I dearly miss the console in my base model 2006 Yaris. It had 3 Fisher Price-sized knobs that I never had to look at when switching from feet/defog/face, changing temperature, and fan speed. It never stressed me, and each position on the knob had a satisfying clunk.
I "upgraded" to a 2017 Subaru and the air controls are laid out with completely flat, indistinct buttons. The only knob is for temperature. Any time I need to change air position or speed, I need to take my eyes off the road and find the button, and then tap it multiple times to get to the right position.
I also drove a friend's 201x Civic for a couple months, and the air controls were actually worse: tiny buttons, tiny display showing what settings are current.
Bring back Fisher Price knobs, please.
Are you hot? Go ahead and press the down arrow 20 times to go from 80 to 60. Maybe it's not so bad if you switch your car to Celsius.
Or, with 50-year-old tech, turn a knob a quarter turn or a slider by 4 inches.
The first car I bought with my own money was a Clio and the ability to control the integrated radio system without looking at it or having to take away the hands from the wheel made that car my favourite place to listen to music.
As a matter of fact I miss it so much that nowadays I almost don't listen to music while driving anymore.
EDIT
for reference the whole music controlling part was like [1], the source button switched from FM radio/AM radio/CD player and it had a wheel on the back that skipped CD tracks or radio stations, according to the current source.
If I remember correctly the lower button ejected a CD in CD mode or changed from saved station to manual tuning in radio mode.
If you pulled both the volume buttons at the same time, it muted the radio and paused the CD player.
[1] https://www.proxyparts.com/car-parts-stock/information/part-...
The Renault I have has a combination of buttons on steering wheel, that controller, physical buttons in the center panel, touchscreen and some touch elements outside of the screen.
If you want to call somebody, you have to use the touchscreen either on your phone or in the car and it's always a pain. Controlling other things in the car is fine - there are physical buttons.
True.
Another thing that might not be obvious is that they are fixed on the steering wheel, so they are always in the same position relative the your hands, just like the gear levers in a modern Formula 1 car.
The best car interface, imho, is something like a rotary device or arrows buttons on the steering wheel (or back thereof) which can be used to manipulate an overlay projected on (or just below) the windshield. My current VW gets close, but the screen is in the lower half of the dashboard (way too far from actual view of the road), and the system can only be partially controlled by on-wheel buttons (the main control is a touchscreen in the middle of the car).
On the other hand, I still don't know whete my A/C knob is without looking.
The gearstick is one control with a very limited set of never-changing options that you have to use all the time, basically the best you can get as muscle-memory goes. Despite all this, it's not used where hyper-attention on the road is really necessary, i.e. in racing. And where do we get gearshift controls in racing? On the wheel.
Obviously, the voice control would need to havr some way to ignore the kids in the backseat, or can ask the driver / parent for permission for this to be a good idea.
I actually found this made them easier to find, as they're always in the same place relative to the rest of you. Controls on the steering wheel by contrast (as found in, e.g., my current car) move as the wheel rotates, and for some reason I can never quite keep track of where they are.
(The Clio also had the horn button on the indicator stalk. The in-car UX was super on point. Good quality stereo, too.)
http://www.burdigala-encheres.com/upload/biens/7186/191833.j...
> The Clio also had the horn button on the indicator stalk. The in-car UX was super on point
Yes, that was the Renault trademark :)
> Good quality stereo, too.
Probably one of the best for the price tag.
I still think the bash car dashboard was that of Honda Beat or Suzuki Cara — no dashboard, with just a motorcycle style gauge, and non-driving related controls almost wholely on steering wheel levers.
My cousin had a Pontiac in the late 90s that would project the speed on the windshield.
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Carrobot is an actual projector, thus there are no questions about focus adjustments.
Other are usually just segment led or el screens, some with collimator, some without
Our own little Hyundai Elantra GT 2013. No touch screen. Connect Android phone via bluetooth. Run Android Auto app. Navigate, stream music, etc etc. We're both used to this, so it's very ingrained/easy to use the phone's touchscreen to navigate the UI.
Mercedes C300. Big screen, but not a touch screen. You had to twist a joystick then move it up/down/left/right depending on... something. That UI control mechanism did not work well with Android Auto, since there were different "sections" to each screen. You had to figure out via trial and error which joystick control method to use to switch sections. Plus sometimes moving the joystick would twist it, thus ruining whatever UI navigation you were trying to perform.
Hyundai Sonata 2019. Big touch screen. Worked perfectly with Android Auto. Not one single "mis-click" like with the Mercedes.
It's so good I wanted to write an actual article just about it. Touchscreen dashboards just make zero sense when you thoughtfully experienced that.
(The same-year US market one (which is a completely different car) for that same generation is similar but really not as good. Sadly They later moved to a more traditional design on the new ones)
But it's unusual and scares people, like OMG there are so many buttons, this looks like an airplane cockpit.
https://s3.caradvice.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Honda...
(if you get the GPS option the screen takes place of the clock/head unit display)
† not a gamified tally like they did with the Insight and CR-Z, but a real-time thing.
†† not a ridiculously small heads-up air fighter thing like Peugeot does that gets unreadable depending on light conditions
Designed for Use by Lukas Mathis
Design for Hackers by David Kadavy
I'd love to read that article you proposed. As much as I'd love a Tesla, my last #2 car (now sold) was a '14 Mazda 3 Astina and the rotary knob just worked so well - and so did the buttons, not to mention that simple heads up display, that I felt this is better than what the expensive cars are getting.
I have an eye for the new Civic Type R; it looks like the engineers had a field day designing that. For now, just riding a bike as health for this ageing office chair worker had to take priority.
Lots of questionable decisions like the keyless lock system not locking if the tailgate was closing as you walk away, there being no way to turn the car off but leave the radio or AC on, and the engine cutting out as you try to drive off if you started it via remote start.
Otherwise, those sound like fair complaints. I'd add that Honda tried to go to a touch-based volume control in 2015/2016 and it was universally panned for its poor responsiveness and requirement that users take their eyes off the road to adjust radio volume. Can't win'em all I guess.
Compare the HVAC control on the base model Mazda3: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/xqIAAOSwlv9aU8Hh/s-l1600.jpg
With the HVAC control on the higher trim lines: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Xdav_EsJ3bQ/maxresdefault.jpg
The older/cheaper interface is WAY easier to control. Changing vent operation or fan speed on the new interface always takes way more button pushes and time until it's in the state I want.
Lower end cars are often more reliable too owing in part to simpler designs. Some of the highest end luxury and status symbol cars have frequent issues and high repair costs.
IMO, only pickup trucks really know how to get this stuff right now, and that's mostly because there's so much space that the buttons can be giant.
This makes me crazy. I used to drive a '99 Mazda b2500 (basically a Ford Ranger). I could reach any of the controls without even leaning forward. In a newer f150 that I used to drive for work the reach for the volume knob seems to be about the same distance as the reach to the passenger window crank in my old truck.