A better example is fuel level. Using numbers would be distracting and imply more accuracy then is probably available.
> "The entire infotainment system is a HTML 5 super computer," Milton said. "That's the standard language for computer programmers around the world, so using it let's us build our own chips. And HTML 5 is very secure. Every component is linked on the data network, all speaking the same language. It's not a bunch of separate systems that somehow still manage to communicate."
https://www.truckinginfo.com/330475/whats-behind-the-grille-...
(It's amusing to think that the JS engine would probably be V8.)
No, I don't find the speedometer with a needle vaguely pointing somewhere easier/faster to read than a simple readout that says 40mph or whatever my speed is. No, I don't find the fuel gauge easier/faster to read, just give me that in percentage numbers.
Of course, I know why meters are the go-to in car dashboard indicators: Cars hail from an era when we didn't have an easy way of dynamically printing numbers on a slab of metal or plastic yet.
But we're in the 21st century. LCD screens are everywhere around us. Just give me the fucking numbers, I can read them faster than I can discern your arbitrary needles and scratch lines.
And just so I'm clear in my consistency: I also hate gauges and pie charts for HDD/SSD space usage, CPU usage, RAM usage, and so on. If it can be expressed in numbers, give me the numbers. I can read them faster than I can discern arbitrary squiggles screaming across other arbitrary squiggles.
Gauges and meters are strictly for when displaying dynamic numbers is impractical or impossible.
But, you can opt to use numbers and tax yourself for the sake of accuracy and precision, if that's your cup of tea, of course.
I don't care about research, because: I. Can't. Read. Meters. While. Driving.
Give me numbers. I can read them faster, we can all be safer. Fin.
When I look at them, I have an idea of my speed within +/- 3KM/h and rev. within +/- 200 RPM. No read, just glance. I let my brain process.
I don't read my car's dials either. Temperature gauge even has no numbers, but three sections: Too cold, normal, too hot. The same dial even has some large, smart hysteresis programmed into it. If the engine doesn't move out of its tolerance, it always shows the middle, meaning "it's alright".
Same for speed, rev and fuel. I just look at the needle's position. Fuel is also esp. problematic because the best you can get is a guess. Unless you "guess and dampen", it'll just move/change all the time.
It takes more brain cycles, for me, to look and confirm where the needles are pointing than it does to read a number.
I'm driving a car, I can't afford to look down for more than a split second. I can read numbers with a split second glance. I can't read shit glancing at a needle for a split second.
You're not supposed to read them precisely, but pattern match it, and it takes less than a split second for most of us.
You might have an atypical brain, and I respect that, but most people's brain work that way.
This is why dashboards do not have "sea of green lights", but things light up when things go wrong, because it breaks the pattern and gets your attention.
Your brain is much more capable than you think. It can do much more things without you notice. Like you have a peripheral vision close to 180 degrees, and even if it's blurry, your brain processes that space for (pattern) anomalies, without you noticing.
I understand that this is not helpful for things like vehicle speed but OP's point still applies.
[0] https://www.motortrend.com/news/hot-rodding-basics-why-do-so...
I think you've started off great with your comment about respect but rewording some of the sentences after that to clarify that you're talking about neurotypical brains might be better.
Isn't that implied in most contexts? If I'm talking about legs' role in running, I don't need to clarify that I'm talking about normal legs, and not legs that are suffering from impairments/disabilities.
I'll not edit that comment to keep your comment and the context intact, but keep that in mind.
Thanks.
If the (presumably adult, competent) person being replied to takes offense, they are perfectly capable of suggesting different phrasing.
The beauty of multiple sub-comments is that a 3rd party can put in a side note and allow the original parties to listen or ignore as they feel fit.
It is also easier to just see "fuel red", "temperature normal" than 12.5L or 89.5C.
Numbers can be red, green, or whatever color is needed. And then it's immediately better scannable than gauge because you just see a color without need to discern a needle position towards an always present colored block.
I can get in a car with a traditional tac and know a lot at a glance, A digital gauge conveys none of this information.
It's extremely quick, easy, and intuitive to see an analog tachometer climbing quickly and time a shift properly.
If there's anywhere where a precise value would matter, I would have to imagine it would be F1. They are certainly not sticking with analog gauges because "tradition" or "cost". And even if it were only better given an adjustment period or additional training, they would simply have made the switch and the drivers would have adapted.
Yet, while there are several variations, every team to my knowledge uses a series of lights which are even _less_ precise than the analog gauges most of us have in our car.
As my colour-blind friend likes to joke "I'm fine when driving, I know that the green light is the one at the top".
If you're not color-blind, that is.
Contrast reading a number: I read the number. Done. One step. Quick and easy.
Reading meters is not and never has been fast for me. Even scanning a bunch of meters is hard compared to just scanning a collection of numbers, because I can't tell WTF the meters are saying by just glancing at them.
I attribute this to my growing up absolutely surrounded by numbers everywhere I went, in stark contrast to older people who grew up absolutely surrounded by meters everywhere they went. My brain is simply not wired up to read meters.
I'm a 21st century man, I read numbers faster and easier. Give me the god damn numbers, thank you; we have the technology now.
If you really have to "devote some attention" to reading a fuel or temperature gauge, every time, I would avoid driving all together because so much of safe driving depends on scanning and peripheral vision.
And I struggle to see how you can't read a gauge which resembles real world as close as possible, you might as well argue that you can't see how much a glass is full or roughly how much ink is left in a pen without a digital indicator.
I can read them, eventually given sufficient time. In the context of driving a car, though? I want and need to devote as much of my time to driving the car, not figuring out what the car is telling me.
When I read a meter, I first need to see where the needle is pointing; that's one step. Then I need to read the start and end of the meter's range or the closest delimiters to the needle on either sides; that's another step. Then I need to mentally calculate the proportional percentage the needle is showing between those two numbers; that's another step. Then I need to convert that proportional percentage to a number between the delimiters (or ends of the meter range) that I read earlier; this is another step.
At this point I can finally read what the hell that bloody meter is telling me.
Compare this to a number: I look at the number and I read it. Fin.
The difference in time and attention spent is enormous.
Whenever I'm driving with just a speedometer, I can't maintain a constant speed because I can't read the meter properly while driving. Whenever I'm driving with a numerical speed readout, I can maintain a constant speed because reading a number is next to no effort.
Give me numbers. Please. If you insist on meters, give me the number over or somewhere near it. Just give me the bloody numbers so I don't have to spend so much god damn time and attention that I do not have. Meters are a safety hazard on par with touchscreen controls.
I also agree with most men of culture that analog clock faces absolutely look better than digital.
But with that said, if I had to choose strictly on the basis of practicality: I would choose digital clock faces. They're quicker and easier to read, and they're always more precise.
What kind of meters are we talking? Aside from the speedometer what gauges do you need to see exact values of? The temperature gauge roughly stays the same after warming up, and has a red alert level. The RPM gauge has a red alert level and you typically don’t “maintain” a steady level.
Modern cars (well, I never drive any with a digital display, only analog gauges) have labels indicating the typical speed limits in the region the car was sold in, no? You should not have to convert or calculate anything. You quickly learn where “40”, “100” etc. are on the meter and you see at a glance where the needle is.
Do you change cars often, or need to maintain unconventional speeds?
Or are new cars just bad or very complicated? (Mine is a 2002 Toyota) I don’t understand what numbers are missing.
For fuel, meh. Just need to know if it is close to the bottom or not and if the light is on.
For example, I agree that I'd rather have a precise number for HDD space usage indicator. But imagine you have 20 of these on the same screen, and they are not sorted by size for whatever reason. It is not trivial to find min/max/normal, if you don't help the user by providing some simple visual aid, like a gauge, a bar or color-coding.
I'm using 20 indicators as an example, because it's more obvious this way, but in reality your vision doesn't work differently if there's only 1 indicator, you just don't understand that, because you still can read "20%" quickly enough, so you think it takes you the same time to process "20%", as it would take to read a gauge (also, you don't care that much how quickly you can read a speedometer, because you kinda already know if you are driving fast or not). But it's not technically true, a gauge really does drive more attention, than a low/high number.
(Also, imagine that value oscillates between 68 & 73 — 5 times in a second. You wouldn't care on a gauge, but good luck reading that on a number screen.)
So, in most cases when I need to see something really quickly, I would prefer a gauge, supplemented by a precise number.
A strictly numeric display requires that the user know the significance of the current value.
The best case scenario, I believe, is use of both methods.
My Subaru has a numeric speed display in the middle of the speed gauge. I love it. The numeric display quickly gives me my exact speed, while the gauge display helps me better understand how my speed is changing - something that isn’t always as obvious from visual and physical feedback as you might expect.
I do like gauges for proportions - I have a pie chart for my RAM usage on the device I am typing this on.
Now of course if the speed limit was indicated as an angle on a circle, perhaps that would be different, but thankfully no one as that insane...
There are arguments for numbers and meters, and sometimes there's one that's probably better for the general population (like numbers for speed or meters for fuel), and in that case this "better" option should of course be the default, but still be changeable.
This way, everyone can be happy, including those who don't really care and want someone else to choose, and those with strong preferences too.
Of course, with a car this is much easier, because most people would set it up once and then use it for a long while, while web pages are a different thing, you interact with many different ones from different devices, in different contexts, with or without a login, ...
There’s a vision of a future passed.
The goal is never to tell "here's how much stuff there is" but "here's where you are relative to some key reference points".
Having 120 Gb of used space is useful, but it doesn't tell the whole story. 120 of 130 is different from 120 of 1200.
Colors' ability to convey this is limited: does the red 120 means you at 80% or 98%? Hard to tell even with gradual coloring.
Gauges in cars are even more essential since the ability to process information should be directed at not hitting people on the road.
And if you're not convinced, try to drive a car that you never driven before but only using numerical data (without gauges) and you'll experience the real struggle.
And no, fuel level can't be described in digital way just like battery level can't be described in percents. You can have it in battery voltage and the float voltage level - would be that of any of use for you?
1. safe speed 2. legal speed limit 3. time to destination
I am not particularly worried about change for any of these.
Both ambient temperature and air pressure (well, they're technically both the same, but a 20 degrees Celsius day at sea level is different to a 20 degrees Celsius day at 900m ASL, hence I kept them separate, and likewise, direct sunlight etc.) affect the density of liquid fuels. Your fuel gauge will read lower when it's -10 degrees Celsius than when it's 35 degrees Celsius, even though you still have the same amount of fuel. (In my country, petrol bowsers are allowed an error margin of 0.5% of delivered volume to allow for differences caused by ambient conditions) so if you can fill your car's tank when it's below freezing, you'll get a little more fuel than you would on a hot day - in places with extremes of climate, they tend to incorporate temperature compensators to avoid giving away too much free fuel :D
Also, fuel tanks are rarely a basic cuboid, so volume change is often non-linear due to shape / angles of faces etc.
Fuel levels can be measured a lot more sensitively, as you'll find in aircraft, but even then they measure consumed fuel as a primary indicator with fuel gauges secondary.
I think what even if you never drive yourself you heard the stories how people managed to drive somewhere 'on a completely dry tank'. Tank wasn't dry it just not feasible to invest anything to show an accurate (<5%) reading.
One area (other than jets, as a sibling comment mentioned) where the careful blend of meters and numbers has been used to great effect is on military submarines. I’ve stood watch as a nuclear reactor operator on both ancient tech with full analog gauges, as well as full digital, LCDs only, with a blend of data presentation. I can tell you with absolute certainty that having metrics in graph form is far easier to instantly grasp with a quick scan across panels. At the same time, the values are displayed next to it should you need or want that info.
But for steady-state info? All pointers in the green area means everything is copacetic.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/Renault_...
The main problem was its slow refresh rate. I don't know if it was deliberate or not, as I guess fast changing numbers could be a problem too. The problem is that I could see my speed, but not the acceleration. With a needle, I see it going up or down, and how fast it is doing so, not with a number that refreshes every second or two. Very annoying when you want to control your speed precisely (no cruise control on the Twingo).
And the fuel gauge (with the the combined clock/trip/odometer, the only other thing on the dashboard) mimicked an analog gauge. The very first model had something like a row of 10 dots, that progressively turn off as the tank empties. Which was fine. Newer models had the same kind of gauge, but with fine graduations, but in reality, it only moved by big chunks, so same thing as the dots, except it hinted for more precision than it really had, which for me, is a negative.
I actually prefer a combination with a slower refresh rate on the numeric display (or at least less sensitivity to small changes). The gauge can help with the vague sense of how fast you're going while you're looking at the road and the number can help you calibrate when glancing right at it.
This does not argue against numbers being better if you are looking directly at them. I think I agree there, though I do not have any data to confirm it.
You didn't have this shit on old cars with the analog meters.
Car: You are driving with your windows down. Turn on the AC to save fuel.
No. Just no.
It was a loaner from the dealership. Going from a manual to an automatic was hard enough without that stop/start garbage, then it added fuel saving tips. It's an automatic and it was turned off half of the drive, what do you want from me?