News - Ford to reduce touchscreen fiddling and bring back knobs

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MyFord Touch system will be augmented by physical knob controls.

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Read more.

Would have thought gestures (to some extent) and voice control would have been even less distracting than reaching for a knob still........

There was some talk of certain states banning the use of touch operated devices whilst driving, and a knob-less system might fall foul of that kind of legislation.

I often find myself shouting "knob" when behind the wheel, I'm sure there is a very natural user interface there somewhere if they can perfect it ;)

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Originally Posted by danceswithunix

i often find myself shouting "knob" when behind the wheel, i'm sure there is a very natural user interface there somewhere if they can perfect it ;)

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pmsl :d

Cloudys, good job on finding a poetry generator. It's a shame half of it doesn't make much sense...

Anyway... A touch screen is good for GUI elements that change frequently and may perform different functions. A knob however is good for those functions that don't change and need to be quickly and easily accessed. A physical knob will also offer a lot more tactile feedback that current touch devices can't offer.

I've got one of the new Qash'qais and it's an absolute pig to use the interface. for some reason it has about 20 buttons on the steering wheel, none of which seem to help control the menu, instead you either have to use touchscreen or the annoying knobs which are really sensitive and get accidentally pressed whenever you bump slightly. Viva le steering wheel controls.

I'm totally unfussed by these in-car systems unless they are modular and replaceable, imagine how outdated/slow it will look in 5-10 years. I'd go as far as to deliberately buy a low end car model without it all.

Would love the radio display in my core field of vision on the dash and what I'd like is thumb controls on my (easily upgradeable) wheel and voice commands for an modular screen/processing unit that slots into the dash... I'm pretty sure if they tried hard enough they could come up with a connector standard that would attach all the sensors and car management to the module... oh you know something that's been around for ages like umm some kind of Universal Serial Bus...

Pah! I'm gonna stick to my cassette/FM radio player in the car. can even leave the windows open and the car unlocked.... nobody seems to want to steal it.

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Originally Posted by kingpotnoodle

I'm totally unfussed by these in-car systems unless they are modular and replaceable, imagine how outdated/slow it will look in 5-10 years. I'd go as far as to deliberately buy a low end car model without it all.

Would love the radio display in my core field of vision on the dash and what I'd like is thumb controls on my (easily upgradeable) wheel and voice commands for an modular screen/processing unit that slots into the dash

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+1 on the steering wheel controls and -1 on the touchscreen. Only justification I can find for those is if you've also got a satnav included into the music system (and I really loathe bundled satnavs!). I was in someone elses car the other day and was struck how small the text that was used was. Nope give me a nice clear display that you can read at a glance and proper (i.e. physical) controls. Actually quite keen on the VAG units that have big buttons, couple that with the steering wheel controls and perhaps a Vauxhall-like top-of-dash repeater and I'd be sorted.

Voice control etc - it's a gimmick unless you've got an in car phone as well in my book - remember seeing Clarkson trying to drive some expensive system and failing. :)

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Originally Posted by davesom555

Cloudys, good job on finding a poetry generator. It's a shame half of it doesn't make much sense...

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I'm thinking that this is the same person as was on the Register, their postings there were bl**dy annoying too. :mad: You'd be reading through a thread of comments and then the "flow" would get disturbed by this kind of irrelevant nonsense.

Well done Ford. Nice tbing about knobs and buttons is that you don't have to look. On my car I know the middle button is aircon on, left is aircon turbo, right is.... etc etc. All can be done by feel almost instantly without looking.

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Originally Posted by wasabi

Well done Ford. Nice tbing about knobs and buttons is that you don't have to look. On my car I know the middle button is aircon on, left is aircon turbo, right is.... etc etc. All can be done by feel almost instantly without looking.

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This and I have yet to have knob fail due to an unexpected software error.

exactly that. Touch screen does not make use of one of your key senses. e.g can a blind person use a touch screen. Is there such a thing as braille touch screen?

People like things that can be recognised physically, in this instance so they can keep their eyes on the road.

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Originally Posted by Daydreamer

e.g can a blind person use a touch screen.

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I find that oddly amusing in light of:

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People like things that can be recognised physically, in this instance so they can keep their eyes on the road.

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Originally Posted by kalniel

I find that oddly amusing in light of:

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I wasnt implying that blind people would find it useful while driving, I was just trying to 'drive home' the point that our sense of touch is more effective on 'knobs' than touchscreens. oh boy I dont like where this is going..

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Originally Posted by kalniel

e.g can a blind person use a touch screen. - I find that oddly amusing in light of:

People like things that can be recognised physically, in this instance so they can keep their eyes on the road.

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So the visually impaired (and that includes short sight etc) passenger in your car doesn't get their choice of music/radio-station either - that's a bit harsh isn't it?

Joking aside I know what you were getting at - of course this won't be an issue once we've all got one of those driverless Google Auto's will it? :rolleyes:

EDIT: just remembered seeing an article about eye strain at night, and the author was saying (think this was AutoExpress) that having to go from long vision in the dark to trying to read small, well-lit, text was extremely fatiguing and should be avoided if at all possible. With a touch screen you've got no option than to read it, whereas a proper device that you can operate "eyes free" means you've not got that extra fatigue element.

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Originally Posted by crossy

So the visually impaired (and that includes short sight etc) passenger in your car doesn't get their choice of music/radio-station either - that's a bit harsh isn't it?

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Damn right - driver always gets to choose! Passengers can stick to their ipods :p

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EDIT: just remembered seeing an article about eye strain at night, and the author was saying (think this was AutoExpress) that having to go from long vision in the dark to trying to read small, well-lit, text was extremely fatiguing and should be avoided if at all possible. With a touch screen you've got no option than to read it, whereas a proper device that you can operate "eyes free" means you've not got that extra fatigue element.

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That's just an issue of UX design - you can always use icons instead of text, no reason said icons can't be the same size or larger than the symbols on traditional buttons/knobs.

No thoughts on linking it into Google Glass?