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A New Car UI
An anonymous reader writes "As our cars have become more complex, so have the user interfaces with which we control them. Using the current crop of infotainment systems embedded in a car's dash is byzantine and frustrating. UI designer Matthaeus Krenn has put up a post demonstrating his efforts to reinvent in-car UIs in a way that doesn't force people to squint at tiny buttons, instead leaving more of their attention for the road. It's based on using a touch-screen display that realigns the interface to wherever you put your fingers down. It also reacts differently depending on how many fingers you use to touch the screen."
Seriously, any time a "UI designer" sits down to re-invent something, the result is inevitably terrible. They focus on whatever new-age idea they have is, and often completely miss the core problem while coming up with some genius solution to a minor one.
My uneducated and rather simple view of how to do it:
- Physical buttons for the stuff you might/can safely touch while driving (basic stereo controls, temperature controls, wiper settings, etc)
- Knobs with fixed ranges for things like temperature (so you can set them without looking). Stuff like volume can be infinite as adjustments are immediately noticeable while adjusting.
- Displays that you can quickly glance at, preferably without having to look down too much (I’m a huge fan of the multi-level dash Honda put in their civic).
- Stuff you will be adjusting while stopped or maybe at a red light can be whatever you want.. fancy touchscreen, display in a weird spot, who cares.
Much as I don’t normally lean in the nancy-state direction, I actually wish these complex touchscreen interfaces were disabled while driving. It just seems like a ridiculous safety concern (and yes I know the passenger could adjust it while you safely drive). Honestly I don’t care if someone is playing with one and smashes themselves into a highway divider, but I don’t want someone smashing into _me_ because they are trying to figure out why their cloud streaming music feed dealie isn’t working.
This is not a car UI. It is a UI for the car's entertainment system.
The car's UI is still a steering wheel and throttle/brake pedals.
The reason current car controls work so well is that you don't have to look at them. You build up muscle memory and can simply reach out and adjust the volume or switch to a different radio station. A touch screen you have to look at is a massive downgrade and far more dangerous.
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The thing about real knobs is that they are all directly available at any time and they don't change their location and meaning. Like most virtual knobs in "touch" interfaces do (depending on screen/context).
If you want to do that with a touch screen (i.e. have fixed position / meaning knobs), then you'll realize you could as well implement it with hardware knobs, as the touch screen is as useful an ashtray on a motorcycle.
In addition to all this, a traditional knob can be used with wet / gloved hands too.
One thing Windows 8, newer google maps with chrome, newer YouTube, office 2013, gnome 3, and some will say Windows 7, is change is almost universally bad!
If it ain't broke don't fix it!
Art professors have no business mucketing around with design. I hate the new touch, little to no color, All CAPS, flat, one criteria based (only consumption, or road focused), and no detail to anything else
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Touch screens. There's your problem. They are a very poor choice for an interface in an environment where you can't devote 100% of your eyesight to it.
Auto makers seem to make a virtue out of having touch screens for everything a the moment just for the sake of using a touch screen, whereas what they should be doing is using the most appropriate interface to promote safety and clarity. To my mind that's distinct, physical buttons without too much function overloading. In other words, exactly what we had until the 90s.
I used to hate interfaces designed by programmers and engineer. Oh how I once thought that they should let designers design the interfaces. Then, we handed the interface design to 'uix' "experts" and now we have the same level of incomprehensible bullshit. It just looks prettier.
Not a digital entertainment center on wheels.
Does anyone sell a *real* car now?
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Try to use a damn touch screen without looking. There is a reason to why there are real buttons in a car: haptic feedback tells you what you are doing..
Yes, but one minor quibble: ordinary physical controls provide tactile feedback. Haptic feedback is artificial: vibration, etc.
people will have to look at it.
Touch UI for cars is a bad idea. Dangerous, and will break cross model and manufacture consistency.
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This is ridiculous! You mean now I have to learn and think about how many fingers do I use to control control X and do they need to be far apart or not?!?
It's simple, just make the current buttons bigger for the kinds of adjustments you are likely to make when driving. All too often toggles and play/pause, etc are small buttons to look appealing instead of large buttons because they are likely to be used frequently. Usage of screen real estate often sucks big time. For example, in my car, when the bluetooth is paused I get a small button to make it play again. It takes up about 10% on the right hand side of the screen. The other 90% is completely fucking blank! Put the damn play button in the center of the screen and make it fucking big. It's the most likely thing I'm gonna hit next! Geeze! This is really not rocket science - common sense is all one needs.
Cars and trucks and motorcycles bounce . Plus, we can't always be looking. See, so we can't always control where we're touching it; we can't even always control how many fingers we put down.
We need to be able to talk to these systems. My Garmin GPS does this. I don't have to touch it. I say "voice command" and off we go. No touching. Bouncing doesn't matter. I don't have to look.
Until you get to this level of interface, you're doing it wrong, and furthermore, as of this point in time, you're also behind the curve, because others are doing it right.
Thanks for this, slashdot, just this morning I was cursing at a touch interface in my vehicle.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Coffee. Fingerprints. Greasy French Fry prints. Rather use my hand to drive the vehicle. Hold hands with my lady.
Also, that Garmin GPS? Talks to my phone by bluetooth. Don't have to touch or look at my phone, either.
Touchscreens totally suck. Everywhere. No exceptions. Even the iPad, best touchscreen ever, sucks. Still fingerprints. Still uses completely opaque "gestures" to do things I have no idea I was "asking" for. Requires looking. But you know what? I can TALK to my iPad. Writing's on the wall, vehicle makers. Speech is it, period, end of story, get on that, dammit.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
If a standard touch interface (like those shown at the beginning of the video) only had 8 controls, they'd be easy to use without looking as well. This is just another flashing interface that works great for a small number of controls but quickly degenerates into chaos when you try to control the number of systems and settings a REAL car interface has to deal with.
A car UI should be usable without looking at it. That's why physical buttons and dials of different sizes and shapes with satisfying tactile feedback are the gold standard. Touchscreens should be limited to interaction while parked, such as setting up your sat nav.
touch screens are new enough that most people haven't realized that they're a terrible interface.
You're still diverting a hand away from the steering wheel and your gaze off the road in order to perform a sequence of gestures.
Do these designers take into account user interfaces from the point of least likely to cause an accident by a distracted driver?
And now car manufactures have to put in the manual that their car is not intended to be driven by people with funny accents. And driving with children in the car that may start crying will make the vehicle uncontrollable?
It's ironic that you named your message "Epic Fail."
Like the new Lincoln MKZ with TOUCH controls for volume and temperature, on a smooth surface, without any tactile reference. Bravo!
I even have the push buttons and rotary controls for the heater, it used to be that you could control everything with 2 slides, one for temp and one to choose where to send the air.
It was very easy to know, only by touch, where the slides are. With a rotary button, you have to look at it to see where it is pointing. And the push buttons are also much less convenient, if I have to put the control on front defrost quickly (because the windshield is suddenly fogging) with the old controls I only had to slide it all the way to the right.
Now I have to find the front defrost button wich is the second to the right, flush with all the other buttons.
Even in car manuals of the 70's and 80's it was stated that if you want to defog or defrost the car in an emergency you just put the 2 slides to the right or to the top (depending on the orientation of the controls) without thinking, it will automatically put the heater to front defrost and maximum heat.
It's the same problem with almost every interface today, from electronics (think about how easy and fast it was to change the volume or choose the input on a 70's Receiver, with it's big buttons compared to receivers of today with it's tiny buttons and display you have to look at)
Don't get me started on volume and mute controls. Why don't laptops get a physical cut off switch as a mute button? When I power up my laptop in a library or at school I have to remember if I put it on mute the last time, and if not I need to wait for the mute button to become responsive but since it's controlled by software and a certain driver, it becomes usable right after Windows decide to play it's login sound. Very annoying. How much would it cost to put a physical switch to cut out the electrical signal to the speakers???
I think we're moving backward with UI, today look ingenuity and trend is more important than usability.
Now get off my lawn!
Try it! Library of Babel