Why would one need a study for this? It's obvious. I always have to look at the touchscreen to press a button on it, not so for buttons. The touchscreen doesn't always "take" it, either, and I have to try several times.
This gets said a lot, but I'd like to see a study that suggests that people use buttons in their car without looking. It's reasonable to say it's easier to hit the button, and might require less looking, but I'd bet almost everyone looks at the button before pressing it.
You are mostly right. I do glance to find a physical button, but I have to look to find the touchscreen button and keep looking to verify my finger is on it.
It's a large difference in time.
Properly designed buttons should also have various shapes and textures so your fingers learn which ones are which by feel. Airplanes do this - for example, the knob to lower the landing gear is a little tire. The knob to lower the flaps has a knob shaped like a wing on it.
I come from the aircraft industry where this is a big deal, but the auto people go for a "cool" look rather than a "safe and reliable" look.
Remember old phones with buttons? I bet everyone over 30 could have texted a someone with their phone under the table or in their pocket. I’m sure there’s some people who could do that with a touchscreen, but not everyone
I patented a phone user interface that used a rocker switch for dot and dash. You could morse code under the table or in your pocket with nobody noticing! It doesn't take long to use morse and it can be very fast and accurate.
With haptic feedback you could even receive morse with nobody the wiser.
I might actually agree with you, because if anyone did a study on icons in cars that are "obviously" better, they'd find they are much worse than using language.
For example, the fuel icon is a picture of a fuel pump with an arrow on one side of it, say on the right side pointing to the right.
Does this mean:
1. The fuel pump goes on the left side of the car and one inserts the pump to the right
2. The fuel pump goes on the right side of the car and one inserts the pump to the left
Both are quite reasonable interpretations. I always have to stop and think which one it is. If it said "cap on right" then there's no ambiguity.
