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0 pointsm4636d ago0 comments

I think they should distinguish between controls and settings.

Settings are great on a touchscreen. A wide variety of options, easily navigated to and explained. They suck on physical buttons, it ends up being like setting the time on a VCR.

Controls on the other hand deserve physical buttons. Or levers. or dials/knobs/spinners. It should depend on muscle memory, and the type of control.

I also thing driving status should be on a dashboard in front of you, not on the central display. (looking at you tesla)

And some should be multiple places. It might be nice to set your volume with a physical knob, but also on the steering wheel.

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sgustard6d ago

I used to drive a 2001 S-class ... easily counted nearly 100 physical buttons within reach of the driver. In theory you could use the 10-digit keypad like an old flip phone to enter a physical address into the navigation, but is that really what people want to go back to?

m463OP6d ago

I missed navigation.

I think it is a natural fit for the touchscreen. Tesla navigation is not perfect, but it is very good. You can pan/zoom the map with swipes which is LOTS better than buttons. You can also search for an address in specific or general terms and are not forced into some highly structured address format.

For example a ford I used had this weird out-of-order way of "enter street number" or "enter zipcode" and "enter street name" with a weird type-ahead/completion that was just... bad.

With tesla, you have a search field. You can type "123 main street, anytown" to find a specific address, or "home depot anytown". But you can just type "home depot" and choose from the list which puts recent on top, then closest to furthest. They also show up as pins all over the map and you can just choose one.

I guess you could also use voice nav. I kind of hate voice nav that is uploaded to the cloud (and they lie) I have an offline garmin car gps that lets me talk to it.

dlcarrier5d ago

Was that the system that required you enter the address backward? Like you couldn't navigate to 123 Alder Street, Springfield, East Virgina, but instead, you had to enter East Virginia, then Springfield, then Alder Street, then 123?

I had a family member who loved Mercedes cars, but I couldn't stand them and am pretty sure that all of their user interface ideas were tested with focus groups to make sure they only went with the worst ideas possible.

CrimsonRain6d ago

Some people just want a faster horse :)

andrewaylett6d ago

I have a pre-facelift MB A-class, and I think it's the best car I've driven for controls. You don't have to touch the screen ever if you don't want to: there's a trackpad on the centre console that just works even (most of the time) with Android Auto (and the back/home/map/media/phone buttons will still save you even if Android Auto won't always let you move the cursor to the back arrow in YouTube Music). The steering wheel has two touch-sensitive buttons, one for each screen (duplicating the trackpad, which itself duplicates the media touchscreen). I can't even easily reach either screen when driving, so I don't.

Driving controls are all available on the stalks and wheel, volume is adjustable from the wheel or the centre console, all physical buttons, levers, or scroll inputs, unless you need to change a setting using the trackpad. The only thing that's missing is wheel control for skipping tracks :P.

yourusername6d ago

And then in the facelift they replaced the buttons on the steering wheel with touch sensitive ones and just removed the touch pad and replaced it with nothing. It's still useable and nice, but worse than the older model and there was no need to change anything.

throwawayk7h6d ago

this is an incomplete picture though. Would Google Maps be considered a control or setting?

lurking_swe6d ago

both. the map has many detailed settings which you might change once in a while.

there are also certain things you’d want to change (or activate) often - we could argue those are controls. Like muting, changing volume, or finding a nearby gas station.

andrewaylett5d ago

You probably don't want to be setting up Maps on either a touch screen or a with keys while driving. But navigation and media selection are the two functions I'm generally happy to interact with via voice.

pcurve6d ago

love that distinction.

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