[acd]

The aviation industry has spent decades researching cockpit design, running simulator studies, and learning from accidents. They still use physical buttons for critical controls. If touchscreen-everything was safer or better, they’d have adopted it by now. The main reasons cars are removing buttons are cost savings and aesthetics—not driver safety.

[LeoWattenberg]

While aviation is the origin of UX design, I'm uncertain whether modern cockpit design is born out of UX or out of a resistance to change. For example, for fuel-efficient takeoffs, you need to go in and override the ambient temperature and air pressure sensors and calculate what an efficient fuel mix would be yourself.

[ahartmetz]

It seems unlike commercial aviation to leave efficiency on the table. Maybe the default somehow errs on the side of safety?

[LeoWattenberg]

Whatever the reason may be, the fact that pilots regularly engage in rather complicated and obstruse workarounds shows that cockpit design shouldn't be taken as the holy grail of UX.

Incidentally, I also wonder if the many checklists pilots need to go through before the plane does anything are strictly necessary. It seems like automating these steps and removing associated buttons may be beneficial to reduce cognitive load and prevent operator error (such as happened with the Air India crash last year).