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Comment by hnick | Hacker News Reader

Compounding this on a touchscreen is slippage. Cars can be bumpy. If you slip and hit the wrong control it can take an unacceptably large amount of concentration (given what you are meant to be actually concentrating on when driving) to work out where you are now, how to get back to where you are, and try to do the original thing again. A few seconds of confusion and distraction is more than enough to kill.

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.

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Especially this. I had too many times where the road was bumpy and I needed to press a button on the infotainment system. You need to rest your thumb off screen first in order to be able to press the correct button on the touchscreen. It's an unsafe way to control the car.

Funny. I usually rest all my other fingers offscreen to press with my thumb as that feels like it gives me the most stable tap.

Indeed, a big beef for me is trying to get to a "Input Source" menu in my Honda. I just want to change from Bluetooth (Spotify to FM radio).

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.

Worth mentioning Mazda has an interesting approach where they have the screen but it's controlled by a dial instead of touch. Never tried it myself, it has both fans and detractors. It would keep the screen clean of fingerprints at least.

My 2005 Honda Accord gets this right (big, obvious buttons). Definitely not looking forward to finding a car whose UX doesn't suck when this one finally kicks the bucket.

> 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.

Not all buttons are created equal. I have an admittedly older 2016 ford galaxy. The physical buttons are mostly all low profile smooth and flat buttons with thin gaps between them. There is very little tactile feedback to indicate where you are when 5 buttons are all next to each other. The cruise control and temperature control are particularly bad. I've been trying to remind myself to put some little bumps of silicon on each button so I can map them without looking.

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