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Comment by warent | Hacker News Reader

> Screens are great ways to show information, but a terrible way to take input. No tactile feedback, stateful placement of buttons

I never understand this. Unless the interface has like, no more than 2 buttons on it, I'm no better at using buttons than a touch screen. Are people regularly interfacing with complex analogue button systems without even glancing at them?

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You must be young enough that you never messaged your friends discretely in your pocket using the low latency deterministic haptic interface of a good old Nokia.

Also, there was a case locally not too long ago where a victim of a bloody knife attack almost bled out trying to unlock their phone and dial 911 with bloody fingers.

> Also, there was a case locally not too long ago where a victim of a bloody knife attack almost bled out trying to unlock their phone and dial 911 with bloody fingers.

Can't find what you're looking for on Google, but Apple has been trying to fix this by allowing you to press the lock button 5 times to bring up emergency SOS. There's also an 'emergency' button on the passcode screen.

I appreciate their efforts but that requires:

The distressed person to know about the workaround.

The distressed person to remember the workaround.

The home button or whatever fancy biometric unlocking to work with a bloody finger or face.

The emergency button on the touchscreen to recognise the bloody finger keypress attempts.

> The home button or whatever fancy biometric unlocking to work with a bloody finger or face.

I think emergency calls work on most phones without unlocking. My android phone is locked with a pin and that input screen has the option to make an emergency call.

yes! do you not touch type? have you used a game controller?

at least some tesla UI requires touchscreen interface for things such as wiper control [1]. normally this is a lever and tactile knob, with zero distraction potential and no learning curve beyond where to put your hand.

personally, i've memorized the stereo controls of every car i've driven more than a few times.

1. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53666222

The alternative for adjusting the wipers is to either press once, leave it on 'auto' (it seems to work well enough for me, but talk from last year suggested it didn't work well), or use voice commands like 'wipers up', 'wipers down', 'wipers max/min/1/2/3/4'.

> do you not touch type

I do and it is strictly inferior to keyboard.

"Touch typing" means typing on a physical keyboard without looking at it. Different to typing on a touch screen.

My instinct is that glancing at an analogue button is much quicker than looking at a touch screen. I can briefly glance to get a rough position of a tactile control, then look back to the road as I reach out. I'll then rely on touch to get the precise location. With a touch screen I need to continue looking at the control until my finger is in the correct position.

I'm blind and my life is all about not glancing at buttons that lack braille prints on them as well. I fear the moment when I'll need to turn on the missing accessibility service on a car's OS in order to open the window.

Back in old days, I could send text messages with phone in my pocket. In my car, I can control all analog knobs without taking my eyes off the road but still need to look at touchscreen for a few interactions.

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