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Comment by Already__Taken | Hacker News Reader

How do you make the link that;

'Smaller, difficult to read and use interfaces that require more attention are better for operating heavy machinery. '

Sounds like a fear of change, which would be the sort of thing that needs to be backed up with research and evidence.

I personally don't like how big the screen is in the Tesla sedan. I feel like it should be a given that drivers' eyes be on the road when driving, and when I can't feel out music controls because they've been replaced with a touchscreen or the data I need is hidden across 17" of display, that requires me to look away from the road. Far from "fear of change", that just seems like common road safety.

I believe music information can also be displayed on the screen right behind the wheel (where the speedometer etc is) and controlled by physical buttons on the steering wheel rather than the touch screen. Ditto for several other common operations.

> Smaller, difficult to read and use interfaces that require more attention are better for operating heavy machinery.

The center console display is not "for operating machinery". That's what the dashboard is for. If your eyes are on the center console, they're nowhere near the road.

And touchscreen are a horrible way to operate heavy machinery as they can't be operated by touch alone, the split second where you have to look at the screen (where good[0] physical controls would have been stored in muscle memory a long time ago) can lead to lots of damage. In fact, the article also points out to issues with this as the Tesla's touchscreen is apparently necessary to toggle fog lamps buried behind multiple screens, a completely inane proposition.

[0] not all physical controls are good, e.g. I've seen decks where all controls are small identical buttons, completely unusable and genuinely dangerous

I'm sorry I wasn't quite happy myself how I worded it.

"operating heaving machinery" I mean that as; While driving the car you should also use this smaller, difficult to read and use interface.

I'm not going to defend it to the death, it's almost certainly not the best implementation in the world, nothing in software is. But a massive screen lets you make input so much bigger than they ever could be in hardware. You can't take up 17" just for the radio if it were real, you can on a screen. Or have a 17" 'Object in path' warning light.

I've had my car 5 years and can't operate the radio by touch. Or the fog light buttons on the far side of the dash.

> But a massive screen lets you make input so much bigger than they ever could be in hardware.

Which does not actually matter. The problem is not the size of the control, it's 1. finding it, 2. distinguishing it from its brethren and 3. only activating it once 1 and 2 are unambiguously fulfilled.

The core properties of a touchscreen, its usual advantages of being flexible and ever-changing, become drawbacks.

And I think that's OK, use the right tool for the right job you know? There are situations where a touchscreen is not the right tool.

You could have a hybrid which would have good and bad features of both worlds: if you have physical buttons on the side (or all sides) of a screen, and a "reset" button or "mode" buttons. Then the button sequences after "reset" or "mode set" can still be learned by muscle memory, and you don't have to look at the screen. But the buttons can still have multiple uses and the screen can still give directions, especially in the learning or less often used features.

The positive click of a physical button is much less error prone than a touch screen (although touch screens with a vibrate function can be a bit better).

These kind of displays are used in aircraft and spacecraft.

http://astronautabby.com/files/2013/11/Astronaut-Abby-Lockhe...

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