
Why touchscreens in cars don’t work - rubbercasing
https://uxdesign.cc/why-touchscreens-dont-work-in-cars-69b6ff3d4355
======
Animats
Well, duh.

This has been known in aviation for decades. It's called the "head-down time"
problem.[1] There are Boeing studies at least back to 1979 on this. It's why
combat aircraft have heads-up displays. Pilot training is big on minimizing
head-down time. There are multiple crash reports where the pilot or pilots
were looking at something on the panels too intently and not looking outside
enough.

Aviation deals with this in several ways. Combat aircraft have heads-up
displays and "hands on throttle and stick" layouts, with all the important
buttons on the throttle and stick. The car version of that is putting controls
on steering wheel buttons and stalks, and putting the important displays on
the rear view mirror or directly in front of the driver.

Aviation also uses "cruise mode" as a dividing line. Below 10,000 feet,
commercial aircraft have strict rules on unnecessary chatter and distractions
in the cockpit. The crew must be focused on takeoff or landing. Above 10,000
feet, things are more relaxed. One could make a distinction between urban and
open road driving for cars, but it's not clear it would help.

Watch "Children of the Magenta".[2] This is an American Airlines chief pilot
talking to his pilots.

[1]
[https://books.google.com/books?id=YTAoEX4LiAUC&pg=PA254](https://books.google.com/books?id=YTAoEX4LiAUC&pg=PA254)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN41LvuSz10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN41LvuSz10)

~~~
raynr
I am really frustrated about this TBH. It is so incredibly obvious to me that
it is a bad idea. Any time you spend looking down is time where the state of
the cars around you are out of your view, and when you look back up, you have
to take a split second to update your mental model of everything around you. A
lot can happen in a split second, at 90kph you cover 25m in a second.

This is one of me and the SO's major bug bears. All the new cars sold here are
touch screen only for everything, including climate control.

The thing is, people keep buying these because they show well in the showroom.
Car manufacturers only import certain models in and they'll import what sells.
Pretty soon I couldn't buy a non touch screen controlled model if I wanted to.
What is the solution?

It's illegal to check your phone while driving because it's a distraction,
maybe ban touch screens?

~~~
sbr464
One feature that irks me on my 2017 Honda Civic:

Activate right turn signal, the main screen changes to right side camera feed,
to help with the blind spot, very useful.

When activating the left turn signal, there is no left camera or activation on
the screen, you need to use traditional driving skills and just look.

Nothing wrong with traditional skills, but I liken this to arbitrarily
swapping around cancel/save buttons in UI/UX.

There are still blind spots on the driver side that could be obliterated by a
wide angle video feed, but some PM has decided for me, for whatever reason,
that I need to use two completely different driving strategies in real time.
First world problem I realize.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
Don't worry, Honda has solved your problem. The "LaneWatch" feature (the right
side camera) was prominent on the Accord from 2013 to 2017. But it's gone in
the 2018 model.

I'm sure it will also disappear from the Civic when the platform is updated.
So, just wait a few years and buy a new Civic without the camera.

Which is too bad for us. Because my wife and I both love the feature on our
Accord. It's a lot safer than craning your head back to see if a car is in the
passenger side blind spot. When you're 20-something it's a lot easier to turn
your head back to look in the blind spot than to do that when you're
60-something.

We have the 2013 Accord and thought seriously of buying one of the remaining
2017 models on dealer lots just to keep this feature. That's how valuable it
is to my wife.

AKA Different strokes for different folks.

I do agree with your lament about how the interaction is different between
left vs right lane changes. The UI is much different. But I personally had no
problem getting used to the feature. Perhaps that's perhaps because I had 40+
years of driving experience with the old method. So, adding a new method was
simple. And the key word is "adding". Only one of our cars has the feature so
we still need to use the old method on the other cars. Aside: when you're in
suburbia and stores and schools are all miles away, you _will_ have multiple
cars. Perhaps even a minivan. :)

~~~
bdcravens
The 2018’s blind spot detection works great for that purpose, but you are
relying on feedback (generally a beep), not a video feed

------
sbr464
I would take it further and say “why touchscreens for most devices don’t work”

(hifi/stereo, thermostat, desk phone, etc)

Who really wouldn’t rather use a 1970s-80s silver stereo with buttons,
compared to a cloud/digital player today?

If clutter is an issue, check the book “Dieter Rams: As little design as
possible”

Obviously the overall experience on an iPhone is better than a blackberry, but
the sheer speed and “lookahead” actions, where the input speed can exceed the
UI state, is on another level.

The same holds true for a console type order entry screen (think old school
pizza parlor unix). Of course the features are lacking, but using hotkeys and
not waiting on UI, is an entirely different experience in regards to speed.

Preaching to the choir here I realize. More related to the story, I have a
2017 Honda Civic and every time I change the volume, my dev hat activates,
thinking just wtf from a safety perspective.

Full disclosure: I’m 35, not too old and cranky yet

~~~
bluetomcat
European and Japanese cars of the early 90s had the best UI that just lets you
concentrate on driving. No cupholders, usable storage space on the dashboard
due to the lack of airbags, angular-everything, well laid-out knobs and
switches orientated towards the driver.

That's why I still keep my '95 Rover Coupe:

[https://imgur.com/a/qmu4KY3](https://imgur.com/a/qmu4KY3)

~~~
nexensis
This is why I love my 15-year-old Honda S2000 dashboard.

[http://www.performance-car-
guide.co.uk/images/L-Honda-S2000-...](http://www.performance-car-
guide.co.uk/images/L-Honda-S2000-Dash.jpg)

Minimal interface with just 2 dials for vents and heating and 2 rockers for
volume and fan speed, which are impossible to miss. Everything is tilted
towards the driver so there's no reason to ever take your eyes off the road.

Everything else just gets out of the way.

I drive it daily without choosing between 8 suspension settings, 5 sport
modes, the perfect climate control temperature, heated seats, driver position
profiles, voice commands, cruise control, awkward bluetooth pairing or
proprietary navigation systems, and I haven't missed any of those things
during the last 3 years with the S2000.

Touchscreens are a lazy solution to handle (or hide) the insane arms race of
features imposed upon the UI designers to compete with the market. More
settings in the 2019 model? Just add another tab! The Tesla Model 3 is a prime
example - a super minimal car in every respect, until you use the touchscreen.

There's zero consideration whether stripping features out would actually make
a better car overall, so I can only see the trend continuing.

------
panic
A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design (from Bret Victor in 2011):
[http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesi...](http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/)

We need to stop thinking about touchscreens as futuristic. They're a one-size-
fits-all, budget option.

The true "luxury experience" would be a custom, tactile control panel,
designed not just around how it appears in design renderings, but also around
how it feels to actually use.

~~~
joe_the_user
It's nice argument that hands are the future of good design.

It seems like clever combinations would be useful. Hands, feet, even arms and
legs. Everything appropriately seems like what could design could look like.

The worry in my mind is whether good interfaces are the future. Perhaps the
future is "good enough" interfaces. Once basic usability is achieved, the
software developers simply have other agendas and no particular reason to
further empower their users. Instead fluff, branding, corporate egos or
whatever will prevail - look at the evolution of PC interfaces as an example.

So as long as the horrible Prius touch screens don't cause actually large
numbers of crashes, they'll stay around in all their annoying "glory".

~~~
panic
There's no reason to settle for "good enough" in a car that costs $100,000,
though. The reason Tesla can get away with using a touchscreen instead of a
better interface is that people think of them as futuristic and cool.

~~~
joe_the_user
Indeed, but the challenge is how many people have a strong idea of what an
actually good interface is. People may continue thinking how touch screens are
futuristics for a long time, for all we know.

It seems like the lesson of Steve Jones career and the old Henry Ford saying
("If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster
horse") is that UI advancement needs a lot of leadership.

------
ggg9990
Touchscreens are for UI that needs to reconfigure constantly -- i.e., for
multiple-purpose devices. Smartphones are great examples. One minute it's a
restaurant review guide, then it's a messaging device, then it's a compass,
then it's a camera. When you need more buttons, they appear, when you need
fewer buttons, they disappear.

A car is largely a single purpose device. You always have the same few set of
things you want to do in the car. Climate, Radio, Maps, etc. A touchscreen is
a boneheaded interface for this device.

Imagine if your on-off lightswitches were touchscreens. If your stovetop
interface was a touchscreen. If your refrigerator ice dispenser was a
touchscreen (I've seen this). Completely moronic, every single one of them.

~~~
gear54rus
Well touchscreens will show you new, better organized or painted buttons (with
the power of FOSS of course). Surely you don't wanna swap half of your dash
every time someone comes up with something better?

~~~
ggg9990
How much is my car UI really going to improve over 10 years? Without some kind
of revenue model, the manufacturer wants you to upgrade, and there isn't
really anything that's actually useful that can ship post-build without
installed hardware (eg blindspot warning, rearview camera)

~~~
gear54rus
For those who don't believe in improving UI, there still exists a possibility
of tweaking the stock to suit one's needs.

------
pjmlp
Voice will only do it, when I can actually speak on my mother tongue and be
understood.

Being forced to use foreign language to talk to my car system and playing
accents until the system finally gets it, means I don't bother using it at
all.

As for touch screens, having had a near miss with, I also avoid using them as
much a possible.

I need tactile feedback.

~~~
mrweasel
Languages is perhaps one of the largest hurdles for voice at this point. I
can't even get my browser to understand that I switch between Danish and
English multiple times a day and adjust spell checking accordingly. So having
a voice controlled system that will understand multiple languages
simultaneously doesn't seem likely in the near future.

------
cyberferret
Every time I see posts about car touch screen interfaces, and the associated
UX problems, I am reminded of this video I saw a few years ago [0].

I think it is an elegant solution (only allow ONE thing to be controlled by
the touch screen at a time), however will require a lot of learning and
remembering to get used to all the different gestures.

[0] -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVbuk3jizGM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVbuk3jizGM)

~~~
pasta
It is not what is on the screen but the screen itself.

From the article:

 _" even when our participants weren’t performing tasks associated with the
touchscreen, their eyes were still drawn away from the road and towards the
screen"_

So even with a good UI a screen is still distracting drivers.

~~~
scaryclam
This is one of the reasons I dislike always-on screens in pubs. Instead of
engaging with my friends we're all drawn to the tv screens, even when there's
nothing interesting playing. It takes more effort for everyone to stay in the
conversation.

------
stkdump
Touchscreens are good for small devices like smartphones or tablets. For
everything beyond that I can't imagine why anyone wants them. The distance
between hands and eyes on the human body makes it a clumsy way to interact.
You either have to look down or raise your arm very high. And then you
obstruct your view with the hand.

For the driver of a car, I guess the perfect presentation is: Small amounts of
important information should be shown in a head-up display. All the rest in a
display behind the wheel. The controls should be on the wheel.

Then some stuff should be redundant (hvac, media, navigation to enter
destinations) in the center console mostly for the passenger. The display
should be high, the controls low. There is a single good use for a touch
screen: point on the map to select a destination.

~~~
Angostura
Agreed. I have Carplay in my car, but lucky most of the controls are via good
old fashioned buttons and twiddly knobs. I sat in a Tesla for the first time
about a month ago, and was astounded at just how cluttered and horribly
designed (lack of visual heirarchy) the big screen was. I'll stick with the
physical buttons thanks.

Even with the simplified Carplay interface I find my eye straying from the
road too often, frankly. I do find the voice controls useful, though.

------
bluetomcat
Physical buttons and switches have a fixed position and give a steady,
reassuring feedback when pressed. UI controls on a touch screen can be
anywhere and the physical feedback just isn't there. Not to mention that most
current infotainment systems are dog-slow to respond.

------
onemoresoop
There is something critical about usability, location of controls and feel,
that's why buttons, switches and dials have been our friends for so long. An
LCD as many mentioned have none of these though they compensate in terms of
how much functionality can be crammed into them, but, at the cost of UI/UX. On
the other hand buttons or physical controls fail more often than LCDs.

Also muscle memory. When using an LCD one has to look at it whereas with
buttons it takes a bit of learning at the beginning and after a short time
then fingers go right on the spot without even looking or sometimes touching..

LCDs have multiple states so the location is not fixed. Muscle memory is not
working very well in this case

Hope we can learn something from the past and innovate more.

As an anecdote, about 10 years a go I was interested into digital instruments
(VSTs and such). After a few years I switched to real gear out of curiosity
and was amazed at how much easier the UI/UX was and how well some things were
thought out. I wanted to do something and my fingers would jump on the right
buttons without even thinking. I surprised myself with this. This is very
critical in some situations. Creativity can be hampered by something that
steals your attention, even a few glimpses start adding up.. Same thing goes
with safety.

------
yesiamyourdad
I completely agree with this. I had a dash mount for my phone but I quit using
it because it was so distracting to have the phone up there.

I rented a new Mustang last month and the UI was almost all touchscreen, even
for climate control. After a week with that car, I decided I don't want a new
car, at least until they can figure out how to give me some of that tactile
control back again.

The insights on voice control are good. It seems like a winner but in practice
I never like it.

~~~
ggg9990
I had to get a cheaper car than I wanted/could afford to avoid aggravating and
accident-inducing touchscreen technology.

~~~
nerpderp83
I have rented numerous cars where the touchscreen could not be deactivated,
the most I could do was turn the brightness down. It should be a law that auto
manufacturers have a symboled toggle to turn off the non-essential displays in
a car.

------
manicdee
Why are you trying to do things while on the road? Set the climate control to
22°C, start the music, set the turn by turn navigator, then get on with
driving.

Why is the experiment testing any kind of interfering with unfamiliar controls
while the vehicle is in motion?

The flaw isn't the UX, it's the tasks being performed and when they're being
performed.

------
superasn
I've been using echo dot inside my car and I couldn't be happier (got it at
50% thanks to prime day). The integration with Amazon music is pretty cool and
everything just works! Of course so far it's for music only but I'm pretty
sure that if you can control light bulbs with it, car mods aren't much behind!

------
WalterBright
I bought a touchscreen kindle. Gave it up for the older one with page turn
buttons, which is just much nicer to use. Amazon nailed it with the kindle 3,
and all the later ones are downhill.

~~~
robotmay
Yep, I'm still using my one with physical buttons. It's a shame that market
has completely stagnated, as it's letting Amazon release ridiculously
expensive new models with the features they removed from the last few versions
of their standard devices.

~~~
WalterBright
I like the Kindle 3 so much I bought a second one, used, as a backup for when
the first dies.

------
Shinchy
I drove a Range Rover Velar - the interior is one giant touchscreen with
additional sub menus, etc. To be honest I did find myself distracted from the
road because of this. The worst though is the SatNav popups that will inform
you about a better route, changes - or ironically to make sure you are
concentrating on the road. All of which require you to use the touchscreen to
remove so you can see where you are supposed to be going.

------
PhantomGremlin
I haven't seen anyone mention a Formula 1 steering wheel. Many many many
functions, operable at 200+ MPH. No touchscreen. Just lots of knobs and
buttons. But they do impose a very high cognitive load in operation.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=formula+1+steering+wheel](https://www.google.com/search?q=formula+1+steering+wheel)

------
WalterBright
Years ago, I got a patent for adding morse code to a phone with a rocker
switch. The idea is one could text people without needing to look at the
phone. You could also receive texts with morse by vibrating the phone.

With a bit of practice, you could have the phone in your pocket, and
send/receive without bothering anyone or taking your eyes off your task.

------
ape4
Whatever happened to inflatable buttons.
[https://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-07/your-next-
tou...](https://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-07/your-next-touchscreen-
might-come-inflatable-buttons)

~~~
mywacaday
Apologies completely off topic, I'm not a web developer, would someone be able
to explain what the nearly 200 cookies that popsci.com are using are for? Only
69 are for popsci itself.

~~~
SquareWheel
Check the Application > Cookies section of your dev tools (F12). It should
list them all.

~~~
mywacaday
I saw the list on the GDPR acknowledgement but am wondering what they could
all possibly be doing?

------
tikumo
This is exactly why i've bought a car stereo with android that also has normal
volume buttons on the side etc, most of them handle everything by touch but a
normal button is still a lot easier, better feedback..

------
petagonoral
An iPhone was the touchscreen they used in their study? Hardly comparable to
in car screens.

------
karakot
One of the reasons I'm not buying a Tesla.

------
agnsaft
touchscreens work in cars, just not for stuff you need while driving.

~~~
TomMarius
I don't use my car when I'm not driving though

------
peter_retief
I released an android app with 6 large buttons to control different types of
sirens on emergency vehicles, been in use for a few years now.

~~~
peter_retief
Sorry I never completed my response, just to say that in the field there were
issues with users and the touch screen, they found the mechanical system
easier to use

------
kwhitefoot
Strange, I've driven my Tesla S 70D about 15 000 kilometres since Christmas
and the touchscreen definitely works. So, channelling Douglas Adams,
presumably the author has some new meaning for "don't work".

~~~
Fins
Rowing the same distance in a boat, on dry land, would also "work". But not
necessarily in an optimal or convenient way. Just like a touchscreen.

------
Theodores
Writing from a seatbelt-less 1968 VW Bus where every corner of the vehicle is
visible and where the dashboard has just the speedometer and a couple of
warning lights:

"Why digital maps in cars don't work"

"Why backup cameras in cars don't work"

"Why carphones in cars don't work"

"Why CD players in cars don't work"

"Why climate controls in cars don't work"

"Why cup holders in cars don't work"

"Why electric windows in cars don't work"

"Why cigarette lighters in cars don't work"

I think the Tesla big screen is the future and any talk of adding in
gazillions of allegedly tactile buttons is defeatist.

Maybe it would be better if new drivers had VW Bus mode, i.e. no distractions,
not even a map.

Then the features could be unlocked over time. Or the car could make you pull
over to access the full menu system. If you are barrelling down the road at 70
miles per hour then you shouldn't be able to touch anything or be shown
anything superfluous.

If you then pull over into the service station then the display should then
kick into life, show more than the basics and become interactive.

Such a system could be adaptive, based on conditions different gadgetry could
be shown. This would be a different design ethos to 'infotainment' and would
require regulation or insurance premium fixes to make it a thing.

~~~
headconnect
I agree. I doubt there is any turning back, which was a UX nightmare anyway.

I do agree that tactile and predictable locations for the most commonly used
functions improve the ability of the driver to focus on the road while
operating them.

However, I doubt there are many customers willing to go back to the 12 disc CD
changer days where you're randomly selecting discs to get the song you want,
or manually scanning blindly until you hit a radio station with reception and
the music you like.

We have streaming services and playlists now, and there is an expectation that
those are available to you on the road.

We also no longer simply have a dial going from cold too hot for climate. We
have basics like direction (feet, center, windscreen), circulating or external
air, AC on or off, and then couple that with multi zone, and you end up in the
same mess.

If we get rid of the screen but keep the functionality, we end up with an
airliner cockpit. If you want to operate that blindly, I think that's more
time than any customer would be willing to invest in learning, and we're in
deeper trouble than where we started ("where is the damn rear right seat
warmer adjustment!").

I do agree that the current state of controls are suboptimal though, but
that's exactly the point. We should focus our efforts on optimizing that. For
instance modal controls displaying selected mode in HUD, either in the
instrument panel or on the windscreen.

I drive a comparatively simple Peugeot 308, which had a horrible touch screen,
but not too much functionality. I agree that I check out more often than I
should, but that's mainly when I want to know what song is playing on the
radio. It took two years to discover a steering wheel shortcut to pick from a
30-station preset list of dab channels.

I doubt any level of modal tactile control would allow me to intuitively
change the audio fader settings between "driver" and "all passengers", but
then again, that's something I've learned to do while generally focusing on
the road as it's a predictable series of touch screen presses. I'm sure it's
not great to do that in terms of overall attentiveness regardless how focused
I think I am, but given that the alternative is not having the option.. I'll
take my chances. And so, I think, will other consumers.

Whatever can be done to improve the UX and reduce risk should be done however,
and it should be a higher priority than style.

~~~
Fins
Almost all of these can be controlled with a reasonable number of mechanical
controls. It just takes more effort to design them than to throw together a
crappy touchscreen UI.

