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It’s probably a little early to warn of extinction, but in some new cars, buttons are getting hard to find. Given the need for an in-dash screen anyway (thanks to things like backup camera requirements) and the fact that more and more people won’t consider a car without Android Auto or Apple CarPlay, touchscreens are making life easier for automakers in terms of design and meeting.
They just don’t make drivers’ lives any easier. Instead, we’re treated to bad interfaces that don’t create muscle memory, but instead distract us while we should be driving. And now Swedish car publication Vi Bilägare has the data to prove it.
VB tested 11 new cars alongside a 2005 Volvo C70, measuring the time taken to complete a list of tasks in each car. These include turning on the seat heating, raising the cabin temperature, turning on the defroster, tuning the radio, resetting the trip computer, turning off the screen and dimming the instruments.
The old Volvo was the clear winner. “The four tasks are completed in ten seconds flat, with the car being driven 306 meters at 110 km/h [1,004 feet at 68 mph]”, VB discovered. Most other cars took twice as long or more to perform the same tasks.
VB says that “an important aspect of this test is that the drivers had time to get to know the cars and their infotainment systems before the test started.” With my hats on for the devil’s advocate, most drivers who drive regularly will drive the same car regularly, building more exposure over months and years than a journalist after even a week with a new model. . But with such a lengthy adjustment, the user conforms to the wishes of the vehicle, and shouldn’t good design be the opposite of that?
Why they pushed the button on all-touch interfaces
VB blames the shift from bottoms to screens on designers who want “a ‘clean’ interior with minimal switchgear.” That’s fair, but I don’t think we can count the accountants either. If everything can be achieved by touching the screen, then the company won’t have to pay for the plastic and wires that buttons are made of, nor for the time it takes someone to make buttons out of them or put them in a car. to install.
Even with touchscreens, however, we can see in the spread of scores VB has given to various all-touch cars that design matters. You’ll find almost no buttons in a Tesla Model 3, and we mentioned the lack of buttons in the Subaru Outback in our review, but both performed quite well in VB’s testing. And VW’s use of capacitive touch (versus physical) for the center console controls seems to be exactly the wrong decision in terms of usability, with the ID.3 at the very bottom of VB’s scores.
I’m not surprised that the BMW iX scored well; although it has a touchscreen, you are under no obligation to use it. BMW’s rotary iDrive controller is, of course, within easy reach, and permanent controls are arranged around it under a piece of wood that looks and feels both interesting. It’s an early implementation of what the company calls shy technology, and it’s a design trend that I’m really looking forward to seeing evolve in the future.
Again, there are examples of automakers doing this better than others. For the past few weeks, I’ve spent time in an Acura MDX and Mazda CX-50, neither of which uses a touchscreen infotainment system. Neither managed to do better than 19mpg, which is downright awful in 2022, but the CX-50 at the very least stood out for ease of use when it came to the infotainment system.
Mazda’s latest system has been criticized for being bare-bones, but chances are a driver is using Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, and it’s actually quite easy to use with the dial and its hard buttons, which again are exactly where your right hand expects it to be. they are (or left hand, in a right-hand drive car).
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Editor-in-chief Eric Bangeman wished for actual physical climate control when he tested the Subaru Outback, but it performed well in VB’s testing.
Eric Bangeman
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The Tesla Model 3’s interior is the most extreme example of button removal, but it didn’t perform badly in VB’s tests.
Jonathan Gitlin
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The Volvo C40 has a few more buttons than a Model 3, but was sharp in VB’s testing.
Jonathan Gitlin
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Volkswagen’s infotainment software in the ID.3 can be frustratingly slow, and while there are permanent controls for climate and audio, they’re capacitive touch, not actual knobs or dials or knobs.
Volkswagen
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BMW’s rotary controller also integrates a trackpad and is a great way to interact with the iDrive system. It also features great speech recognition.
BMW
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Mazda’s infotainment controller is simple yet highly functional and easy to use.
Mazda
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The True Touchpad in the Acura MDX may become easier to use once I get used to it, but after a week I was still very frustrated with it.
Acura
The more expensive Acura also puts the infotainment screen way out of reach. It’s a much higher resolution screen befitting a much more expensive car, and the MDX’s infotainment system is much more capable in apps and features than the CX-50’s. I also really like the layout and fonts, although that is of course quite subjective.
I won’t subject you to the depth of my current feelings about Acura’s “real touchpad”, just a high-level, mostly polite version. It has a 1:1 relationship between the screen and the pad, so it doesn’t work at all like any other trackpad in any other car you’ve driven. And that means it takes a lot of concentration to use, especially if you’re trying to interact with CarPlay. And it goes without saying that “requires concentration to use” is probably the last quality anyone wants in an infotainment system.
I’m not surprised the old Volvo won, dating back to a time when most functions were controlled by individual buttons and when infotainment didn’t really exist. And in some ways, the tests proved right: there’s no Android Auto or CarPlay, and the only safe way for your phone to show you the way is if you bring a suction cup. However, be careful what you press when there is someone in the back seat. In Volvos of that vintage, one of those buttons leaves the headrests, which are quite heavy and very eager to return to a horizontal orientation with absolute disregard for the skulls of anyone who gets in the way.
