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by jimbomins
1271 days ago
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You may get your wish. Recent research has shown that real knobs and switches are much less of a driver distraction than trying to fiddle with screens or get voice commands correct. The two either mean you look away from the driving because you can't just feel your way across a screen like physical controls or you add cognitive load whilst thinking and talking. I'm with you and hope all the idiot touch screen crap is ditched. |
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I agree many manufacturers have gone a bit overboard in making even things like vent positions and glove boxes behind touchscreens. But at the same time, I don't want touch screen to completely disappear. Punching in a destination and controlling the navigation interface is way better with a touchscreen than using a dial. As a passenger or while stopped, changing the media with a touchscreen interface is better than a dial. Changing a lot of the finer settings in the car (ones you wouldn't be doing while driving) with a touchscreen is better than scrolling through menus with a dial. For the most part, a lot of things you'd do with the system while not moving or while being the passenger can be better on the screen than with a bunch of physical controls, controls which would necessitate making the screen a lot smaller.
Also, then when wanting to quickly reference the navigation system, having a larger screen with larger items on it means it is easier to understand what it is telling the driver in a glance. Having a ton of physical controls means it is a much smaller map, meaning smaller items on the map, meaning harder to understand at a quick glance. It's nice having the next turn up in the driver's information cluster or on a heads-up display as well to reduce the needs for the driver to reference the larger navigation system.
There definitely needs to be a balance of physical controls versus software buttons, but I wouldn't buy a new car without a screen these days.