Needing to feel nipples? Tactile cues.

[Nick72]

Click bait post I'm sorry.

Seriously though, the buttons for heated steering wheel, auto high beam assist, pan camera and the fuel filler cap etc are out of visual line of light. This is human factors 101 stuff Toyota has got wrong, particularly for functions you may want to use whilst driving like the pan view monitor, auto high beam, heated steering wheel etc.  Depending on what widgets your car comes with of course. 

Anyways, in usual fashion as I find myself during most minutes of every single day, I'm fixing the poor engineering issues myself with some stick on clear nipples of different shapes and sizes. No need to look, just feel the nipples. 

So I've stuck these on to all that is out of sight. Lower risk, straight to the switch in question. Muscle memory develops.

 

304 Pieces Clear Rubber Feet Bumper Pads, Buffer Pads Adhesive Rubber Feet, 6 Size Cabinet Door Bumpers - Round, Hemispherical, Square Noise-Dampening Bumpers for Drawers, Glass Non Slip https://amzn.eu/d/dPIaFrV

Maybe I've gone too far!? Anyways, it's working for me. No need to take eyes off the road **** down to see hidden switches. Now, these would actually be useful hey Toyota voice commands!

Take the hints Toyota! It's not rocket science. 

[Nick72]

No idea why it turned whatever that word was into ****. FFS. 

[Kos_ta]

Positioning of said buttons is obviously crap, but how often do you need to use them while driving? You switch on steering wheel and wipers heaters first thing after starting the car in cold weather, right? Auto main beam can be always on (I keep it switched on all the time), doesn't do any harm. You won't be able to open the boot door whilst driving anyway, that's another one out. And camera button only needed while you parking the car or going through tight spaces, in both cases your speed would be extremely low. 

And fuel flap doesn't need to be opened whilst driving at all 😂. 

So it's not that big of trouble IMO 😉. 

[ColinB]

I agree with Nick, the position of the switches to the right of the steering wheel is rubbish. I don't like keeping the heated steering wheel on for more than a few minutes, so turn it off. I also switch the 360 cam in when turning into a right space, at the moment I'm building up my muscle memory. 

[Cyker]

It's the form-over-function disease that's infected the whole auto-industry. I'm just glad they haven't yet gotten to the point they're wasting money on soft-touch plastics and contrast stitching while putting in cheap crappy bolts and hoses instead of high quality ones.

It's one of the things I much prefer about my Mk1 Yaris - While I'm very grateful the Mk4 *has* physical controls, they are nowhere near as tactile and easy to use as the ones in the Mk1 - Most of the HVAC controls are small and identical buttons that require a glance.

The Mk1 had big chunky buttons and dials and things like rockers often had a bump for up/increase and a dimple for down/reduce which made them much easier to use 'blind'.

A lot of this is the fault of automotive reviewers, who brand that sort of thing 'Very 80's/old fashioned' as if that's a bad thing, while extolling how pretty the useless touchscreen and aesthetically pleasing row of tiny identical buttons are.

I want to shout "Well Go Drive a ***ing Art Gallery then!" at a lot of them.  

 

It's partly why there's such an anti-Toyota bias in the automotive press, as they still put in the quality components at the expense of the 'useless' surface stuff, but the reviewers never take that into account.

It's very easy to make a car look and feel nice to impress the vacuous reviewers, but much harder to do that and keep cost parity while also using high-quality components.

That's why on the surface Toyotas seem expensive for what you get on paper, because most of the budget went into the bits that do all the work that nobody thinks about.

[Rhymes with Paris]

Aye, it's good for me to have things either on or off, like the MK1 does.

No slidey finger thing on a smeared screen.

[Nick72]

1 hour ago, Kos_ta said:

Positioning of said buttons is obviously crap, but how often do you need to use them while driving? You switch on steering wheel and wipers heaters first thing after starting the car in cold weather, right? Auto main beam can be always on (I keep it switched on all the time), doesn't do any harm. You won't be able to open the boot door whilst driving anyway, that's another one out. And camera button only needed while you parking the car or going through tight spaces, in both cases your speed would be extremely low. 

And fuel flap doesn't need to be opened whilst driving at all 😂. 

So it's not that big of trouble IMO 😉. 

Depends on use case. And if you remember to do things like put the heated steering on. As for pan camera when I'm up in the mountains and around narrow lake roads the need to press the pan camera button is high for me. 

[PeteChat]

My Design doesn’t have all those posh bits, but the cruise control/speed limiter controls are really confusing! Why can’t they just put simple buttons on the steering wheel instead of making you scroll through options on the screen? More than once I have put the limiter function on while trying to engage cruise control, which makes the car rapidly decelerate. Very dangerous and once I almost got rear ended by the shocked following car 😡 You also cannot alter the set speed without engaging cruise, so if it was last set at 70 and you are in a 50 you have to be sharp with the button.