US Navy will replace touchscreen with mechanical controls on its destroyers

Re:US Navy will replace touchscreen with mechanical controls... by Kapura on Sunday August 11, 2019 @01:11PM (#20669150)

This is absolutely correct. Humans are physical creatures living in a physical world and our brains have evolved to interact with that world in a physical way. Touch-screen interfaces, even good ones, necessitate a level of mental abstraction, which is going to make operating in a fatigued state even more difficult.

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Re:US Navy will replace touchscreen with mechanical controls... by qrbLPHiKpiux on Sunday August 11, 2019 @01:30PM (#20669256)

To add, we're analog creatures.

For a human to interface with anything digital, we need to drop what we’re doing and fully engage the touch interface.

Dangerous when driving, or similar.

With analog interfaces, our hands know exactly where to go and what to do just on feel, keeping attention elsewhere.

I’m glad the DOD made this decision and I hope others will follow.

Just because you can chip it doesn’t mean you should.

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Re:US Navy will replace touchscreen with mechanical controls... by SilasX on Sunday August 11, 2019 @02:37PM (#20669668)

Heh, I just had a vision of some car manufacturer making the steering controlled by a touch screen. (Is there a reason that that would already be illegal?)

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Re:US Navy will replace touchscreen with mechanical controls... by userbinator on Sunday August 11, 2019 @05:57PM (#20670811)

Is there a reason that that would already be illegal?

The FMVSS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Motor_Vehicle_Safety_S... ) probably has some rule that states a car has to have a physical steering wheel that operates in a particular way, as well as a brake pedal to the left of the accelerator, etc., although I haven't actually looked; I do know, however, that it requires automatic transmissions to have the PRNDL shift sequence.

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