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Death of the Button? Analog vs. Digital
mattnyc99 writes "Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds is sick of navigating menus to turn up the heat—while he's trying to drive. His take in the article (as well as a a no-holds-barred podcast) is that modern tech product designers should get back to analog controls before iPhone users get sick of looking down at their touchscreen everytime they dial without a dial. It may be up to you: Whither dangerous auto technology, or long live the touchscreen?"
The author complains about BMW's idrive control (more info here), but I think it is a good solution to this problem. It's a universal control that gives you a tactile interface without tons of buttons and knobs. Once you get used to it, it's actually pretty easy to use.
The problem with analog controls is that you can't add/remove them easily once a device is made. BMW, for example, updates the software in their vehicles periodically, adding and removing features. Without some sort of universal control system this is much more difficult to do.
Visualize the world of wine
from the long-live-the-knob dept.
Well, there's a sentiment we don't see every day.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
Car control YOU!
Putting aside for the moment that you shouldn't be dialing while driving, the solution is voice dial. I used to use it on my Nokia phone all the time. Unfortunately, Motorola can't do voice-rec worth a damn, so it's back to the address book for me. :(
:)
The upshot is that the address book can play back the name of the person I've selected, so I don't need to look down.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
For everything but the volume control/mute button on the stereo.
"car, turn up the air conditioning and close the windows."
Oh, and gags to keep the kids quiet.
Deleted
We need a mixture of the two. We need a setup of buttons, nobs, etc that the developer can tweek.
In a lot of car stereo's have a control where you change the bass and some other feature like fade by depressing a turn nob.
Give me a simpler nob, and then let me change what I'm changing on the flat screen by picking volumes settings versus picking surround sound settings versus some other set of settings.
The default up and down control will be the temperature, but a simple change on the touch screen will make it fan control...a little off road practice and you won't have to look down much.
I can speak to this somewhat, because I am a moon man from the future and have been dialing my phone via touchscreen for a couple years now.
My futuristic moon man technology is called a "Treo 650". You guys arent advanced enough to pronounce that correctly, but trust me, it's a complete rip off of the iPhone in every way. In my time only the richest kings of the undersea realm of europe can afford a true iPhone.
This device I speak of, has a touch screen, and dialing with it requires you to look directly at it.
However, it is fortunate I am so poor and underprivileged, as this device also has an analog keypad, with numbers affixed to some of the keys. The central of these numbers is marked with a little nib, enabling my advanced moon man fingers to dial by my tactile sense alone.
I wish you great success with your iPhone, this is a new technological age for humanity. You are about to behold the awesome power of "a phone that can play mp3s and also has a camera in it".
I pray you use this technology wisely.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
That's a manufacturing "problem".
Consumers are concerned with control.
Making it easy for the manufacturer to crank out more units or less expensive units or whatever isn't important when the consumer has more difficulty USING those devices.
Apple did great with the iPod. Most companies aren't as focused on the customers.
Seriously. The guy is a disturbed political nut job on par with Ann Coulter and knows nothing about technolgy other than he has a blog which only he's allowed to post on and pretty much nobody reads. This idiot was and still is a huge War Supporter. Frankly most people are sick of Glenn Reynolds, the Right Wing's Ward Churchill.
Computers are now being put into embedded devices, but they shouldn't look or act like computers. My prime example is the digital camera:
My mom was an amatuer photographer who used a fully manual camera in the 70's. I bought her a very easy to use Canon Powershot with the same features, and she was completely lost. Imagine this: She wants to set the f-stop, aperture, and exposure time. On her old Miranda that was a switch, a knob, and a slider (or something like that). Now, it's switch to "M" mode, then arrow left to one setting, then arrow up and down, then arrow right, then repeat for the next setting... it takes 10 times longer, and the buttons are much smaller and harder to push. She can't just go by feel while looking at the screen or viewfinder.
Buttons are not the universal replacement for all settings for the same reason that the mouse cannot replace a keyboard and vice-versa. There are multi-modal input devices which map better to some things than others. Use the most appropriate input for each setting. It actually makes it easier.
Oh, and more buttons isn't the answer.
Fund a study of these things as a driving distraction. If they're equally as or more distracting than cell phones, you should be able to lobby a bunch of key, high-income municipalities into instituting an eventual ban on operating touchscreens while driving. Voila, the engineers of taste rediscover analog charm.
OK, maybe it's not that simple. It's still possible.
Tags != Comments, and -1 (Troll) != -1 (I Would Respond Angrily To This Poster So They Must Be Trolling)
It isn't a question of design aesthetics, it's a question of money. Knobs cost money. Analog potentiometers, even bad ones, cost money. Shaft encoders cost money. What you see in modern product design is the result of a ruthless campaign to cut parts costs. A front panel composed of a microcontroller and bunch of flimsy switches is the result.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I had a friend who was too cheap buy a brand new car with a warranty so he had a string of clunkers. One clunker had an electronic dashboard that was cool as long as he was not driving faster than 50MPH. The dashboard just shuts down. Nothing like speeding down the highway when you don't even know how fast you're going. I'm surprised he never got a speeding ticket in that death trap.
"whether"
What's really needed to solve this dilemma (dialing-while-driving issues in general aside) is a technology which will allow software to subtly deform a touch screen to give tactile feedback. So buttons actually stand out from the screen a bit, etc. I seem to recall there being a technology like this in one of the later of Asimov's Foundation books (Foundation's Edge of Foundation and Earth, I don't recall which): the main character had an inclined, desk-like board on his ship which was a tactile touch screen. I imagine some combination of flexible (and probably elastic) LCDs and something like those toy pinboards (where you've got thousands of tiny dull metal pins arrayed on a board, and you can make impressions of your face and whatnot in them) could accomplish this. The hard part would be controlling all those tiny pins electronically; making the LCD elastic enough to keep snug to the contours of the pinboard would probably also be tough. But imagine the possibilities! You could actually feel the smooth, round curves of... er... those shiny Aqua buttons in OSX.... yeah, that's it. Though other possibilities may help popularize it faster. :-)
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
When I was getting ready for my freshling year at college, I bought a slick new stereo system. I was so proud of how modern and futuristic it was: it didn't have any knobs! But as time went on, I discovered how awkward it was to use a slider to adjust the volume, or the bass and treble. And holding down buttons for the digital tuning was a pain. I've since replaced it with a stereo that has knobs for all these inherently analog controls, and I'm much happier with it.
Anyone notice what the main control on the iPod is? It's fundamentally a knob (implemented digitally). And that's no small part of the product's success.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
This just in time for my modern mobile phone rant. As I say there, I want some controls to be for one single purpose, so I know exactly where they are and what they will do each time precisely. Likea volume control. Or a tuning control. Or a button that switches between ring modes on a phone (please make them hard to push, it is ridiculous that these buttons are always pushed by themselves when the phone is in the pocket.)
I bought a car two years ago, that came with a CD player that was also an MP3 player but all I wanted was an AM radio for the talk shows, I don't even want FM. This CD player had a face that turned itself forward when the car started and backward when the car was turned off (to prevent theft I suppose.) Well, the darn thing broke and even the radio was impossible to get. So I decided to buy the cheapest simplest radio, with just turn knobs for controls. Who would want to steal that anyway? Well, apparently it is impossible to get anymore (maybe it's just Toronto?) The simplest thing today plays CDs and MP3s and who knows what else. It has all the LEDs that shine and stupid buttons. Forget tuning, even volume control is 3 different buttons (up/down/mute and the mute doesn't really mute, it just lowers the volume somewhat.) It looks like a spaceship. I couldn't get a normal new radio and I was right to hate this one as well, it broke on me a month after I got it and I never even put a CD in once.
The thing is whizzing as if the CD is stuck in it, but it's empty. It stops playing by itself once in a while. I just hate it, but it was the cheapest the simplest thing in Canadian Tire that was available. I know, I should have searched online and bought something from a 'third world' country, something that must be still available, something that just tunes onto a radio station and stays on it without doing anything else. Something with a knob volume control. I develop software for living and I am just tired of overly complex and intrusive technology all around me. It's stupid what is happening.
End of radio rant.
You can't handle the truth.
Remember the 80s? Remember the fancy cars with digital readouts for speedometers, and some would even talk to you and tell you when the door was open?
Remember when you went in a recent car and saw analog speedometers, and tachometers.
The irony, is they aren't analog - they're displaying a readout of a digital signal. But the "needle" guage is something you can monitor with your peripheral vision. It's safer, people prefer it, and it looks nicer - frankly.
You have to look at a touchscreen, you have to waste seconds analyzing it. You have to read a digital readout, recognize the numbers "72" and realize you're going 72 mph. Whereas I can know if the orange needle gets past "12 o-clock ish", I'm going too fast.
Of course, I can guage my speed by feel like most good drivers, I knwo what gear I'm in and can feel how hard the engine is working, so it's not a perfect example.
But the displays that came with computers are awkward, and unintuitive by nature. The interfaces we have already gotten accustomed to are, in many cases, just perfect as they are.
My A/C is a knob, one side is red, one side is blue. It's easy to reach down and adjust it without taking my eyes off the road.
ETC
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I'm going to nominate the Advent 201 cassette deck here. I got one as a hand-me down from my dad and it was really something special.
t m
One of the design goals was that the user should be able to operate the unit in complete darkness going only by feel. To that end, controls were placed far apart, on a couple different planes of the unit, had distinct shapes, and switched in different directions. Stateful controls changed position enough that you could feel what state it was in without looking. There were no status lights (other than the VU meter) to look at as I recall.
Here's a picture:
http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue16/advent.h
Anyway, ever since then I've always felt that user interfaces should be tactile and show their state in a physical sense. You should be able to make changes even with the power off, and you shouldn't have to look at indicator lights to figure out what's going on.
While a lot of appliances don't require this level of UI "analogness", it is something that should be carefully considered for automotive instrument panel design, since that is definitely a "must be operable in total darkness" situation.
Digital Cameras, Pro or Semi-Pro (i.e. not the point & shoot ones) with...
Why? Well, you don't need to look at the controls to operate them. That's good.
Try Ubuntu GNU/Linux, it's great!!!
Get one of them newfangled touchscreens with active tactile feedback. It's the wave of the future.
-- Boycott Shell
On a similar vein, I sure wish DVD player makers like Sony would put all of the controls on the console as well as the remote. I hate the fact that losing the remote means only being able to play, stop, or eject.
I've been asking for that all of my life. I have no idea how to do that, but my thought was always some sort of electrically responding gel, rather than pins. In any case, PLEASE SOMEONE make that. I would gladly pay a large amount of money for it.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
More buttons, knobs, and bring back switches! I wanna here the clack of my radio dial changing. I wanna here a clicking noise to tell me the volume's on but the channel's out. The sound of little keys eching out a slashdot post as I dri...
...that's odd, my car seems to be losing altitude. ALTITUDE!? AAAHHH...+++Carrier Dropped+++
Demented But Determined.
It's not a tough interface design problem.
Heck, you can probably make an 80/20 rule for it:
1) 80% of the time, users are interacting on 20% of the function.
Come to think of it, it's simpler than that:
2) 80% of the time, users want one of four functions. Oh yeah, and might as well throw in
3) with a button interface, users can "spatially remember" three distinct buttons without looking (or training).
and
4) with a dial, that "spatial memory" becomes 5 discrete positions, and a whole mess of sweet intension/remission levels (=volume, tuning have much higher response times).
So design-wise, you want 5 dials maximum. Of those dials, four are fixed in function, and one changes the paradigm (and presumably some of the other dials' function). The main things anyone would want to do are there, and they're there at the first level.
If you wanted to have a similar arrangement with keys, you'd need between 10 and 25 keys. It would not make sense.
Come on, it's just plain stupid to try to talk on the phone while driving. Period. Studies have conclusively demonstrated it, so just don't do it becuase you're going to run over my kid and then I will have to kill you.
You're aware "Whither" means "to where", right? Actually, I'm going to go with no, you're not.
I have similar complaints. I checked a few grocery stores looking for a cooking timer, and they all used buttons. So I stayed with my semi-functional timer that has a dial. What is the sense in using buttons to add or subtract time when you could just spin a dial? Whenever something goes digital, it also goes for simple digital inputs which are totally inappropriate for many things. Sometimes I get the idea that I should be the one designing everything...
Main Menu:
a: Accelerator (30%)
b: Breaks (0%)
c: Steering (+23 degrees)
d: Extra menu
Please select a control: [abcd]
Needless to say, the customer ended up with way-cool digital readouts. For one model year.
I don't know if they quietly settled the lawsuits, if any, or what. Notice, however, that the experience was profound enough that the auto industry seems to have actually learned from experience. Since "quick on the uptake" is not something anyone would have called Detroit in the 70s, the trauma must have been pretty severe.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Sorry, but Slashdot is pretty much libertarian central - you are just visiting, this is our home. There are vast numbers of us, and we all have low UID's.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I hate all that stuff too. I prefer not to have any microprocessors in my automobile. Does anyone make low tech cars anymore?
Thats why cars in the 90s got rid of Electronic Displays for all your gauges and the AC and went back to anolog readouts and buttons you could turn. My mom had a Chrysler New Yorker that had all digital readouts and one time on a long trip everything went black. All the readouts were digital (gas, speed, temp, oil, odometer, battery). It wasnt a fuse that went out, or a loose cable, the whole thing had to be replaced. Ive also seen stereos with electronic buttons fail so many times its not funny. I always look for analog switches as they are less likely to break, and when they do its a little easier to fix.
Open the pod ba- er... I mean open the trunk.
Touchscreens are great, but some things require a tactile response. The best (personal) example I have is those laser-projected keyboards for Palm-Pilots. It looks like a dock for the Palm, and projects a full keyboard onto the surface in front of it, which you then type on as normal. I hate the thing. I tried one for 2 weeks and my typing skills never got better than they were in 9th grade (not pretty). Plus to add to it, striking your finger tips on a desktop several hundred times a minute hurts. It's hard to appreciate the fact that the depression of a key on your keyboard actually acts as a cushion/shock absorber until you lose that.
As a scientist I am repeatedly amazed at how converting the interface of a piece of equipment from analog to digital is a huge step backwards.
Take the lowly centrifuge for example.
In the analog world, you would turn a knob (rheostat) to an indicated RPM; turn another knob to an indicated time, then turn it on (or the timer turns it on automatically). Speed is indicated by a needle. Fast, but if absolute accuracy is needed then you have to fiddle with the machine once it gets up to speed.
In the hybrid analog/digital world (what I prefer), you hold a button down a button, then turn a dial to set your speed. Same for setting the time. Push the start button and you're off. Fast, accurate, easy.
In the digital world, you have digital readouts and a touchpad. You usually hold down an up arrow to increase speed and the algorithm, goes from 10... 20.... 30... 40... 500... 5000... 16000 RPM in equal time intervals. So if you need 7500RPM, then you usually overshoot it by a few thousand, then hold the down button overshooting by a few hundred, then back up and you're over by another hundred, then you painstakingly push the button a few more times to get to 7500RPM. Repeat the entire procedure for the time and the temperature if necessary. Then figure out how to start the machine. Usually another button that only responds after being held for a prescribed amount of time. The advantage is that the speed, time and temp are accurate. Downside is you pull your hair out getting it set. This is especially painful if you spend 1 minute setting up for a 1 minute spin.
Don't get me started on PCR machines or spectrophotometers... or Glenn Reynolds for that matter.
The worst thing about computers these days is how much media stuff they try to do without giving you a good natural feeling interface to something as simple as volume control.
t e/
http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/powerma
Solves my problem. I really prefer being able to twist a knob to adjust volume. I realize it's a simple thing, but it makes the whole computer a lot more human. Clicking buttons, dragging things on screen, or keyboard shortcuts have never felt right. Twist the knob and the volume is adjusted: perfect. This is great particularly in games, or when watching a movie or anything like that where volume can be an issue. Regular computer use with beeps and bongs isn't really the driving factor for my desire of a regular ol' knob for volume.
I read the script, and I think it would help my character's motivation if he was on fire. -Bender
> it's just plain stupid to try to talk on the phone while driving. Period. Studies have conclusively demonstrated it,
I wanna be a stupidiologist when I grow up. Then I can do those studies!
I used to think the touchscreen was a modern solution to the keypad because no longer were you constrained by a static button interface, you could change button layouts and use graphics instead of just numbers and letters. However, when my local grocery store switched from a keypad to a pen touch screen for the chekout console, I found myself amazed at how much more "labor" intensive and slower the checkout had become. Now instead of punching in my choice and pin, I have to pick up the pen and wait (because the system is much slower)to enter in my selections when the keypad had a tactile interface that was simple. In some instances, the keypad and analog button interface just works better!
Clever or not, I got nothing...
he dialed with a dial?
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
My 2001 Ford radio has a knob for volume control... But it's one of those "step" knobs. It turns in increments. It's digital, but in the form of a knob I guess to satisfiy what people are used to (or were used to in 2001). When I get in the car and look at the radio, I have no idea what volume it will be at when I turn the car on. Sometimes, it could be BLASTING because the last joker to use the car had jacked the volume up and then turned the car off. (That joker could be me, but so what! :-D) I can turn the knob all I want prior to turning on the car's electrical, but it doesn't do anything. Radio must be on, and blaring, BEFORE I can set the volume.
Next annoying thing is if I want to play music at a really subtle, light volume, I can't. My choices are volume level 0 or 1 (and above). 0 is OFF, and 1 is louder than I sometimes want. There's no inbetween. Thank you digital technology!!
Compare to my 91 Honda radio has a knob to control volume (presumably a potentiometer). This black, simple knob has this amazingly expensive technological feature called "a white dot", painted on the knob. This techno-dot tells me, at a glance, what the volume will be before I even turn it on. WOW. And I can also turn it [knob] down prior to turning the radio on as well. What a marvel!
Yeah, the Ford radio plays CDs and the Honda one plays tapes, but why must tech advances come with lowered usability?
Only digital controls can go up to 11.
Just say "Call Bob".
or "Dial: 8.6.7.5.3.0.9. Now"
and so on.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This isn't an analog vs digital argument as there and be perfectly tactile digital control. The keyboard I'm typing on has a bit over 100 digital controls on it all of which can easily be used without site. Its really about whether controls should be hard or soft and I see it sort of both ways. You need the right number of hard buttons to get tasks done that need to be done with less attention but soft buttons work for other tasks. My PocketPC phone is a reasonable example with the exception that it really would be nice to somehow have a hard 9 key pad on there for dialing. Dialing by touch is impossible and I think it will count against the iPhone.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
I expected that people would come up with a mouse pad type of thing for that. Of course you can get soft roll-up keyboards now, so the projection thing just saves you a cable.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
you need exactly 4 buttons to modify aperture and shutter speed, up, down, left, and right function perfectly for this and have the added bonus of being a 4 way directional controller. it saves space on the camera. your mom didn't bother to *learn* how to use the new camera like she did with the old one.
FYI, aperture is the f stop. there are only two major variables photographers want to control: aperture and shutter speed--not three variables as your post claims.
ObeyMoto works fine, in russian and english, although people look at me funny in the US commanding the phone in russian. They support other languages too of course. No need to move your hands to the phone at all, just tap the BT headset and talk. Very Apple-ish. One button interface. :) And my Nokia does a passable job as well. Not that voice command is always optimal. My roommate used to walk by my home office trying out phrases to shutdown my Macintosh. That is when I decided speaker dependant voice recognition might be appropriate... My Mac is deaf now except when "typing" long documents and that application is a user trained one. And is only better when I am really tired. I make less mistakes talking than typing then. Really, for a car voice would be great. Just optionally have a button initiator. But just one is needed. Keep the kids from opening the trunk while in motion and all that. And the iPhone better support voice input as Apple pioneered voice command to the mass consumer and Motorola and Nokia both support it. Hard to justify it being 5 years a head of the curve (LOL) without voice command. That might be one of the unrevealed "features" too. It would make sense. Not earthshattering but a feature that _should_ be there if Apple hopes to be competitive. And as far as feedback goes my automobile GPS system has a piezoelectric film to provide "buzz" feedback for the onscreen buttons that can be enabled. Touch the button get a tactile buzz.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
I find this most annoying in the lab, when i have an oscilloscope, where i can not turn on/of measurements, switch to an advanced trigger mode or zoom into the screen without a mouse.
I have a 325i with an iDrive, and I can tell you exactly what is wrong with the damned thing.
(1) Inconsistent user interface 'language'. In some submenus, selecting a submenu requires rotating the knob; in others, it requires moving the knob like a joystick. (Worse, in some screens, such as on the main navigation screen, you need both motions to select from different menus and submenus. The inconsistency extends to the language of moving back one level: do you press the menu button to pop up one level (as in the 'Info' menu) or do you push the knob forward and select the "up" arrow? Or do you rotate the knob to select the "up" arrow?
Because there is no consistant user interface, it is impossible to simply press the right button to do the task--and that requires you to actually look at the screen, divine from the layout of the screen what action (push menu key, push knob forward, rotate knob) that you need to perform, then take that action--all the time while driving 70 miles an hour down a busy freeway.
(2) Overuse of the knob electromagnetic stopper for tactile feedback causes the knob to be extremely hard to use.
The iDrive knob uses an electromagnet system to both give the knob the feel of discrete "steps" (by triggering an electromagnet briefly as you turn it, to make it feel like there are descrete steps), or to emulate a hard 'stop' when you hit the top or the bottom of a menu list. While this works fairly well for short menus, in some places (notably in the iDrive / iPod interface menus), the 'stop' electromagnet pull is not done when you hit the end of the list, but when you hit the bottom of the screen. So when you rotate the knob to the bottom of the screen, rather than just one brief click and the list scrolls up, the knob does a full stop, then a physical (electromagnetically driven) 'bump', then returns to the same orientation while the screen scrolls up one.
What this means is that if you have a list of 30 or 40 musicians, instead of just turning the knob, you wind up holding the knob as the thing flutters under your hand (hurting your wrist) as the list scrolls up.
I think BMW overused this electromagnet because they had this "wow, we are paying a few bucks for the hardware; let's overuse the feature because it's so cool" thing that many programmers get--and what could have been a subtle effect is instead used to clobber you literally in the wrist until your wrist is sore.
The iDrive user interface actually has more controls than the iPod: a knob rotates back and forth, has four different directions it can be pushed (similar to the four control buttons on the iPod), a select (push the knob down), and a 'menu' button. (I don't count the voice control button, even though it is physically part of the same cluster of buttons, as it does something completely different.) Yet even with one more button, the iDrive is much harder to use than an iPod--because whomever wrote the software didn't think about useability.
It is the dumbest thing in the world to have a $40K car where every last detail is well thought, the driving dynamics are incredible, and the whole thing is so incredibly well built--only to have a user interface that looks like a college student's freshman programming project.
There is part of me that is so annoyed with the user interface that I'm half tempted to move to Germany just so I can fix the stupid thing. Hell, they don't even have to swap out the underlying OS (Windows Automotive), even though it means the car's iDrive (and radio and nav system and...) are effectively dead for the first 30 seconds after starting the car because the OS is still booting. Just clean up the user interface, and it would make a whole world of difference. (And I even know WinCE, on which Windows Automotive is based, so it's not like I couldn't hack the damned thing myself.)
I switched perfectly mechanical Subaru STI for full of electronics BMW M3. Now, I have to "enjoy" driving touchscreen instead of enjoying driving. Not to say that BMW put so much into luxury and "forgot" even to install a limited slip differential (which only costs $1000).
Obviously the safety of a complex system like an entire transportation system depends on many factors - it's to be expected that some changes which occured are detrimental, while others are beneficial. Analysing the overall performance of the system can not directly be used to determine which factors are detrimental - it can only show that the detrimental changes (I think we can safely assume that there are some) are cancelled out by the effects of the beneficial changes.
Given that, suggesting a return to 50 year old technology as the article suggests, is almost certainly the wrong thing to do. The whole approach of coming up with wild theories, based on nothing but gut feelings is not only non-scientific - it's dangerous. Mr Leno has not the slightest idea whether any of his suggestions and speculations have a connection with reality. It's not even based on anecdotical evidence - it's based on anecdotical gut feelings. This is the sort of nonsense which causes some people to reject airbags and ABS.
Mr Leno if you advise people on matters of live and death, is it so much to ask that you learn something about the subject? Or alternatively keep quiet on topics you don't know anything about?
Disclaimer: I develop chips for automotive applications (e.g. airbag controllers). However my salary does not depend on anything my company sells (actually, unfortunately it doesn't even depend on my performance - I'm an engineer...). Anyway, if you are really concerned about your safety your best bet is public transport.
...plow into another vehicle because you were reading the new menu rather than watching the road
I don't understand why auto manufacturers don't install head's up displays. It's not like sticking an LED display on the dashboard so that reflects off of the windshield would be especially difficult.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
You'd have to be to suck up the 20%-30% depreciation hit for the first 100 yards of driving.
But digital dashes suck. You can glance at an analog speedo, you have to read a digital one.
And making the pseudo analog tach look like the stock power curve is a really bad idea (80s 'vettes).
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
but after a week or two I could navigate the menus quickly and without fuss, and while mostly keeping my eyes on the road
As someone who drives near vehicles that might be BMWs, I have a problem with that 'mostly' bit. Any system that requires you to not look at the road to use it is broken.
Thirdly, about the criticisms that it's unsafe to use while driving? No shit sherlock. Neither is your cell phone. Or putting on makeup. Or shaving. Or eating lunch. But people do those without blaming the manufacturers or restaurants or stores that sell the necessary equipment.
Slight problem with that analogy: cell phones, makup and lunch are generally designed to be used in places that AREN'T CARS. Your iDrive isn't. There is a 100% chance that the driver is actually in the car while using it. Therefore, it should be designed to be used without looking.
buttons are cheaper than pots or shaft encoders. Consequently, they're going to be around for a long, long time.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
> You wouldn't try to steer a car with buttons. So why have many product designers abandoned simple analog controls?
.amsrc defines other preferences like my desired units, my desired velocity:direction ratio curve (which slows the vehicle during turns), etc.
Hmm, well as long as those buttons have tactile feedback, I actually would love to steer a car with buttons. Like a Model-M keyboard plugged into an automobile management system that supports a fully customizable command set. I'm envisioning something like:
g 40 # go, and set cruise control to 40mph
g 0 # slow to a stop
ss # stop short
g +10 # go 10mph faster
g -10 # go 10mph slower
b 35 # go backwards at 35mph
a 1.5 # increase acceleration rate by 1.5 current or default
a 0.5 # decrease acceleration rate to 0.5 current or default
r 1 # turn right 1 degree
ar 10 5 # arc to the right 10 degrees over the next 5 seconds
sig r # signal to the right
fl # flashers
fol # follow the car in front of me at my current distance
fol 5 # move 5 feet closer to the car in front of me
fol -5 # move 5 feet back from the car in front of me
tg # tailgate car in front of me
ppl # parallel park to the left
roll r # roll car to the right
roll l # roll car to the left
ww 1 3 # enable windshield wipers at speed setting 1 with a 3 second delay
hl # headlights
dfr 0 # disable rear defrost
r s 91.3 # set radio to 91.3 (default fm)
r v 10 # set radio volume to 10
r v +1 # increase radio volume by 1
r b -1 # decrease bass by 1
mpg | ws # print mpg (default is 5 min. avg) to the windshield display
mpg | r # announce mpg over the speakers
Of course there's much I've left out, but you get the idea. Additionally my
This is an interesting debate, but there is at least one precedent...in the electronic keyboard/synth business. The analog synths of the 60s through the early 80s were analog devices, which required a knob for every sound parameter on the front panel. But the first couple generations of digital synths (The Yamaha DX7, Korg M1, Roland D series) eschewed the knobs for a "clean" menu-driven parameter editing system.
Guess what? Musicians HATED them. Why? Because they missed being able to tweak the knobs in realtime while playing, and they missed the ease of just "grabbing a knob" to change sound parameters when creating new patches.
Finally, around 1990 Roland released the JD-800, which restored the concept of a control for every parameter on the panel, and it was a huge hit. The rest of the business followed suit as best they could, either putting a knob for every parameter or providing a generous number of panel controls that could be mapped to parameters of the user's choice.
Personally, I think a combination works best - I don't mind the menu-driven system on my phone because I have hot keys that get me to the most common functions with one button. Take those away and it would drive me nuts, however.
Howver it isn't always as practical or inexpensive as the digital emulation of it.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Strange how noone has yet commented on how similar this is to the development of digital sound synthesizers. When digital synths became the big frenzy in the late 80's, all the familiar knobs and switches disappeared, only to be replaced by time- and attention consuming menu entries. In fact to to such a big degree that it became impossible (in practice) to dynamically change the sound while playing (live), and thus limiting how you could perform your instrument. Fortunately for us keyboard players, the virtual-analogue retro trend is once again providing us with knobs and switches. One can only hope that car manufacturers would pay attention to lessons learned by early adopters of new technology, but so far it looks like they're heading down the same dead-end street. Not being able to perform while controlling a vehicle is likely to have a lot more impact on public health than not being able to perform a musical instrument... ZyF
I think this attitude will catch on and by the 23rd century it will be fashionable to have analog buttons, switches, and analog counters and dials for everything. That completely explains why the original Enterprise was bristling with switches and buttons. Yep. That's the ticket.
...
Of course, then there's this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp-y3ZNaCqs and I suppose that explains Star Trek: The Next Generation. In the future you'll gesture to control everything. It will give a new meaning to the "three-fingered-salute"
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With all those computers and technology, you'd think you could tweak everything on the screen ? Well, you can, but that's not what people like. Look at MIDI controllers - the better (and the pricier) it is, the more knobss/sliders/buttons it has. Because really, no on-screen control gives the same feel and power as a single knob. If you never tried those, just look at the volume knobs - they are KNOBS, not on screen thingies, because normally you'd like them better. The on-screen displays prevail for two reasons: 1)they occupy less volume 2)they let you maximize screen area 3)simpler mass production 4)there's "hype" about them. They are not there because they're efficient. Look at Boeing 747 cabin (http://www.airliners.net/)t's full of knobs and buttons, not OCD's. PS: It seems like a certain MP3 player became very popular because, among other reasons, it had a tactile control wheel (and competition didn't).
http://www.parablog.com/blog/images/computer2004.j pg
I prefered analog electric alarm clocks because it was quick and easy to set the alarm time, such as adjusting for Mondays or Fridays which have a lighter commute. Most digital clocks require lots and lots of clicking and waiting to change the time, especially to move it back. I could change the alarm in about 2 seconds with electric analog, but it takes me an average of one minute with digital buttons. But I cannot find analog electric alarm clocks in stores anymore.
Table-ized A.I.
Digitally jacking off is just not the same
Table-ized A.I.
There are practical ideas for haptic feedback for touchscreens---for instance, it turns out that live-feedback vibration can fool your sense of touch enough so that it feels like a real button. http://www.time4.com/time4/microsites/popsci/howit works/cellphone_motor.html
This has been apparently already implemented in Samsung SCH-W559 cellphone.
In reference to my previous message, I was talking about the Sequential Circuits Six-Trak, now that I think about it ... the thing had buttons out the wazoo, and a numeric keypad to enter patch information. Gah.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
as someone said earlier, controls cost money.
The front panel of my Sony DVP-S7000 DVD player (the first model of DVD player Sony sold in the US) has a full set of the DVD player controls and I'm sure whatever DVD players Sony sells at that price point today do too.
On a tangential note, while its not quite as featureful as today's DVD players I think my DVP-S7000 may outlast the DVDs it plays. It's a tank.
Those are called dummy gauges, and they blow. If my car is running hot, then I want to know; by the time the dummy light goes on it's too late to take other actions -- like say, turn your heater on full blast, which might be enough to get you to the next service station. Every car in my opinion should have gauges for coolant temp, speed, RPMs, and voltage at the bare minimum. It allows you to prepare for eventualities, which is called defensive driving -- even when you're just fighting your own car and not some moron that is trying to kill you on the highway. Attention is just not what's on the highway, it's the condition of your own vehicle that could possibly cause harm to you or others. All analog gauges allow you to plan your break down, rather than being stranded in the middle of busy highway.
I gave up on aftermarket car stereos and just get whatever top end factory system is offered. The tiny buttons and Vegasesque displays were just getting too stupid.
Which would you prefer to set a preset station:
Factory stereo: Tune to station. Hold down preset button until beep is heard. Afterward, just hit that button to get that station.
Aftermarket: Run through a sequence of button pushes similar to that required to surface a submarine, and target and launch a cruise missile. Afterward, no less than three presses of tiny buttons are required to access your "convenient" preset.
I'm serious, too. I had onee once where it took more button presses to go to a station preset than to just tune the radio manually. There should be hard jail time given for interface abominations on that level.
Sometimes I would wonder if the Japanese engineers outsourced their interface design to institutions for psychotics.
Agree with the parent, buttons and moveable bits add to the cost. Whilst I lament (and curse) the cheap video cassette recorder I have because a lot of things have to be set from the remote (and settings can only be viewed on the TV screen), the cost of that unit was a darn sight cheaper than my nice 20-year-old TEAC Stereo VCR that had buttons, knobs and switches (yes, slide switches) for operation. And the fluorescent clock display had the indicators to tell me what I had set. And not just stupid odd-shaped rubber buttons but big rectangular ones. Ahhh I wish it still worked.
When I think of loss of 'ease-of-functionality' (not 'loss of functionality') I think VCR's.
Quote:
"The users are ignorant and should read the manual" is no excuse. If 90% of your customers are horribly confused, you have NOT done your job.
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You are 100% correct. Sorry to be off topic But I SO wish the Linux distro geeks understood that.
I didn't know that about airplane guages -- but now that you've said it, boy, what a smart idea that is! (Sounds like something from a Don Norman book; I think it's in The Design of Everyday Objects that he points out the utility of having control sticks that actually are very *different* though, which is different from having indicators where a quick glance can reveal deviations from the desired state.
... it really would be helpful if their "good" settings were all at least *basically* up, say within a happy green range +/- 15 deg of vertical.
;)
...
I now wish all the displays in my Subaru worked that way. Temp, oil, gas, speed (well, that one's a special case)
Boy, you've just wrecked my next drive, because I'll be cursing that the whole time
timothy
p.s. The other thing I crave on all cars is a separate distance meter (besides the trip meter, which I like to have for other things, and besides the odometer itself) which resets to zero anytime the gas tank is fully filled. If you've ever driven in the desert, no matter how scrupulously you take advantage of chances to refuel, it's comforting to know that you ought theoretically have another 75 miles before you really need to seriously get some gas
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
While I love touchscreens and whatnot, I think everything has it's place. For example, I MUCH prefer a car (or home for that matter) stereo with an actual volume knob, even if it just spins perpetually and get's translated by the system into a digital signal. It's the analog interface that's important. Beyond that, who cares what the underlying system does with the input, as long as the result is the desired effect. Rather than push a button repeatedly, it's so much easier to just give the knob a quick spin when you want to crank up (or down) the volume of a song. The iPOD's click-wheel interface is one of the few touch technologies that are acceptable replacements to an analog volume control. I am simply using the volume control as an example, as that is what came to my mind when I read the article, I am sure there are many more examples I could think of, were I so inclined.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
'...I remember seeing a demonstration 10-15 years ago of the latest Spectrum Analyser, where the salesman made a big deal of the battery backed RAM saving the settings when the device was switched off. One of the older engineers said "we've got that on the analogue spec analysers, we call it a knob."'
2 33.shtml
From http://ask.slashdot.org/askslashdot/04/02/28/0041
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
"The iDrive is typical German engineering BS. Some asshole in Munich decided that the hundred year old system of analogue controls wasn't the "right" way to do it, and decided to invent a "right" way."
.....
This is mostly bullshit. "some asshole in Münich" is right and who was that
it was our non-friend Bangle, who insisted that this must be done and as a head designer, he got his will through. As you migh know (or not), Bangle is from U.S., he doesn't know anything about ergonomy or usability.
The fatal mistake BMW did, in order to get 'modern look' for their cars, was to nominate him to head designer and as we know now, he was very rapidly 'promoted' out of it, but the damage was already done.
Idrive is a very glaring example of standard US-design, where bling triumphs over substance or usability.
Bangle -products look to me as cross breed betweeen Chrysler (interior) and Mazda(outside). For a old BMW-fan like me, that's about worst thing they can be. I've a E32 BMW now and I'm quite sure I'll never buy such ergonomic failure that E65 is. E38 looks and feels quite cool, though.
new age controls for vehicles should be integrated into huds.
touch screens should be translucently projected ON the friggin wind shield so you can see the road around you.
additionally, there should be a more advanced anticollision radar mounted and integrated into this hud system, marking all nearby vehicles on the hud with various colors indicating their relative velocity...and have the icons theyre tagged with rapidly blink to draw your attention if there are sudden changes in their speed or direction.
these two systems would compensate for one another, and possibly lead to safer driving, especially at night when the darkness inhibits depth perception.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
You still dial numbers? It's the 21st century, most phones support voice recognition for their address books. If you buy an iPhone and you _don't_ use the address-book, you really shouldn't own an iPhone.
My girlfriend is blind. Anyone care to tell me how she's going to use a touchscreen?
Kill the Bean counters!!!!
Kill the Bean counters!!!!
Kill the Bean counters!!!!
My previous microwave oven had a knob for intensity and a knob for duration. That's it. You set the intensity, you set the duration, it starts cooking, and it dings when it's done. These were fully analog knobs, no digital electronics of any kind were involved.
When it broke (set itself on fire after twenty years of faithful service), the simplest replacement I could find had a numeric keypad, an LCD display, and a bunch of buttons that I can't read without glasses. It won't work until you tell it what time it is. Every time there's a power glitch, I have to tell the god damned microwave oven what time it is before I can warm up a burrito. I don't intend to use the automatic timer feature, ever. Why would I want an appliance that can potentially set itself on fire to operate when I'm not around? But the thing goes on strike until I set the time.
My previous automatic watering timer had a knob for frequency and a knob for duration. That's it. You set how often it should run, and you set how long it should run, and then you forget about it. These were digital-backed knobs, but knobs nevertheless.
When it broke (valve stuck), the simplest replacement I could find had one knob and a button. The button cycles through a bunch of modes to determine what the knob means. To tell you which mode you are in, there are also a few blinking LEDs that I can't see in bright sunlight or read the labels on without glasses. And guess what, one of the modes is time of day. The old timer got along without knowing the time of day, and this one could too.
In summary, I like knobs, and I don't like appliances that want to know what time it is.
Lexus 400RH's GPS partially locks out everytime you are in movement. it will continue to show current destination, but the only destination you can change to is GO HOME (the panic button). Everything else requires you to pull over and stop.
It's very annoying because as the passenger I'd like to punch in the address when we're lost. Recognize the left hand!
Every time I do this, I am temporarily distracted from my main task, which is driving the car safely.
Aye, that's the problem.
When you are sitting in the driver's seat, your main tasks are (in order of priority):
1. Talk on the cell phone.
2. Attempt to retrieve objects that are on the floor or backseat
3. Fiddle with the radio/ac/etc
4. Attempt to drive the car safely.
Thus the trend toward touch-screen controls.