Unmentioned is touchscreens frequently don't work. I often have to make repeated presses on my iphone until it registers. The same with swipes. Since there is no audible or tactile feedback, this cannot work well while keeping your eyes on the road.
I’m quite suspicious that they do that not because they understood or learned something, but because China requires physical buttons starting next year. And they simply don’t want to lose one of their biggest markets.
I really like what Jony Ive did with Ferrari. It’s the perfect blend of digital and analog instruments. High quality material and finishing.
Many of these German car companies are following what sells well in Chinese markets, more and more screens. IMO, nothing beats the feeling and assurance of tactile buttons/toggles/knobs.
But doing on a niche car is such a waste of development resources (as all Ferraris are of course). Or maybe given this is going to be EV perhaps Ferrari is finally planning mass manufactured car, but I doubt.
I for one am quite happy that Mercedes is committed to a physical button for hazard lights, parking assist overrides, and the other controls that are used so very...rarely. Perhaps they'll do something about the less commonly used buttons like climate control for the next model redesigns in five to seven years.
I really struggle to understand what's so damned difficult about this. They've admitted touchscreens annoy the hell out of drivers and capacitive touch buttons are even worse. Is it really going to take yet another lifecycle before they actually do something about it?
If they have custromer feedback and focus groups like they mention how did it happen in the first place? Some overoptimistic head-of-something? Really curious. I own previous -2021 mb and had to drive the upgrade (touch buttons) once as a replacement car. UX is terrible. Period. I even checked then in the dealership what they did to S-class and mybachs - and yes, same crappy wheel, etc. Anyways, I was mostly surprised that they didn’t know this before. Something is wrong with their research / decision making.
I bet if you showed a room of people a car with a big iPad thing a couple of decades ago, they'd ooh and ah, without necessarily thinking that deeply about what it would actually be like to use. Users are bad at knowing what they actually want on brief exposure; the thing that does well in focus groups may not be the thing that actually works.
What I'm surprised by is that cars are chock-full of ornate, unique parts (cupholders are a good example).
I would have imagined that car infotainment controls would be a small fraction of the BOM, so I've been wondering if it's not really a cost thing. Sort of like small phones or 3D TVs from the early 2000's.
it wont matter how many physical buttons you apparently have, if its not physical all the way through, that "button function" can be redefined, or taken away at any time.
I’m seeing some brands say they have physical buttons but they aren’t the same. They’re more like touch based buttons that are not in a screen. And I feel they’re just as bad. I want to be able to use the button without looking. Like one car had a touch based slider for operating the air vents. Ridiculous
And for those commands that do not deserve a physical button and are only accessible via touch, please adhere to a few simple rules.
1. Put them always in the same place. Especially the "back" or "exit" button!
2. Each button should do one thing, not switch between 3 or more modes that you should look to understand which one you've just activated. Negative example: one button to cycle from cuise control, to drive assist, to speed limit, and back to off.
3. The area where a tap is interpreted as a button press should not also be where a swipe is recognized. In moving vehicles it is too easy for your finger to swing just an inch before touching the screen.
4. The active area of a virtual button must be large, larger than the icon it displays, so large that you shouldn't be distracted from driving just to aim at it!
1. Drives me crazy on iPhone. On Android there is one button to go back. Very simple. On iPhone sometimes it's top left, some times it's called 'done'. Sometimes the app doesn't have it at all and I have to use a menu instead.
I saw the new Ferrari dash and infotainment controls. They struck such a nice mix of digital and analog. Reminded my of the iPhone Dynamic Island and coincidentally designed by Jony Ive
More prevalent in luxury cars, although Japanese had their share of bad experiments as well. My 10yo Honda has all climate control buttons, but no volume knob, which is mitigated a bit by having volume button on the steering wheel.
IMO luxury manufacturers like MB and BMW tried to squeeze larger screens, more of them and there was not enough space to put those screens, buttins and vents. Some luxuty brands make vents supper slim.
I hope Elon Musk can take a lesson from Mercedes. Tesla went in the other direction: there are barely any physical buttons to remove, so they removed the stalks for signaling and even for changing gear! You have to use the touch screen to shift gears!
Removing indicator stalks without steer by wire was a mistake. They fixed that by bringing back the stalks.
Touch screen for great shifting works better than you think. It actually works better than traditional gear shifters especially when you enable auto shift. It changes gears as needed. It's ok to want to stick to the past; but don't drag others back who want to move towards the future.
'He also explained that "I'm a big believer in screens, because I really believe if you want to connect, you have to make the magic work behind the screen." '
I am a big believer in keeping "product people" away from UI design for dangerous machinery.
The eyes and the attention of the driver should be on the road. All the audio visual noise from the car is just plain dangerous. I don't want my car to draw my attention to itself for anything less than a critical engine/tyre pressure failures. I do not want beeps on anything else distracting me while I am driving.
My Volvo will, for instance, flash the same type of visual alert when fuel level is low (permanent "do you want to navigate to a fuel station" modal window obscuring navigation, speedometer and so on) -- as when it encounters a serious engine malfunction. It will steal a bit of my attention when it pops up. One of those days, someone will have an accident because of this moronic design, its statistically certain.
Same with wipers fluid level low. I need to click on the button to hide the message.
It will on occasion beep very loud when it thinks I am not braking hard enough. The map in the google android car navi rotates when i am just trying to pan. When I want to select an alternative route I need to very precisely touch a very small area on the screen, and more often than not instead of selecting the alternative route it will actually rotate the map.
It is clear to me that either the people designing car UIs are staying away from those cars, or are just incompetent. (Or, I guess, both).
For what it is worth, you can turn the pop-up to navigate to the closest fuel station off. In my XC90 MY16 it is called something “Suggest navigation on low fuel.” I will check it when back in the car.
I know my wiper fluid is low when I push the button to spray the wiper fluid and a less than normal amount comes out. Why does anyone need a light for that? How often do people use wiper fluid?
Whatever is happening in car industry, it is so unexciting, over-engineered, and too glossy. I'm so happy I don't have to work for people who prefer new car toy over paying me a decent salary.
Whenever you add a touchscreen to something it makes the UI/UX a software issue instead of a hardware issue. You can ship updates. You can cheap out on UI/UX designing because you can ship it later. So you find commonly used features buried 4 menus deep. You also find that the positions of things in menus will randomly change by OTA updates.
Touch screens are (IMHO) terrible for cars because there's no tactile feedback that allows you to use them without looking at the screen. Dials, buttons and switches can be felt and used. It goes beyond being lazy. It's unsafe.
The only reason we got trouch screens in cars at all is cost-cutting.
There is another thing that reduces the safety of car - it is sunroof.
In India, all top trims come with sunroof.
I believe, sunroof can not provide the safety that of one without sunroof.
More ever, it can absorb significantly more heat compared one without sunroof.
Too little too late. I was a long time advocate of German cars, owned a bunch of them but after this fuckery with touch screens everywhere I moved to other brands and I’m staying there for the foreseeable future. BMW, Mercedes and VW have really dropped the ball when it comes to usability. At least BMW has a decent OS that kinda makes the whole experience less dreadful than that of the other two.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 114 ms ] threadhttps://sim-lab.us/cdn/shop/files/mercedes-product-image.png...
European safety ratings also mandated buttons in 2024 (for this year) for certain functions:
* https://www.euroncap.com/press-media/euro-ncap-announces-202...
* https://etsc.eu/cars-will-need-buttons-not-just-touchscreens...
Many of these German car companies are following what sells well in Chinese markets, more and more screens. IMO, nothing beats the feeling and assurance of tactile buttons/toggles/knobs.
But doing on a niche car is such a waste of development resources (as all Ferraris are of course). Or maybe given this is going to be EV perhaps Ferrari is finally planning mass manufactured car, but I doubt.
I really struggle to understand what's so damned difficult about this. They've admitted touchscreens annoy the hell out of drivers and capacitive touch buttons are even worse. Is it really going to take yet another lifecycle before they actually do something about it?
They are not.
I would have imagined that car infotainment controls would be a small fraction of the BOM, so I've been wondering if it's not really a cost thing. Sort of like small phones or 3D TVs from the early 2000's.
1. Put them always in the same place. Especially the "back" or "exit" button!
2. Each button should do one thing, not switch between 3 or more modes that you should look to understand which one you've just activated. Negative example: one button to cycle from cuise control, to drive assist, to speed limit, and back to off.
3. The area where a tap is interpreted as a button press should not also be where a swipe is recognized. In moving vehicles it is too easy for your finger to swing just an inch before touching the screen.
4. The active area of a virtual button must be large, larger than the icon it displays, so large that you shouldn't be distracted from driving just to aim at it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Wv1btxCjVE
IMO luxury manufacturers like MB and BMW tried to squeeze larger screens, more of them and there was not enough space to put those screens, buttins and vents. Some luxuty brands make vents supper slim.
Removing indicator stalks without steer by wire was a mistake. They fixed that by bringing back the stalks.
Touch screen for great shifting works better than you think. It actually works better than traditional gear shifters especially when you enable auto shift. It changes gears as needed. It's ok to want to stick to the past; but don't drag others back who want to move towards the future.
I am a big believer in keeping "product people" away from UI design for dangerous machinery.
The eyes and the attention of the driver should be on the road. All the audio visual noise from the car is just plain dangerous. I don't want my car to draw my attention to itself for anything less than a critical engine/tyre pressure failures. I do not want beeps on anything else distracting me while I am driving.
My Volvo will, for instance, flash the same type of visual alert when fuel level is low (permanent "do you want to navigate to a fuel station" modal window obscuring navigation, speedometer and so on) -- as when it encounters a serious engine malfunction. It will steal a bit of my attention when it pops up. One of those days, someone will have an accident because of this moronic design, its statistically certain.
Same with wipers fluid level low. I need to click on the button to hide the message.
It will on occasion beep very loud when it thinks I am not braking hard enough. The map in the google android car navi rotates when i am just trying to pan. When I want to select an alternative route I need to very precisely touch a very small area on the screen, and more often than not instead of selecting the alternative route it will actually rotate the map.
It is clear to me that either the people designing car UIs are staying away from those cars, or are just incompetent. (Or, I guess, both).
Touch screens are (IMHO) terrible for cars because there's no tactile feedback that allows you to use them without looking at the screen. Dials, buttons and switches can be felt and used. It goes beyond being lazy. It's unsafe.
The only reason we got trouch screens in cars at all is cost-cutting.
They now resell a Chinese EV with a very Tesla model 3 inspired interior.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_6e#/media/File%3AMazda6e...
I didn’t find the original press release but you can find a lot of copies like the following article.
https://www.motoringresearch.com/car-news/mazda-getting-rid-...