What I'd give for hardware input source buttons. This is a ridiculous UX:
1. Touch button to open menu
2. Select "Input Source"
3. Click up/down (possibly multiple times) to find your source
4. Click OK
...when your monitor has TWO sources. Just give me 2 buttons: HDMI and DisplayPort.
I don't care that this would be marginally more expensive. I'd pay it.
Touch screen controls strike me as not being about cost but being about incredibly lazy UI and a good example of worrying about problems you'll never have like "what if you have 10 input sources? That'd mean 10 buttons". But YOU DON"T. You can't add an input source with software after the fact.
/rant
Touch screens make complete sense for phones. You're looking at it. There is limited screen real estate. The second is why hardware keyboards died. It's even why the Home button on iPhones died, which makes me sad because I loathe Face ID with a passion (compared to Touch ID).
Touch screens require you to look at them. This seems bad when driving. Physical controls are tactile and you can learn to use them without looking. People seem to forget how important this is.
It's also why I prefer keyboards that split function keys into groups of 4 over the terrible design of putting them all together. Function keys are really too far to touch type effectively so you need a non-visual cue of which is which.
Beyond that, every touch interface I've seen in a car is objectively terrible.
Totally agree. I have Dell monitors, which are fantastic in every way bar one - they have invisible, capacitive buttons at the bottom right of the bezel. I literally have to put my face right up beside it and squint to have any idea where the buttons are.
You can't easily see where they are, and you get no feedback at all when you press on them, and it seems to be 50/50 whether a press is registered. Horrible, horrible UX!
The newer ones ditched the capacitive buttons for regular pushbuttons. Unfortunately being budget constrained (or profit motivated) the buttons are the cheap kind that move your monitor when you poke at them (and make creaky sounds of course, to compliment the creaky sound the monitor stand makes haha).
My TV has capacitive psuedo-buttons even for the power button. Of course it isn't illuminated, since that would distract from the screen, which means that turning on or off the screen when the lights are out is literally a matter of making wild stabs in the dark.
That's a pretty good idea. I was thinking about retrofitting the capacitive buttons by gluing rubber domes onto them, but changing its outlet to one controlled by a switch seems like a more elegant solution.
Since DisplayPort can normally be passively converted to HDMI, your easiest option is probably to get a convertor and also an HDMI switch box. It'll be external to the monitor but there are plenty to choose from that have physical buttons. There are even some with remote controls!
> Since DisplayPort can normally be passively converted to HDMI
What actually happens is that some (but not all) DisplayPort sources can also output HDMI signals, so the passive converter only has to change the voltages and pinout. But if the source doesn't output HDMI signals, you need an active converter.
> Touch screen controls strike me as not being about cost but being about incredibly lazy UI
It's almost always about cost. Touch screens are shocking cheap thanks to smartphones driving the prices down and physical controls can be shockingly expensive per control.
I should probably elaborate on what I mean about "lazy UI". For a touchscreen UI, the thinking seems to be that they view this is something they can fix later with an update because a touch screen is an updatable blank canvas. The effect of that is you end up skimping on UI design because it's "optional".
Hard buttons force your hand more. You have to think about what buttons you want and how they're going to work in a way you just don't have to with touch screens. So you're forced to do a level of UI/UX design that you're not with touch screens.
I would imagine it's more the one-time cost of the R&D for developing the digital menu system vs per-unit hardware costs for the dials/buttons over time.
I dunno, when it comes to configuring monitor settings, I'd trade a touch screen menu for any of the physical button configuration schemes on any monitor or TV i've ever owned.
What I'd give for hardware input source buttons. This is a ridiculous UX:
1. Touch button to open menu
2. Select "Input Source"
3. Click up/down (possibly multiple times) to find your source
4. Click OK
...when your monitor has TWO sources. Just give me 2 buttons: HDMI and DisplayPort.
I don't care that this would be marginally more expensive. I'd pay it.
Touch screen controls strike me as not being about cost but being about incredibly lazy UI and a good example of worrying about problems you'll never have like "what if you have 10 input sources? That'd mean 10 buttons". But YOU DON"T. You can't add an input source with software after the fact.
/rant
Touch screens make complete sense for phones. You're looking at it. There is limited screen real estate. The second is why hardware keyboards died. It's even why the Home button on iPhones died, which makes me sad because I loathe Face ID with a passion (compared to Touch ID).
Touch screens require you to look at them. This seems bad when driving. Physical controls are tactile and you can learn to use them without looking. People seem to forget how important this is.
It's also why I prefer keyboards that split function keys into groups of 4 over the terrible design of putting them all together. Function keys are really too far to touch type effectively so you need a non-visual cue of which is which.
Beyond that, every touch interface I've seen in a car is objectively terrible.
Kudos to Honda for bucking this stupid trend.