HN

Comments (231)

• gyoridavid
  EVERY designer should read the `Design of everyday things`. It teaches the basics of good interface design.I had to choose a smaller entertainment system so I can have knobs..
• Menu

  nokeya
  I’m quite suspicious that they do that not because they understood or learned something, but because China requires physical buttons starting next year. And they simply don’t want to lose one of their biggest markets.
• jmp1062
  maybe i'm old school but i hate the ipad like interfaces in cars... especially if i'm trying to change settings while driving. i suppose we're very close to all of that just being voice activated but still this is a win in my book...also while i'm ranting can we teach people about regenerative braking? every uber or lyft driver that has an EV actually uses the brakes and i'm getting whiplash every time we have to stop.
• teo_zero
  And for those commands that do not deserve a physical button and are only accessible via touch, please adhere to a few simple rules.1. Put them always in the same place. Especially the "back" or "exit" button!2. Each button should do one thing, not switch between 3 or more modes that you should look to understand which one you've just activated. Negative example: one button to cycle from cuise control, to drive assist, to speed limit, and back to off.3. The area where a tap is interpreted as a button press should not also be where a swipe is recognized. In moving vehicles it is too easy for your finger to swing just an inch before touching the screen.4. The active area of a virtual button must be large, larger than the icon it displays, so large that you shouldn't be distracted from driving just to aim at it!
• Menu

  aenis
  'He also explained that "I'm a big believer in screens, because I really believe if you want to connect, you have to make the magic work behind the screen." 'I am a big believer in keeping "product people" away from UI design for dangerous machinery.The eyes and the attention of the driver should be on the road. All the audio visual noise from the car is just plain dangerous. I don't want my car to draw my attention to itself for anything less than a critical engine/tyre pressure failures. I do not want beeps on anything else distracting me while I am driving.My Volvo will, for instance, flash the same type of visual alert when fuel level is low (permanent "do you want to navigate to a fuel station" modal window obscuring navigation, speedometer and so on) -- as when it encounters a serious engine malfunction. It will steal a bit of my attention when it pops up. One of those days, someone will have an accident because of this moronic design, its statistically certain.Same with wipers fluid level low. I need to click on the button to hide the message.It will on occasion beep very loud when it thinks I am not braking hard enough. The map in the google android car navi rotates when i am just trying to pan. When I want to select an alternative route I need to very precisely touch a very small area on the screen, and more often than not instead of selecting the alternative route it will actually rotate the map.It is clear to me that either the people designing car UIs are staying away from those cars, or are just incompetent. (Or, I guess, both).
• swiftcoder
  Is is Mercedes-Benz deciding to bring back buttons, or is it that the EU's NCAP safety rating mandated that they bring back buttons, and they are spinning it as a voluntary decision?
• dhorthy
  functional programming taught us this decades ago. State is the root of all evil.If the outcome of my interaction with the interface (e.g. tap a place on the screen) is a function of not just where i tap but the last 2-6 places i recently tapped (menus etc) suddenly you've added massive complexity and mental overhead.can't wait to get back to a button that does the same thing every time every time i press it [1]tesla screens, carplay, mercedes screens, its been getting worse for a while1) I know in reality most are sliders or an on/off toggle but the point stands
• Menu

  hackerlytest
  I really like what Jony Ive did with Ferrari. It’s the perfect blend of digital and analog instruments. High quality material and finishing.Many of these German car companies are following what sells well in Chinese markets, more and more screens. IMO, nothing beats the feeling and assurance of tactile buttons/toggles/knobs.
• Menu

  WalterBright
  Unmentioned is touchscreens frequently don't work. I often have to make repeated presses on my iphone until it registers. The same with swipes. Since there is no audible or tactile feedback, this cannot work well while keeping your eyes on the road.
• rsync
  The questions are not "are touchscreens performant" or "are touchscreens dangerous" ... we already knew the answers to those questions and there was no reason to run this multiple model generations experiment.The question is: who was in charge of these design decisions and what kind of respect and esteem did these people command as leaders at these large companies ?A followup question: what professional consequences accompany terrible design decisions in an arena where such decisions are life threatening ?
• tris_timb
  I saw the new Ferrari dash and infotainment controls. They struck such a nice mix of digital and analog. Reminded my of the iPhone Dynamic Island and coincidentally designed by Jony Ivehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Wv1btxCjVE
• Menu

  shcheklein
  If they have custromer feedback and focus groups like they mention how did it happen in the first place? Some overoptimistic head-of-something? Really curious. I own previous -2021 mb and had to drive the upgrade (touch buttons) once as a replacement car. UX is terrible. Period. I even checked then in the dealership what they did to S-class and mybachs - and yes, same crappy wheel, etc. Anyways, I was mostly surprised that they didn’t know this before. Something is wrong with their research / decision making.
• speedgoose
  Previous legacy car manufacturer to say so, that I remember, was Mazda in 2019.They now resell a Chinese EV with a very Tesla model 3 inspired interior.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_6e#/media/File%3AMazda6e...I didn’t find the original press release but you can find a lot of copies like the following article.https://www.motoringresearch.com/car-news/mazda-getting-rid-...
• Menu

  2143
  Though I don’t own one, I’m fortunate enough to occasionally be able to drive around a “Benz”. It’s my dad’s. Over here we prefer saying “Benz” rather than “Mercedes”.It’s a W212 E-Class, bought new just a few months before the all new generation hit the market.It has no touchscreen. But the UI/UX is terrible anyway. My dad still has no idea how to bring up the tire pressure monitoring screen, for example. Using the buttons to navigate a myriad of menus is not exactly straightforward.The physical user manual book that came with the car has limited information and recommends viewing the user manual through the screen. The screen is not a touchscreen. There’s a knob in between the seats to navigate the system. Very terrible experience.On the other hand, a Honda economy car that I used to have had the most straightforward physical controls imaginable.I guess what I’m trying to say is, eliminating touchscreen by itself will not necessarily make anything easier, especially if the car itself is complex.
• Menu

  Beijinger
  VW has commited already. Here a preview from the newest model: https://ibb.co/dYYMFWG
• Waterluvian
  I dunno how intentional but my 2020 Forester seems to have been designed with the rule that you should be able to do absolutely everything without touching a screen.It feels great. The touch screen is there for finer control when I’m stopped or for the passenger. But I can do everything in memorable ways using the knobs and buttons.
• laweijfmvo
  5 years ago I didn’t want to buy a new car, because of the lack of buttons (general lack of reasonable interfaces); today I can’t afford to buy a new car with the luxury of plastic buttons
• Menu

  eurekin
  Never understood any appeal of a screen inside a car:1. Reflections make you tilt, just to make some pesky highlights go away. Even if they are angled properly, there's always something (like a sun reflected by a watche's face) what causes nuissance at any angle2. Car can go from a tunnel to a sunny valley in few seconds. That's 5 to 8 stops of dynamic range difference, that a human eye is easily designed to handle. Auto adjusting screen brigtness is never as bright as necessary in sunny conditions. Even if it were, it would be a significant battery drain and an element, that heats the cars interior already unnecessarily.3. You don't have pure blacks in many of them, so that annoying halo at the corner of the eye is often present. You can solve it with an OLED, but those are even worse in bright daylight4. All of the usually mentioned tactile feedback facts - you can reach with your hand to a AC knob, feel it's current set by finding the bulge with a finger and gently turn exactly how you want them. Zero lag, no eye contact necessary at all (keep that on the road!), instant feedback. Nothing that any screen can ever give.5. Biggest gripe of all - modality. I think that there were some high ranking studies done early in design exactly against this type of input for high risk applications. Modality is the biggest enemy of discoverability and throws extra delays into otherwise instant input.6. If you use a LCD variant, they interact with sunglasses polarity filter and, at some orientations, can be blocked altogeter. As you often use sunglasses exactly, because you want to see the road the best, it's contrary to the main objective of the control again.7. Refocusing. If you can use a tactile control, with a good feedback, you're freeing your eyes from the need to adjust it's lens to focus from far to near to far again. Not many people are aware, that this is even happening, and can lead to overestimating your ability to keep engaged attention on the road.I'd pay extra for a zero screen variant in a jiffy. Had I ever need to use a screen, I would've put my phone in a holder instead.
• resters
  touch screens in cars are mainly a cost saving measure, just like plastic that is supposed to look like wood (cheaper than real wood), or economy class tires instead of higher end tires, or steel rather than aluminum.
• Simulacra
  In the future, physical buttons will be considered a luxury.
• Menu

  Scene_Cast2
  What I'm surprised by is that cars are chock-full of ornate, unique parts (cupholders are a good example).I would have imagined that car infotainment controls would be a small fraction of the BOM, so I've been wondering if it's not really a cost thing. Sort of like small phones or 3D TVs from the early 2000's.
• FerretFred
  Great, but what they haven't told you is that they'll probably create a subscription for the buttons. Gotta recoup those R & D costs!
• Menu

  tw04
  Tesla removed as many physical buttons and controls as possible to reduce cost and called it revolutionary. Their faithful parroted it because they loved Tesla.Other manufacturers tried to copy it, and when any normal person had to interact with touch everything - the real opinions of how absolute garbage it was came out.Having a big screen to display navigation and audio is awesome. Removing things like physical vents, volume control, gear selection, turn signal stalk - those are all idiotic decisions made to maximize margin on every car sold and COMPLETELY user hostile.I'm just pleasantly surprised the germans listened to their customers.
• oxag3n
  More prevalent in luxury cars, although Japanese had their share of bad experiments as well. My 10yo Honda has all climate control buttons, but no volume knob, which is mitigated a bit by having volume button on the steering wheel.IMO luxury manufacturers like MB and BMW tried to squeeze larger screens, more of them and there was not enough space to put those screens, buttins and vents. Some luxuty brands make vents supper slim.
• Menu

  amelius
  Laudable. But I'd rather read about how they plan to fight Chinese EVs.
• mahinbinhasan
  Without physical buttons, it always seems risky.
• viburnum
  Next they should bring back round steering wheels.
• Menu

  DeathArrow
  Please bring back physical gauges, too. I don't want to stare at a lcd while I'm driving.
• Menu

  Bluestrike2
  I for one am quite happy that Mercedes is committed to a physical button for hazard lights, parking assist overrides, and the other controls that are used so very...rarely. Perhaps they'll do something about the less commonly used buttons like climate control for the next model redesigns in five to seven years.I really struggle to understand what's so damned difficult about this. They've admitted touchscreens annoy the hell out of drivers and capacitive touch buttons are even worse. Is it really going to take yet another lifecycle before they actually do something about it?
• Menu

  rolph
  it wont matter how many physical buttons you apparently have, if its not physical all the way through, that "button function" can be redefined, or taken away at any time.
• Menu

  grassfedgeek
  I hope Elon Musk can take a lesson from Mercedes. Tesla went in the other direction: there are barely any physical buttons to remove, so they removed the stalks for signaling and even for changing gear! You have to use the touch screen to shift gears!
• Menu

  leke
  I don't own an EV yet, but if I ever do, I don't want a single screen. I don't even want electric windows.
• sreekanth850
  Also hate this digital odometers.
• jim33442
  Wow that interior in the article looks awful. I haven't driven a Mercedes since my C230 from 2004.
• BoardsOfCanada
  As an MB owner this delights me.
• maxvij
  That’s another good step. I wrote about this last week < https://www.maxvanijsselmuiden.nl/blog/touch-screens-everywh...>. Touch screens are an unsuitable form of interaction because of the implicit requirement to ‘watch what you are doing’, inherently slower and more dangerous to use in a car.
• jmyeet
  Whenever you add a touchscreen to something it makes the UI/UX a software issue instead of a hardware issue. You can ship updates. You can cheap out on UI/UX designing because you can ship it later. So you find commonly used features buried 4 menus deep. You also find that the positions of things in menus will randomly change by OTA updates.Touch screens are (IMHO) terrible for cars because there's no tactile feedback that allows you to use them without looking at the screen. Dials, buttons and switches can be felt and used. It goes beyond being lazy. It's unsafe.The only reason we got trouch screens in cars at all is cost-cutting.
• elorant
  Too little too late. I was a long time advocate of German cars, owned a bunch of them but after this fuckery with touch screens everywhere I moved to other brands and I’m staying there for the foreseeable future. BMW, Mercedes and VW have really dropped the ball when it comes to usability. At least BMW has a decent OS that kinda makes the whole experience less dreadful than that of the other two.
• nxpnsv
  I imagine the buttons sunk deep into the panel only to come out wheen subscribing to the monthly premium package....
• teddyX
  Good move. Nothing like mechanical buttons
• raffael_de
  > He also explained that "I'm a big believer in screens, because I really believe if you want to connect, you have to make the magic work behind the screen."This statement is logically on a level with something like "yesterday is colder than outside." ... he believes in screens - because if you want to connect - you have to make the magic work behind it? I mean what? This is Olympic level marketing bullshit. It's frightening that somebody blurting gibberish like that is heading a department. But then again this car company is anyway merely a pale shadow of its former self and about to get eaten by the Chinese and very deservedly so.
• misiek08
  'So what are we gonna do with those thousands of people, who changed the UI and could be fired? Let's make them roll whole controls idea back'
• livinglist
  Physical buttons are another reason I absolutely love my 24 4Runner, absolutely huge and clear labeled knobs and buttons all over the place, I feel like being in a cockpit when I drive it.
• prabhu-yu
  There is another thing that reduces the safety of car - it is sunroof. In India, all top trims come with sunroof. I believe, sunroof can not provide the safety that of one without sunroof. More ever, it can absorb significantly more heat compared one without sunroof.
• lifestyleguru
  Whatever is happening in car industry, it is so unexciting, over-engineered, and too glossy. I'm so happy I don't have to work for people who prefer new car toy over paying me a decent salary.
• SilverElfin
  I’m seeing some brands say they have physical buttons but they aren’t the same. They’re more like touch based buttons that are not in a screen. And I feel they’re just as bad. I want to be able to use the button without looking. Like one car had a touch based slider for operating the air vents. Ridiculous
• casey2
  Company/State bends to the mindless whims of boomers yet again.
• picsao
  [dead]
• rwoerz
  [flagged]
• ConanRus
  [dead]
• ginkgotree
  Cool. But how about they also do something to help prevent the entire EV market going to China.