It's about stateful UI.
physical layout of buttons is usually stateless - press button thing turns on, press it again it turns off.
You don't need to think in which menu you are, and where to press, while driving.
Tactile buttons are usually much harder to press by mistake. I'm glad my i30 only seems to require the touchscreen for CarPlay (a necessary evil), or settings which I'd generally only check when parked.
I think this is key. I'm perfectly happy to adjust the frequency/folume of the rear reverse sensors, or the date/time format, or whatever, via a touchscreen.
Stuff I use while driving though is a different thing completely, that's where physical buttons come in.
Fortunatly my Skoda meets this - temperature, volume, radio channel etc all on buttons.
Tiny field, not an obvious button, hard to hit while moving. Takes way too much time or effort. Meanwhile trying to do it in my wife's Mazda 3? Just press the big FM button, can't miss it, and can feel for it.
Repeat ad infinitum for other functions. The touchscreen is great for when I'm in the driveway and want to change settings but otherwise terrible for everything else.
Not to be pedantic, but that is a state. But I get what you mean: the button has a fixed place. Know your car well enough and you won't even need to look there to turn the thing off or on.
OP means that the screen has different modes that you traverse between, the car is still stateful.
But gotcha, this depends on your definition of "stateful UI"
> It's about stateful UI.
Yes it is about 'looking and pushing' the button.
And yes it's about stateful UI.
Both can be true at the same time.