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Touchscreens require significant user visual attention. You can't just feel for the button while watching the road and the traffic, you have to look at the scre

Touchscreens require significant user visual attention. You can't just feel for the button while watching the road and the traffic, you have to look at the screen and place your finger. It's really bad design to require a car driver to be distracted just to perform normal operations. Touchscreens are very much the wrong choice for cars, planes, etc. They're fine for something that is intended to be the users' sole focus, but are distraction-by-design where the user has other priorities.

rad_gruchalski 3y ago
> It's really bad design to require a car driver to be distracted just to perform normal operations. And to fix that, they started pushing even more computers into cars so that people don’t have to pay attention. All this self-driving fad is there to cover up the big fuck up of pushing more and more distracting stuff into cars. There are sone really cool things in modern cars: speed limiter is awesome when driving in the city, active cruise control is awesome in heavy traffic. Lane keeping assistant annoys me but I guess it helps some, collision avoidance more often annoys me than helps because of false positives. Every time it comes on it just freaks me out because it does something I didn’t expect. I mean, who’s driving the car: me or the manufacturer? And it doesn’t even work properly. It didn’t save that poor cyclist from hitting the side of my car… on the other hand, if one doesn’t know what the mirror is for, they may find it useful. I never thought I would say that but think I wouldn’t mind the speed limiter automatically engaging in the city. Under two conditions: that I can override it, and that the speed limit recognition is top notch. All other stuff with level 2 and 3 is plain dangerous. We’re teaching people to not pay attention behind the wheel just to throw the driver under the bus when the computer doesn’t know what to do anymore. The problem with that approach is that the driver doesn’t have a mental model of what’s around them. An example of the last point is the new idea from BMW. To initiate an overtake when in self-driving mode, look in the side mirror. I have no idea who’s the genius behind that but what a great way to teach people not to check their mirrors. I don’t know how others drive but I’m glancing in side mirrors quite often just to know what’s going on around.
- adhesive_wombat 3y ago
  > I never thought I would say that but think I wouldn’t mind the speed limiter automatically engaging in the city. You'll get that wish: speed limiters will probably be on by default in future. I find them very annoying as they currently are: I've had it do things like misread a 50 as a 30, decide the current speed limit is 35 (I have never seen a 35 limit) and also read a side-road 20 while traveling on a 40. It will then shift gears and slow down dramatically in moving traffic, but won't show brake lights, so it's just asking for someone to rear-end me to use it except on side-roads. Hopefully, they'll get better.
  - rad_gruchalski 3y ago
    > You'll get that wish: speed limiters will probably be on by default in future. I don’t wish for them but I would not mind them coming on. As it happens, I put a speed limiter on most of the times already anyway. > I find them very annoying as they currently are: I've had it do things like misread a 50 as a 30 Yes. One of my two conditions for not minding it coming on.
    - adhesive_wombat 3y ago
      I don't know what they're really going to do about it, it's sometimes confusing enough as a human. Like overhead gantry signs that don't "release" the limit and you have to guess that passing a blank one means you can go back to 70 and not get a fine in the post! And another one near me where the sign has been rotated 180 degrees in the post so the limits are backwards. Or the sign is painted on the road and then burned off, but you can still read it (one of these on the A1) and you're not immediately sure if it's just worn out like all the others. I think for them to be reliable enough that I don't think they'll cause a crash on the A406, some signs need to be changed somehow to make them more unambiguous, or a better "digital twin" exists including live dynamic speed limits.
- eternityforest 3y ago
  I think the self driving stuff is because full autonomy will be absolutely amazing, but companies want to start profiting early because that's what they do. If full self driving existed now, my life would likely be totally different.
mindslight 3y ago
> Touchscreens require significant user visual attention. You can't just feel for the button while watching the road and the traffic, you have to look at the screen and place your finger. If only that were the extent of it! The deeper problem is there is no haptic feedback to let you know a press was registered, so even after you find the location your focus gets drawn in to watching to make sure your press registers. And this gets even worse with controls you need to press many times in a row.
- pleb_nz 3y ago
  It's also the the being able to detect it by touch, with a touch screen it's just so flat, you don't even know if you're touching the correct position. Let alone the haptic feedback issue
dzhiurgis 3y ago
> require significant user visual attention I'm going to get crucified for this, but - it's not that big of a deal anymore on modern cars. I drive ~75% on autopilot so few seconds of attention is going to kill me. The other 25% traffic is slow enough or stalled that I can wait for a moment where I can afford to do my task. Of course my partner hates autopilot because she looses focus and misses all the highway exits :facepalm:
- bobbylarrybobby 3y ago
  I assume you meant isn't going to kill you. Anyway, you might be surprised to know that there exist people outside your car who your inattention may very well kill.
  - dzhiurgis 3y ago
    So does phones, eating, daydreaming, bad lighting, bad weather, bad road design, road rage and so on. Extra seconds using touchscreen while on modern adas is safe.
    - voltaireodactyl 3y ago
      None of the things you mentioned are related to car design. It seems logical that auto design choices that decrease driver attention to the act of driving would probably make all the things you listed even more likely to be deadly for others. It therefore seems logical to advocate for car design that does not decrease driver attention to the act of driving.
      - dzhiurgis 3y ago
        Just add Tullock's spike
diebeforei485 3y ago
> you have to look at the screen and place your finger. Depends. I find that on the Tesla screen, the buttons are large enough that I can often use it without looking, or using peripheral vision alone. Probably something to do with Fitts Law, the size of touch targets, etc. A bit similar to gen z kids typing on their phone without looking. I do prefer the old (~2017) Audi system of having a scroll wheel for CarPlay instead of a touch screen.
- thrashh 3y ago
  Yeah I don’t entirely buy that. I can type on my phone while without looking at it. Not much different from typing without looking at a keyboard.
  - zwaps 3y ago
    I literally can't and never could. And even though I type into my phone every day for years, it never improved. Most of the time some character entry will be wrong, except if I am super carefull. I guess I have sausage fingers? I can type on a normal keyboard without looking just fine.
- onetokeoverthe 3y ago
  [dead]
- gruturo 3y ago
  They may be sized a bit more reasonably but they are still a serious distraction from the driving. Additionally, just this week my M3's touchscreen became suddenly unresponsive and a couple minutes later it started to rain quite a bit. As my windshield slowly started fogging up (I was running with no AC due to mild temp), I realized I could not access the defog function! Alternatives were pulling over, rebooting while driving (not as scary as it sounds, just fairly slow), or the voice control which still responded. Unfortunately it doesn't understand "defog" despite the menu option being called just like that, but it at least understood "turn on the air conditioner" which helped. I have to check if I can add defog to the new shortcuts function, but yeah: touchscreen should always have a physical alternative for critical functions, something even climate controls can be, surprisingly.

rad_gruchalski 3y ago

> It's really bad design to require a car driver to be distracted just to perform normal operations. And to fix that, they started pushing even more computers into cars so that people don’t have to pay attention. All this self-driving fad is there to cover up the big fuck up of pushing more and more distracting stuff into cars. There are sone really cool things in modern cars: speed limiter is awesome when driving in the city, active cruise control is awesome in heavy traffic. Lane keeping assistant annoys me but I guess it helps some, collision avoidance more often annoys me than helps because of false positives. Every time it comes on it just freaks me out because it does something I didn’t expect. I mean, who’s driving the car: me or the manufacturer? And it doesn’t even work properly. It didn’t save that poor cyclist from hitting the side of my car… on the other hand, if one doesn’t know what the mirror is for, they may find it useful. I never thought I would say that but think I wouldn’t mind the speed limiter automatically engaging in the city. Under two conditions: that I can override it, and that the speed limit recognition is top notch. All other stuff with level 2 and 3 is plain dangerous. We’re teaching people to not pay attention behind the wheel just to throw the driver under the bus when the computer doesn’t know what to do anymore. The problem with that approach is that the driver doesn’t have a mental model of what’s around them. An example of the last point is the new idea from BMW. To initiate an overtake when in self-driving mode, look in the side mirror. I have no idea who’s the genius behind that but what a great way to teach people not to check their mirrors. I don’t know how others drive but I’m glancing in side mirrors quite often just to know what’s going on around.

adhesive_wombat 3y ago
> I never thought I would say that but think I wouldn’t mind the speed limiter automatically engaging in the city. You'll get that wish: speed limiters will probably be on by default in future. I find them very annoying as they currently are: I've had it do things like misread a 50 as a 30, decide the current speed limit is 35 (I have never seen a 35 limit) and also read a side-road 20 while traveling on a 40. It will then shift gears and slow down dramatically in moving traffic, but won't show brake lights, so it's just asking for someone to rear-end me to use it except on side-roads. Hopefully, they'll get better.
- rad_gruchalski 3y ago
  > You'll get that wish: speed limiters will probably be on by default in future. I don’t wish for them but I would not mind them coming on. As it happens, I put a speed limiter on most of the times already anyway. > I find them very annoying as they currently are: I've had it do things like misread a 50 as a 30 Yes. One of my two conditions for not minding it coming on.
  - adhesive_wombat 3y ago
    I don't know what they're really going to do about it, it's sometimes confusing enough as a human. Like overhead gantry signs that don't "release" the limit and you have to guess that passing a blank one means you can go back to 70 and not get a fine in the post! And another one near me where the sign has been rotated 180 degrees in the post so the limits are backwards. Or the sign is painted on the road and then burned off, but you can still read it (one of these on the A1) and you're not immediately sure if it's just worn out like all the others. I think for them to be reliable enough that I don't think they'll cause a crash on the A406, some signs need to be changed somehow to make them more unambiguous, or a better "digital twin" exists including live dynamic speed limits.
eternityforest 3y ago
I think the self driving stuff is because full autonomy will be absolutely amazing, but companies want to start profiting early because that's what they do. If full self driving existed now, my life would likely be totally different.

mindslight 3y ago

> Touchscreens require significant user visual attention. You can't just feel for the button while watching the road and the traffic, you have to look at the screen and place your finger. If only that were the extent of it! The deeper problem is there is no haptic feedback to let you know a press was registered, so even after you find the location your focus gets drawn in to watching to make sure your press registers. And this gets even worse with controls you need to press many times in a row.

pleb_nz 3y ago
It's also the the being able to detect it by touch, with a touch screen it's just so flat, you don't even know if you're touching the correct position. Let alone the haptic feedback issue

dzhiurgis 3y ago

> require significant user visual attention I'm going to get crucified for this, but - it's not that big of a deal anymore on modern cars. I drive ~75% on autopilot so few seconds of attention is going to kill me. The other 25% traffic is slow enough or stalled that I can wait for a moment where I can afford to do my task. Of course my partner hates autopilot because she looses focus and misses all the highway exits :facepalm:

bobbylarrybobby 3y ago
I assume you meant isn't going to kill you. Anyway, you might be surprised to know that there exist people outside your car who your inattention may very well kill.
- dzhiurgis 3y ago
  So does phones, eating, daydreaming, bad lighting, bad weather, bad road design, road rage and so on. Extra seconds using touchscreen while on modern adas is safe.
  - voltaireodactyl 3y ago
    None of the things you mentioned are related to car design. It seems logical that auto design choices that decrease driver attention to the act of driving would probably make all the things you listed even more likely to be deadly for others. It therefore seems logical to advocate for car design that does not decrease driver attention to the act of driving.
    - dzhiurgis 3y ago
      Just add Tullock's spike

diebeforei485 3y ago

> you have to look at the screen and place your finger. Depends. I find that on the Tesla screen, the buttons are large enough that I can often use it without looking, or using peripheral vision alone. Probably something to do with Fitts Law, the size of touch targets, etc. A bit similar to gen z kids typing on their phone without looking. I do prefer the old (~2017) Audi system of having a scroll wheel for CarPlay instead of a touch screen.

thrashh 3y ago
Yeah I don’t entirely buy that. I can type on my phone while without looking at it. Not much different from typing without looking at a keyboard.
- zwaps 3y ago
  I literally can't and never could. And even though I type into my phone every day for years, it never improved. Most of the time some character entry will be wrong, except if I am super carefull. I guess I have sausage fingers? I can type on a normal keyboard without looking just fine.
onetokeoverthe 3y ago
[dead]
gruturo 3y ago
They may be sized a bit more reasonably but they are still a serious distraction from the driving. Additionally, just this week my M3's touchscreen became suddenly unresponsive and a couple minutes later it started to rain quite a bit. As my windshield slowly started fogging up (I was running with no AC due to mild temp), I realized I could not access the defog function! Alternatives were pulling over, rebooting while driving (not as scary as it sounds, just fairly slow), or the voice control which still responded. Unfortunately it doesn't understand "defog" despite the menu option being called just like that, but it at least understood "turn on the air conditioner" which helped. I have to check if I can add defog to the new shortcuts function, but yeah: touchscreen should always have a physical alternative for critical functions, something even climate controls can be, surprisingly.