Technology

Like, not dying while trying to go through menus while driving

It had nothing to do with being a good idea. It was just the more profitable idea. Tactile controls cost more to install than a cheap touchscreen with a dogshit GUI. Bonus being you have a proprietary part, the consumer can't easily swap out later if they want. So you've baked in some nice obsolescence to boot.

Ain't capitalism great? Race to the bottom.

That's true.

With a T9 phone, I used to be able to send a complete text message without ever taking my eyes off the road.

Now that I've got a touchscreen I'm swerving all over the place every time I try to text. It's way less safe.

Leading expert on buttons says to use buttons?

Mild shock

Seriously though they are needed for many features especially cars or eyes away

It's in the works.

Here's my rule: Anything in my Chevy S10 that you control by turning a knob, moving a lever, or momentarily push a button? That needs to be a physical control in a car. Anything where you push and hold a button, or mash a button multiple times (like setting the clock or turning off the DRLs respectively) can be moved to a settings menu in a touch screen. These things shouldn't be done while moving.

And no, touch sensitive single-function panels like the climate controls in my father's Avalon are not good enough, it needs to be a mechanical control that you can feel for without activating.

my issue isn't really with the brightness, it's the height. Don't get me wrong bright headlights are annoying as fuck, but a huge ass truck behind me with their headlights literally higher than my back window is insane.

Also the fact that touch screens are cheaper to build with how expensive battery tech has been in electric cars.

Touchscreens are great to have, controlling Android Auto or Apple Carplay with physical buttons like you have to do in a Mazda is a nightmare.

The problem is when the touchscreen is used as a replacement for physical controls, instead of an addition. Stuff like controlling your climate control should not be exclusively controlled through the touchscreen

And don't even get me started about VWs stupid decision to put touch controls on the steering wheel. At least they backpedaled on that decision pretty quickly

Yeah I hate it when information is hidden in the name of minimalism. I'd rather have a plane cockpit UI than a bicycle UI, even if it means I feel like an idiot at various points when I discover new things I could have been doing the whole time.

I asked a dealer for a dumb-car. No fucking auto 911 dialing, bluetooth enabled, GPS service horseshit, just a normal car and he shot me

Id settle just for a truck that isnt very clearly pandering "im a big boy!" energy. There all way too fucking big for no god damn reason other than validation of ego. Bunch of weak fucking man babies need some million ton 3 lane wide truck just so they can pretend theyre a big strong man to themselves and everyone else, despite never using the truck for what its purpose is supposed to be.

Because they are expensive. More importantly, how often does the function of a button is changed? Top right corner button on android is usually a back button (arrow/ x) or a profile icon. How often does a bottom navigation in an app change? Dashboard is an app that rarely changes.

I will do you one better. The screen in the button goes out. If the button changes the display based on the context, what does the button do? Is software responsible to recognize it cannot display an action and do something? What does it do? Should the user be responsible to remember what does the button do based on the context? This article is about return to physical buttons because they are reliable. Do you see any button on your cars dashboard that is unlabeled? Do you remember looking up in a manual what a weirdly iconed button does? On any piece of hardware.

This is from users perspecrtive alone.

Lets do the manufacturer. Imagine that screen buttons have SKUs. Dashboards have SKUs. Screen buttons have versioned drivers. Screen buttons need power delivery. Data lanes on pcbs. And fuck else.

Now imagine that you have a physical button. It costs cents. It closes one lane. Maybe needs power for a led.

Who the fuck wants screen buttons?

Finally. What the fuck multiple screen buttons solve that a single screen that can be any number of any buttons couldnt?

Because sure as fuck they wont solve for context, clarity and reliablity.