
It's much safer if, as much as possible, instead of being interactive, the
user interface predicts and infers from context and history what the user
wants, when or before they want it, and presents it to them without them
asking, so it's there when they need it.

[http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/](http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/)

Interactivity considered harmful

Chris Crawford defines interaction as a three-phase reciprocal process,
isomorphic to a conversation: an interactant listens to her partner, thinks
about what was said, and speaks a response. Her partner then does the same.
__See Crawford’s book The Art of Interactive Design (2003), or his essay
Fundamentals of Interactivity (1993). For manipulation software, interaction
is perfectly suitable: the user views a visual representation of the model,
considers what to manipulate next, and performs a manipulation. The software,
in turn, inputs the user’s manipulation request, updates the model, and
displays the updated representation. With good feedback and an effective means
of “speaking” to the software, this process can cycle smoothly and rapidly. It
mimics the experience of working with a physical tool.

Information software, by contrast, mimics the experience of reading, not
working. It is used for achieving an understanding—constructing a model within
the mind. Thus, the user must listen to the software and think about what it
says… but any manipulation happens mentally. __Except possibly for signaling a
decision, such as clicking a “buy” button, but that concludes, not
constitutes, a session. The only reason to complete the full interaction cycle
and speak is to explicitly provide some context that the software can’t
otherwise infer—that is, to indicate a relevant subset of information. For
information software, all interaction is essentially navigation around a data
space.

For example, Amazon’s data space consists of their catalog of items. For a
yellow pages directory, the data space contains all business listings; for a
movie guide, all showtimes and movie information; for a flight planner, trips
to and from all airports. In all of these cases, every interaction, every
click and keystroke, search term and menu selection, simply serves to adjust
the user’s view into the data space. This is simply navigation.

Alan Cooper defines excise in this context as a cognitive or physical penalty
for using a tool—effort demanded by the tool that is not directly in pursuit
of a goal. For example, filling a gas tank is done to support the car, not the
goal of arriving at a destination. Cooper goes on to assert that software
navigation is nothing but excise:

…the most important thing to realize about navigation is that, in almost all
cases, it represents pure excise, or something close to it. Except in games
where the goal is to navigate successfully through a maze of obstacles,
navigation through software does not meet user goals, needs, or desires.
Unnecessary or difficult navigation thus becomes a major frustration to users.
In fact, it is the authors’ opinion that poorly designed navigation presents
the number-one problem in the design of any software application or system…
__Alan Cooper and Robert Reimann, About Face (2003), p143.

If all interaction is navigation, and navigation is the number-one software
problem, interactivity is looking pretty bad already. However, when compared
with the other two sources of context, interactivity has even worse problems
than simply being a frustrating waste of time:

The user has to already know what she wants in order to ask for it. Software
that infers from history and the environment can proactively offer potentially
relevant information that the user wouldn’t otherwise know to ask for. Purely
interactive software forces the user to make the first move.

The user has to know how to ask. That is, she must learn to manipulate a
machine. Donald Norman’s concept of determining a user’s “mental model” has
become widespread in the software usability community, and is now considered a
core design challenge. __See Donald Norman’s book The Design of Everyday
Things (2002), p9. However, Norman described this concept in the context of
mechanical devices. It only applies to software if the software actually
contains hidden mechanisms that the user must model. A low-interaction, non-
mechanical information graphic relieves both user and designer from struggling
with mental models.

Navigation implies state. Software that can be navigated is software in which
the user can get lost. The more navigation, the more corners to get stuck in.
The more manipulable state, the more ways to wander into a “bad mode.” State
is the primary reason people fear computers—stateful things can be broken.
__The only state kept by a book is which page it is open to, which is why
“getting lost in a book” describes a pleasurable experience!

Beyond these cognitive problems are physical disadvantages of interaction. The
hand is much slower than the eye. Licklider described spending hours plotting
graphs and seconds understanding them. A user who must manually request
information is in a similar situation—given the mismatch between mousing and
reading speeds, most of her time may be spent navigating, not learning.
Further, the user might prefer to learn information while using her hands for
other purposes, such as writing or eating or stroking a cat. Each time
software demands the user’s hands, this activity must be interrupted. Finally,
the growing prevalence of computer-related repetitive stress injuries suggests
that indiscriminate interactivity may be considerably harmful in a literal,
physical sense.

Unless it is enjoyable or educational in and of itself, interaction is an
essentially negative aspect of information software. There is a net positive
benefit if it significantly expands the range of questions the user can ask,
or improves the ease of locating answers, but there may be other roads to that
benefit. As suggested by the above redesigns of the train timetable,
bookstore, and movie listings, many questions can be answered simply through
clever, information-rich graphic design. Interaction should be used
judiciously and sparingly, only when the environment and history provide
insufficient context to construct an acceptable graphic.

It is unfortunate that the communities concerned with human factors of
electronic artifacts have latched onto the term “interaction.” __Most
professional communities and academic programs use the term Human-Computer
Interaction, or HCI; the ACM special-interest group is CHI, the converse. Many
practitioners, following Cooper and Bill Moggridge, refer to their profession
as “interaction design.” For information software, the real issue is context-
sensitivity. Interaction is merely one means of achieving that. And as long as
“speaking” is constrained to awkwardly pushing metaphors with a mouse,
interaction should be the last resort.

The working designer might protest that interaction is unavoidable in
practice, and may even consider my ideal of interaction-free software to be a
scoff-worthy fantasy. This is only because the alternatives have been
unrecognized and underdeveloped. I believe that with the invention of new
context-sensitive graphical forms and research into obtaining and using
environment and history, the clicking and dragging that characterizes modern
information retrieval will be made to seem laughably archaic. But every
condonation of “interactivity,” from the annals of academia to the corporate
buzzvocabulary, postpones this future.

------
SN76477
difficult to operate intuitively is exactly right.

------
everdrive
Welp, looks like Honda's back in the running for my next car!

------
DonHopkins
There's another Hacker News discussion about a related topic, a paper Ben
Shneiderman wrote in 1993, "Beyond Intelligent Machines: Just Do It".

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22742100](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22742100)

[http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/trs/93-03/93-03.html](http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/trs/93-03/93-03.html)

>It seems that you can hardly go to a computer conference without seeing a
videotape of a futuristic computer system that talks to you from a wall, desk,
or some random appliance. Is this the interface of the future? Over the last
decade, Ben Shneiderman, head of the University of Maryland's Human-Computer
Interaction Laboratory and author of Designing the User Interface: Strategies
for Effective Human-Computer Interaction (Addison-Wesley, 1992), has been the
most forceful voice against anthropomorphic interfaces. He argues that users
want a sense of direct and immediate control over computers that differs from
how they interact with people. He presents several examples of these
predictable and controllable interfaces developed in the lab at UM.

Ben Shneiderman and his colleagues like Richard Potter, Andrew Sears, and
Catherine Plaisant at his HCIL lab have performed a lot of research and user
interface design with touch screens, like the "lift off" high precision
pointing strategy, and early touch screen keyboards.

An experimental evaluation of three touch screen strategies within a hypertext
database

[https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1044731890952595...](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10447318909525956)

Clocks, calendars and schedulers on a touchscreen (1988, HCIL)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzMHqF9Pkv4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzMHqF9Pkv4)

Touchscreen keyboards - Andrew Sears, Ben Shneiderman. Human-Computer
Interaction Lab, University of Maryland.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDRKP2ATBRg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDRKP2ATBRg)

And he just dropped by HN to announce a new paper he's just published on a
similar topic, the result of years of work, which also relates to this
discussion:

Shneiderman, Ben (2020). Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence: Reliable,
Safe & Trustworthy, International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction,36, 6
(Published Online March 27, 2020).

[https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2020.1741118](https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2020.1741118)

Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence: Reliable, Safe & Trustworthy

>Abstract

>Well-designed technologies that offer high levels of human control and high
levels of computer automation can increase human performance, leading to wider
adoption. The Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HCAI) framework
clarifies how to (1) design for high levels of human control and high levels
of computer automation so as to increase human performance, (2) understand the
situations in which full human control or full computer control are necessary,
and (3) avoid the dangers of excessive human control or excessive computer
control. The methods of HCAI are more likely to produce designs that are
Reliable, Safe & Trustworthy (RST). Achieving these goals will dramatically
increase human performance, while supporting human self-efficacy, mastery,
creativity, and responsibility.

>Introduction

>This paper opens up new possibilities by way of a two dimensional framework
of Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HCAI) that separates levels of
automation/autonomy from levels of human control. The new guideline is to seek
high levels of human control AND high levels of automation, which is more
likely to produce computer applications that are Reliable, Safe & Trustworthy
(RST). Achieving these goals, especially for complex poorly understood
problems, will dramatically increase human performance, while supporting human
selfefficacy, mastery, creativity, and responsibility. This paper focuses on
the three RST goals, which may help to achieve other important goals such as
privacy, cybersecurity, resilience, social justice, human dignity, and
environmental preservation.

>The traditional belief in computer autonomy is compelling for many artificial
intelligence (AI) researchers, developers, journalists, and promoters. I
assume a broad definition of AI to include automated/autonomous systems using
technologies such as machine learning, neural nets, statistical methods,
recommenders, adaptive systems, and speech, facial, image, and pattern
recognition.

>The goal of computer autonomy was central in Sheridan and Verplank (1978) ten
levels from human control to computer automation/autonomy (Table 1). Their
widely cited one-dimensional list continues to guide much of the research and
development, suggesting that increases in automation must come at the cost of
lowering human control. Shifting to HCAI could liberate design thinking so as
to produce computer applications that increase automation, while amplifying,
augmenting, enhancing, and empowering people to innovatively apply systems and
creatively refine them.

>Sheridan & Verplank’s ten levels of automation/autonomy have been widely
influential (Sheridan, 1992), but critics suggested refinements such as the
four stages of automation: (1) information acquisition, (2) analysis of
information, (3) decision or choice of action, and (4) execution of action
(Parasuraman et al., 2000). These stages refine discussions of each of the
levels, but the underlying message is that the goal is full
automation/autonomy.

>Even Sheridan (2000) commented with concern that “surprisingly, the level
descriptions as published have been taken more seriously than were expected”
(see Hoffman & Johnson (2019) and Kaber (2018) for detailed histories).
However, in spite of the many critiques, the 1-dimensional levels of
automation/autonomy, which only represents situations where increased
automation must come with less human control, is still widely influential. For
example, the US Society of Automotive Engineers adopted the unnecessary trade-
off in its six levels of autonomy for self-driving cars (Brooks, 2017; Society
of Automotive Engineers, 2014) (Table 2).

>Critics of autonomy have repeatedly discussed the ironies (Bainbridge, 1983),
deadly myths (Bradshaw et al., 2013; Mindell, 2015), conundrums (Endsley,
2017), or paradoxes (Hancock, 2017) of autonomy. A common point is that humans
have to spend more effort monitoring autonomous computers because they are
unsure of what it will do, often leading to inferior performance (Blackhurst
et al., 2011; Strauch, 2017).

[...]

------
delfinom
Yesssssss

------
0xff00ffee
Oh thank goodness. Haptics are a real.

------
user-asdfgh
Appeal to authority is one of the informal fallacies of logic. It can/should
never be used to prove a point.

------
java-man
Thank you, Honda!

Touch screen controls in automotive environment is such a bad idea (unless the
vehicle is stationary, and even then...)

~~~
ardy42
> Touch screen controls in automotive environment is such a bad idea

Touch screen controls are a bad idea _in general_ when the form factor has
space for adequate physical controls.

The only time they're an acceptable compromise is for small devices like
phones. Even then careful use of a small number of buttons can be a great
improvement.

~~~
kube-system
The situation is more nuanced than "touchscreens are bad"; the number of
controls has grown exponentially since touchscreens have made it easier to put
literally hundreds of buzzers and whistles on modern vehicles.

It's fairly common now for cars to have configuration settings like: the
number of seconds that the courtesy lights stay on after locking the car. This
is a feature that would never need to be operated while the vehicle is in
motion, and likely wouldn't be configured more than once by any given owner.

Features like this are more than adequately served by touchscreen controls.
Really, you would have a worse UI if there was a hardware slider for this on
the dash.

But yes, all controls that a driver would want to use while the vehicle is in
motion should be controllable with hardware controls that can be located and
operated tactilely.

~~~
ardy42
> The situation is more nuanced than "touchscreens are bad"; the number of
> controls has grown exponentially since touchscreens have made it easier to
> put literally hundreds of buzzers and whistles on modern vehicles.

Touchscreens aren't necessary for any of that, though. There are alternative,
better UI interfaces. For instance: f-key driven soft menus. Those have
tactile feedback, have reliable key-press detection, and can be operated with
regular gloves.

The only situation in a car where I could see a touchscreen being the right
option are cases where a soft keyboard is needed.

> It's fairly common now for cars to have configuration settings like: the
> number of seconds that the courtesy lights stay on after locking the car....
> Features like this are more than adequately served by touchscreen controls.

My Honda has a button-operated menu for that, and that's better than a
touchscreen.

> you would have a worse UI if there was a hardware slider for this on the
> dash.

I never said that cars should have a dedicated, physical control for each
function. What I said was touchscreens are unnecessary and sub-optimal.

Commonly used functions should have dedicated physical controls, especially
those that are likely to be used while in motion (driving controls, climate
control, basic audio stuff). The next most common set of functions should be
implemented with a combination of shortcut keys and f-keys. Finally, seldom-
used functions (such as configuration) should be accessed with f-key driven
menus.

~~~
kube-system
I do like key-driven soft menus (like the steering wheel controls commonly
used for HUDs or gauge cluster menus), but they get a bit unwieldy with longer
lists. Some automakers (GM) address this by nesting all the options in a bunch
of sub-menus, but I find this frustrating because I end up just having to
search through a bunch of menus to find what I want.

Some automakers (Mazda, BMW) use a knob instead, which makes it a bit quicker
to scroll through a longer list, but I have found myself overshooting and then
having to back track which is sometimes annoying.

There's really pros and cons to whatever implementation is used. While I
completely agree that any function that might be operated while driving needs
to be able to be operable with hard controls, I also don't think it's a good
idea to clutter those menus with a bunch of junk that you _don 't_ want or
need while driving.

I think there's a good case to be made for 3 levels of controls:

* Things that must have dedicated hard keys: anything that must be adjusted rapidly for driver attentiveness, control, or comfort -- HVAC, audio levels and basic tuning, all lighting and vehicle controls.

* Things that must have hard keys, but can live in a shared menu: anything that a driver may want to adjust while driving, but is not essential for immediate use -- trip data, infotainment, non-critical gauge monitoring etc.

* Things that don't need hard keys and should not clutter any of the above interfaces: odd-ball configuration settings that a driver would not need to operate while driving -- key fob configuration, entry-exit preference configuration, software updates, integrations with external services, maintenance logs, etc.

------
Robotbeat
What if--and stay with me for a moment--what if it's good for different
manufacturers to have different approaches to the problem, giving people the
option to choose Honda for buttons or Tesla for touchscreens?

What if there are legitimate arguments for both and it's good that there's
both options available?

~~~
pubstik
If your metric is safety, control, and effectiveness, there is not an
argument. Touchscreens are a cost saving measure, not a feature.

~~~
Robotbeat
> "Touchscreens are a cost saving measure, not a feature."

That's why there are so many high-end phones with lots of buttons.

~~~
loriverkutya
"If your metric is safety, control, and effectiveness, there is not an
argument"

not really the metrics for high-end phones

~~~
Robotbeat
You left out the last part: "Touchscreens are a cost saving measure, not a
feature."

------
TheCapn
I've said it before, I'll say it again.

Touchscreens CAN BE DONE RIGHT. (or at least better)

I have an aftermarket JVC headunit in my 2003 VW. It has one button, that's
the "Menu" button on single press, or Power button when held.

The screen itself is relatively intuitive to control without looking because
of a gesture feature it has as well as button placement being useful.

If I want more volume I put one finger on the screen and make a circle gesture
in the clockwise direction. Down is counter-clockwise. The play/pause button
is in the very bottom right so you can find the button with feel. You can
shuffle songs with another gesture (though I never use it).

I really like my touchscreen. And every time I am using a work vehicle (Ford
Explorers), or my wife's GMC Sierra, I hate the controls because you have to
look up to see what you're doing. Thankfully their steeringwheel controls are
generally good.

~~~
jgust
Or you know, knobs and buttons which don't require any user on-boarding or
discovery process.

~~~
leetcrew
there is a place for both kinds of controls. frequently used functions
(volume, climate controls) should have physical buttons. infrequently used
functions (like reset tire pressure monitoring) is best hidden in a
touchscreen menu.

~~~
jgust
Absolutely. Use the right tool for the job, etc.

