[pw6hv]

Totally agree with you. However, some times I think most of the people take what they're given and the 'radicals' are just a small percentage of the total. Manufacturers simply decide to make what is cheaper for them (see for example 16:10 vs 16:9 for monitors).

[Gargyle]

When I got a coin everytime I watch people in newer SUVs being entirely confused why the damn thing doesn't start now completely stunned by the sheer number of stuff on the dashboard and middle screen. Or tell their passengers to go fiddle with the aircon system because the cognitive load is too high while driving. Old cars with knobs you learn it once and you can use it without eyes.

[Waterluvian]

Perhaps it’s not that most people take what they’re given but that the manufacturer does a good job discovering what people want.

[TeMPOraL]

No, I argue it's exactly what GP says. Consumers choose out of what's available on the market, not out of space of all possible products.

When purchasing complex goods like cars (or smartphones), there's way too many things to simultaneously optimize for, and enough confusion (mostly intentional) about relative performance, so most consumers focus on few major indicators like price, availability, cost of ownership, appearance, etc. Few people are going to trade on those major points to optimize something more specific, like lack of touchscreen (or having a headphone jack), so there's no meaningful market feedback on this, and vendors are free to dictate the choice to the market.

[DavidPeiffer]

Unfortunately I think it's more driven by cost motivations. As noted in the Mk8 VW GTI review [1], the interfaces are often straight up awful, this being a particularly bad design. They're the biggest source of complaints/issues shortly after buying, and three years later.

Additionally, distractions are already abundant in a vehicle. A crappy user interface, which most are, is a safety concern. At minimum, lag between screens loading should be extremely minimal. Staring at a screen for an extra second or two while it registers that you pressed a button and updates the screen is incredibly dangerous and has surely lead to some number of deaths.

Two years ago Mazda announced they were moving away from touchscreens, which was very well received on HackerNews. [2]

And I can't find the thread right now, but 1-3 years ago there was a really good discussion on here about an eye tracking study in a variety of car models.

Touchscreen-only interfaces in cars are kind of like electronic-only voting machines. Technical people who know about computers breath funny thinking about it and see issues left and right while large swaths of people really want it.

[1] https://youtu.be/XGbPHp6QfkQ?t=6m45s

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20200335

[q-big]

> Unfortunately I think it's more driven by cost motivations. As noted in the Mk8 VW GTI review [1], the interfaces are often straight up awful, this being a particularly bad design.

The car producer could save even more money if they released the non-security critical user-facing parts of the software as open source and let car enthusiasts fix the bad user interface.

[DavidPeiffer]

I'd be good with that. I casually started looking at adding openstreetmaps in place of my outdated maps on my 2009 CR-V. From what I can tell, it's a proprietary system with proprietary formats. It doesn't look like it'll work, but I'd love to achieve it.

[grvdrm]

As a recent Mazda buyer, absolutely love the Mazda approach. The physical interface makes sense to me. The buttons feel right and work with a near-perfect springiness.

[darkerside]

It's that they optimize for 1) what people like when they see it in the showroom, 2) costs, 3) what people like when they actually drive. In that order.