Hidden interface controls that affect usability

It's cost, not competence. These days making a touch screen is easier and cheaper than manufacturing and assembling lots of little buttons and knobs.

One of the reasons I purchased a (newer but used Mazda) was because it still has buttons and knobs right next to the driver's right hand in the center console. I can operate parts of the car without even having to look.

(another reason was because it still has a geared transmission instead of a CVT, but that's a separate discussion)

This is often repeated but I don't believe this for a second. I have an 90s vehicle which is based on 60/70s technology. A switch for a fog light is like £10 on ebay for a replacement and I know I am not paying anywhere near cost i.e. I am being ripped off.

I’m not sure if this is actually true for the volumes produced by the big carmakers. You’d very quickly get to volumes that make the largest component the material cost.

> It's cost, not competence.

This implies it's a consequential cost. Building with tactile controls would take the (already considerable) purchase price and boost that high enough to impact sales.

If tactile controls were a meaningful cost difference, then budget cars with tactile controls shouldn't be common - in any market.

Not just that, wiring it in to the single control bus is easier, otherwise you are stuck doing an analog to digital conversion anyways. Even new cars that have separate controls, these are mostly capacitive buttons or dials that simply send a fixed signal on the bus (so your dial will go all the way around, because it isn't actually the single volume control on the radio, but just a turn the volume up or down control).

Most of the cost savings is in having a single bus to wire up through the car, then everything needs a little computer in it to send on that bus...so a screen wins out.

I'm pretty sure that simple switch is something directly in the circuit for the fog light, and there is a dedicated wire between the fog light, the switch, and the fuse box. And if its an old Jag, those wires flake out and have to be redone at great expense.

Compare this to the databus that is used in today's cars, it really isn't even a fair comparison on cost (you don't have to have 100 wires running through different places in your car, just one bus to 100 things and signal is separated from power).

Most of the seeming analog controls on cars switched to digital in the 1990s. The digital control bus saved several hundred dollars per car. It still looked analog until around 2010 when touch screen started taking over.

> I'm pretty sure that simple switch is something directly in the circuit for the fog light, and there is a dedicated wire between the fog light, the switch, and the fuse box. And if its an old Jag, those wires flake out and have to be redone at great expense.

I don't really want to get into a big debate about this as I haven't worked on Jags, but I don't believe that replacing parts of the loom is would be that expensive. Remaking an entire loom, I will admit that would expensive as that would be a custom job with a lot of labour.

> Compare this to the databus that is used in today's cars, it really isn't even a fair comparison on cost (you don't have to have 100 wires running through different places in your car, just one bus to 100 things and signal is separated from power).

Ok fine. But the discussion was button vs touch screens and there is nothing preventing buttons being used with the newer databus design. I am pretty sure older BMWs, Mercs etc worked this way.

My newer phev saves me a large pile of money ever month in gas. Not as much as payments, but closer than you would think.

Is this true given all the chips modern cars have, all the programming that must be done, and all the complex testing and QA required for the multitude of extra function?

I would gladly gladly keep my AC, heat, hazards, blinkers, wipers, maybe a few other buttons and that's it. I don't need back cameras, lane assist, etc.

I find it hard to believe it's cheaper to have all the cameras, chips, and other digital affordances rather than a small number of analog buttons and functions.

You're not thinking about the manufacturing part. Buttons and knobs have to get assembled and physically put into every car. Software just needs to be written once.

Look ma, I can change the air conditioning controls without looking moment.

A friend got a tesla on lease and it was quite cheap, 250/month. Been driven in that car a few times and was able to study the driver using the controls and it’s hideusly badly designed, driver has to take eyes off the road and deep dive in menus. Plus that slapped tablet in the middle is busy to look at, tiring and distacting. The 3d view of other cars/ pedestrians is a gimmick, or at least it looks like one to me. Does anyone actually like that? Perhaps im outdated or something but I wouldn’t consider such a bad UX in a car.

They can be used, they just need more complexity than a simple switch that completes a circuit, they now have tiny cpus so they can signal the bus correctly. The switch must broadcast turn thing on when the switch is set to on, and then turn thing off when the switch is set to off, all with whatever serial protocol being used (including back off and retry, etc. ..). So your input devices need to be little computers so that you can use one bus for everything, now you can see where one touch screen begins to save money.

Probably in 2010 the price of the touch screen began to out compete the price of the analog controls on the bus.

Are controls uniquely important, though? There are hundreds of things in a car that could be made better (more durable, longer lasting, better looking) for just $10 to $100 extra a piece. But it adds up.

It's not just cost, though. The reality is that consumers like the futuristic look, in theory (i.e., at the time of the purchase). Knobs look dated. It's the same reason why ridiculously glossy laptop screens were commonplace. They weren't cheaper to make, they just looked cool.

Yes, controls are uniquely important.

It allows UI designers to add nearly endless settings and controls where they were before limited by dash space. It's similar to how everything having flash for firmware allows shipping buggy products that they justify because they can always fix it with a firmware update.

In some countries it's a legal requirement to have a backup camera, which means you need a screen to display it, and hardware to render it.

> knobs look dated

Not all. Knobs designed with dated designs and/or materials look dated. There's a million ways to make a knob, just use a modern or novel one.

I don't believe what you are describing is necessary. I am pretty sure you could have a module where the switches are wired normally into something and that communicates with the main bus. I am pretty sure this is how a lot of cars already work from watching people work on more modern vehicles.

In any event. I've never heard a good explanation of why I need all of this to turn the lights on or off in a car, when much simpler systems worked perfectly fine.

Ah, the classic "a keyboard has a CPU for each key" argument

Thank you; this ridiculous non-argument also pollutes discussion on GUI/UX. "Skeuomorphism looks outdated"--no, skeuomorphism that looks like old UIs looks dated, by definition, but that does not mean it is the only way to design tactile UIs.

It is the job (and in my opinion, an exciting challenge) for the UI designers to come up with a modern looking tactile design based on the principles of skeuomorphism, possibly amalgamated with the results of newer HCI research.

Knobs (plus mechanical circuitry) that can survive 100k miles of use are expensive.

> I would gladly gladly keep my AC, heat, hazards, blinkers, wipers, maybe a few other buttons and that's it. I don't need back cameras, lane assist, etc.

I would pay more for decent physical switches and knobs, but I would give up AC before the backup camera. Getting this was life changing. I also wish all cars had some kind of blind spot monitoring.

which countries?

For new cars, US/Canada since 2018, Japan/EU since 2022

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Backup_camera

> and hardware to render it

Not really, you legally could have a video camera and a CRT as a backup camera. I wouldn't say that anything is rendered in an analog video system.

> It allows UI designers to add nearly endless settings and controls where they were before limited by dash space

Except, they don't do it.

Just like your Windows PC is capable of drawing a raised or sunked 3D button, or a scrollbar, but, they don't do it anymore.

Both lane assist and backup cameras are mandatory safety systems for new cars in the EU. Same goes for things like tired driver detection and other stuff that was considered opulent luxury ten years ago.

With the land tanks we call SUVs today, I can imagine it wasn't hard for politicians to decide that mirrors are no longer enough to navigate a car backwards.

Still, you don't need touch screens. Lane assist can be a little indicator on a dashboard with a toggle somewhere if you want to turn it off, it doesn't need a menu. A backup camera can be a screen tucked away in the dash that's off unless you've put your car in reverse. We may need processing to happen somewhere, but it doesn't need to happen in a media console with a touch screen.

> I find it hard to believe it's cheaper to have all the cameras, chips, and other digital affordances rather than a small number of analog buttons and functions.

You should check how SW and HW are tested in the car.

A typical SW test is: Requirement: SW must drive a motor if voltage reaches 5 V. A typical SW test is: Increase the voltage to 5 V, see that the motor moves.

Now what happenes at 20 V is left as an exercise for the user.

The 3D view is a marketing gimmick and maybe something to show off to your passengers. You've for a massive screen, so you can't just leave it empty, the owners would realize it's a gimmick.

In practice many drivers seem to be dealing fine with the touch screen because they've stopped paying attention to the road, trusting their car to keep distance and pay attention for them. Plus, most of the touch screen controls aren't strictly necessary while driving, they mostly control luxury features that you could set up after pulling over.

luxury features like... the windshield wiper

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53666222

You can actually put a backup camera in the rearview mirror. Back before rollover protection cars had quite amazing visibility. Best vehicle visibility I've had in the past 5 years was actually a 1997 F-150. You'd think it's a big truck, but you could more or less see all around you, and it didn't have that crazy high front hood either.

At an average 14K miles per year and a guessed 25 mpg, that’s 560 gallons/year. At $4/gallon (guessed and well over the US average), that’s $2240/yr.

If you exclusively charged with completely free electricity and still managed to drive that 14K miles in a year, you’d save $187/mo.

If it moved you from 25mpg to 40mpge, it’d save you a little over $70/mo.

Our two cars are a BEV and a hybrid, so I’m no battery-hater, but neither is cheaper than a reasonable gas-only equivalent would be.

I have always thought they should put the display for the backup camera behind the driver and facing the front of the car, so that it would be easily visible to a driver looking out the rear and rear-side windows while backing up.

Many of the low-speed switches are connected to a single controller that then interfaces over LIN or CAN to the car.

Reducing the copper content of cars and reducing the size of the wiring bundles that have to pass through grommets to doors, in body channels, etc. was the main driver. Offering greater interconnectedness and (eventually) reliability was a nice side effect.

It used to be a pain in the ass to get the parking lights to flash some kind of feedback for remote locking, remote start, etc. Now, it’s two signals on the CAN bus.

You think you’re being ripped off for a £10 fog light switch on a ~30 year old car?

That sounds like an incredible bargain to me.

Why do you think you should pay near cost? What’s the incentive for all the people who had to make, test, box, pack, move, finance, unpack, inventory, pick, box, label, and send it to you? I can’t imagine the price between £10 and free that you’d think wasn’t a rip-off for a part that probably sells well under a 100 units per year worldwide.

Yeah my big old truck has basically no blind spot. I'm getting a new work vehicle soon and am going to need to retrain my brain hard.

Depending on age, it’s more likely that the physical switch drives an electric relay and the relay switches the actual fog lamp current which could be 3-5amps per lamp, letting the manufacturer use a small gauge trigger wire to run to/from the dash and thicker wire only for the shorter high-current path.

OK, thanks for the explanation.

> Offering greater interconnected news and (eventually) reliability was a nice side effect.

I am not sure about that. You still suffer from electronic problems due to corrosion around the plugs, duff sockets and dodgy earths as the vehicle ages.

That could be an accessibility issue for people with neck problems. I can see why general legislation put it at the front with everything else.

The last thing I'd want in an accident is a little CRT exploding glass shards next to me.

I shouldn't have worded it that way. I wanted to stress that the £10 would have been way more than the price per unit if there was a bulk order.

As for it being a bit of a rip off yes it was a little bit. I found the same part for cheaper literally the next day.

In any-event. It isn't the important part of what I was trying to communicate.

The real cost saving is in the touch panel being a single component. It eliminates the need to optimize UI in physical space, and decouples the UI design and testing from the rest of the car design and manufacturing process. As a bonus, both hardware and software for the panel can then be outsourced do the lowest bidder or bought as a bottom-of-the-barrel COTS package.

Perhaps people who can't turn their head shouldn't be driving?

But designers just copy each other… they don't come up with things.

You can have hundreds of switches closing circuits all connected to a device that is connected to the can bus.

that is a large pile of money saved there, but not as much as payments.

Still cars don't last forever - my pervious minivan needed a transmission rebuild so we can cut the cost of the replacement by 10000 since either way that money is spent and now the newer van is break even on payments and it should still work after it is paid off for a few years.

Same. It is a bit curious, at first I didn’t care for them for some reason. Not outright against, just a bit negative on it. I can’t even remember exactly why.

If I had to guess, it’s because it’s so closely associated with the awful to use touch controlled center console. That and “new features” in general tend to take away from the ease of use and durability of the vehicle.

It may also have to do with now having an additional place to look during a stressful activity, which I’ve now fully adapted to.

I’m 100% on board with it now, if I had a vehicle without one I’d retrofit one. I also want side and front cameras.

I’ve got a big stupid truck (work provided) with a 140” wheelbase that I use for my agriculture job to transport my ATV (my real work vehicle) around. I absolutely hate the bloated, boxy, dangerous designs of modern pickups. Frankly they should be banned and forced to look stupid via visibility and child collision safety requirements.

I knew this would be the next direct comment. If the comment was about a broken foot the response would be "Maybe people with broken feet shouldn't be driving. <smug face>"

What do you think handicap spots are for?