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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?"
Car, open the door!
I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do it.
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!!!!
A nice system, definitely. Mind you, I like the one in my Prius: press button on steering wheel. "Say voice command." "Temperature, x degrees" "Temperature set to x degrees.", or "Restaurants" "Showing all restaurants in area.", or "Cruise Control, 60mph." "Cruise control set, 60mph."
I tried "Arm photon torpedoes." on our Prius, but all I got was, "This command is only available on the map screen." I should bring up the tactical display first I guess.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
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.
Maybe thats true, bit in this case (and I speak as a bleeding-heart pinko leftie) the guy is right. Designers seem to think that because thay can put a computer in it, it has to *be* a computer. I want analogue. Oh, and before anyone makes any luddite assertions, I'm a shit hot programmer who can juggle a 296,077 line (according to slocount) program in his head with ease. Technology belongs in its place and nowhere else.
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.
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Yes. Cameras controls are a real problem these days. It's partly an issue of trying to be all things to all people. You want it fully automatic? Sure. You want to set everything yourself? Can do that too. Or try "sports mode" or "night mode" or "fashion mode" or "crowd mode" or "jewel mode" or "monkey mode". Okay, I made that last one up.
Pre-digital photographers had at minimum a basic understanding of film speed, depth of field, aperture size, and shutter speed. If you knew these four things, you could take any SLR manufactured before 1990 and use it immediately. Now, every camera has to be figured out. Every camera has a different interface. And I'm talking about the point and shoots.
The worst thing is when they are in some useless "mode" like "sepia/old fashioned" or "birthday candle" and you are missing a great shot because you can't figure out how to turn it off.
Rant. Rant. Rant. Young whippersnappers. Etc.
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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.
I have a Canon Rebel, which is a film SLR, but it has the interface you just described.
My parent's 1970's Canon is soooooooo much easier to use, it has knobs for the settings, it has a field-of-view diagram on the lens (I have to guess with mine), a split for perfecting focus on what you want in focus (I have to trust the autofocus or just eyeball it) and I know it's been dropped onto rocks in a flowing stream at least once and survived (I have not tested that with mine).
My camera's interface is a tiny LCD and microscopic buttons. You can see the settings more clearly when you look through the viewfinder, but then you can't see the tiny buttons you need to press. And the worst part: if stop pressing buttons long enough to arrange your shot (10 or so seconds) the camera times out and deletes all the settings you spent the last 5 minutes perfecting.
The author isn't the only one who complains about iDrive. Most (though obviously not all) BMW owners who've got it in their cars complain about it. Most of the auto-Media reviewers complain about it. Some of the dealerships complain about it.
Why?
It sucks.
The concept wasn't bad. The implementation blew chunks.
(I understand the latest versions don't suck so bad, and I admit to not having worked with one on a couple of years.)
As for analog controls, in a vehicle at least, not having them change is kind of the point. Do you really want to activate the wrong thing because the manufacturer moved it? Or, worse, plow into another vehicle because you were reading the new menu rather than watching the road?
As for adding analog controls, it's trivial. Most modern cars have several places already available to add new switches as needed. Even when they don't, there's pre-fab mounting systems available. It's even possible to modify the existing ones in a lot of cases.
Sorry. Touch screens and the like are awesome for PDA's, phones, media remotes, and a bazillion other devices. They do not belong in a vehicle's control system. There is a reason that aircraft flap levers and landing gear controls -feel- like little flaps and wheels on the end. You don't need to look at them to know you've got the right control. Where you find touch screens is in the controls and devices that aren't used in situations where the operator's attention needs to be on the vehicle. (HoTaS, anyone?) Same thing goes for ground vehicles. If you've got to take your eyes off the road to operate the control it's a bad idea. Period.
Never attribute to malice what can as easily be the result of incompetence...
My Hummer yelled "Yeeee-Haawww" and the car in front of me blew up.
We are all just people.