I know it often seems like every bit of media you encounter is just a firehose of bad news, but I’m happy to inform you that’s not always the case. A great example of this has to do with the seemingly overwhelming expansion of the touch screen as the universal interface for everything on your car’s dashboard.
For years now, it’s seemed like a depressing inevitability that touchscreen interfaces would take over everything, but there’s a pushback happening. Buttons are picking themselves up, dusting themselves off, and coming for touchscreens, because the truth is we’re flapjacking done with everything crammed onto a touchscreen. It’s happening.
This movement away from shoving every possible control onto a touchscreen has been simmering for a while, as the people who actually use these cars on a daily basis are realizing that you don’t always want to navigate into an attention-demanding screen-based interface to do basic things, and as a result, have a newfound appreciation for tactile controls. This was noted recently in studies done by Hyundai Design North America (HDNA), as reported by Korea’s JoongAng Daily:
Hyundai Motor was one of many automakers who, following Tesla’s lead, have rolled out touch screen infotainment across their models over the past decade, often replacing the knobs that had historically controlled features like air conditioning and radio — going so far as to show off a touch screen concept steering wheel in 2019. It appeared to publicly reverse course early last year, however, stating at the launch of the Hyundai Kona that it was committed to keeping physical buttons and dials in its vehicles in the near future. Its current lineup, including the refreshed Ioniq 5, features more analog controls across the board.
That course reversal, HDNA said, wasn’t purely motivated by safety or profitability concerns. Largely, American customers just found it annoying.
“As we were adding integrated [infotainment] screens in our vehicles, we also tried out putting touchscreen-based controls, and people didn’t prefer that,” said HDNA Vice President Ha Hak-soo.
It feels vindicating to finally read very clear statements about touchscreen controls like “American customers just found it annoying” and “people didn’t prefer that.” Because it’s true!
There was also a recent article on IEEE Spectrum titled Touchscreens Are Out, and Tactile Controls Are Back, which I think pretty much sums up what it’s all about. The article referenced an actual physical button researcher, Rachel Plotnick, who has written an entire book on the subject of button pushing and is currently being sought after to help carmakers re-introduce physical buttons and controls to their dashboards.
Here’s what she had to say about the shift away from touchscreen controls and back to tactile controls:
There was this kind of touchscreen mania, where all of a sudden everything became a touchscreen. Your car was a touchscreen, your refrigerator was a touchscreen. Over time, people became somewhat fatigued with that. That’s not to say touchscreens aren’t a really useful interface, I think they are. But on the other hand, people seem to have a hunger for physical buttons, both because you don’t always have to look at them—you can feel your way around for them when you don’t want to directly pay attention to them—but also because they offer a greater range of tactility and feedback.
…
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.
When I’m driving, it’s actually unsafe for my car to be operated in that way. It’s hard to generalize and say, buttons are always easy and good, and touchscreens are difficult and bad, or vice versa. Buttons tend to offer you a really limited range of possibilities in terms of what you can do. Maybe that simplicity of limiting our field of choices offers more safety in certain situations.
There definitely was a touchscreen mania, and I think you can argue we’re still in that mania, even if cracks are finally starting to show. The maddening thing about all of this is that the limitations and flaws of touchscreen interfaces really should have been evident from the very beginning. It was always clear that navigating and using a touchscreen was more demanding of attention and visual focus, because that’s just how they are; it’s a flat, smooth surface and the controls on the screen change function and location, which means you have to look at it, you have to take your focus and attention off the road and direct it at the screen to see what it’s displaying and where the control is for what you want to do.
For example, look at the air vent controls in a Rivian:
Compare that to the effort to just move a vent, which has stayed in the same place on the dash since the first time you saw that car.
Buttons work better because of their limitations: they’re immobile, and their functions are unchanging. That’s limiting, yes, but in a good way. For controls that you’re likely to want to use at any moment – any of the HVAC controls, for example, or basic things like audio volume and lights and wipers and glove box doors, there simply isn’t any good reason to make those part of a touchscreen interface.
There’s a place for screens on a dashboard, no question. And there are many controls, ones that generally aren’t used while in the process of driving, that can be great on a touchscreen, or things like maps and detailed owner’s manual text and all sorts of other stuff that a touchscreen can be used for. Maybe there are things we haven’t thought of yet it can be better suited for, too, like showing videos of how to do owner-maintenance tasks like changing cabin air filters or something?
There’s a place for screens and physical controls in cars. Maybe we had to go through this touchscreen obsession to realize what makes sense and what doesn’t but I’m glad we finally seem to be figuring that out.
Attention Car UX Designers: Explain To Me Why Touchscreen HVAC Vent Controls Aren’t Idiotic, Please
Europe Is Requiring Physical Buttons For Cars To Get Top Safety Marks, And We Should, Too
Here’s What Happened When I Confronted Volvo’s Head Designer About The Company’s Egregious Decision To Require A Touchscreen Button To Open The EX90’s Glovebox
I’m 45 and started with manual everything, gears/windows….
My last manual car was my 2010 sx4 awd that I bought new because it finally got a 6 speed. Then in 2015 I crashed it. Started my family and went with a 2014 pathfinder SL (still have it) and then in 2019 that became the family car and I went with a 2017 Forester that was an auto and a base model.
Now I’ve got my 2024 EV6 gt line 1. And is the most well equipped car I ever had and also the car with le least buttons. I got used to the screens and the most important things are actually buttons, the seats and heated wheel. The climate and audio controls, share a special 3rd screen with a real volume or heat nob all depending what mode it’s toggled to.
It still feels like a normal car and was easy to get used to even for a old fart like me
“American customers just found it annoying”
Does that mean that eurpoeans (who somehow still enjoy manual transmissions) are over there saying “yes, I want to tap, tap, swipe, swipe, up, up, left, left tap to change the temp from 20 to 21?”
Yes 😉
More than likely there was a study conducted in the US that is being referenced.
Could you expect Europeans to likewise prefer tactile controls for hvac + audio & other places it makes sense like the glove box? Probably yes, though another study would confirm
This is one of the reasons* I haven’t upgraded to a ’24 Mustang. Even the small amount of buttons below the massive fancily-curved screen direct you back to the damned screen to make adjustments.
*The main reason is they’re now expensive as shit.
Shit is free. It’s the food that enables one’s body to create it that’s expensive.
Shitmantics, my friend.
In my 2011 fit the AM/FM button has ceased to function 90% of the time and causes me great annoyance. I can’t imagine what that would do if it was an integrated touchscreen radio / HVAC system.
We’ll look back on this period as a dark age of usability design. I’m just thankful I haven’t been in a position to have to buy a new car now that companies are figuring out that touch screens are inherently a UX nightmare in a car.
Not all cars have succumbed; there are new cars that still have physical controls. Hopefully, we’ll now see more of them.
Re: “an actual physical button researcher, Rachel Plotnick, who has written an entire book on the subject of button pushing and is currently being sought after to help carmakers re-introduce physical buttons and controls to their dashboards,” I absolutely love that there’s a button consultant getting paid good money to tell manufacturers, who have been putting buttons on dashboards for ninety years, how to put buttons on dashboards.
I think I want to marry, or at least, meet Rachel over a cocktail.
I just want the opportunity to charge the manufacturers half whatever she is charging.
“So whatcha wanna do is use a dial for volume, fan speed, temperature, and air positioning; use buttons for power, presets, heated seats, a/c, and window defogger…and those servos you got connected to air vents that interface with a touchscreen that are connected to the cars 4G receiver, team ’em out and replace them with a litte tab that you can slide up/down or side-to-side. Please make the check payable to ‘F.Y. Jones'”
I was expecting that book to be about the ergonomics of buttons and finding the perfect tactile feel, but instead it sounds like it’s a deep dive into the history of buttons. Somehow I think Rachel and Mercedes would get along well. 🙂
I don’t mind touchscreens, … when I’m NOT driving. Heck, it is illegal to touch my phone while driving, yet, this giant screen off-center of my driving line of sight is perfectly legal and encouraged?
(copied from a comment I made below)
I think an underrated aspect to some vehicle touchscreens is, depending on the design (such as the 9″ aftermarket unit in my car, which sticks out from the dash), you can put one finger on the edge of the device to steady your hand relative to the screen, allowing for easier hand-eye coordination. If you do that too strongly with a phone, you risk knocking it off its mount or something similar. Plus, of course, the dash screens are bigger and (ideally) have larger icons to push.
Nonetheless, I’m absolutely in favor of tactile controls for car (mechanical) functions, and climate control. But I do think touchscreens are too versatile to work around for navigation and music/infotainment.
Have most controls on the steering wheel and stalks. The only thing I miss on the Rivian is having HVAC buttons.
As far as everything else – volume, mute, phone, garage door, wipers, cruise, etc – it’s all a thumb or finger away, and it’s great.
Cruise control setting on a screen? My VWs did that with one left finger motion, with my hand never leaving the steering wheel. Why is it better to wave your right hand out, read a screen and make the setting, then return your hand to the wheel? Progress sure ain’t what it used to be!
No – cruise setting on the Rivian is stalk/steering wheel buttons.
Down with the touchscreens…I type on my tiny pocket touchscreen
Second. I’m not the only one here who could send a text from my pocket during 3rd period.
If only we could get companies to reverse direction on everything else as well. I don’t want a touchscreen on my washing machine because when I bend over to pull laundry out I shouldn’t be able start the thing spinning just from my shoulder brushing it.
But then again the automotive industry is always more conservative and willing to backtrack than any other industry.
This just in, echo chambers are real af
Tesla got away with it because they split functions between the steering wheel buttons/scroll wheel (there’s that word again!) and the screen. Volume is the left scroll wheel. Speed adjustment when in cruise control is the right wheel. And common controls like volume and temperature stay in the same place. A slide can be done, but pressing a few times on the screen also works. Point being that there are a few different ways to do basic things that don’t need a hard stare at the screen, even in a Tesla.
Can’t out-Tesla Tesla. VW tried and failed hard with their essentially mini-screen capacitative touch controls. Ford tried and then glued a jog wheel onto their screen. Embrace the buttons. Those differentiate the non-Tesla cars.
This is one of those situations where the outcome was obvious to the most casual observer yet the automakers did it anyway, wondered why the customers rebelled, waited for a bunch of academic studies to provide cover, and now maybe they are changing their ways.
I imagine there was shareholder pressure involved since buttons are more expensive and now they need to prove to them why buttons are worth the expense.
If true, this is yet another reason why investors should be ignored.
Unfortunately, you can’t ignore the investors if you like not being in breach of fiduciary duty.
Investing some money and talent into tactile and non-minimalist dash designs might put more butts in more seats. It worked in the 1950s! Go to any car show and see folks enjoying those colorful, distinctive interioirs.
Automakers say they’re making a comeback, they put a few buttons to say they did, make the touchscreen even larger, and add more screens, to the point that many near future concept automobile have touch screens door to door on the dash.
I’m glad that manufacturers are realizing that ergonomics matter again. touchscreens in a moving car are always a hit-and-miss affair, often quite literally. they have their place in a modern car, but that place isn’t everywhere for everything. buttons and dials with clear, defined functions are a safer, more ergonomic approach. we don’t need to go back to early 90’s button-mania either. commonly used controls need a logical permanent home, touchscreens can clear the rest of the clutter.
One of the reasons I wanted the previous gen X5 was the lack of touch screen nonsense. Yes, the screen still has touch functionality, but it can be controlled by the iDrive controller, there are still buttons and knobs for all the A/C controls, theres even a volume knob. When we replace it, it will probably be with a non LCI X5. They gave us a loan X1 recently and the entire car is run by a touch screen. I have a BYD Atto3 company vehicle and whilst it has buttons for some things, there are stupid things buried in the touch screen behind at least two menus (if you are running car play), seat heaters and rear demist being the two most frequently used ones. Its just dangerous. I’m not a “dont want a touchscreen” guy, I like them, they have their uses especially for nav and carplay, but I want physical buttons for the HVAC and seat heaters and volume and an OFF button for the Audio. A healthy balance. My laptop has a touch screen, but it also has a keyboard and track pad. It works well!
Same here with our ’17 RX 350. The balance between buttons on the center stack / console
and the screen is excellent.
Funny thing they went from a mouse control to a touchpad about 2020 because many in the auto press hated the mouse. Personally I was doing CAD design for 25 years so for me it was a non issue..but now Lexus has gone to a touchscreen, lost a bunch of buttons and increased the screen size to a ridiculous degree.
It’ll be interesting if they backtrack from this in the coming years. Meanwhile I’m totally happy with my ’17. V6 FTW.
BMW may have lost me when they left out the few remaining buttons and knobs on the LCI X5. They had it just about right before with the HVAC and seat heater knobs and the programmable radio/entertainment buttons. The only thing that could have been better was adding the Mazda volume-on/off knob next to the iDrive controller. One can hope the next generation will be better, but that may be too long a time for me. This used to be a good differentiator when compared to a Cayenne, Macan, or one of the MB tall wagons.
Although, I rented a 2024 X5 earlier this year and the lack of buttons annoyed me less than I expected, but I still prefer the old style and the 2024 has other problems like the proximity key not working well. It is very frustrating that BMW has made this turn to the dark side and my “Elise” keeps begging me to get a newer/nicer car (with a strong pitch for an X5) and I do not like what I can get (not really wanting to own an out-of-warranty BMW, maybe I can find a low mileage 2023).
We have an extended warranty on ours. It’s 6 years old with 70,000km and it feels brand new, also has the 3.0 diesel 6 – not too worried about the reliability of that engine. We were looking at 2021/2 Mazda Cx9s and for the money the older BMW just felt better in every way.
Automaker: Everything’s a touch screen now you’re welcome!
General Public: NO
Thanks for including this paragraph. While I love physical climate controls and prefer general vehicle controls to be tactile, I do think there’s several aspects of infotainment and navigation that are simply best done on a touchscreen.
Why? Don’t you LIKE bulky and hard-to-fold-properly paper maps?
I prefer to just use my phone. The touchscreen I already have that works just fine for navigating me from place to place in everything from a random rental car to my iDriveless BMWs to my all but zero electronics Triumph Spitfire. Or even my bicycle. Exact same interface everywhere, never gets in the way of using the car’s controls. It’s like magic or something.
So do I but I find the phone’s screen much too small to juggle navigation, music, OBD2 gauges, etc.
What I’d like are small screens (or one long one) for lots of sometimes used aux gauges (oil temp./pressure, MPG, turbo boost, etc) that can be easily cycled through the readout desired. Then navigation on a separate large central screen and music on a smaller maybe the phone screen.
I have zero need for gauges beyond speed, rpm, and fuel level. The ECU is more than competent to alert me to any issues, and does a much better job of monitoring things than I can – I am looking at the road, not a bunch of gauges.
I prefer to see a problem coming before it’s too late. If I were for example to see oil pressure fluctuating I can locate oil and add it BEFORE the idiot light trips. Same for engine temp, better to see the engine is running warm long before damage.
If I were to wait for the idiot light I might have only a few seconds to shut off the engine to prevent damage, perhaps leaving me on the side of the road far out of cell coverage.
In modern cars the “gauges” are so damped they might as well be idiot lights. That “normal” indication covers a range from barely warm to just shy of overheating. Don’t delude yourself that they mean anything. In some old heap like my Spitfire that the only electronics are in the radio – sure, gauges are nice to have, and I have the usual trifecta of water temp plus oil temp and pressure.
But for my BMW, “normal” coolant temperature can vary by 30F+ depending on exactly what the car is doing as commanded by the computer-controlled thermostat and electric water pump. So even if you added an “accurate” gauge – you will have no idea whether the reading is OK or not. So you might as well just let the computer do the monitoring and tell you when things are out of the range of parameters that are considered normal. And it is paying FAR better attention than you are anyway.
Intelligently designed cars don’t have “idiot lights”, they have staged warnings. In my BMWs, if the engine is getting too warm for the parameters, you will get a yellow caution warning long before it becomes a problem. If it goes past that, you get a red “pull over NOW” warning. If it’s a catastrophic failure you are basically getting the same warning either way, but you had best be looking at that little needle when it happens. I would rather have a loud warning chime and a big-no nonsense exclamation on the dash than have to see that the needle is now over there than in the center if that happens. As I said, I am paying FAR more attention to what is on the other side of the windscreen than I am the instrument panel as a rule.
I guess YMMY. A couple of years ago I noticed my Mazda’s engine temp was higher than normal on a very hot day while traversing a mountain pass. I found I hadn’t quite tightened my radiator cap after replacing the coolant. Thankfully I had a bottle of drinking water to add which did the job.
Meanwhile the idiot light remained blissfully ignorant. Had I ignored the gauge and only been alerted by the light I might have had the fun of a blown engine.
I don’t know how dampened the sensors are but I’ll still take a gauge over a light set to who knows what threshold. If you feel differently that’s fine but ask yourself this: Would you feel comfortable with just a low fuel light instead of a gauge and why?
I disagree. My car feels like it was perfectly designed to have no “ideal” place to put a phone–putting a mount on the central vents blocks some of the (center-located) indicator lights; mounting it to the windshield, top of the dash, or the A-pillar window creates blind spots; and adding a flexible long-arm cupholder mount to the central armrest created an odd situation where the screen is close enough that your eyes have to adjust to looking at it.
It’s why I specifically upgraded my head unit to an Android Auto one from Crutchfield.
More importantly, navigation and music are difficult to juggle on a 6″-some inch screen while driving. 9+ is a lot easier to work with.
Also, as a partial privacy (and safety) angle, voice commands are competent in my experience, and with Android Auto they only work while I am driving–if I say “okay google” anytime outside of it being connected to my car, nothing happens. Only works in the car, explicitly when it’s safer to use than not.
Plus, I very much enjoy the ability to reassure people with a brief text “I’m driving, talk later” or similar delivered solely through voice commands, rather than leaving them worrying about me til the next time I can stop to give them an update.
And as Cheap Bastard points out, there’s some car functions that are best implemented through a touchscreen.
If I want to disable “unlock when shifting to park” or “lock when shifting to drive”, or change the headlight-off delay after engine off, or change the remote chirp volume, are you really going to create separate buttons just to change those settings?
No, the smartest thing is a settings menu (only accessible in park, ideally) to configure those settings. And I’m sure there’s even more to handle on more recent cars.
My BMW manages to allow control of all of those things and more with the little display screen in the instrument cluster and two buttons on the turn signal stalk. No touchscreen bullshit required.
My cars handle music just fine, I don’t need my phone to do that. Nothing I need to do in a car other than navigate that can’t be done with two knobs, a two line display, and a few buttons. And navigation on the phone works just fine on all of my cars with a simple vent clip.
I prefer my screen to be pull down to block out the sun shining through the windows.
My response to the initial tone from Hyundai: Excuse ME for wanting to prioritize piloting my car over staring at a screen!
That said, THANK YOU for listening and making the changes back to non-touchscreen controls.
I find myself spending WAY too much eye time on the touchscreen of my wife’s new car when driving it over the past year. It’s not something I just got used to, like I would have expected if it was a good design.
It’s scary!
Yes, I fully agree. Seems the only dissenter is George Jetson complaining “I’m getting punchy from punching all these buttons!”
Touchscreens became popular because of accountants. But I can’t be the only one who didn’t buy a
Volkswagencar strictly because of a lack dials and buttons. At some point the cost cutting catches up to the manufacturer.Hear that? That’s the sound of a million Autopians rejoicing!
Well, maybe dozens.
Scores?
Fours.
lower double digits certainly
I can hear the Hallelujah Chorus playinga!
Read that same article last week. Definitely agree with all the main points in this article. Screens are primarily there to “show us information” and should not be the main way in which we control things.
I am in the market for a new to me car and I definitely am making it a major part of the decision.
Amen! I think my touchscreen aftermarket stereo in my Ranger is peak touchscreen stuff. Carplay for maps and such, backup camera shows up when I shift in R, but all the truck and HVAC related controls are physical. Analog gauges too!
Our F150 is similar. Despite the full digital gauge cluster & screen, it retains all the classic physical buttons for audio, HVAC & lighting. It’s the best of both worlds.
My faith in humanity is slightly restored.