There’s an unfortunate aspect to this that gets lost in the design talk. Lots of manufacturers jumped on this bandwagon not because anyone thought it was a “better” or “more modern” design. There’s hardly any design happening in the space of regular, non-luxury cars. They jumped on it because it simplifies supply chain and firmware development/acquisition.
Dashboards without knobs and buttons of any kind are dashboards with no small parts to assemble, no moving parts, no paint and no stickers. The fact that all your frontend runs on Android means you’re not tied to any hardware manufacturer or software development provider (all of that, from hardware manufacturing (and usually design) to software is outsourced). You can use exactly the same board for all your models, in fact, and just differentiate in software. You can go from dozens or hundreds of BOM entries to 8-10. And many of those can be of significantly worse quality – like, you can just use cheap plastic for everything, there’s no need to have some parts molded from special and/or post-processed materials so you can grip them with sweaty fingers.
It saves tremendous hassle in logistics and manufacturing. I doubt there’s anyone who doesn’t realize it’s a tremendously bad idea on the technical and usability side, which is half the reason why so much money is being poured into bullshit voice assistants to supposedly alleviate the need to push buttons that you can’t push anymore. But it saves so much time, money, and screw-up potential that it’s worth pushing the envelope just a little further even after years of everyone hating it and yelling at voice assistants.
It saves tremendous hassle in logistics and manufacturing. I doubt there’s anyone who doesn’t realize it’s a tremendously bad idea on the technical and usability side, which is half the reason why so much money is being poured into bullshit voice assistants to supposedly alleviate the need to push buttons that you can’t push anymore. But it saves so much time, money, and screw-up potential that it’s worth pushing the envelope just a little further even after years of everyone hating it and yelling at voice assistants.
Given that touchscreens mean taking your eyes off the road, this means cutting corners at the expense of safety.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s just a bad idea, I think it’s criminally irresponsible. I wanted to point out why it’s still being pushed despite being criminally irresponsible. I don’t condone it at all.
They could still integrate physical buttons though, i understand it’d be more parts than just a touch screen, but having a handful of physical controls to hit makes a big difference while driving. I’m thinking of something like how a cockpit MFD works with physical buttons whose actions can change based on the screen contents: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-function_display
It’s a fad. Tesla started this, going to the max, and as Tesla was (is?) hyped and sold lots of cars, others followed. Like all fads, it will regress to the sane. At least that’s what I will hope will happen, just for my own safety as mostly cyclist. As driver, I don’t care, as my own car is 20 years old, hardly gets used outside of vacation and will probably not be replaced once it dies…
I was thinking yesterday morning on my cycle that the derailleur click is one of the nicest interfaces I have with a machine in my daily life. Entirely eyes on the road to anticipate the shifts I’ll need.
Apparently Mazda has an alternative knob system and disables the touch screen when driving. Seems like it lacks enough buttons to be actually good though.
A bit of a Gamble / stretch for here but I thought lets try and see if we get an interesting discussion going, since it is s tech related, although you have to look far… The guy normally does nice Linux reviews, then this hit my feed reader.
It’s an interesting article, and it raises the issue of good design, which Dieter RamsTen principles of good design and worthing looking at. In addition Dieter Rams has also esposed the philosophy of “Less is better” is definately a principle that is often missing in software design…
Less is better is so easy to misinterpret. Less of what? Same goes for most of Rams’ principles.
Let’s compare BMW M4 (pictured in the OP) and any Tesla. Tesla definitely has fewer (less?) physical controls. Tesla’s design is relatively easy to classify as innovative (Rams’ principle #1). Tesla’s minimalism surely looks nice to many (principle #3, even if highly subjective, maybe principle #5, too?, and with so few things to design—principle #10). Tesla’s cockpit is simpler to manufacture (principle #9, I guess). Tesla tick a lot of boxes here.
One thing forgotten though is that there are other requirements for cars than for most of our technology. Specifically, rule number 1: is eyes on the road. In the main use mode a car needs to be operated completely without looking at the controls. By touch, so to say. However, the touch here is used to find controls, “navigate the UI” if you will. And further physical manipulation actually activates the function. It is impossible to navigate Tesla UI by touch alone. More so since things move around with OTA updates.
It seems designers collectively forgot what ergonomics is. Or someone’s optimising for other things. Surely, Tesla looks nice on the marketing materials. It might even feel cool when you’re sitting in one before buying it. But doesn’t it become obvious in the first 30 minutes on the road that only basic functions are safe to use?
I’m still at loss how phones are banned in cars in so many countries but huge touchscreens right smack in the middle of dashboard are legal.
Well, it touches (haha) on a general thing that all tech seems to suffer from and that is the inability to accept that something is sort of “done” and does not need any radical new approach to solve the same problem. That improvements can be made to keep up with the changing environment, but that they can be small, incremental and most importantly: unremarkable.
These days it seems something is either an exciting new way of doing things totally different, or it is old, boring and thus on the brink of being obsolete.
Cars “worked”. But then we got the cars with touch screens and lots of people bought them. Because remarkable wins over unremarkable. And we, people, me included, just keep on falling for that.
There’s an unfortunate aspect to this that gets lost in the design talk. Lots of manufacturers jumped on this bandwagon not because anyone thought it was a “better” or “more modern” design. There’s hardly any design happening in the space of regular, non-luxury cars. They jumped on it because it simplifies supply chain and firmware development/acquisition.
Dashboards without knobs and buttons of any kind are dashboards with no small parts to assemble, no moving parts, no paint and no stickers. The fact that all your frontend runs on Android means you’re not tied to any hardware manufacturer or software development provider (all of that, from hardware manufacturing (and usually design) to software is outsourced). You can use exactly the same board for all your models, in fact, and just differentiate in software. You can go from dozens or hundreds of BOM entries to 8-10. And many of those can be of significantly worse quality – like, you can just use cheap plastic for everything, there’s no need to have some parts molded from special and/or post-processed materials so you can grip them with sweaty fingers.
It saves tremendous hassle in logistics and manufacturing. I doubt there’s anyone who doesn’t realize it’s a tremendously bad idea on the technical and usability side, which is half the reason why so much money is being poured into bullshit voice assistants to supposedly alleviate the need to push buttons that you can’t push anymore. But it saves so much time, money, and screw-up potential that it’s worth pushing the envelope just a little further even after years of everyone hating it and yelling at voice assistants.
Given that touchscreens mean taking your eyes off the road, this means cutting corners at the expense of safety.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s just a bad idea, I think it’s criminally irresponsible. I wanted to point out why it’s still being pushed despite being criminally irresponsible. I don’t condone it at all.
as if that ever stopped any industry
They could still integrate physical buttons though, i understand it’d be more parts than just a touch screen, but having a handful of physical controls to hit makes a big difference while driving. I’m thinking of something like how a cockpit MFD works with physical buttons whose actions can change based on the screen contents: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-function_display
integrating physical buttons would mean they lose out on the cost savings
It’s a fad. Tesla started this, going to the max, and as Tesla was (is?) hyped and sold lots of cars, others followed. Like all fads, it will regress to the sane. At least that’s what I will hope will happen, just for my own safety as mostly cyclist. As driver, I don’t care, as my own car is 20 years old, hardly gets used outside of vacation and will probably not be replaced once it dies…
Coming soon: a touchscreen-controlled derailleur.
Well, that’s not that far of a stretch from the wireless ones one can buy today, is it :D
bluetooth controlled derailleur have been a thing for a while, and I’m not convinced that it’s been designed with wireless security in mind.
I was thinking yesterday morning on my cycle that the derailleur click is one of the nicest interfaces I have with a machine in my daily life. Entirely eyes on the road to anticipate the shifts I’ll need.
Apparently Mazda has an alternative knob system and disables the touch screen when driving. Seems like it lacks enough buttons to be actually good though.
A bit of a Gamble / stretch for here but I thought lets try and see if we get an interesting discussion going, since it is s tech related, although you have to look far… The guy normally does nice Linux reviews, then this hit my feed reader.
It’s an interesting article, and it raises the issue of good design, which Dieter Rams Ten principles of good design and worthing looking at. In addition Dieter Rams has also esposed the philosophy of “Less is better” is definately a principle that is often missing in software design…
Less is better is so easy to misinterpret. Less of what? Same goes for most of Rams’ principles.
Let’s compare BMW M4 (pictured in the OP) and any Tesla. Tesla definitely has fewer (less?) physical controls. Tesla’s design is relatively easy to classify as innovative (Rams’ principle #1). Tesla’s minimalism surely looks nice to many (principle #3, even if highly subjective, maybe principle #5, too?, and with so few things to design—principle #10). Tesla’s cockpit is simpler to manufacture (principle #9, I guess). Tesla tick a lot of boxes here.
One thing forgotten though is that there are other requirements for cars than for most of our technology. Specifically, rule number 1: is eyes on the road. In the main use mode a car needs to be operated completely without looking at the controls. By touch, so to say. However, the touch here is used to find controls, “navigate the UI” if you will. And further physical manipulation actually activates the function. It is impossible to navigate Tesla UI by touch alone. More so since things move around with OTA updates.
It seems designers collectively forgot what ergonomics is. Or someone’s optimising for other things. Surely, Tesla looks nice on the marketing materials. It might even feel cool when you’re sitting in one before buying it. But doesn’t it become obvious in the first 30 minutes on the road that only basic functions are safe to use?
I’m still at loss how phones are banned in cars in so many countries but huge touchscreens right smack in the middle of dashboard are legal.
Well, it touches (haha) on a general thing that all tech seems to suffer from and that is the inability to accept that something is sort of “done” and does not need any radical new approach to solve the same problem. That improvements can be made to keep up with the changing environment, but that they can be small, incremental and most importantly: unremarkable.
These days it seems something is either an exciting new way of doing things totally different, or it is old, boring and thus on the brink of being obsolete.
Cars “worked”. But then we got the cars with touch screens and lots of people bought them. Because remarkable wins over unremarkable. And we, people, me included, just keep on falling for that.