Thank god! Touch screens on the stuff in cars are a huge pain in the ass if you have hands as big as mine and the icons are all tiny
It’s not that the icons are tiny, rather people driving usually operate by touch because their eyes need to be on the road.
Plotnick, an associate professor of cinema and media studies at Indiana University in Bloomington, is the leading expert on buttons and how people interact with them.
I like that being a leading expert on buttons is a profession that exists in this world. You go Rachel Plotnick.
Touch screens are shit tor buttons. They can be hacked. They can be unresponsive.
There’s a load of other reasons, but either or both are enough to realise that a physical button is much safer. Perfect example of safety being lost in technology. Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.
I didn’t have a car for a few years and the one I had was 2003 (with a slight stint from a similarly-aged car during a couple-month time I had to drive). I now have a car again and I HATE that my heat/air and such are all flat against the panel (not a touch screen, though). I literally can’t adjust anything without looking in my current car. Thankfully, I avoid driving it whenever possible.
I’m gonna buy a Garmin instinct because I realized I don’t use 95% of my galaxy Watch’s “smart” features.
No I wouldn’t say touchscreens are out, I would say augmenting them with physical buttons is about to get popular.
The answer is tactile buttons with displays behind them. Not sure why nobody is doing this in cars…
Because touch screens are cheap and put the onus of design onto the programmers of apps.
I think we’ll see multipurpose function buttons under the display, that change function programmatically depending on what the app is doing.
That’s gonna mess with muscle memory.
Because they are expensive. More importantly, how often does the function of a button is changed? Top right corner button on android is usually a back button (arrow/ x) or a profile icon. How often does a bottom navigation in an app change? Dashboard is an app that rarely changes.
I will do you one better. The screen in the button goes out. If the button changes the display based on the context, what does the button do? Is software responsible to recognize it cannot display an action and do something? What does it do? Should the user be responsible to remember what does the button do based on the context? This article is about return to physical buttons because they are reliable. Do you see any button on your cars dashboard that is unlabeled? Do you remember looking up in a manual what a weirdly iconed button does? On any piece of hardware.
This is from users perspecrtive alone.
Lets do the manufacturer. Imagine that screen buttons have SKUs. Dashboards have SKUs. Screen buttons have versioned drivers. Screen buttons need power delivery. Data lanes on pcbs. And fuck else.
Now imagine that you have a physical button. It costs cents. It closes one lane. Maybe needs power for a led.
Who the fuck wants screen buttons?
Finally. What the fuck multiple screen buttons solve that a single screen that can be any number of any buttons couldnt?
Because sure as fuck they wont solve for context, clarity and reliablity.
Touchscreens can stay, but only for non-essential tasks like changing settings or entering addresses. Climate, media, and all other controls you usually use while driving should be tactile by mandate.
Here’s my rule: Anything in my Chevy S10 that you control by turning a knob, moving a lever, or momentarily push a button? That needs to be a physical control in a car. Anything where you push and hold a button, or mash a button multiple times (like setting the clock or turning off the DRLs respectively) can be moved to a settings menu in a touch screen. These things shouldn’t be done while moving.
And no, touch sensitive single-function panels like the climate controls in my father’s Avalon are not good enough, it needs to be a mechanical control that you can feel for without activating.
I just want to say that I think this is the dash from my old car a Toyota Yaris.
I miss you ole’ buddy. I’m sorry you got rear ended and totaled. You were a great car.
You know there is still time to snatch up a fantastic Toyota GR Yaris and elevate your life!
My first car was a 2001 Yaris. Lovely car until the timing chain broke and destroyed all four cylinder heads at once!
Four cylinder heads in a Yaris! That’s a hell of an engine!
I’ll pour one out for the Yaris.
Cool, now bring back single cab light trucks with full length beds.
Id settle just for a truck that isnt very clearly pandering “im a big boy!” energy. There all way too fucking big for no god damn reason other than validation of ego. Bunch of weak fucking man babies need some million ton 3 lane wide truck just so they can pretend theyre a big strong man to themselves and everyone else, despite never using the truck for what its purpose is supposed to be.
I have heard that the reason for this is that trucks in that size range are less regulated by the EPA. Companies didn’t want to put in the research to develop trucks that met emissions standards, so they just make them really heavy for no purpose, evading regulations. Take this with a grain of salt, because I’ve done zero research of my own on it.
I’d buy an electric one. I don’t need to haul a trailer or anything huge.
Maybe a Ford Maverick or a Honda Ridgeline. The other trucks are just unreasonable. $80K for a Tundra, or $60K for a Tacoma? WTF!!!
YES! Where is my dad’s little Toyota Pickup? Closest thing we have is the Ford Maverick, which is still pretty fucking huge.
Was always a fan of the tacoma they were making before they increased the size of it, thing was kind of the perfect size. Roomy enough cabin, small enough to be drivable in a parking lot, enough bed for towing occasionally.
Indeed, Nissan should respond with their e-Power hybrid too. Toyota applied for a patent using the Stout name in South America.
RIGHT?? I want an 8-foot bed, dammit!
They need a professor to tell them what Liz Lemon did in one lunchtime https://youtu.be/vyZkHjgzGRM?t=83
I prefer the tactile controls over the touchscreen. While you’re at it, bring back manual transmissions too!
Should be illegal to have touchscreen controls in a car, it requires you to look at it to effectively control it, which means the car forces you to ignore the road to do anything.
You know what I would really hate? Automatic diagnostics on my dashboard. Nah. Please make those as LED blinks where the mechanic has to supply his own LED, Jerry rigged to the obd connector. And make it so that only one guy in Minnesota has the manual. Every mechanic has to contact that guy. Then the mechanic has to interpret the LED Morse code manually. Oh yes this would be so useful. And to add a 3Ghz motherboard with only access to Apple music. Totally awesome. Make the display show a video of “all I want for Christmas is you” I’ll certainly be making use of that.
The article doesn’t mention which cars unfortunately
