[scottyah]

Just like the article mentioned, you can't just say that touchscreens are dangerous without bringing up how many buttons do not make it better UX. There are plenty of touchscreen designs that are way better than buttons.

The only metric that matters is how fast you can get attention back on the road.

[Miraste]

There are zero touchscreen designs that are better than (physical, tactile) buttons.

You can hit buttons without taking your eyes off the road.

You cannot do this with a touchscreen.

There's no way to design or engineer around it, it's simply the wrong tool for the job.

[scottyah]

You cannot push physical buttons on a dashboard without taking your eyes off the road, it's a myth. Fiddling with radio controls is the most cited reason for accidents before cell phones.

[jjav]

> You cannot push physical buttons on a dashboard without taking your eyes off the road, it's a myth

You can't possibly make this argument in good faith. Obviously it is trivial to interact with physical buttons while blind, so it can always be done without taking eyes off the road.

[Miraste]

?

You most certainly can. That doesn't mean people do it 100% of the time.

[scottyah]

You're right- it was a generalization. I think the amount of actual dashboard-button-pressing without looking away is extremely low, probably 1 button. The rest might be usable a quick glance, but so is a touchscreen.

[Miraste]

I suppose that's true. I was thinking of my car, which has a lot of buttons on the steering wheel itself. They're easy to use without looking, since you don't have to change your hand position, and I control music entirely with those.

[scottyah]

I agree, wheel controls are my favorite!

[Timon3]

That entirely depends on the layout and shape/size/feeling of each button. If they're sufficiently different I'd guess 3-5 buttons is reasonable.

[sedatk]

Simple. I can operate any button without taking my attention from the road at all as long as the said button has a distinct feeling and/or location. That’s immediately an infinitely better experience.

BMW iDrive buttons are an excellent example for that.