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Death of the Button? Analog vs. Digital

Posted by Zonk on Fri Mar 30, 2007 05:27 PM
from the long-live-the-knob dept.
mattnyc99 writes "Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds is sick of navigating menus to turn up the heat—while he's trying to drive. His take in the article (as well as a a no-holds-barred podcast) is that modern tech product designers should get back to analog controls before iPhone users get sick of looking down at their touchscreen everytime they dial without a dial. It may be up to you: Whither dangerous auto technology, or long live the touchscreen?"
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  • by mjmalone (677326) * on Friday March 30 2007, @05:28PM (#18549517) Homepage

    The author complains about BMW's idrive control [wikipedia.org] (more info here [bmwusa.com]), but I think it is a good solution to this problem. It's a universal control that gives you a tactile interface without tons of buttons and knobs. Once you get used to it, it's actually pretty easy to use.

    The problem with analog controls is that you can't add/remove them easily once a device is made. BMW, for example, updates the software in their vehicles periodically, adding and removing features. Without some sort of universal control system this is much more difficult to do.

    • A nice system, definitely. Mind you, I like the one in my Prius: press button on steering wheel. "Say voice command." "Temperature, x degrees" "Temperature set to x degrees.", or "Restaurants" "Showing all restaurants in area.", or "Cruise Control, 60mph." "Cruise control set, 60mph."
    • by khasim (1285) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Friday March 30 2007, @05:36PM (#18549649)

      The problem with analog controls is that you can't add/remove them easily once a device is made.

      That's a manufacturing "problem".

      Consumers are concerned with control.

      Making it easy for the manufacturer to crank out more units or less expensive units or whatever isn't important when the consumer has more difficulty USING those devices.

      Apple did great with the iPod. Most companies aren't as focused on the customers.
    • by Rob the Bold (788862) on Friday March 30 2007, @05:41PM (#18549711)

      The problem with analog controls is that you can't add/remove them easily once a device is made. BMW, for example, updates the software in their vehicles periodically, adding and removing features. Without some sort of universal control system this is much more difficult to do.

      And the problem with "digital", or maybe more appropriately, "soft", controls is that you can't feel them. Like they say: "'iDrive', you work this thing." There are many situations where it's safer, better or more appropriate to locate a control by feel. If you can't feel it, you're losing some sensory input.

      A self-deforming input device that could form itself into buttons or whatever would be a neat solution to reconfiguring your input device. Too bad I have no idea of how that could be accomplished.

    • by DingerX (847589) on Friday March 30 2007, @06:11PM (#18550067) Journal
      It's not a tough interface design problem.

      Heck, you can probably make an 80/20 rule for it:
      1) 80% of the time, users are interacting on 20% of the function.

      Come to think of it, it's simpler than that:
      2) 80% of the time, users want one of four functions. Oh yeah, and might as well throw in
      3) with a button interface, users can "spatially remember" three distinct buttons without looking (or training).
      and
      4) with a dial, that "spatial memory" becomes 5 discrete positions, and a whole mess of sweet intension/remission levels (=volume, tuning have much higher response times).

      So design-wise, you want 5 dials maximum. Of those dials, four are fixed in function, and one changes the paradigm (and presumably some of the other dials' function). The main things anyone would want to do are there, and they're there at the first level.

      If you wanted to have a similar arrangement with keys, you'd need between 10 and 25 keys. It would not make sense.
    • by Bagheera (71311) on Friday March 30 2007, @06:21PM (#18550187) Homepage Journal
      The author isn't the only one who complains about iDrive. Most (though obviously not all) BMW owners who've got it in their cars complain about it. Most of the auto-Media reviewers complain about it. Some of the dealerships complain about it.

      Why?

      It sucks.

      The concept wasn't bad. The implementation blew chunks.

      (I understand the latest versions don't suck so bad, and I admit to not having worked with one on a couple of years.)

      As for analog controls, in a vehicle at least, not having them change is kind of the point. Do you really want to activate the wrong thing because the manufacturer moved it? Or, worse, plow into another vehicle because you were reading the new menu rather than watching the road?

      As for adding analog controls, it's trivial. Most modern cars have several places already available to add new switches as needed. Even when they don't, there's pre-fab mounting systems available. It's even possible to modify the existing ones in a lot of cases.

      Sorry. Touch screens and the like are awesome for PDA's, phones, media remotes, and a bazillion other devices. They do not belong in a vehicle's control system. There is a reason that aircraft flap levers and landing gear controls -feel- like little flaps and wheels on the end. You don't need to look at them to know you've got the right control. Where you find touch screens is in the controls and devices that aren't used in situations where the operator's attention needs to be on the vehicle. (HoTaS, anyone?) Same thing goes for ground vehicles. If you've got to take your eyes off the road to operate the control it's a bad idea. Period.

        • by Mr. Underbridge (666784) on Friday March 30 2007, @08:15PM (#18551383)

          but after a week or two I could navigate the menus quickly and without fuss, and while mostly keeping my eyes on the road

          As someone who drives near vehicles that might be BMWs, I have a problem with that 'mostly' bit. Any system that requires you to not look at the road to use it is broken.

          Thirdly, about the criticisms that it's unsafe to use while driving? No shit sherlock. Neither is your cell phone. Or putting on makeup. Or shaving. Or eating lunch. But people do those without blaming the manufacturers or restaurants or stores that sell the necessary equipment.

          Slight problem with that analogy: cell phones, makup and lunch are generally designed to be used in places that AREN'T CARS. Your iDrive isn't. There is a 100% chance that the driver is actually in the car while using it. Therefore, it should be designed to be used without looking.

    • by paanta (640245) on Friday March 30 2007, @09:40PM (#18552057) Homepage
      I own a BMW from the 80's and have had another 9 or 10 German cars. I love them. HOWEVER:

      The iDrive is typical German engineering BS. Some asshole in Munich decided that the hundred year old system of analogue controls wasn't the "right" way to do it, and decided to invent a "right" way. What they came up with was a beautifully thought out, near-perfect solution. Problem? IT ONLY MAKES SENSE TO A GERMAN ENGINEER. Anyone who has worked on a VW/Audi/Porsche/MB/BMW knows what I'm talking about. Anyone who has worked on German industrial equipment (leistritz, anyone?) also knows what I'm talking about.

      German engineers are arrogant bastards. They know what's best and don't give a crap about what anyone else thinks. Nothing is designed around the user, who probably doesn't want to use the product in the right way after all. "Cupholders in a car?! PSHHHHH! You shouldn't be eating in the car!" It's all designed around some magical ideal existing in some engineer's brain. It leads to some very nice products that are _awful_ to work with. When JD Powers (or consumer reports?) came out with the latest reliability ratings, BMW was tied with Toyota for fewest initial defects in their products. But, because their cars were so insanely confusing for the car buying public, BMW had more dealership visits than just about any other car company. People would bring in their cars thinking their radios were broken, only to find out that no, everything is working correctly, but they hadn't gotten to page 267 of the manual where it describes how to change stations.

      In my mind, new features are pointless if they're not highly usable. My mom, god bless her technophobic soul, can pick up an iPod and use it right away. Put her in front of an iDrive and she'd spend two weeks trying to figure it out. Meanwhile, she could jump into just about any car made before the 00's and be perfectly at home. Sure, there might be a new button or two, but for gods sake, she'd at least be able to turn on the radio! "The users are ignorant and should read the manual" is no excuse. If 90% of your customers are horribly confused, you have NOT done your job.

      • by ColaMan (37550) on Friday March 30 2007, @10:27PM (#18552379) Homepage Journal
        Exactly.

        In my car, I have a number of buttons and knobs, some on the dash, on the steering column, on the wheel itself. Each one can be operated without looking at it and each one does some specific function. Indeed, the most useful buttons on the stereo can be used even on the most potholed streets by putting your hand on the gearstick and using your index finger without drama.

        But a display-that-changes-with-knob is a solution that is also a problem: The display changes, allowing more controls to occupy the same space. Good, for getting more functionality, bad for having to navigate through it all.

        So, I want to access some function. I need to :

        - Look at the screen and determine "where I am" in the menu system.
        - I have to navigate to the selection I want, from where I was before. This may involve going up a few menu layers and then back down.
        - Which takes a varying amount of rotation/clicks/whatever, depending on where I was. Each step generally requires visual confirmation that you're actually heading in the right direction to get where you want to be in the system.

        Every time I do this, I am temporarily distracted from my main task, which is driving the car safely.
  • The knob? (Score:4, Funny)

    by sczimme (603413) on Friday March 30 2007, @05:30PM (#18549567)

    from the long-live-the-knob dept.

    Well, there's a sentiment we don't see every day.

  • Voice recognition (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Colin Smith (2679) on Friday March 30 2007, @05:31PM (#18549585)
    For everything but the volume control/mute button on the stereo.

    "car, turn up the air conditioning and close the windows."

    Oh, and gags to keep the kids quiet.
     
    • by Cyberax (705495) on Friday March 30 2007, @05:34PM (#18549619)
      Car, open the door!

      I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do it.
        • by pilgrim23 (716938) on Friday March 30 2007, @06:26PM (#18550263)
          John Denver crashed due to a incorrect setting on the gas tank. I am not clear on the exact setting but, the crash report pointed to the cuase dealing with a tank behind his seat and a unclear direction for the "Which tank am I currently set to". Flight Ergonomics are a very well studied subject. example: guages on planes are designed so that All at 12 O'clock is good. meaning: you do not have a gas is full to the left, oil pressue is ok if that on is pointing a little to the right, engine temp in good range, it points down, etc. No, all in the same position means all is OK. And THAT was my point; changing controls radically practically insures improper use, and courts disaster. Non-knob controls fit this.
  • by stratjakt (596332) on Friday March 30 2007, @05:35PM (#18549625) Journal
    I can speak to this somewhat, because I am a moon man from the future and have been dialing my phone via touchscreen for a couple years now.

    My futuristic moon man technology is called a "Treo 650". You guys arent advanced enough to pronounce that correctly, but trust me, it's a complete rip off of the iPhone in every way. In my time only the richest kings of the undersea realm of europe can afford a true iPhone.

    This device I speak of, has a touch screen, and dialing with it requires you to look directly at it.

    However, it is fortunate I am so poor and underprivileged, as this device also has an analog keypad, with numbers affixed to some of the keys. The central of these numbers is marked with a little nib, enabling my advanced moon man fingers to dial by my tactile sense alone.

    I wish you great success with your iPhone, this is a new technological age for humanity. You are about to behold the awesome power of "a phone that can play mp3s and also has a camera in it".

    I pray you use this technology wisely.

  • Good example (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MobyDisk (75490) on Friday March 30 2007, @05:40PM (#18549691) Homepage
    Computers are now being put into embedded devices, but they shouldn't look or act like computers. My prime example is the digital camera:

    My mom was an amatuer photographer who used a fully manual camera in the 70's. I bought her a very easy to use Canon Powershot with the same features, and she was completely lost. Imagine this: She wants to set the f-stop, aperture, and exposure time. On her old Miranda [geocities.com] that was a switch, a knob, and a slider (or something like that). Now, it's switch to "M" mode, then arrow left to one setting, then arrow up and down, then arrow right, then repeat for the next setting... it takes 10 times longer, and the buttons are much smaller and harder to push. She can't just go by feel while looking at the screen or viewfinder.

    Buttons are not the universal replacement for all settings for the same reason that the mouse cannot replace a keyboard and vice-versa. There are multi-modal input devices which map better to some things than others. Use the most appropriate input for each setting. It actually makes it easier.

    Oh, and more buttons isn't the answer.
    • Re:Good example (Score:5, Interesting)

      by L. VeGas (580015) on Friday March 30 2007, @06:00PM (#18549953) Homepage Journal
      Yes. Cameras controls are a real problem these days. It's partly an issue of trying to be all things to all people. You want it fully automatic? Sure. You want to set everything yourself? Can do that too. Or try "sports mode" or "night mode" or "fashion mode" or "crowd mode" or "jewel mode" or "monkey mode". Okay, I made that last one up.

      Pre-digital photographers had at minimum a basic understanding of film speed, depth of field, aperture size, and shutter speed. If you knew these four things, you could take any SLR manufactured before 1990 and use it immediately. Now, every camera has to be figured out. Every camera has a different interface. And I'm talking about the point and shoots.

      The worst thing is when they are in some useless "mode" like "sepia/old fashioned" or "birthday candle" and you are missing a great shot because you can't figure out how to turn it off.

      Rant. Rant. Rant. Young whippersnappers. Etc.
      • Re:Good example (Score:5, Insightful)

        by BillX (307153) on Friday March 30 2007, @09:36PM (#18552027) Homepage
        Amen. A while back I bought a nice 8MP digicam [dcresource.com], which kicks ass in most circumstances. Aperture, f-stop and focus are all on their own wheely knob, minimum dicking with menus, etc...it feels comfortably close to the good old Canon 35mm I grew up with. On the other hand, turn the wrong knob and it supports all these funky newb modes, including, I kid you not, FOOD MODE. According to TFM, it dicks with the color balance to specifically make pictures of food look tastier. FOOD MODE.
    • Re:Good example (Score:5, Informative)

      by skintigh2 (456496) on Friday March 30 2007, @06:14PM (#18550107)
      I have a Canon Rebel, which is a film SLR, but it has the interface you just described.

      My parent's 1970's Canon is soooooooo much easier to use, it has knobs for the settings, it has a field-of-view diagram on the lens (I have to guess with mine), a split for perfecting focus on what you want in focus (I have to trust the autofocus or just eyeball it) and I know it's been dropped onto rocks in a flowing stream at least once and survived (I have not tested that with mine).

      My camera's interface is a tiny LCD and microscopic buttons. You can see the settings more clearly when you look through the viewfinder, but then you can't see the tiny buttons you need to press. And the worst part: if stop pressing buttons long enough to arrange your shot (10 or so seconds) the camera times out and deletes all the settings you spent the last 5 minutes perfecting.
  • Money (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Detritus (11846) on Friday March 30 2007, @05:42PM (#18549715) Homepage
    It isn't a question of design aesthetics, it's a question of money. Knobs cost money. Analog potentiometers, even bad ones, cost money. Shaft encoders cost money. What you see in modern product design is the result of a ruthless campaign to cut parts costs. A front panel composed of a microcontroller and bunch of flimsy switches is the result.
  • by Pfhorrest (545131) on Friday March 30 2007, @05:49PM (#18549805) Homepage Journal
    What's really needed to solve this dilemma (dialing-while-driving issues in general aside) is a technology which will allow software to subtly deform a touch screen to give tactile feedback. So buttons actually stand out from the screen a bit, etc. I seem to recall there being a technology like this in one of the later of Asimov's Foundation books (Foundation's Edge of Foundation and Earth, I don't recall which): the main character had an inclined, desk-like board on his ship which was a tactile touch screen. I imagine some combination of flexible (and probably elastic) LCDs and something like those toy pinboards (where you've got thousands of tiny dull metal pins arrayed on a board, and you can make impressions of your face and whatnot in them) could accomplish this. The hard part would be controlling all those tiny pins electronically; making the LCD elastic enough to keep snug to the contours of the pinboard would probably also be tough. But imagine the possibilities! You could actually feel the smooth, round curves of... er... those shiny Aqua buttons in OSX.... yeah, that's it. Though other possibilities may help popularize it faster. :-)
  • the folly of youth (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tverbeek (457094) on Friday March 30 2007, @05:52PM (#18549841) Homepage
    When I was getting ready for my freshling year at college, I bought a slick new stereo system. I was so proud of how modern and futuristic it was: it didn't have any knobs! But as time went on, I discovered how awkward it was to use a slider to adjust the volume, or the bass and treble. And holding down buttons for the digital tuning was a pain. I've since replaced it with a stereo that has knobs for all these inherently analog controls, and I'm much happier with it.

    Anyone notice what the main control on the iPod is? It's fundamentally a knob (implemented digitally). And that's no small part of the product's success.
  • by fred fleenblat (463628) on Friday March 30 2007, @05:58PM (#18549919) Homepage
    I'm going to nominate the Advent 201 cassette deck here. I got one as a hand-me down from my dad and it was really something special.

    One of the design goals was that the user should be able to operate the unit in complete darkness going only by feel. To that end, controls were placed far apart, on a couple different planes of the unit, had distinct shapes, and switched in different directions. Stateful controls changed position enough that you could feel what state it was in without looking. There were no status lights (other than the VU meter) to look at as I recall.

    Here's a picture:
    http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue16/advent.ht m [positive-feedback.com]

    Anyway, ever since then I've always felt that user interfaces should be tactile and show their state in a physical sense. You should be able to make changes even with the power off, and you shouldn't have to look at indicator lights to figure out what's going on.

    While a lot of appliances don't require this level of UI "analogness", it is something that should be carefully considered for automotive instrument panel design, since that is definitely a "must be operable in total darkness" situation.

    • by miketheanimal (914328) on Friday March 30 2007, @05:51PM (#18549831)
      Seriously. The guy is a disturbed political nut job on par with Ann Coulter and knows nothing about technolgy other than he has a blog which only he's allowed to post on and pretty much nobody reads. This idiot was and still is a huge War Supporter. Frankly most people are sick of Glenn Reynolds, the Right Wing's Ward Churchill.
      Maybe thats true, bit in this case (and I speak as a bleeding-heart pinko leftie) the guy is right. Designers seem to think that because thay can put a computer in it, it has to *be* a computer. I want analogue. Oh, and before anyone makes any luddite assertions, I'm a shit hot programmer who can juggle a 296,077 line (according to slocount) program in his head with ease. Technology belongs in its place and nowhere else.