Bring Back Our Knobs: Analog vs. Digital (2009)
popularmechanics.com
popularmechanics.com
And of course touch is way better than eyesight when you are supposed to be paying attention to the road. As someone else said, rough motor skills are safer and more appropriate in a car then controls needing fine motor skills.
Especially if you're one of the millions and millions of people who use different glasses for driving than you do for walking around.
NOBODY in my non-techie group of friends or family cares. Not.even.remotely.
I watch them struggle with their touch screens, I even listen to them rant, but when asked about it afterwards, it's fine. Just fine. Sexy. Sleek. Desirable. Why do I have to go and ruin everything?
Honestly, even HVAC - I watch my family with "Auto HVAC" constantly fiddle with it, as they scroll to some meaningless numbers - 18C, 21C, 24C, back to 20C, etc all in the same drive. Whereas my ancient Subaru knob stays in the same position through the drive, without needing to ever look at it. If it's on the right, hot air will blow; if it's on the left, cold air will blow. Whereas with Auto, you literally never know what you're going to get. It's not on conscious level - everybody thinks their Auto A/C it's awesome. Until you watch their actual sub-conscious behaviour on a drive.
I wonder if it's related
From a personal perspective, I'd rather set it and forget it. It's why when I rarely use the car AC, one button is all it takes and it adjusts to something between 70 and 73, which is about the same it would be at home. When it's cold, you know the heater will be turning on automatically and I don't have to worry about waiting for the car to warm up for heat to work - the auto AC knows when it's hot enough and blasts it full strength at the right time, instead of me having to fiddle with manual controls to get the right timing, for example. Ditto for hot weather - blasts cool air with the push of a button.
The beauty is that you can have both, and knobs and auto AC aren't mutually exclusive, although that's gonna be up to the manufacturer and their market research.
With manual control, I can immediately start or stop hot and cold air; with a climate system, I can merely propose some higher or lower temperature, and the system may or may not do what I want it to do. I temporarily drove a Buick that had such a system, and found myself constantly having to override what the 'intelligent' system thought I wanted.
I prefer manual control. If the vehicle is too cool, I can immediately halt the blower without having to change the desired temperature with the assumption that the 'intelligent' system will halt the blower for me.
I've come to the realization that many things are just better not being made 'intelligent', especially when it comes to cars.
The instant gratification of slamming an analog heater to full blast and knowing that hot air will immediately flow from the vents cannot be beat.
It’s not efficient, it’s not optimized, it’s not regulated to a steady state, but it what I want. And I’m the user.
These automatic systems are trying to, what, make the whole cabin achieve some set temperature? Who cares about the average cabin temperature? The airconditioner is pointed right at me. I care about the temperature of the air coming out of the vents and flowing over me. Assuming the back seat isn't populated, there's a whole volume of air back there being unnecessarily cooled..
HVAC's job is not to deal with radiation and sunray angles, nor to adjust for it, IMO. To that end, it's superb engineering.
My Tesla fails on this front. To fine tune it (which is quite necessary), I need to go through a layer of menus on the laggy touch screen and figure out which control I need to mess with to stay comfortable. This is dangerous.
Both in my 97 Town Car, and my 2011 Crown Vic, its set it and forget it, unless I'm running cold or hot that day.
Honest question: do you really see people touch the level of their ac during a drive?
Auto is actual temperature control. The system tries to stay at the set temperature. It’s a lot more comfortable that having cold air blasted in your face like we used to. I have never witnessed anyone changing it while driving, only flow control.
Honest answer, not fudged for sake of making a point - Yes. Absolutely. I don't know if hyper-expensive luxury vehicles do better, but I can vouch that my wife has been frequently changing in our 2012 Kia Sportage, 2016 RAV4, and now 2019 Honda Odyssey. I've observed others do so frequently in Toyota Corolla, Honda Civiv, Subaru Crosstrek, VW Golf & Jetta. Like Kerning or Norman doors, or a low battery in screenshot, once you notice it you can't help notice it ever forth.
So those are my observed facts - people fiddle with their auto A/C a lot.
Why? I have my theories, but that is something I'm less confident about and none of them may be correct or sufficient (I've tried asking people, but as mentioned, most have no idea they're actually doing it and it doesn't seem to be on conscious level; which is reasonable - my own adjustment has always been "automatic" until I started paying conscious attention):
- Perhaps it's just psychological. If I'm feeling cold, I don't trust the system and I turn it up. If I'm feeling warm, I want it colder faster. If it's -10C outside, I'll turn it up to 24C even though it may not get me warmer than if I just left it at 21C. Then it gets 24C and I'm hot. This may be just a case of humans using good system badly.
- I think however, is that system ignores some of the reality. The AIR temperature may be a steady 21C. But if the air is 21C in cabin on a dark cold night when it's -10C outside when the very windshield seems to suck the warmth out of my body, I probably actually want it warmer. If it's 21C air but noon July sun is blazing on me, I probably actually want ambient temperature colder. If I start a July trip heading south and Sun is blasting on me, I need A/C cooler; then I turn North-West and sun is behind me, and all this A/C is now chilling me too much. I think it's an error to think ambient temperature is all that our body cares to be comfortable - I think what we're wearing, how we're feeling, what the radiative environment is, etc, are all factors.
- Finally, it's that unpredictability and chasing. Heavily influenced by above, sometimes you're just comfortable, but A/C changes what it's doing because what it measures and what your lived reality is don't match, so you end up chasing each other.
Maybe 2021 Mercedes S class etc don't have that problem; maybe people have changed it and you never noticed, or maybe they genuinely haven't because your systems are better or people are using it smarter or they just care less or whatever other reason; but I have personally seen very few people set Automatic HVAC to a specific temperature and never touch it again.
My 100 Croatian Lipa :)
I want a car that has a dial for "hotter" or "colder" and that's it. I'll adjust it in response to my perceptions at any given moment. With a motion wired in to a couple seconds of muscle memory and not poking around layers of touch screen menus.
Some car manufacturers have figured out that some people don't want the fancy garbage. I bought a Nissan Kicks last year and it has every control as a simple manual knob or button; the touchscreen only controls audio features.
It helps you stay focused, when it's too warm or the air is stale people get sleepy.
I posted this elsewhere but feel it's relevant here too.
Part of it is that I often want a cool breeze regardless of the ambient temperature. I feel somehow more focused and relaxed with cool moving air, no idea why or how normal that is.
Air has more properties than temperature, that's the issue with auto AC.
If they use linear control that would actually help a bit.
What I would like is a range on the temperature. If it's between 17-21, don't bother wasting energy on getting it cooler or warmer.
My GF has the climate control in the car set to the max (28C) and regulates the temperature by turning it on or off.
Part of the reason she hates the auto setting is that if it's not blowing hotter air over her, she feels cold. And she hates feeling cold.
However leave the climate control on a higher setting and the car ends up uncomfortably hot.
For her, the ideal climate control would be one which regulated fan speed rather than air exhaust temperature.
That said, in our BMW i3 the temperature target is a physical knob, easily controlled while driving. So there's that.
While fumbling with some poorly designed UI, they don't appear to get as angry and exclaim, "This user interface sucks! My previous car had a button to turn the A/C on and off."
They just accept it. I could get philosophical (thanks for asking!), and I think that's a general problem with humanity. Too many are too accepting of just whatever comes along, and that's how we converge on terrible designs and terrible public policies and on and on.
-Sent from my Iphone SE
> since it makes almost all interaction better
Define "better".
Probably because constantly observing systems and thinking about how effective or efficient they are is way less effective and efficient than just using the system.
Then only difference is that in the old car I knew that when it was really cold and I reached a comfortable level, I turned the knob to about two notches left of center, in the red area. In every older car I ever had it was slightly different and I learned quickly where my preference was. That's just like the new car where, once my comfort level is reached, I set things back down to 74F and leave it there.
Do some cars not allow users to disable auto? Mine has a dedicated button to enabling/disabling it. Otherwise, I agree that red/blue seemed to be a little clearer, but it only took me a few days of cold weather to find the sweet spot, same as any car I've ever driven
HVAC aside, I agree on other issues. Touch screen audio controls are awful and much more distracting to adjust while driving. I have to be very care to pick my moment. I think if I was so inclined, I could set things up so that I could argue with Google Assistant to do some of this stuff.
That frustration is offset a bit by the fact that-- and this will amaze you-- a button will roll my windows up or down. Not some crank I have to turn. And another button on the "key" will unlock the door from like 30 feet away! But I have problems leaving my keys in the car because I no longer have to actually hold, turn, and remove a physical key to get out of my car.
Trade offs! Hopefully UX design will gently nudge use back to a better middle ground.
Once I’m near the correct temp, I just move the knob one click at a time.
For the seat heater, I reach down between the seats, feel for the switch, and push it. Never take my eyes off the road. I don’t want to be doing these things with touch screens, especially at night. Most of them are too bright anyway, they ruin night vision.
When I’m driving I use the buttons on the steering wheel to change volume, station etc, more complex stuff needs a touch screen (CarPlay and maps), that’s fine because of the buttons on the wheel.
My current car isn’t great - it has “lane assist” which turns itself back on every time you start, and is in a menu system to disable (albeit two physical buttons to press). rentals I’ve had recently just have a physical button near the gearstick which your turn off once and it stays off)
It’s a minefield buying a car and ensuring you get all the right features (a key, a spare wheel, physical buttons for controls)
Hi, have you found any small car (I am thinking Toyota Corolla/Camry Honda Civic/Accord sedans) that comes with a full size spare? I drive a 2007 Toyota Camry that I bought in 2019 for about USD 5k. I know Jeep Wrangler and bigger vehicles sometimes have a full size spare but I'm not particularly fond of driving.
People on YouTube joke and say Toyota Camry is the perfect car for people who don't like driving but I can't think of a better description that fits me.
Yep, but it hasn't been standard, and was a new feature for me in my new car. Believe it or not, so were the power windows.
>the keyless start nonsense offers no benefit.
The only thing it does for me is mean that it's now much easier to leave my keys in my car. I think this trend began when luxury cars started adding it as a high tech marketing point, and then it trickled down over time to most cars in cargo-cult fashion.
I'm not constantly fiddling with my home's thermostat, why would I be doing the same with my car's? I'm sorry all your cars have had such terrible AC systems.
I assume because at home I'm generally in constant shade and not as exposed to radiative elements. Whereas in the car, air temperature is only one factor. Outside sun, temperature of surfaces etc are additional significant factors
I've done the same in rentals but have always wondered if that helps. Shouldn't the car try to get the heat to 72 as fast as possible?
I suspect cars use linear control for heating and cooling, it's easy to implement and well understood. In that case it will not use max heat until it reaches the target and turning it to max could get you there faster.
It's actually really not a simple problem, look into control theory of you're interested.
Remember when you could answer your phone as you picked it up? Remember T9 input where you didn't need to look at the screen to type? Imagine a tactile solution on your onscreen keyboard but still being able to swipe... Imagine feeling where the 'answer' button was while you were picking it up and just clicking on it...
:sigh:
(Ironically, I was looking at the Nokia Classic series phones just last night)
Most of the rentals I've driven get it too, but they work differently than what you have at home, insomuch as they control fan speed and temp, they should haves unload temp sensor too.
Incidentally, I adjust my manual AC about as often as I do my automatic one.
Reminds me of Windows users.
But unlike a home, when a car is constantly changing direction, and speed, and sun is in your face or out of your face at times, perhaps you have heated seats that you've turned on, control based on a single temperature will always have difficulty making you feel comfortable. Better to control things directly.
There are no visible left/right click buttons on modern laptop touchpads. You get a sleek looking touchpad. Tap bottom left side harder to left click, right side to right click. There are still buttons beneath, but no, to designers eye they are somehow uglier than a flat broad spread out touchpad.
It reminds of the Norman Doors ("Design of Everything"). Designers made the doors in a mall so sleek and plain and 'beautiful', there were no handles or boundaries between doors. And people would get stuck trying to push the wrong side. So much for 'beautiful' design.
My reasoning (story time): I got hired to fix up a piece of custom-built software that was essentially the core business function for a series of medical clinics. They'd spent quite a bit of money to replace an older DOS system with a fancy new .net app. It was flashy, sleek looking, but also slow, buggy, and hard to use for the staff who did 99% of the work within it. Part of my analysis involved looking at the software they were using before the new .net app they paid for, which was something they'd kept alive probably a decade past its best before date by running old versions of Windows or running it on Dosbox.
The staff loved the ancient thing and hated the new modern thing because the new modern thing made everything about their jobs harder, despite being much easier on the eyes and displaying a lot more information on-screen. The old DOS app was built to be used keyboard-only, so it was much faster than using a mouse for 99% of data entry things, which was the bulk of what people were doing with the app. By contrast, the development house that built the .net app to replace it didn't seem to even know what tabindex was for. Literally you couldn't tab around any screen in the app in any kind of sensible workflow way.
It took a while to fix it up but the thing that always stuck with me about that job was just how much one particular front office staff member thanked me profusely because she could now use the keyboard for everything again. There was a valuable lesson in it for me about the pitfalls of shiny vs functional.
Software development is a smart job, but looking at some software makes you think who created it and what was in their mind. My pet peeve is frontend developers’ attitude to their enterprise users. “Okay, there is a table, so a user can click here on the add row button, then click at the select-item link, select an item (or click into the search input), click at the qty field and enter a number …”. Except that this user already enters thousands of rows per day and has no time for this clicking-around idiocy, they add rows by insert, they tab around fields, select-item is called automatically on empty cell focus, and they type right in the table of items to search it, which doesn’t work in web because tables cannot have focus. It has nice tr:hover effect though, cause why not. Useless animated bullshit with 0.1px typography and 2em margins.
And this mindset is everywhere, thinking that a mechanic who accounts for parts, or a doctor who fills in a condition details, or a store worker who runs between shelves, all have time for an hour-long chinese tea ceremony every time they turn to their computer.
That's why rapid iterations are better when developing a user-facing interface.
It's fairly limited, in terms of features and sound bank, but it's amazing at what it does.
Not a big fan of the organs, but the other stuff all has worked great for me. It's paid for itself several times over. My usual live keyboard setup is the SV-1 under an ASM hydrasynth.
You can get productive with them in minutes rather than in days.
Previous generations required either lots of menu diving (everything in the 90s) or had the pesky multifunction knobs (Microkorg).
I have a speaker bar and the touch volume controls drive me crazy to the point that I've decided I will never again buy a soundsystem without proper buttons or knobs for volume.
I recently bought a Hammond XK-5 organ. It has exactly the same control layout as the B3 which came out in 1955. Physical drawbars, dedicated on/off controls for percussion settings, a real knob to select which chorus/vibrato setting to use. The keys on the bottom octave are inverted black/white to select presents. It even has the separate switch for the leslie which gets tacked onto the front of the organ because Laurens Hammond didn't want leslie speakers used with his organs and wouldn't allow a built-in control so they had to do this as a hack. Totally unnecessary now, but still better than a button because you can swipe your hand quickly across it to change between fast/slow mode in a split second. It's just fantastic.
While you're playing, and want to adjust settings on the fly (a common thing in organ) you don't want to be going into menus to adjust things.
They made a few small affordances to cater for extra functionality like the fact that you can (optionally) program presets to include arbitrary settings; there's a menu system to customise, but you rarely need to touch it. The switches on the B3 (e.g. for percussion) are now buttons instead, since the on/off status is part of the preset and they use indicator lights for status. But this is a minor tradeoff and doesn't make a material difference IMHO.
Before I had the XK-5 I was using the B3 simulator in Logic and trying to adjust all the settings with the on-screen controls, and trying to play with a regular MIDI keyboard. It just wasn't pleasant at all, esp. trying to adjust drawbars with a mouse.
The Viscount Legend is another B3 clone that takes the same approach and from what I've seen looks just as good. Other clones have physical buttons too but don't follow the original layout and seem a bit more awkward.
Absolutely agree though, Hammond is an instrument all to itself, and if you're gonna truly play it you need the drawbars.
Also it had one of those infuriating pseudo-analog control wheels, where you can keep spinning and spinning the wheel with no effect once it reaches either end of its selection course (the ones where the selection wraps around is also bad, incidentally, probably worse really), thankfully it was for something of low importance (controlling the regime of the headlamps between off, DRL, standard, and automatic, which has an indicator on the dash).
No other controls, but very easy to use without looking.
Sure for a menu system control it makes complete sense. But the control I was talking about is completely specialised with a discrete number of steps, in that case having a wheel with proper stops is much more convenient.
Also I misremembered, the headlamp mode was a wheel but one with proper stops, it was the selector for the ventilation throughput which didn't have stops and would just spin forever. And the modern peugeot I've driven have that for the drive mode selector (e.g. eco / normal / sport / whatever).
They have these huge knobs that dont control anything important on the radio. The giant knob only lets you scroll through presets.
XM tuning is buried multiple screen taps in, then if you want to manually tune you have to tap up and down, through 100 channels.
We sold it back to the dealer less than a year later and got a new CR-V. I won’t say it was one of the most significant reasons but it certainly wasn’t _insignificant_.
Driving westward in the mornings, sunlight is reflected directly off my car's touch screen into my eyes.
Everything on the dash needs to be matte -- it's a safety issue.
soft buttons , soft logic controllers and touch UIs fail at all of the above
the result is a sluggish, frustrating and counterintuitive experience when engaging with the world around you .
we replaced our kitchen range with a new budget model. they replaced the analog oven settings with a keypad .
the old model could be activated in 1/2 second blindfolded by turning the knob. you could see the setting from across the room eg when heading out the door.
the new range requires 3 button presses and holding the temp control button for 45 seconds while the temp slowly seeks 5 degree increments.
what sadist designs these systems? they can’t possibly be using them in their own homes.
But I'm with you on it being stupid. I'm fine with the temperature control being digital (I've had issues with multiple non-digital ovens having too much inaccuracy in their temperature control), but there should be a knob to change the temperature.
Then the piece omits the two overwhelmingly important reasons: cost and reliability.
Knobs definitely are much better to use, but things with moving parts that stick out from the surface are not as reliable in population terms. Most people never have trouble, but that quintile that gives their stuff a hard time costs manufacturers a lot.
I sure appreciate tuning knobs on car audio systems but almost no one besides Toyota and Lexus offer them any more.
As the touch areas get wet or oily they start to act weird, and they're right next to the cooking surfaces so they always get wet and oily if you're actually cooking anything. You have to lock the touch controls after using it because even a single drip of water can make it think you're doing some kind of invalid input and it'll start beeping loudly in the middle of dinner. Sometimes if you don't lock it it will start beeping endlessly in the middle of the night. After lots of back and forth it doesn't seem that this particular unit is defective, just the product itself is badly designed.
I love cooking on it when it works properly–the induction technology is amazing, but I will absolutely never buy one with out real knobs.
at least I can turn it on over WiFi (I have no idea what the use case for that feature is).
However, the 2021 brought them back.
Try taking a Tacoma to a parts counter outside the US, or Hilux to one in the US, and you’ll just get blank stares.
Everything is more complicated than it used to be, more likely to break as a result, and requires specialized parts to fix. And if the manufacturer doesn't sell that part anymore, your stuck buying a new appliance. What a racket.
Plus that not all industrial designers can create great designs. Often times when I look at e.g. my Bosch electric cooktop I can only imagine its awful touch panel was an afterthought in the design process. It's so bad, awkward and hard to use, it makes me feel sorry for those who created this thing. And for all its users just as well.
Cost savings? I mean, you don't replace the car's steering wheel with a pair of buttons - like on the hilarious picture in the article - just to save on production costs.
The entertainment system, or a phone? Not safety critical, no need to provide real-time interaction. Cost dominates.
I would be really delighted to know if auto manufacturers in particular really have data on this, and what they count as a failure.
I've seen a lot more electronics failures than I have mechanical failures in cars and appliances, and the trend seems to stick with displays and knobs. For example, the first thing to break on my car was a display, which I still haven't fixed because it would be hundreds of dollars. I have an old truck with some broken knobs, but the posts they sat on still work, so they're still usable. If I did need to fix them I suspect it'd be a lot cheaper.
Color me skeptical that increasingly fancy touchscreen displays are going to have any staying power. This has always kind of smelled like it was simply based on a logical axiom that "less moving parts is better and more reliable" rather than practical reality in the late 2010s-2020s.
For example, most microwaves I've seen that use knobs tend to wear them down pretty fast. Mine has a pretty much analog timer and just cannot be set for anything less than 1 min since it will randomly stop somewhere in the 0-60s interval due to wear.
A relative's oven has a digital relative rotary encoder, but again due to wear it tends to skip some positions from time to time. Meaning you'll rotate 180 degs and some days that will mean 30min, some days it will mean 10min, and then some other days it means 2 seconds. It also uses the same knob to set the RTC, and with the knob in such state it is so much of a chore they have basically succumbed to the 12:00 phenomena.
I am a big fan of "knobs" (specially compared to capacitive buttons) but these days they are no longer reliable at all.
Whereas, number of people in my immediate friends & family who had to replace $2500 touchscreens... I mean, I'm astonished that given temperature variations and sun and elements, touchscreens survive AT ALL.
I love this question because of the easy answer: No! But that’s because it’s only a tiny part of using a smartphone and other things are more important.
The challenge for designers is generally to strike the right balance between immediate accessibility and findability of less common stuff. Adjusting the speaker volume is obviously a common action that should be possible quickly and blindly.
But if I want to change something uncommon I’d rather look through a well labeled menu hierarchy than wildly placed buttons and knobs.
Disney has tried.[1]
[1] https://www.discovermagazine.com/technology/the-future-of-ta...
If you're twisting a knob with two fingers and hit a bump, the anti-directional nature of the contact points on the knob cancels out the translation injected by a bump in the road.
The 2000's Impala showed that analog on the X axis and analog on the Z axis are very different, as it was virtually impossible to set the temperature accurately in an Impala if moving (still not the worst thing about that car, not even close).
This is why steering wheels are very effective input mechanisms. If you're jostling around, the wheel still doesn't rotate. Try driving one-handed on a bouncy road. I bet your hand goes to the top or bottom of the wheel intuitively.
I do appreciate when auto manufacturers who use touch screens put the screen near an edge or lip that I can use to stabilize by hand, but day to day controls should really have dedicated dials, knobs, and (at least) buttons.
If I set the volume to 0 the software pauses a recording so I can no longer skip unwanted parts without messing with fast-forward while driving. These smart knobs invite designers to mess with basic functionality that has worked for decades (play, pause, rewind, fast forward)
Occasionally, due to a bug, on cold winter mornings when I set the heating to max, I won't get warm air even after I've driven for a while and the engine is already hot. I then have to move the knob to cold and hot again for the software to register and finally give me some warmth.
I'd like chickenhead knobs that are connected to the functionality as direct as possible, please!
I still think about my 2000 VW Jetta. It had the most satisfying buttons and knobs. I still think about the substantial feed and knock of the button. Click seems like the wrong word to describe it. Compare the Audi A4 of the same vintage which has tinny clicky buttons that I hate.
As a Jew, this amuses me greatly. :) That day you learned about one of our greatest loopholes. BTW fun fact, it doesn't count as work if you get a non-Jew to do it for you (or in this case, a computer).
Physical knobs and buttons (preferably with universal indicators of current state) for mic mute/unmute, camera on/off, volume.
Laptops can have either built in or a usb/wireless accessory.
Mobiles also need physical buttons if not knobs.
Edit to add:
A raspberry pi zero or less and commodity buttons / dials in a well designed case should easily work for this. I know some streamdeck projects exist but not sure if they specifically aim for knobs and other tactile UX. Any projects in this space we can get behind or emulate?
My monitor ($750 few years ago) has only 3 levels of brightness effectively, because to change it you have to go through a hierarchical menu of around 10 clicks of different buttons, and then wait for a stupid bar to go to the desired value. I had to create 3 presets to at least switch day/evening/night modes with only 3-4 clicks.
Star Trek TNG was wrong about the desirability of flat screen interfaces but right about audible feedback.
But come on, the most intuitive control interface is not digital, haptic or analog, they all interfere badly while you're driving. The most intuitive with the least interference is your voices. Somehow all of the recent cars being reviewed has hit-and-miss for their voice recognition accuracy. If we as human race cannot even get the basic voice recognition right, how can we expect level 5 fully autonomous driving that being touted to arrive sooner rather than later?
> I wonder if Apple iPhone will meet with the same success, as its touchscreen offers no tactile feedback. Will people get tired of having to look down every time they dial a number?
But the smartphone does so many other things, I put up with it.
That doesn't mean to say i wouldn't greatly welcome a smartphone with a dial on the edge, or a touchscreen with tactile feedback. But due to lack of imagination of designers, technical impossibility, or economic cost (i don't know which...) there's no such thing on the market.
Don’t get me started on text selection on iThings.
I could text while shifting but it wasn’t till touchscreens that everyone decided laws needed to be passed.
I miss k9. There were somehow fewer typos.
T9? Or was there a K9 as well?
Actually very useful when looking at a phone number, and a great deal faster
It's the same justification for keeping radio and climate controls, as well as needed safety buttons like hazard lights, as physically actuated. It is much easier and safer than having to look at an ever-changing panel.
Imagine if your climate control knobs moved around your center console by several inches every time you used them. Was that fan control, or temperature?
I can almost blind type on a touch screen with both thumbs, too. However, it’s no where near as good as I was with hard buttons and Motorola’s particular dialect of T9. Towards the end, Motorola tried to get clever and start reordering the words based on MRU and it played havoc with my muscle memory.
I can still dial on an analog button phone faster than I can look up and dial a person on my iPhone, and I haven't done the former in 20-some years. Muscle memory is quite powerful.
Walk around the city with phone in pocket. Need to call one of them: pick phone from pocket (without looking), thumb-flick the screen open (without looking), thumb-press the person's speed dial number (without looking), done.
or
Walk around the city with phone in pocket. Phone vibrates. pick phone from pocket (without looking), glance at front screen for 1/3 sec to see who it was. If wanted to take the call, thumb-flick the screen open (without looking) while raising phone to ear (without looking), done. If not, toss phone back in pocket.
There was also the cost-of-phone factor. The thing was so cheap, I treated it like there was an old crumpled piece of paper in my pocket, never worried if it would get scratched or if the screen would crack. The constant worry when my smarphone falls on the floor sucks. I never had a better phone experience than with my flip-phone. Sadly, recently Whatsapp became so ubiquitous here, that people stopped calling and only texted, and eventually I had to upgrade.
I'm thinking of music keyboard workstations and stage keyboards. The products from Nord have swept the stage keyboard market because of their one-knob-per-function design, allowing for quick mid-song adjustments with no menu diving.
People greatly favor knob-per-function and minimal menu diving. Having some kind of screen and minimal menus for rarely used features is fine, too, but anything that’s about playability and something you want to tweak in real time needs a knob or slider interface.
Yeah, not all of them but compare a DX7 to a Montage 7.
The DX has 2 sliders and 2 wheels, and a bunch of membrane buttons.
The Montage has 2 wheels and something like 10 sliders and knobs, ignoring the general-purpose knob and selector wheel next to the display, plus a ton of specialised physical buttons.
Look at musical instruments, particularly synthesizers.
This world went from menu-diving and screens to a full-blown knobfest (for digitally-controlled equipment, mind you).
Specifically, no gear has ever not had the volume knob/slider; but now, there's a knob for everything else.
Also go figure, my $200 Sonicware digital synth made in 2021 can have 15 reliable, precise knobs that will last decades, as well as analog and digital I/O on the front panel, but my $20,000 car can't have either because of cost savings/reliability? Please.
And my Fostex 4-track recorder from 1995 has 24 knobs and 5 sliders, perfectly functioning, and if you think that musicians are gentle on their gear, you haven't seen many musicians.
Knobs and sliders on my Korg, Casio, and Yamaha digital synths from the mid-1980s work well too, never a problem with them.
Let's not pretend that lack of knobs is anything but a UX/aesthetics choice — and for cars, a particularly awful one.
But I agree that I think it's probably largely a UX/aesthetics choice. Low cost touch screens are usually pretty terrible at handling varying climate conditions, especially compared to some decent knobs/encoders. I'm hoping once the manufacturers are done broadcasting how "modern" their interfaces are, that they'll start adding knobs back in for the common operations (volume, climate control, etc)
I also wonder if the fear stemmed from back when knobs and buttons required extra wiring instead of using buses like most cars do now.
Yeah, you wish. Have you ever been to a music studio, or a live show? You'd be lucky if nobody spills beer on your gear :)
Dust, gunk, smoke, humidity, and temperature are usually way worse than in the interior of a car.
Not to mention, I've never had an issue with knobs in any of my cars (particularly, the 2000 Honda Civic that I drove until 2017, or the 2010 Honda Fit that I'm driving now, or my partner's Toyota's from the same years).
Knobs breaking down is a hypothetical problem. The knobs are fine.
>I also wonder if the fear stemmed from back when knobs and buttons required extra wiring instead of using buses like most cars do now.
The fear comes from the need to sell "modern"-looking interfaces. If the new car looks like the old one, why buy it? Yet another good UX killed in the name of marketing.
Again, synthesizers went through the same cycle: knobs -> buttons and menus -> touch screens -> KNOBS. There was never a good reason to not have any knobs, especially on high-end gear. It was all about style.
Haha touche. You're right, the amount of alcohol I've seen in my friends' synths when performing is uh not the way I treat my keyboards or synths that stay home lol.
> The fear comes from the need to sell "modern"-looking interfaces. If the new car looks like the old one, why buy it?
Agreed. I hope they snap out of their collective delusion sooner rather than later. In the meantime, I wonder if you can make your own knobby panel that interfaces with Android Auto to paper over the crappy UX of flat surfaces.
> Pictures Under Glass sacrifice all the tactile richness of working with our hands, offering instead a hokey visual facade.
Even for professional commercial pilots there are numerous aircraft accidents which can be attributed to "alternate law" (different control-system response modes) engaging or disengaging at different times, often without clearly notifying flight crew of this fact. And this is an issue for operators trained and licensed to specific aircraft, instrumentation, and variants. Air France 447 is a classic example of this.
The case for automobile operators, many of whom receive cursory training at best early in their driving careers and carry this forward for decades, often operating novel or unfamiliar vehicles (rentals, borrowed from a friend, acting as a relief driver during a long trip) is simply a recipe for disaster.
Control functions should not change after designation, with the possible exception of auxiliary controls not critical to overall vehicle performance or function, or those which are accessed and used only when the vehicle is not in motion (e.g., diagnostics or repair information / interfaces).
Stereo: well-weighted analog knobs that are responsive.
Computer: mechanical keyboard.
Car: Manual Transmission.
Tesla does have good digital inputs, but very little about the car is analog, so I think I'm being consistent.
TLDR; They are removing touchscreens and design the cars to be driven without having to take your eyes off the road
Edit: See also ndarilek's explanation of how his mobility-impaired girlfriend benefits from Alexa: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20344613
On the dash, a volume knob w/on-off button in the center and tuning knob
On the steering wheel, digital control buttons (L/R=tuning Up/Dn=volume)
On the Screen, touch controls
But that is all - the climate controls are all the damn flat, blend-it-all-in mini buttons or the touchscreen, so if the windscreen suddenly fogs up it's a few hazardous seconds while you have to keep looking back&forth at the controls and through fogged windscreen to find the [defrost] button.
And yes, I use the knobs probably over half the time. The steering wheel controls are also nice because they can also be used by touch without looking. Probably used the touchscreen controls a couple times while stopped, mostly as a novelty.
Gawd I wish designers would prioritize actual use over how good they think it'll look in some glossy brochure. and, frankly, at this point, I'd rather toss them all and have an ugly knob in a good spot I can use by feel (HINT: I'm NOT looking at it!!), than any flattened wall of pretty backlit buttons. I'm not lounging in a living room, idly caressing your damn panel, I'm driving a two-ton machine at speed.
Things like pill bottles have large diameter caps for people with dexterity problems. That same person may not be able to press a small flat "button" due to hand-eye co-ordination problems. Or they may not even be able to feel the surface with their fingertips.
For myself I hate having to go tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap on a digital button when a quick twist of a knob does the same. At least have a slider digital control rather than discrete taps. Imagine instead of a doorknob to open a door you had to tap an electronic button 12 times.
On a related note, if you have problems opening prescription bottles, let your pharmacist know. If the cap is put on upside down, it's much easier to open. It's no longer child-resistant, but there's a wide gripping area, and the cap top is threaded to screw into the inside of the bottle.
A lot of people don't know this.
Also, if you take a liquid medicine, every pharmacy I've visited can add flavoring to it for free, right there in the store. Things like grape or lime or bubblegum. It's supposed to help children take their medicine, but there's no reason life has to be artificially hard for adults.