Carmakers like VW are bringing back buttons because drivers loathe touch screens

https://slate.com/business/2023/04/cars-buttons-touch-screens-vw-porsche-nissan-hyundai.html

by georgecmu • 3 years ago

119 60 3 years ago

rektide• 3 years ago

In part it's touchscreens... But these are also slow, laggy, unresponsive systems.

That often aren't great. If users could load their own launchers, could have flexibility, they might be more agreeable.

Touchscreens are a tool of software, but these are hard-cast experiences. That loses most of the advantage right off the bat.

NaOH• 3 years ago

When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone, he said there was a need for a new UI. The issue, as he said [1], was that the hardware of then-current smartphones was present and unchangeable whether or not that’s what the software in use called for. In the context of phones and the assorted software used on them, there’s a worthwhile logic to his point.

Car manufacturers (among others), didn’t seem to understand this logic. When it comes to in-car adjustments of vehicle capabilities—heating/cooling, music, etc.—touchscreens offer no benefits to users that exceed the simplicity of usability and the safety of dedicated hardware controls.

The irony, of course, is that Apple played a large role in popularizing touchscreens even if the logic the company used for choosing it was lost on so many, even though Jobs made clear the explicit value for smartphones.

https://youtu.be/efFvYXsI9og?t=306

willnonya• 3 years ago

The same effects took place in mobile phones. They removed physical and capacitive buttons then promoted the new looks as sleek minimalism while reducing cost and rasing prices.

The difference that you're hinting at though is called human factors in design. For a mobile phone the all touch model is workable. In cars it ignores the key needs like safety and consistency which are different from phones.

bdcravens3• 3 years ago

Additionally, touch screens in cars are so hard to operate. The easy retort is that you should only operate them when perfectly still. I don't find that argument all that compelling, but even at that, I find myself needing to steady my hand to operate a car touchscreen with any precision (as with a phone when it's mounted - there's a reason why we steady it with our hand from the backside)

tester756• 3 years ago

Yet, typing experience on smartphone is terrible.

I struggle to understand how as mature industry as smartphone's, how hugely resourceful R&D departments for those things are...

and this is the best thing they managed to figure out, or maybe cheapest?

I'd rather have something like blackberry's keyboard.

hcarvalhoalves• 3 years ago

I find my 2017 car is the sweet spot between tactile controls and touchscreen: the touch is useful for the GPS nav, but for everything else there are buttons.

slondr• 3 years ago

My 2001 is definitely the sweet spot. A double DIN standard radio slot so I can keep up with the latest features in infotainment and GPS, but purely mechanical interactions for literally everything else.

drpixie• 3 years ago

Touchscreens require significant user visual attention. You can't just feel for the button while watching the road and the traffic, you have to look at the screen and place your finger.

It's really bad design to require a car driver to be distracted just to perform normal operations. Touchscreens are very much the wrong choice for cars, planes, etc. They're fine for something that is intended to be the users' sole focus, but are distraction-by-design where the user has other priorities.

rad_gruchalski2• 3 years ago

It's really bad design to require a car driver to be distracted just to perform normal operations.

And to fix that, they started pushing even more computers into cars so that people don’t have to pay attention. All this self-driving fad is there to cover up the big fuck up of pushing more and more distracting stuff into cars.

There are sone really cool things in modern cars: speed limiter is awesome when driving in the city, active cruise control is awesome in heavy traffic. Lane keeping assistant annoys me but I guess it helps some, collision avoidance more often annoys me than helps because of false positives. Every time it comes on it just freaks me out because it does something I didn’t expect. I mean, who’s driving the car: me or the manufacturer? And it doesn’t even work properly. It didn’t save that poor cyclist from hitting the side of my car… on the other hand, if one doesn’t know what the mirror is for, they may find it useful.

I never thought I would say that but think I wouldn’t mind the speed limiter automatically engaging in the city. Under two conditions: that I can override it, and that the speed limit recognition is top notch.

All other stuff with level 2 and 3 is plain dangerous. We’re teaching people to not pay attention behind the wheel just to throw the driver under the bus when the computer doesn’t know what to do anymore. The problem with that approach is that the driver doesn’t have a mental model of what’s around them.

An example of the last point is the new idea from BMW. To initiate an overtake when in self-driving mode, look in the side mirror. I have no idea who’s the genius behind that but what a great way to teach people not to check their mirrors. I don’t know how others drive but I’m glancing in side mirrors quite often just to know what’s going on around.

adhesive_wombat3• 3 years ago

I never thought I would say that but think I wouldn’t mind the speed limiter automatically engaging in the city.

You'll get that wish: speed limiters will probably be on by default in future.

I find them very annoying as they currently are: I've had it do things like misread a 50 as a 30, decide the current speed limit is 35 (I have never seen a 35 limit) and also read a side-road 20 while traveling on a 40. It will then shift gears and slow down dramatically in moving traffic, but won't show brake lights, so it's just asking for someone to rear-end me to use it except on side-roads.

Hopefully, they'll get better.

eternityforest2• 3 years ago

I think the self driving stuff is because full autonomy will be absolutely amazing, but companies want to start profiting early because that's what they do.

If full self driving existed now, my life would likely be totally different.

mindslight• 3 years ago

Touchscreens require significant user visual attention. You can't just feel for the button while watching the road and the traffic, you have to look at the screen and place your finger.

If only that were the extent of it! The deeper problem is there is no haptic feedback to let you know a press was registered, so even after you find the location your focus gets drawn in to watching to make sure your press registers. And this gets even worse with controls you need to press many times in a row.

pleb_nz2• 3 years ago

It's also the the being able to detect it by touch, with a touch screen it's just so flat, you don't even know if you're touching the correct position. Let alone the haptic feedback issue

dzhiurgis4• 3 years ago

require significant user visual attention

I'm going to get crucified for this, but - it's not that big of a deal anymore on modern cars. I drive ~75% on autopilot so few seconds of attention is going to kill me. The other 25% traffic is slow enough or stalled that I can wait for a moment where I can afford to do my task.

Of course my partner hates autopilot because she looses focus and misses all the highway exits :facepalm:

bobbylarrybobby• 3 years ago

I assume you meant isn't going to kill you. Anyway, you might be surprised to know that there exist people outside your car who your inattention may very well kill.

diebeforei4852• 3 years ago

you have to look at the screen and place your finger.

Depends. I find that on the Tesla screen, the buttons are large enough that I can often use it without looking, or using peripheral vision alone. Probably something to do with Fitts Law, the size of touch targets, etc.

A bit similar to gen z kids typing on their phone without looking.

I do prefer the old (~2017) Audi system of having a scroll wheel for CarPlay instead of a touch screen.

thrashh• 3 years ago

Yeah I don’t entirely buy that.

I can type on my phone while without looking at it. Not much different from typing without looking at a keyboard.

gruturo3• 3 years ago

They may be sized a bit more reasonably but they are still a serious distraction from the driving.

Additionally, just this week my M3's touchscreen became suddenly unresponsive and a couple minutes later it started to rain quite a bit. As my windshield slowly started fogging up (I was running with no AC due to mild temp), I realized I could not access the defog function!

Alternatives were pulling over, rebooting while driving (not as scary as it sounds, just fairly slow), or the voice control which still responded. Unfortunately it doesn't understand "defog" despite the menu option being called just like that, but it at least understood "turn on the air conditioner" which helped. I have to check if I can add defog to the new shortcuts function, but yeah: touchscreen should always have a physical alternative for critical functions, something even climate controls can be, surprisingly.

kj4211cash• 3 years ago

I grew up loving GTI's. Last year I finally had the money to buy one and was in the market for a new car. I couldn't bring myself to buy a GTI because it was just full of touch screens and piano black. VW was unusual in just how far it went. I'm sure they got lots of feedback and data to show that they made a mistake. I'm just curious how they decided to lean this heavily into touch screens (and piano black). Maybe they just desperately needed to save money after Dieselgate and hoped consumer preferences would change over time?

egberts1• 3 years ago

Thank God for tactile feedback!

dzhiurgis4• 3 years ago

Touchscreens are okay-ish, almost inevitable for majority of functionality except climate.

It's the capacitive touch buttons that is the biggest wtf.

bdcravens3• 3 years ago

My wife has an ID.4, and while it's a great vehicle, the UX is absolutely terrible. They're buried inside of a screen, many of the controls are different from what we've had for the past 40 years. Even worse are the window controls - you only have a passenger and driver side button, and have to toggle a touch control with no tactile or haptic feedback to switch between front and rear.

DoingIsLearning• 3 years ago

have to toggle a touch control with no tactile or haptic feedback to switch between front and rear.

That just screams cost-down brainstorm session. "Hey guys if we do this we only need half of the expensive mechanical switches" with no after thought of safety or UX.

bdcravens3• 3 years ago

Several times I accidentally touched it, putting it in rear mode. Roll down the window, realize it was the wrong window, then switch and roll down the front. Often that's at a fast food or pharmacy window or whatever, and being rushed, don't take the time to switch back and then roll up the back. Next thing I know I'm going down the freeway with my rear window open. What happens when this causes injury to a pet or child?

Zanfa• 3 years ago

I think the latest fully electric Volvo XC90 also has that now. And it's their most expensive model.

dcchambers• 3 years ago

My wife and I literally didn't buy a VW Atlas a few years ago because we both loathed the infotainment system that has a ton of piano black capacitive touch buttons with absolutely no touch feedback. Absolutely horrible for driving. Otherwise we loved the car.

pleb_nz2• 3 years ago

I'm not buying an electric vehicle until there is one I like and it has lots of tactile controls.

pornel• 3 years ago

VW has been using capacitative buttons which combine all of touchscreens’ flaws with all of buttons’ limitations. They really nailed having the worst of both worlds.

Their faux buttons activate on mere touch, so you can’t safely locate the buttons by feel, and you still have to look! It’s also possible to activate them by accident from brushing your hand. They tried to prevent this by rejecting quick presses, but it only made the buttons feel slower and less responsive and sometimes ignore intentional presses.

On top of that instead of tactile feel and satisfying clicks, the buttons are plasticky and creak if you actually press them. They make ID. interior feel cheap. I’m flabbergasted why VW keeps using them. Do they think these are cool? Do they save $0.10 per car on a few tiny springs?

clnq• 3 years ago

They tried to prevent this by rejecting quick presses, but it only made the buttons feel slower and less responsive and sometimes ignore intentional presses.

Finally, an explanation for why a couple of 2020+ VWs I recently rented felt so laggy. I couldn’t tell when I held a button down enough for it to be considered pressed and when I didn’t without looking at the dashboard. Some of my touches seem to have been rejected, no matter how long I massaged the capacitive button. I just didn’t use any of the steering wheel buttons in the end.

If they would have replaced anything crucial like the lights switch or indicators with those buttons, I would not have been able to drive the cars.

I also saw some discussions online that describe these buttons in terms like “three buttons 35% broken”. That’s exactly how I would describe the experience. 1/3rd of the time, no amount of button massaging got them to register a press. In two separate Tiguans. Some of their buttons also seem to work better by swiping on them than tapping them.

I’m not sure what VW is doing.

eternityforest2• 3 years ago

I don't understand why capacitive buttons don't have a raised lip around them. A few mm would eliminate most accidental brushing problems, and presumably let people use them by feel.

jjtheblunt• 3 years ago

They do on my Audi, and the UX is excellent: when they sense touch, but not actuation, the non distracting display previews the state and would-be state.

It’s a 2019 model year and while VW owns controlling shares in originally distinct Audi, perhaps VW did a bad UX variation on later models?

sillywalk• 3 years ago

Apparently the F-35 has touchscreens. That would seem .. problematic.

AuryGlenz• 3 years ago

I’m not sure why HUDs don’t get more attention. That plus some physical controls and you basically never need to look away from the road. With how cheap LCD screens are nowadays it seems like a no-brainer.

evanreichard• 3 years ago

I completely excluded the GTI and Golf R from my recent car buying experience because of this.

Bought a Mazda 3 Turbo because Mazda seems to actually give a damn about UX with respect to safety.

frankreyes• 3 years ago

The US Navy is replacing touch screen controls on destroyers, after the displays were implicated in collisions.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49319450

It's happened before and it will happen again.

m463• 3 years ago

got a standard car rental at the airport recently, and thrifty/dollar/hertz had lots of model 3's on the lot.

Wow, that car is a real nightmare for a slightly tired person coming off the plane and getting in a rental car.

window fogged up. (you know where this is going, right?) couldn't figure out how to turn on front defroster, even as passenger hunting through the menus.

radio came on (no streaming - need "premium connectivity" for that). Couldn't figure out how to mute or turn down volume - it blares on while looking for the defog.

how do you turn on hazards?

got out of the car, eveything of value is in the trunk and -- how do you lock the doors?

ok, figured out how to lock doors and passenger gets out ... and the door locking was quietly canceled. ugh.

really, truly - telsa needs to backpedal and make a couple critical controls physical instead of touchscreen.

on another subject, compared to the model S, the model 3 seems to be missing the flyover style navigation hints. Trying to figure out which way to turn on tight streets from the map is horrible. Did they not pay garmin?

gruturo3• 3 years ago

Your points are all completely valid and I'm not refuting any of them - I agree with you!

But, for the record (Until someone at Tesla HQ decides to innovate something and moves all things around):

Climate control/defog/defrost: touch the temperature display on the bottom left, a context menu pops up where these options are.

Audio controls/mute: driver can use the left scrollwheel (up/down for volume, click to pause/resume audio), passenger can touch the volume control on the bottom right for the same.

Locking: I really have no clue here. Mine does it automatically as I walk away, but that's due to the phone having the Tesla app running, and I wouldn't be sure how to do it just with the keycard.

It definitely has a learning curve which other cars don't. Love mine to bits, but I'm not blind to the weirdnesses and warts (I just posted in this same thread a recent issue I had).

bombcar• 3 years ago

Tesla should just make a “rental version” that skips some fancy features and leaves them standard.

yooastan• 3 years ago

This is a euphemism for, we are going to continue catering to boomers because nobody else has any money

adhesive_wombat3• 3 years ago

I'm not a boomer and I hate my wife's car with a touchscreen and a UI full of non-functional-until-you-pay apps and love my car with buttons, dials, mechanical needles and a little transflective LCD.

girafffe_i2• 3 years ago

Replace your keyboard with a touch screen keyboard and report back.

zwaps2• 3 years ago

You can still get a new Audi A/S/RS 4 without everything touchscreen and actual buttons everywhere. Up until end of this year, I think.

delta_p_delta_x• 3 years ago

The touch-screen bandwagon is succinctly captured in the BMW G20 3-series, which was first released in 2018, and face-lifted last year.

Comparison image (facelift above, original below): https://cdn.bmwblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/bmw-3-ser...

Notice how the HVAC and media controls have been deleted; the nice instrument cluster and centre console, previously with a sunshield hood for the former, have been merged into one giant display just pointlessly fastened to the dashboard, like an in-car billboard. I hate Tesla for introducing this stupid, dunderheaded standard to cars.

girafffe_i2• 3 years ago

BlackBerry was working on actuators under the touch screen to provide haptics, since kiosks and car screens aren't as dynamic as phones, these are good first candidates.

Plus it makes driving more accessible to people with impaired vision.

windex• 3 years ago

I like the Ineos Grenadier's approach to buttons.

nokya• 3 years ago

This not only goes for cars but for almost all devices involved either in human movement or health: vehicle dashboards, headphones, lamps, public transport interfaces, avionics, medical devices and equipment, etc.

Any device that involves moving or healing someone without actual physical buttons puts human beings in danger in some way or another at some point specifically because of said touch interface.

The reason, in my opinion, why we observe so many devices turning button-less, is not ergonomy or usability. It's one particular community of users who is so much attracted to touchscreens that they would pay a premium to get rid of physical buttons and a touchscreen instead, even when that design decision can put their lives in danger.

I can't even mention these users explicitly here because I would probably be downvoted quite aggressively, but I guess some readers will recognize who I'm referring to.

I remember very well the moment Tesla cars arrived on the market and people reacted to the huge screen installed next to the dashboard. It was clearly obvious at the time that it was a very bad decision being happily welcomed by a specific category of users. Manufacturers of all sorts have been favoring these users in particular for the last fifteen-ish years although they know their products to become less durable, and less resilient to the unexpected.

I'm glad this problem is starting to be acknowledged and recognized by manufacturers.

p.s. the community I'm referring to, it has nothing to do with gender, age, race or religion.

earthling8118• 3 years ago

Who cares about downvotes? I sure don't. I do care about being able to interpret messages. Please just state what you mean. Alluding to this "community of users" without giving anything concrete is not helpful.

mud_dauber• 3 years ago

Chevy Silverado XLTs have touchscreens too. I haven’t listened to any audio for more than 20 minutes in 3 years. The screen is totally unresponsive & starts ghosting soon after ignition. Trash.

temporallobe• 3 years ago

Last year I bought a used 2020 Mercedes GLS450 and both my wife and I ended up not liking it after driving it for only 1 week. Luckily the dealer allowed us to cancel the sale and return it. The UX was awful. Far too many functions in that car were buried deep in menus. There were some redundant physical buttons, but in general it was a much different vehicle than the previous generations we had been owning or leasing since 2008. Everything had a cheap and junky feel to it, and it wasn’t nearly as rugged. It just didn’t make sense for the price we had paid and the huge depreciation hit we were going to take after owning it just ONE year. There are days when I wish I could just buy a NOS mid-90s SUV and drive until it dies.

akeck• 3 years ago

Mazda rightly banned touchscreens awhile ago.

PeterStuer• 3 years ago

Designers at VW slould be forced to work their computers with capacitive button keyboards.

Carmakers like VW are bringing back buttons because drivers loathe touch screens

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