> You have always had the need to look at the buttons, like reaching out to the radio.
When the controls are in fixed positions, you only need to look at them a few times, before you memorize their positions. It also helps if they're shaped differently, like knobs and dials in addition to buttons.
Using the example of a radio, I used to be able to do just about everything without looking, with the exception of direct tuning (but that's what presets are for), in my older cars with traditional head units. Now that I have a touchscreen head unit, there's almost nothing I can do without looking. Basically, I can control the volume from my steering wheel, and that's about it.
> When the controls are in fixed positions, you only need to look at them a few times, before you memorize their positions.
The controls on your phone are in fixed positions most of the time; do you use your smartphone without looking, the way you probably used your feature phone?
No, because with touchscreens come heavy-weight operating systems like Android, which have unpredictable input delays. Without looking, you can't tell if your touch input was correctly registered (vs. ignored because the OS decided to hang for a second), and if there's any mode switching involved, you can't tell when the UI has updated to allow you to press again.
I'm not against touchscreens as a matter of principle (though I come to appreciate the ergonomics of physical controls). But their overall responsiveness is, in general, much worse than those of physical controls.
I can't edit anymore, but I meant physical controls in fixed positions, so you can feel which control you're interacting with in relation to other controls. Even better with a little bump or divot, like the "5" key on a 10-key.
With a touchscreen, there's really no way to know where your starting point is when you reach for it blindly, so you have to look. I suppose you could use the edges, but that wouldn't be so easy on a large touchscreen.
With an old car radio, you can reach for it, know what you touch first, and know where everything else is in relation to it, all without looking, ever.
The buttons on a touch interface absolutely can change positions. What button is currently in scope? Everything is contextual in my experience. With physical interfaces, I don't have to worry that my radio's volume knob is going to wind up on the ceiling after I had just turned on the AC.
Even if you design the logical interface such that all 2-d screen mappings are consistent regardless of context, there is still the problem of tactile feedback. Physical affordances can provide varying shapes, materials and actuation methods which can immediately distinguish them from each other without the need for visual confirmation.
The touch-screen buttons in many cars often do change meaning, even if they don't change position within a given context.
I first experienced this on a Prius back in the mid-2000s, where the touch-screen was in one of several modes (climate, radio, navigation etc) and even if one can remember where the controls are, it's necessary to look before touching. That car had more physical buttons than is generally the case now and was still difficult to operate.
When the controls are in fixed positions, you only need to look at them a few times, before you memorize their positions. It also helps if they're shaped differently, like knobs and dials in addition to buttons.
Using the example of a radio, I used to be able to do just about everything without looking, with the exception of direct tuning (but that's what presets are for), in my older cars with traditional head units. Now that I have a touchscreen head unit, there's almost nothing I can do without looking. Basically, I can control the volume from my steering wheel, and that's about it.