
Tesla’s Touchscreen UI: A Case Study of Car-Dashboard User Interface - r0n0j0y
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/tesla-big-touchscreen/
======
stefan_
People are using these gimmicky car displays on the tiny instrument cluster
for changing lanes? I sure as fuck hope not. That just seems like extra data
from their vision systems, which is also why cars randomly disappear in it or
swerve wildly.

No, the Tesla implementation of this is lazy. Every other car with lane assist
has a warning light in the corresponding side view mirror. This forces the
user to look into the mirror, which also means a failure of the system to
detect an obstacle is not a big deal.

~~~
jgalt212
I think the best solution is Ford's blind spot mirror. Use your own eyes and
look where you're used to looking.

[https://thefutureofthings.com/5963-ford-blind-spot-
mirror/](https://thefutureofthings.com/5963-ford-blind-spot-mirror/)

~~~
neuralRiot
Better yet, learn to drive on a motorcycle, looking over your shoulder becomes
a natural reflex.

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tomp
I only skimmed the article, and I've only driven a Tesla (Model S) for a day,
so my review/comments might be incomplete, but _I almost completely disagree
with this article_.

1\. I love the size and quality of the touch screen. Nothing in other cars
compares. Usually screens are small, low resolution, require forceful touch or
aren't touch. (Recent issues with screens failing in heat are a big minus, but
I'm sure technology will improve soon.)

2\. I barely use any of the "buttons" (or other controls) while driving. I
almost always use the same temperature, and usually set it when I get in. Same
with navigation destination. _Edit:_ In any case, I think the big safety risk
is using central controls _at all_ , regardless whether they're touch-screen
or physical buttons.

3\. Most controls that you use while driving should be placed on the steering
wheel - things like music/radio and cruise control. I don't recall how it was
in Model S, but many other cars have this, so I consider it a solved problem.

4\. Reverse video camera, in most cars, automatically starts when you start
reversing (I don't remember reversing in Model S so maybe they didn't do
implement this yet). As this requires the car to come to a stop, even pressing
some obscure button can't be "unsafe", at most a nuisance.

5\. Some controls _are_ important and are usually _not_ on the steering wheel
- things like _lock /unlock car doors_, and the _4 blinkers_ button. I think
these would best be placed on the driver's door, or alternatively on the top
of the center console (above the screen) so that the passenger can also access
them.

6\. I don't use lane assist, and I'm not sure whether having it is a great
idea... people might come to rely on it and thus become worse drivers on their
own. It's often implemented as a light in the side mirror, which I personally
dislike - the implementation is bad (false positives, or turns on when I'm not
changing lane) and the light flashing at the edge of my viewing field
distracts me from the road ahead, so I always want to turn it off. I think a
useful UI would be, to change the sound that the blinkers make, if the car
detects an obstacle on the side.

To conclude, I can't wait until big touch screens are adopted by other car
manufacturers and most other buttons are removed.

~~~
danso
If you feel this positively about the touchscreen, then having only a day's
worth of driving experience might be a point _in favor_ of Tesla's
implementation. My reflexive skepticism re: a touchscreen interface would be
how unintuitive and unfamiliar (and likely obfuscated) the controls would feel
in comparison to the physical interface I've used my entire life.

~~~
tomp
On the other hand I grew up with technology and I'm a total geek, so
computerized interfaces are _in general_ more "intuitive" (i.e. I grokk them
faster because of extensive experience) for me than for most (especially
older) people... Also my vision is 20/20 so I might be less impacted by the
low resolution/contrast issues highlighted in the article.

~~~
brokenmachine
The problem with touchscreens in the car isn't understanding them, it's the
fact you have to take your attention away from the road in order to use them.

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Shivetya
Own a TM3, so bear with my bias.

I find the whole haptic feedback issue a bit silly. First off I went from a
Chevrolet Volt to a TM3. So lets start off with buttons.

Steering Wheel TM3, two omni direction buttons. Two stalks. Volt, 5 buttons to
do the same purpose as the two on the Telsa, then four more buttons for extra
functions on front, three lever like buttons on back of wheel.

Center Stack TM3 - touch screen, only the quick actions menu leads to one
level sub mensu Volt - touch screen with four dedicated buttons and knob
below. Menus and be many layers deep, some are four or five deep. HVAC below
has thirteen buttons and two knobs.

The come all the controls on doors and seats. Some cars put some items in
different places meaning for each car you need to adapt. However as I will
state below, you never really need to use the majority of them so it does not
matter.

Most cars are like the Chevrolet Volt, there are between thirty to fifty
buttons. Now tell me how that is worse than a touch screen. Lets double down
on this, how many buttons do you actually use during the course of a drive.
Try this, put a sticker on each before a drive and remove those you use. How
many can you reach for any not take your eyes off the road. Any radio or
screen will do that regardless.

The kicker is, you don't need to interact with the UI of the Tesla or the
super majority of most buttons in any car these days because for the most part
settings are set and forget. HVAC systems are set to maintain a temperature,
radio stations or music is usually only volume tweaked plus many other items
are automatic like headlamps and even wipers.

I was accustomed to my TM3 before I got home the day I picked it up. I can get
accustomed to nearly any car in minutes as the most used controls are always
where you expect them, from turn signals to horns to volume control over the
radio. I will say this, the navigation on voice is superb in the TM3.

Are there flaws with the Tesla UI, sure. Namely you still must use your phone
to change play lists. I know of no other brand with this limitation. I do
think the horizontal display of the TM3 is superior to the vertical display
for both information pickup and icon spacing. I agree the top icons can get
hard to see when map features underlap and that needs to be tweaked to fade
those map images

~~~
tinbad
Same can be said for keys on a keyboard you rarely use but why not have it
there for that one time you need it? I for one, don’t want to be going through
menus just to adjust my steering wheel - especially when I already started
driving (which surprisingly happens often that someone else adjusted the
steering wheel and I don’t notice until I’m already driving).

As far as comparing with the Volt, the Model 3 and Volt are in two different
leagues. The volt is a mass market EV that could’ve been had (ironically, they
discontinued it ;) for well under $30k. Model 3 starts at 40k and is competing
with BMWs, Audi’s and Mercedes with much better ergonomics due to increased
R&D spending over something like a Chevy.

~~~
zaroth
Steering wheel is the perfect example.

First, the car knows who you are and adjusts the seats, mirror, and steering
wheel for you when you get in. The concept is to eliminate controls which have
no more need to exist. If someone else was just driving and you switch with
the car still on, Tesla keeps a list of driver profiles!

You tap once to drop down the list of driver profiles, and then tap on your
name. Boom. Seat, mirrors, and steering wheel are immediately setup.

This is so much better than the silly “1” and “2” buttons on the door on my
wife’s Mercedes, which you have to hold down to make everything move, and for
gods sake they don’t even work until you start the car! My wife is tiny, I
can’t get in the seat without moving it first, so while standing outside the
car, I stretch my foot in to reach the brake pedal and then reach around to
press the Start button, so that I can then press... and _hold_... the “2”
while the seat moves into position. Mind numbingly stupid.

To give another example, all the headlight switches that cars have, like that
big dial left of the steering wheel on most cars where you can select from 3
or 4 headlight modes. Totally gone from the Model 3. Headlights and daytime
running lights are full auto. Even high beams are full auto, although the left
stalk will activate them manually if you want.

~~~
Fins
Are you seriously suggesting that "look-tap-read your name-tap" is quicker,
safer, or more convenient than "press one button, which always works the same
way and is not going to move, or change in any way, just because Elon needed
more screen room for fart jokes"? Honestly, this stretches any belief.

Granted, I can see that Mercedes implementation is stupid -- of course you
want it to work _before_ you managed to squeeze in and start it, but that's a
Mercedes problem, not an advantage of the touchscreen (which, of course, you
also can only reach once you got inside). FWIW, on my 2011 car this is not a
problem, button is in the door and works whether the engine is on or not.

------
kumarvvr
I really loved the Windows phone live tiles and the new windows start menu.
Large tiles, demarcated with bold aolid colors, separated with proper
whitespace.

That would be a good design for a Tesla in car screen. Large bold touch
targets.

~~~
GordonS
I've used something like that in the past for mobile apps for an engineering
workforce working in a factory and yard. They really appreciated the high
contrast and not needing to be too precise.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
The annoying part is that UX design for these use cases is well known. It's
old boring stuff but Tesla (and other OEMs, but none of them have as much of a
need for good touchscreen UX as Tesla) just won't implement it for whatever
reason.

~~~
GordonS
My guess is that they UIs like this just don't have the "wow factor" that will
appeal to new car buyers.

~~~
BlackRing
When it comes to any user experience dealing with a touch-screen in a vehicle,
I don't want to wow myself into the hospital. I love my TM3 but the UI could
use some tweaking and I wished we had the ability to alter it.

~~~
GordonS
Agreed, I'd be quite happy if there was an option to simplify the UI.

------
jdhn
I had a chance to drive the Model 3, and it threw me off that users have to
swipe up on the music player to view additional functionality. In fact,
swiping on a touchscreen when your main focus should be somewhere else just
doesn't make a lot of sense to me in general.

~~~
tomp
Anything not on the dashboard / driving wheel shouldn't be your focus while
driving. That's why many modern cars have music controls on the driving wheel.
Whether the center console control is buttons, touch screen buttons or touch
screen swipes doesn't matter that much... (except of course for a few
important buttons that you should remember the location of, like 4 blinkers,
lock car doors, etc.)

~~~
jdhn
I believe that this was done on purpose. Elon clearly wants the driver seat to
really be a passenger seat, in the sense that the buyer of the Tesla would
simply pop on Autopilot and then be able to focus this attention on the
screen. I personally think that this is incredibly wistful thinking on his
part, but to his credit if he didn't think big, Tesla wouldn't have gone
anywhere.

~~~
jnty
I'm all for 'thinking big' but not in a way that seems to have literally
killed people in the meantime.

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snarfy
I really hate touch screens, more so in a vehicle. Physical buttons will be a
deciding factor in my next vehicle purchase.

~~~
saagarjha
> I really hate touch screens

Do you own a modern smartphone?

~~~
simion314
>Do you own a modern smartphone?

Do you navigate your phone while driving? The implication is that with
physical button interfaces you can do a lot of stuff without moving your eyes
from the road.

I own a smartphone since 1 year ago and I don't like the touchscreen, I almost
never type on it and when I am forced to I hate it. The advantage vs my old
phone is the accessibility features in Android makes it easier for me to read
my messages and when needed I can use Text To Speech.

Touchscreen input did not won because is better but because it is included in
the screen so you can keep the device smaller, but keep in mind that the
important functions on the phone are still done with physical button like the
Power button, volume buttons, you can usually open your camera by tapping a
physical button a few time, why ? Because nobody wants to waste time and open
an app to change the volume.

~~~
saagarjha
> Do you navigate your phone while driving?

No? I don't understand why the ability to use my phone while driving is
important here.

> Touchscreen input did not won because is better but because it is included
> in the screen so you can keep the device smaller, but keep in mind that the
> important functions on the phone are still done with physical button like
> the Power button, volume buttons, you can usually open your camera by
> tapping a physical button a few time, why ?

Touchscreens won because they're versatile: enough so that I don't actually
have a physical button on my phone to open the camera.

~~~
simion314
>Touchscreens won because they're versatile: enough so that I don't actually
have a physical button on my phone to open the camera.

Usually there is a way to open the camera by pressing say volume Up 3 times,
it would open the camera much faster then you having to turn on the screen and
tap a camera button that could be hard in sun light.

Do you enjoy typing on a phone or trying to hit those small buttons on the
menus or in some apps? a few pixels miss would start a different action.

I hate it but it could be just me, I have eye problems and I use the phone
with largest possible fonts and other accessibility features on.

~~~
shaftway
I actually see that as an argument in favor of touchscreens in cars. If you
have accessibility needs, physical controls crammed in a small space should be
just as difficult to hit as virtual ones. At least with a screen you may get
the choice to enable accessibility features that increase sizes and make tap
targets bigger.

~~~
simion314
I can't drive because of my eyes, but your argument is backwards, physical
buttons can have different sizes and textures, so the Ford Fiesta has a smooth
round button for the radio, I can't miss it because it looks and it feels
different and it is placed in the center, then switching station you press on
it's left/right edge so the driver can do it directly without looking at the
button or at any display. I am not saying you should remove th3 touchscreen
but keep the most important and most used buttons on the wheel or on the
center dashboard as physical buttons and keep the important displays like
speed, LEDs for the lights and the important systems in the dashboard.

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noxToken
This wouldn't encompass everything that's been discussed here and in TFA, but
perhaps the UI decisions were made to help discourage usage while driving?

The mobile-like interface, the far positioning and small buttons make it
difficult to use while driving. I'm not saying that these are the proper UX
choices to discourage screen usage while in motion, but perhaps that reason
influenced the aforementioned choices.

~~~
ryl00
Probably better to just completely disable most functionality when the car is
in motion; that's what my non-touchscreen UI does in my car.

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tinbad
I realize this is a Tesla tear down (and I agree with a lot of it, having
driven different Tesla’s myself) but I would like to see a more comprehensive
analysis comparing different other infotainment systems on the market because
there are much better ones than Tesla’s.

For example, one of the biggest complaints of touch screens mentioned in the
article is lack of haptic feedback. I believe Audi/Porsche solved that really
well in their latest models by using (multiple) touch screens that provide
physical feedback upon pressing. In addition, half of the “buttons” have a
fixed placement and can be blindly operated.

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coldtea
That's a case study on how NOT to do a car dashboard...

Plus hell of a lot of "change it for the change of changing it" (e.g. regular
gauges would be far better and more reliable).

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eindiran
I don't really have a horse in this race (I've never driven a Tesla, but a few
of the points in the article seem valid), but I think its worth remembering
that the Nielsen Norman Group has a few clients amongst the large automotive
companies (Ford and General Motors, if I recall correctly). This was more-or-
less paid for by Tesla competitors, so maybe take it with a grain of salt.
YMMV.

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InTheArena
A problem that Tesla has is that the current UI is built for the model 3. The
layout of that screen makes a ton of sense. It doesn’t work nearly as well
with the S, because of landscape versus orientation.

It took me about 5 minutes to get use to the model 3s display - even without
the binnacle. My Honda feels horribly cluttered on the rare occasions I drive
it.

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11thEarlOfMar
It works in spite of these legitimate concerns because the actual time it
takes to visually acquire the target is measured in milliseconds, and drivers
already know how to assess the road and determine that 'nothing can happen' in
the next few hundred milliseconds. If you're in tight traffic with drivers
jockeying for position, you don't take that opportunity to skip a song. You
wait until it's settled.

We do this already when we eat or drink in the car, turn to look at a
passenger during conversation, read a billboard, etc.

~~~
nkrisc
> We do this already when we eat or drink in the car, turn to look at a
> passenger during conversation, read a billboard, etc.

All of which are other things you should not be doing while driving.

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xfitm3
I really like physical buttons. I detest touch screen interfaces in cars.

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ggg2
this thread show how teslas are the new mac in terms of blind fanboyish buyers
remorse denial.

people will defend the one button mouse just because.

> study proving that the way information essential to driving (e.g. changing
> lanes, checking rear view) is scattered in several disconected
> features/screens.

> all threads are people defending that you should not fiddle with controls
> while driving, and because of that the article is wrong and the touchscreen
> is perfect.

get a grip people. at least pretend to have read the article.

