My VW is this way and it’s infuriating. It drives me nuts that Down is Next, it’s so backwards.
Volume should be up/down, and track left/right.
I’m curious if the left/right would be language dependent? English is left to right, so Right would be Next. Would Hebrew and Arabic be the opposite since they’re right to left languages?
It drives me nuts that Down is Next, it’s so backwards.
How is that backwards? If you have music in a playlist in a media player app (or iPod or other MP3 player), the next song is underneath the one you're currently playing.
I have only had one car, a 2021 Seat Leon, qnd the media controls are great, but spread out on the steering wheeel...
The volume control is located on the left side, it is a wheel, roll it up, volume goes up, roll it down, volume goes down, push the wheel, and the music is paused. Next/Previous buttons are located on the right side of the steering wheel, works great!
Now, if only it didn't have touch controls for everything outside the steering wheel...
Down is next because it's a list of songs with the first song at the top and the last at the bottom.
Frankly it's the orientation that makes the most sense when you consider it given most people will be listening from a streaming service, but back when CDs were a thing the songs weren't considered a list but tracks numbered from 1 to n. The up button incremented the track number and so it made sense for up to be next.
Going even further to tapes, fast forward and rewind literally moved the tape left to right/right to left, and so it made sense for them to be right and left respectively, however now it makes less sense other than being what older people are used to
It's not scrolling though - using the arrow keys on a keyboard or d-pad on a controller you'd use up to go up and down to go down when navigating documents, menus etc. As far as I'm aware unlike when you're moving a viewport either by scrolling or in games there's no debate when it comes to moving a caret.
And as you said, "having grown up in the tape era". Just because it was logical for that application and so is logical to you doesn't mean it's still logical - people who grew up with record players could just as easily argue for two spinning knobs as you're moving a potentiometer to increase/decrease the volume, and spinning the record forward/back; having grown up in the CD era I had both of them being up/down or left/right as the buttons were either beneath or either side of the slot/hatch most of the time, same with tv remotes having both as up/down, and given there was no standard then I don't think either one "just makes sense"