Button Or No Button?

Michelle Mac
5 min readFeb 8, 2023

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Buttons in cars are helpful. They allow you to perform a specific action in the car without having to take your eyes away from the road.

About 2 years ago I had my car’s stock radio replaced with an Android-based device (basically a tablet).

I thought it would look cool and give me more features when listening to music in the car or navigating via GPS.

Cut to today and I’m ready to revert back to the original stock radio with all its knobs and buttons 😭

Here’s why:

  • It’s a flat surface with no buttons and is a nightmare to use while driving.
  • The volume up and down “buttons” are flat and don’t light up so at night, you’re on your own with regards to volume control.
  • Connecting to Bluetooth is always an issue and it’s something I can’t attempt when driving due to the amount of concentration it requires.
  • Navigating through the UI is so slow and clunky it hurts me 😅.
  • There’s no audio or haptic feedback when you interact with the device which means you need to rely on visuals i.e. looking away from the road.

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Michelle Mac

The *heavily edited* ramblings of a technical writer & frontend dev. I write about creativity, design, and productivity. Start here: https://heymichellemac.com/