Acura’s new 2025 ADX keeps dials and buttons alike
Posted on 10/01/2025 5:36:30 PM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
It seems that the world of technology—including the automotive industry—is undergoing a “re-buttoning” phase. While touchscreens remain a dominant feature in vehicle interiors, automakers are revisiting the value of physical controls as drivers rediscover their importance. Driving, after all, is one area where practicality and safety demand simplicity. But what’s driving this shift in design philosophy?”
Rachel Plotnick, an Associate Professor at Indiana University Bloomington and something of a “button guru,” has been studying this tactile resurgence for years. As the author of Power Button: A History of Pleasure, Panic, and the Politics of Pushing (2018), Plotnick has explored the psychology and cultural history of buttons and their enduring role in technology. Today, she’s helping companies refine their interfaces, balancing the digital with the tactile.
In an interview with IEEE Spectrum, Plotnick was asked about the factors driving the “re-buttoning of consumer devices,” a trend that is becoming increasingly apparent in car interiors. The expert responded:
“Maybe screen fatigue. We spend all our days and nights on these devices, scrolling or constantly flipping through pages and videos, and there’s something tiring about that. The button may be a way to almost de-technologize our everyday existence, to a certain extent. That’s not to say buttons don’t work with screens very nicely – they’re often partners. But in a way, it’s taking away the priority of vision as a sense, and recognizing that a screen isn’t always the best way to interact with something.”
In cars, this critique has teeth. Plotnick highlights that touchscreens can be unsafe in certain contexts, as they demand visual attention to operate—something drivers simply can’t spare. Physical controls, by contrast, offer the “simplicity of limiting our field of choices” and allow for intuitive operation without diverting focus from the road.
To their credit, many automakers are beginning to recognize the limitations of touchscreens—or, lets be honest, the pitfalls of cost-cutting measures that eliminated physical controls in favor of screens—all thanks to growing consumer backlash. Physical buttons, switches and knobs for essential functions, like climate control and volume adjustment, are making a gradual comeback.
Acura’s new 2025 ADX keeps dials and buttons alike
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On our 2014 car, the blower speed up/down actually uses buttons, but they are half the size of a pencil eraser. They are dark black with grayish letters and the controls are down low on the console where it's pitch black (black dash, black console, black seats, black carpet). It's impossible to find them without taking your eyes off the road.
Trying to hit buttons on the touch screen is just about impossible, especially on a slightly bumpy road. My finger is going up down and all around on the touch screen, usually triggering something I don't want. I have to stabilize my wrist on the bezel to try and stop the "floating finger" problem.
Another article reported that drivers take their eyes off the road an average of FORTY SECONDS to change a control on a glass screen. On the freeway at 60 mph, you've gone 2/3 of a mile in that time! Probably weaving all over the lane, too.
I sure would like to see big tactile knobs, buttons, sliders and levers return to cars. Maybe this is happening.
My 57 Chevy Apache has one climate control knob. Heater on or off.
LOL, not that is bare-bones basic!
THANK GOD! Too.
I can control my environment by touch without having to take my eyes off the road.
And the nice, satisfying click of a button lets you know that you made the change instead of having to take my eyes off the road yet again to make sure I hit the touchscreen correctly.
They are not much different than using cell phones, and in some cases less safe. Our cars are from 2013 & 2014. They are all knobs and buttons. Saves me from crashing.
And in those days an Air Conditioner got closed up in the passenger side window and you had to keep putting water in it.
Yeah, touch screens can be a PIA. Often media controls to a degree can be selected with steering wheel buttons instead but you have to break out the owners manual to figure that out. Who has time for that, lol
A friend has a fancy hybrid with a large screen. We laugh and laugh when she turns the ignition because the very FIRST thing on the large screen is a warning:
DO NOT READ THIS SCREEN WHILE OPERATING THE VEHICLE.
The new cars with touch screens are death traps.
I miss having the low/high beams on the floor, the wind wing (little triangular window that could direct air inward), and variable speed analog wipers.
Triangle fold out windows in Florida don’t meet hurricane codes !!
On my car, I can reach over, hit one button, and change radio stations, twist a knob to change the fan level on the ac. All without taking my eyes off the road. On my wife’s car, you need a co-pilot to run the electronics.
And on a Ford truck, there are innumerable buttons and levers, all designed to match rather than be distinctive, and none marked or organized in a logical fashion. in a logical fashion.
Over twenty some years, dashboard designs have become overly complicated. And I really miss the simplicity of my early 70’s Datsun.
Now that’s funny!
There was nothing so satisfying as mashing that big, rugged floor button to go from low beams to high beams, was there! You could feel it under the sole of your shoe. No need to take your hands off the wheel to fumble around for that small stalk...and accidentally hitting the steering wheel tilt/telescope stalk instead! (it’s happened to me more than once)
Bring back manual transmissions too!
“none marked or organized in a logical fashion”
What? You don’t read international hieroglyphs?
The nice thing about the triangle wing windows was you could open then and create your own personal hurricane inside the car.
I hate them too. I don't use the back-up camera ever, because I learned to drive a car when cars had no such thing. The only thing I use the touch-screen for is for the audio system. I have all my CDs on USB sticks, and play my music from them. I hate taking my eye off the road to deal with the touch screen for that, so I set the album I want to play before I leave my parking spot. Give me back my 5 CD player. I won't sync my iPhone with my car, because I don't have bluetooth turned on, on the phone, and I don't want to receive any notices of incoming calls or texts while I'm driving.
I also hate the push button start, and the button locks on the outside of the driver and passenger doors, which don't work when there's a snow or ice storm and it's below zero outside.
The other thing that drives me nuts with these new cars is that if you're sitting in a queue, and you put your car in park, the car automatically unlocks. WTF is that? I'm very security conscious because of the job I had for 25 years, so the last thing I want is to be vulnerable to someone being able to hop into my car on the passenger side at any time. I lease a 2025 Nissan Altima, which doesn't allow me to hit the lock button on the driver's side door to lock the car before I get in. As soon as I hit it, it pops right back open. The 2005 Nissan Altima I had, allowed me to lock the car when I wanted. The people who design cars today, design them for lazy and stupid people. I'm neither.
I HATED that button on the floor. I always had a hard time reaching it.
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