Sunday
Sep062009
Auto Designers: Your Help Please
Sunday, September 6, 2009 at 5:44PM 
This is a question that has intrigued me for some time: why do car radios sometimes have identical dials for 'volume' and for 'tuning'. I find this a little frustrating. I've seen this more than once, so I'm guessing it's a design decision for some reason like the following:
a) It's pretty to have knobs the same
b) It's cheaper to manufacture identical parts
c) It encourages drivers to use the steering wheel controls
d) Who cares—it's not that hard to learn
What do you think?
Reader Comments (17)
Mainly reason B, with a little reason A thrown in for good measure.
My guess is it's reason A; keeping the symmetry might be important...
My guess is A and a little bit of B. Another reason could be "Well, all the other cars have this convetion, so it makes sense right?"
I think it's likely that it's a matter of conforming to convention.
Radios since the 60s have had identical volume and tuning knobs, and most that I have seen have the volume on the left and tuning on the right.
Maybe the time has come for a major rethink :-)
Thanks all for your comments. On this particular car, it's volume on the left (right-side drive here in Australia)
I wonder if there is convention to that?
I'm with the writer: No good reason for it from a design perspective (as opposed to aesthetic or manufacturing reasons). So, D: ennui.
Car interface design smacks of stubbornness and luddism (ludditism?). No real insights for decades.
Challenges such as how to integrate almost-sanctioned distractions such as iPods, mobile phones, satnavs, have all been ignored rather than taken on.
And by taken on I mean integrated into a model that is rethought from the ground up, rather than appended or bolted-onto the current model.
it's stupid, i guess somebody told them symmetry is always good. the volume is on the left because european and american cars have it on the left, so it's a convention (unfortunate for right side drivers).
Mine has a huge single volume (+on/off) knob in the middle.
A and B, it's cheaper and some think that symmetrical design looks better. But Done the right way it probably would look better if different lightning-colors where used.
Volume is a continuas value, so a knob is an excellent fit. But I think tuning is actually a discreet operation; so I think ⇤ ⇥ buttons are a better fit.
Just like with TV channels, there's a next and previous radio station. Even in corner-cases when you are trying to tune into a very faint frequency, the frequency is an exact digital value, say 90.5 FM.
And frankly I don't see the value of supporting tuning stations that are too weak for an auto-tuner to detect.
Thinking a bit more, the kind of spring-loaded switch that is used to raise or lower windows (perhaps mounted to move horizontally, perhaps not) might use less space than two buttons. A definite advantage is that it means you can't put your finger on the wrong button.
A disadvantage is that it's an unusual use for that kind of affordance. But it's easy to learn.
Also, next-station/next-track should be the same control.
Vincent, that's brilliant.
My car radio (Panasonic) has a traditional large rotary for volume, but allows for flicking left and right (like a joystick) for the tuning. Though I like Vincent's suggestion, this allows for a larger target area which is very useful when driving, where you need to minimize the amount of time the driver has to drift their eyes away from the road to change the station/track.
Anderson,
That sounds like a nice control, and I wish I had it in my car :-).
I agree with what you said, but take it a bit further … personally I think frequently used controls in cars need to be usable by touch alone, so the eyes never leave the road even for an instant.
One big easy-to-find knob that does +90% of what people do with a stereo sounds better then what I was proposing.
Very complex controls make me nervous. Taken to an extreme you get the infamous BMW iDrive, where one knob "controlled" 700 functions!! I wish I knew more about some of the theory behind when one control gets too complex to manipulate. Maybe it would be even better to have just one knob control all of the stereo's functions. (Say press = pause/on; turn = volume; flick horizontally = change tracks/stations; flick up-down = change modes/playlists; pull & flick = select one of 8 presets; pull & flick but keep holding it = set a preset…)
I wouldn't like to be in charge of a design team trying to fit all functionality into a single knob!
What really needs a redesign are those controls for the air conditioner! The driver cannot see the settings written around those flush-mounted controls and has to remove his eyes from the road to make adjustments.
I totally agree. As a side note, I've heard that some inbuilt GPS units in cars will not let you operate them unless your speed is under cruising speed.