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Comment by Dalewyn | Hacker News Reader

I actually detest meters in cars and wish they would all be abolished in favor of number displays.

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.

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You know, all this gauge research is validated by plane cockpit design research for optimized and low (mental) overhead situational awareness, and your brain is inherently faster at these tasks, getting all the information you need without you noticing.

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 tire of repeating myself in this thread, but: I can't read meters, at least not with the time and attention I can afford to spare while driving a car.

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.

You don't need to read them, look at their relative positions on their dial and have an idea. This is how they work.

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.

Let me put it this way:

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.

Let me put it this way:

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.

My thought here is that if someone is clearly expressing that their brain processes stuff differently to what you feel is normal then it's best to avoid using phrases like, "Your brain is".

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.

>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.

It is implied in most contexts, but not in one where the person is responding to a person who has expressed that they have an atypical condition. It can also come off as invalidating a person's lived condition/experience which is a bit rude.

They didn't claim that originally, they said it was just a historical accident because we didn't originally have the technology.

As a non-native English speaker, it's not my intention to be disrespectful or rude, or anything on the same line.

I'll not edit that comment to keep your comment and the context intact, but keep that in mind.

Thanks.

I find third-party language policing to be a barrier to effective communication.

If the (presumably adult, competent) person being replied to takes offense, they are perfectly capable of suggesting different phrasing.

That's really interesting. I observe miscommunication all the time and often feel it's great people just not quite clicking with how they express things.

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.

As someone who is neuroatypical, pattern matching is kinda what human brains are evolved for. I can't think of any type of condition where you can function effectively yet not pattern match. Hell, we have plenty of disorders and conditions and diseases where there's too much pattern matching going on.

Turned or "clocked" gauges [0] are used to further reduce cognitive load by turning the gauges so that the needle aligns to closely to a horizontal or vertical line when operating in normal conditions. If you notice that your gauges are not pointing "straight up" then you can take a second pass and actually read the indicated number on the gauge.

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 never heard that before, fascinating. Thanks.

While reading individual metrics might be easier with numbers, with gauges you can scan the whole system at low precision very quickly.

It is also easier to just see "fuel red", "temperature normal" than 12.5L or 89.5C.

Reading a meter is a two step process for me: I first need to devote some attention to reading the meter, then and only then can I read what the meter is saying.

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.

> Reading a meter is a two step process for me: I first need to devote some attention to reading the meter, then and only then can I read what the meter is saying.

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.

>And I struggle to see how you can't read a gauge which resembles real world as close as possible,

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.

That’s fascinating! I don’t think I’ve ever had to expend any conscious effort whatsoever to read a car speedo. I guess you’re not an analog watch fan either?

I have no real problems reading analog clocks where precision isn't a concern, but those usually have a ~20 years head start of getting accustomed and I'm also usually not concerned about running someone over either.

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.

I had a bit more of a think. I overstated my position. I slightly prefer a number display when setting cruise control. It does take me conscious effort to set the cruise control at precisely the level I want without it.

> 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.

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 speed I agree. It would be way more useful to use the same space for a large numeric display and then I almost don’t need to refocus on it, it may be in peripheral vision while looking at the road.

For fuel, meh. Just need to know if it is close to the bottom or not and if the light is on.

>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.

This might work for gas, or speed, not so much for a tachometer. It's not just "red", it's where you are relative to red, or how deep in red, and how close to max you are. Its positive feedback when shifting gears (and a joy when you know your transmission)...

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.

An analog gauge also gives you a very quick and intuitive sense of rate of change.

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.

> And then it's immediately better scannable than gauge because you just see a color

If you're not color-blind, that is.

If you're running low on gas, but in the high end of the gauge, that's clear at a glance based on the position of the needle within the colored section. This is a much harder task with colored text. You can try using gradients to slowly fade to red, but interpolating colors is significantly harder than glancing at a gauge.

Colour blindness is a thing.

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".

One doesn't exclude the other. I wouldn't ever prefer a gauge to a number because of my personal taste — like, I don't know why would one emulate analog clock on their smart watch, etc. But I still do find gauges useful.

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.

I think this is an interesting lesson in how human perception differs. In the same category as colourblindness; we're not all seeing the same things in the same way with the same ease. I can imagine that people brought up with non-Roman-numeral writing systems are exactly the opposite way round when presented with a gauge with numbers. Certainly as a beginner Japanese learner I would take a lot longer to read a gauge annotated in kanji than to just look at it.

The numerals are not Roman - they are Arabic numbers (yes, actually of Indian origin etc., I know) and are pretty much universal AFAIK. Definitely everywhere I have been including places in South and South East Asia that use non Latin lettering.

What a nightmare it would be with a display showing Roman numerals. Are you driving XLIII or XLVII on a VL road?

Considering the fascinating bility of the brain toearn and adapt I wonder how hard it would really bee to read those numbers if we were surrounded by them all the time. (Doing maths in Roman numerals is more complicated than Arabic decimals,though)

Analogue clocks used to be Roman numerals, and you can still see this on older public clocks such as Big Ben.

One of the major reasons for gauges is being able to discern trends quickly. Its much harder to look at a number and see the trend over time. You see this on glass aircraft instrument where they tend to have numbers and trend bars to make up for not having a moving needle.

Gauges are useful for additionally conveying expected ranges, and the expected limits.

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.

Your fuel gauge example makes sense to me. The speedometer, though...a flat number wouldn't convey much about acceleration or deceleration. I'm pretty sure your brain processes the sweep speed (along with lots of other inputs) and uses that to help you decide how hard to mash the brake or accelerator. Some older cars that did have a digital speedo also included a bar graph to help show that.

I went from a car with a needle meter to one with numerical and back and I definitely find the numerical readout easier and clearer.

I do like gauges for proportions - I have a pie chart for my RAM usage on the device I am typing this on.

My car allows you to customise the dashboard (or at least to select from like 5 themes). And I certainly prefer the numerical values, especially for speed, since you are constantly comparing that value with another numerical value (i.e. the speed limit).

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...

I think the real solution here is customization. Some folks prefer meters for everything, some folks prefer numbers for everything, some others want different things depending on the context.

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, ...

The right solution in this context would be to let users configure how their browser displays the meter element.

The web respecting user agent rather than solely using it to spy on people.

There’s a vision of a future passed.

You hate them because you don't understand the real intended usage for these widgets.

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.

Going to have to go ahead and label your conception of paradise my hell on earth.

Gauges were developed because that was the tech back then, but gauges for speed have one good advantage - they show the change way better than a digital display.

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?

Why could you not use percentage for fuel levels? The voltage has been calibrated for the guage, no reason to think you could calibrate a conversation to percent

Because the resisitivity of the potentiometer (a non-linear volume iself) is in a non-linear dependency with the volume of the remaining fuel, its temperature, additives, sloshing and position of the vehicle to the horizon. But if you okay with 15% steps with +/-5% margin error, constantly showing a changing values - then sure.

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 issue I'm familiar with (from working for a government department that handles standards and regulated measures) is the effect of ambient atmospheric conditions on fuel density.

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.

In the context of my car speedometer I am concerned about my speed for three main reasons:

1. safe speed 2. legal speed limit 3. time to destination

I am not particularly worried about change for any of these.

I think speed in cars is a bit of an outlier, as generally people are driving at (or above) the speed limit, and knowing precisely how fast you’re going is useful to that end. Additionally, since speed limits usually end in 0 or 5, you don’t really have to parse the number as a number per se (as in, I don’t have to do a gt/lt check), you only have to recognize some shapes.

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.

You would have liked the twingo from the 2000s as it was like that

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/Renault_...

My sister drives one of those. And I'm always jealous of this when I'm sitting next to her.

I have driven a Twingo for more than 10 years, and I generally loved the car. But that digital speedometer was absolutely terrible.

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.

After driving a Fisker Ocean I think that car has the opposite problem. It's so responsive and sensitive that it's hard to get your bearings as the numbers become a blur unless you're literally looking straight at them. It'll happily tell you that you're going 67...68...69...68...69...70...71...70...69 and so on. The numeric display actually feels more like a distraction than an aid because the rapid changes demand undue attention.

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.

The gauges really only have two "advantages" that I can easily see. One is that your periphery vision can actually see a general "pointing in the same spot" arrow better than you can read a number without focusing on it. The other is your periphery vision is similarly good at seeing movement, without having to read 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.

A speedometer is accurate to sub-mph. If you are just below the limit, it is helpful to know if you are still creeping up etc. A purely numerical display is either too course or changes too frequently to read. Many cars already have a slower changing numerical MPH readout inside the meter, so hopeful we can both be happy.

A lot of cars do have a numeric display, and yea, it's great

I loathe the LCD screen dashboard on my new car, but it's mostly because they have a totally braindead implementation: it can either display the current speed OR the current rpm. Soooo, which one will users always have active because of legal requirements such as maximum speed? Current speed. Then that piece of shit has the audacity to tell me to switch gears ("eco-tip") when I can above or under some RPM. Fuck you Volkswagen.

You didn't have this shit on old cars with the analog meters.

New cars bother me.

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?

My Mum's new Yaris hybrid lectures her on her acceleration and braking every trip. I get that they're trying to help you save fuel, but there appears to be no way to turn it off.

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