Buttons vs screens

[Harris005]

Gloves are great.

I also recall reading that the touchscreens in modern airplanes are designed to be usable in turbulence. For that they have a ridge around the screen to press your fingers against to stabilize your hand (I imagine stabilizing with your fingers and using your thumb, for example). I also think they don't use capacitive touch screens since they are so susceptible to accidental activation ("oops, I just turned of the engines!").

I wanted to circle back to this one. This is a small detail, but an important one. Thanks for bringing it to the drawing board! I find myself using this technique in my truck all the time (has a lower 1/2" deep lip at the bottom of the screen). This would be nice on those bumpy trails, but lets be honest a lot of roads aren't that smooth either. I also find myself doing this even while cursing down a nice riding highway when I am needing to click multiple times into something.....I make a few clicks, then look back at the road while holding my finger steady where I last clicked, then return to the where I was on the touch screen to finish.

One small detail on the ledge at the bottom of the screen: don't make it with a sharp 90 degree edge, roll it down some.

 

[J Alynn]

I wanted to circle back to this one. This is a small detail, but an important one. Thanks for bringing it to the drawing board! I find myself using this technique in my truck all the time (has a lower 1/2" deep lip at the bottom of the screen). This would be nice on those bumpy trails, but lets be honest a lot of roads aren't that smooth either. I also find myself doing this even while cursing down a nice riding highway when I am needing to click multiple times into something.....I make a few clicks, then look back at the road while holding my finger steady where I last clicked, then return to the where I was on the touch screen to finish.

One small detail on the ledge at the bottom of the screen: don't make it with a sharp 90 degree edge, roll it down some.

Agree with you but will add this question
If you’re needing to scroll on screen or go in 3 layers deep should/would those commands be handled better with a physical knob? This starts the debate again about what items should be screen and which should be knobs.
In the exact same boat as you described and have learned how to hook my hand/fingers correctly to maintain location when I look back to road. Great point to discuss

 

[Harris005]

Agree with you but will add this question
If you’re needing to scroll on screen or go in 3 layers deep should/would those commands be handled better with a physical knob? This starts the debate again about what items should be screen and which should be knobs.
In the exact same boat as you described and have learned how to hook my hand/fingers correctly to maintain location when I look back to road. Great point to discuss

Rented a newer Mazda SUV a while back, and the screen was not a touch screen. Instead it had a dial located where your hand relaxes when your arm is resting on the center console. The downfall was in the short time I rented the vehicle, I never really got proficient at using it. I suppose you would in time. The other thing it did was keep your eyes on the screen longer just to get to that one button you wanted to click as you scrolled you way through the touchscreen buttons. With all that said, I could see a combo of the two giving you the option to use the knob or the touch screen itself. My vote would be to avoid just the dial itself though.

 

[J Alynn]

Rented a newer Mazda SUV a while back, and the screen was not a touch screen. Instead it had a dial located where your hand relaxes when your arm is resting on the center console. The downfall was in the short time I rented the vehicle, I never really got proficient at using it. I suppose you would in time. The other thing it did was keep your eyes on the screen longer just to get to that one button you wanted to click as you scrolled you way through the touchscreen buttons. With all that said, I could see a combo of the two giving you the option to use the knob or the touch screen itself. My vote would be to avoid just the dial itself though.

My Acura has the finger pad at the console and it’s mapped to the screen. If you touch upper right of pad it selects upper right option. It took a lot of heat from joy ballista and probably because they only use for short periods of time. But in the nearly 2 years I’ve had it I think it’s an awesome feature because as you just mentioned you don’t need to take eyes off the road. Then it offers swipe right/left motion to move to other screens like Audio or Nav, etc.
I will say it took 6 months to get used to the process but I really like it now. Still a fan of physical knobs but the pad is pretty solid

 

[LastDayScout]

Rented a newer Mazda SUV a while back, and the screen was not a touch screen. Instead it had a dial located where your hand relaxes when your arm is resting on the center console. The downfall was in the short time I rented the vehicle, I never really got proficient at using it. I suppose you would in time. The other thing it did was keep your eyes on the screen longer just to get to that one button you wanted to click as you scrolled you way through the touchscreen buttons. With all that said, I could see a combo of the two giving you the option to use the knob or the touch screen itself. My vote would be to avoid just the dial itself though.

Newer BMW iDrive models have both the scroll wheel and touch screen. I like it quite a bit.

 

[difficulTT]

I'd like to see a bank of programmable physical buttons whereby you could link its function to a process normally accomplished by a touchscreen button.
Perhaps I'd like the leftmost button to turn on the heated seat, while someone else would like it to change the regen braking setting etc... Even better, make them up/down toggle switches so you could link things like temperature control, fan speed or whatever else.

Let the user decide what functions they deem most necessary to be on a physical button. I wholeheartedly believe dedicated buttons are necessary for certain things, but providing some user programmable buttons would be a great way to keep a balance between touch vs physical controls.

I think I've mentioned it before - BMW does this to some extent with their "radio preset buttons". You can program each button to be a radio preset, or to call a specific contact, or bring up a certain display setting on the screen, etc...

 

[Harris005]

I'd like to see a bank of programmable physical buttons whereby you could link its function to a process normally accomplished by a touchscreen button.
Perhaps I'd like the leftmost button to turn on the heated seat, while someone else would like it to change the regen braking setting etc... Even better, make them up/down toggle switches so you could link things like temperature control, fan speed or whatever else.

Let the user decide what functions they deem most necessary to be on a physical button. I wholeheartedly believe dedicated buttons are necessary for certain things, but providing some user programmable buttons would be a great way to keep a balance between touch vs physical controls.

I think I've mentioned it before - BMW does this to some extent with their "radio preset buttons". You can program each button to be a radio preset, or to call a specific contact, or bring up a certain display setting on the screen, etc...

Always been a fan of the customizable buttons/switches panel. Identifing what each button/switch is after it has been set would be the hang up. A work around could be mounting these directly under the touch screen so an icon for each could be displayed just above each one. A more unique approach, but more expensive, would be for each to have a small display on the front of it that can digitally impose an icon on it. Third would be (which might be the one I would lean towards), after a quick Google search, something simular to this that Scout Motors would supply in their store (notice the "How to Customize" verbage in the discription):

https://www.amazon.com/Okerny-Custo...cphy=9028942&hvtargid=pla-1563453580200&psc=1

Scout Motors could offer a bag of button/switch options with the purchase of a Scout, or the consumer can just pick/order the ones he or she wants. This could also open up to the aftermarket world.

 

[Harris005]

Always been a fan of the customizable buttons/switches panel. Identifing what each button/switch is after it has been set would be the hang up. A work around could be mounting these directly under the touch screen so an icon for each could be displayed just above each one. A more unique approach, but more expensive, would be for each to have a small display on the front of it that can digitally impose an icon on it. Third would be (which might be the one I would lean towards), after a quick Google search, something simular to this that Scout Motors would supply in their store (notice the "How to Customize" verbage in the discription):

https://www.amazon.com/Okerny-Custo...cphy=9028942&hvtargid=pla-1563453580200&psc=1

Scout Motors could offer a bag of button/switch options with the purchase of a Scout, or the consumer can just pick/order the ones he or she wants. This could also open up to the aftermarket world.

Looking at our Motorola SL300 radios at work today got me thinking about these customizable toggle switches again. The front face of these radios have a black texture to them. When you change the channel, the front face lights up with the channel you are on. However, when the channel is not lit up, you can not see anything other than the same black texture finish. Not sure how they do this, but this type of technology might work well with a customizable toggle switch. When the Scout is running, a specific, downloaded icon appears on the switch. When the Scout is off, the toggles are solid black.