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Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens. Buttons are back!

Deleted member 11292

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Buttons lead to limitations. A full screen gives you the ability to add features, do a redesign etc. old car manufacturers see a car as a car, ev car companies are seeing their car is hardware that they can improve and add features through software.
Every type of human interface has limitations. Touchscreens are good for selection, but they SUCK at adjustments. Good interface design uses the best tool for the job instead of just replacing good design with gimmicks that add complexity, while actually creating driver distraction. Just to try to look "future" or "EV" and SO much smarter than those "old car manufacturers".

For example, dragging your finger around on a touchscreen to adjust dash vents is just stupid. It's a car, and your temperature can change dramatically just turning a corner. Having to adjust vents in a submenu on the touchscreen is just stupid and WAY more difficult to do while driving than reaching for the vent itself that's actually closer to your hand.

There may be a tech compromise in the middle that works, but what Rivian has going on right now is a bad design and no amount of OTA updates is going to fix it.
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Deleted member 7086

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The studies showing cell phone distractions cause accidents are overwhelming. I suspect use of screens to adjust vents and similar items will show the same. A plaintiff’s lawyer’s goldmine.
 

Dohmar

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Buttons lead to limitations. A full screen gives you the ability to add features, do a redesign etc. old car manufacturers see a car as a car, ev car companies are seeing their car is hardware that they can improve and add features through software.
You can have programmable buttons easy enough. Just build the facility in to the touchscreen and have the physical buttons as a configurable control interface. You want to use button A to answer a call? Program it to do so. You want it to mute the audio? Do that then.

That said, who on earth would need to reconfigure how something as basic as heating and cooling controls work? Its not like we have to reinvent the wheel here. Physical buttons so I can turn stuff on or off, and adjust it without looking down is not a hard ask, nor would it be to have manually adjustable air vents. Honesly, some of this stuff you have to ask "Sure we COULD do this, by WHY would we?"
 

zymolysis

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Why do you need to mess with the climate settings constantly? Ever since cars started coming with thermostats instead of uncalibrated 1 through 10 knobs I set up the climate control once and don't touch it again for the life of the vehicle.

I don't think many people adjust the temperature or vent locations in their house every few minutes. So why do you need to do that in the car?

I agree if you are adjusting the temperature 10 times an hour a dedicated button would be very useful. I just don't understand why you would want to do that. If 70° was comfortable at the beginning of the drive, why is it not comfortable a few minutes later?
If only Rivian s/w was well-designed, and worked well.
It keeps defaulting to states I don't want, or acting in incomprehensible ways.
You can set the temperature at, say 71, and maybe that's a touch too cool, so you change it to 72 or 73, but a little later you notice that it's blowing warm air. I don't know exactly what the temperature control design is, but I find it odd.
I have only intentionally used heated seats once, to check it out, but all too often the heated seat icon is the one onscreen. A couple of days ago, on a day approaching 100F, I reached quickly to turn on driver's seat cooling, trying not to divert my attention any longer than absolutely necessary - just as I was touching the icon, I realized that it might be the seat heater icon, instead of the seat cooler. So now I'm driving down the road in the middle of traffic, desperately trying to turn off the hot seat.
And the back seat a/c - there's never anyone sitting in the back seat, but the a/c back there keeps coming on. I can wait until I stop, to deal with that, but it's frustrating.
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