from Hacker News

Shocker. In Cars, Physical Buttons Are Easier Than Touchscreens

by SQL2219 on 8/22/22, 2:15 PM with 18 comments

• by jwarden on 8/22/22, 4:59 PM

  I remember in the 80s cars would talk to you. “Door ajar”, “Lights are on”.

  It seemed so cool then, like something out of Star Trek. But it was an unnecessary use of a new technology. Touchscreens seem like the same thing.

  An article reminiscing on the talking cars of the 80s: https://www.autotrader.com/car-news/miracle-1980s-talking-ca...

• by wkearney99 on 8/29/22, 5:26 PM

  Direct tuning of stations is bad on just about anything I've used with a touchscreen. Even 'scan' is tedious.

  My '17 Cayenne strikes a decent mix of buttons/touchscreen.

  But more recent models have made it worse using 'haptic' controls (touchscreen smooth 'areas' of panels, instead of separated hard buttons). And they've got no physical surface indicators to let you find/use them without having to look down at the center console shifter area.

• by mguerville on 8/22/22, 3:23 PM

  Glare, very high or very low temperatures, and humidity have all been known to mess with displays of various types (and touch itself as a way to interact with the screen), so while i understand that car dashboards have likely been spec'd to account for these factors I can't help but feel like touchscreens were never going to perform as reliably.

• by Nevermark on 8/23/22, 1:08 AM

  I think it is uncontroversial that touchscreens do (can do, on some models do, ...) more things than physical buttons could, without having so many buttons as to be un-navigatable.

  Maybe the solution would be:

  1) physical buttons for the most common and critical while-driving tasks

  2) Physical buttons with little screens showing context dependent meanings, aligned on the side of a big screen, for quick selections beyond (1).

  The button screens do most the work of providing options-for-current-context, with the screen adding more helpful context.

  3) Touch buttons on screen for unimportant but high-option tasks, such as selecting a song, album or artist. Or changing settings that largely keep stable values.

  In other words, get the most out of every mode. Maximize the utility of physical buttons with the de-cluttering effect of a touch screen.

• by Tagbert on 8/22/22, 10:00 PM

  I feel like GM has had a pretty good mix in recent Volt and Bolt vehicles. There are physical buttons for the HVAC controls and volume/mute. The radio controls and settings are on a largish touchscreen. The most you really need while driving might be to hit one of the large preset for stations. the rest of the things you do with the touchscreen are settings that you do while the car is stationary. the steering wheel & stalks have physical controls for volume, cruise control, manual regen, turn signals, wipes.

• by anaganisk on 8/22/22, 3:02 PM

  Mazda went back to physical controls like 4 years ago for same reason!

• by ortusdux on 8/22/22, 3:45 PM

  I really hope they revert back to physical buttons on the F150 lightning. That truck would be a perfect fit for my use-case, but I worry that the touchscreen makes it a non-starter.

• by rk1987 on 8/22/22, 6:44 PM

  Based on tests they used, this is just a click bait.

  > Turn on the heated seat, increase the temperature by two degrees, and start the defroster. --- This probably is the only area where Tesla doesn't have good interface. > Turn on the radio and tune it to a specific station (Sweden's Program 1). Reset the trip computer. --- I would be interested in learning what % of population remember specific station and manually need to set it often. (Usually people have few favs and once you save them you don't need to do > Turn the instrument lights to their lowest setting and turn off the center display. --- There is some learning curve but I am sure the experience of doing it on day 1 vs day 7 of owning a vehicle is way different.

  Recently a friend advised me to give any new product a week or two before making an opinion and this has worked magic.

• by bornfreddy on 8/22/22, 6:07 PM

  To me it is simple - when I see a touchscreen dashboard, I assume (/know) that the vendor was cutting costs at the expense of driving ergonomics. Cheap car, I can live with it. Expensive? No way.