Tesla’s UX is too far ahead to make sense (now)
When UX and UI go at a different pace than the rest of technology
Yesterday and today I finally had a chance of testing a Tesla Model 3. More than the driving experience, I was interested in the UX relatively to the 15 inches touchscreen that dominates the dashboard. FIFTEEN INCHES TOUCHSCREEN, let that sink for a moment.
It’s 2 inches bigger than the laptop I’m using right now, 2.1 inches bigger than an iPad Pro. If you have one, take it and try imagine having that, but slightly bigger, next to the steering wheel.
Seems insane, right? Well, it kinda is (so, better not even mention the 17 inches on the Model X).
Before trying it, I was really doubtful that such a huge screen could make sense on a car. After trying it, I’m definitely convinced it doesn’t. NOW (I’ll get on this later, follow me). But let me start with a little disclaimer: I tested the car for a few hours, so I’m sure many things I’ve found strange and not really ideal, might require just to get used to it. What I’ll focus on here is what I believe are the UX pain points that go beyond that.
Touch controls require more than touch
It doesn’t take a UX designer or even a driving license, to understand that, while you’re driving, every second you take your eyes off the road you expose yourself, your passengers and other people around you to a potentially fatal danger. That’s why posting selfies (or shaving, or brushing your teeth, or drinking hot coffee from a ceramic mug… all true stories from my time in L.A.) while driving is a big NO-NO.
Often, when we’re behind the wheel, we control things like the AC or the music volume just by reaching out with our hand, touching the knobs or buttons without the need of looking at the dashboard at all. But on a Tesla, everything happens on the display. And I mean everything! Ok, not the windows control and a couple of other things, but everything else does. For example: opening the glovebox. Yep, you tap on a button on the screen, you don’t have any physical handle on it.
Obviously no one should open that while driving, digital button or physical handle it doesn’t matter. But that’s just an example to let you understand how they went overboard with this display thing.
Basically the concept is centralizing all the dashboard functions and waaaayyyy more in this display. At the bottom you have this navigation that contains the main controls, such as the media player, temperature, volume, front and back defroster controls and sort of a “home” (a Model 3 icon actually) that pops up ALL the other settings and controls for the car, from the child lock to folding the mirrors to setting the acceleration mode or the steering wheel stiffness and many many (MANY) others. Imagine the settings on your smartphone, something like that.
You don’t need to access all of these while you’re driving, of course, but even the main ones, the ones directly accessible from the bottom navigation, are IMPOSSIBLE to control without looking at the screen. You can control some functions with 2 “wheel-joysticks” on the steering wheel, but they work contextually with what happens on screen, I’m not really sure you can navigate through functions just by touching those without ever looking at the display to see what is going on.
I need to lock the windows because my kid is playing with it in the backseat or whatever? My regular old-fashioned car: I have a button on the door armrest, I know its position and shape, I don’t need to look, I press it. Time looking away from the road: 0 seconds. On a Tesla: look at the screen, tap on the car icon, visually scan the “quick settings” page, locate the button, tap it. Time looking away from the road: I don’t know, but surely > 0 seconds. Turn the front fog lights on? Same. And many other use cases.
Fewer parts = fewer chances something breaks
Well, that’s for sure. Not having hundreds and hundreds of tiny components inside your dashboard dramatically reduce the chances of something breaking and needing to be repaired/changed.
I just wonder what happens if the touchscreen breaks, or freezes or an update goes wrong etc…
It’s not something that happens really often with our devices, let’s be honest, but having everything centralized of course maximize the effects of a possible malfunction.
One thing is having something on your classic dashboard not lighting-up or maybe the volume knob not responding. It’s unlikely ALL of your dashboard controls break at the same time.
But if the Tesla touchscreen breaks for any reason: no AC, no media, no turn signal indicator, no navigation, no speed, no battery life, no…
Again, I don’t think this is a common occurence, but it’s something to keep in mind.
Designed for the future of mobility
I don’t mean to make a review here, so let’s get to my conclusions. First and foremost:
Driving a Tesla is like when you went from a Nokia/Motorola/Blackberry to an iPhone. It doesn’t even seem the same thing.
I couldn’t even feel it like a car, it was “a device”. It’s something completely different and it’s very cool (and if you’re wondering about performances, well, the acceleration is so fast it really squeeze you to your seat. It’s kinda scary, actually).
Does this UX make sense?
Yes and no. It doesn’t really, now, but it will quite soon, when fully autonomous driving will be a real thing. And I mean to the point where you’ll really let the car take charge of the driving and you’ll just enjoy the trip without having to pay too much attention to the road.
I think Tesla designed the experience really forward thinking. They are almost there with autonomous driving and at that point this kind of UX will totally make sense. The car will really be the next device, you’ll be able to update it just like your phone, download apps, enjoy contents, and so on.
At the moment many interactions are too complicated to be performed by the driver while moving, some of the functions are too nested or require to scroll a page, some requires you to tap in areas that are not big enough etc…
But “tomorrow” this will set the standard for the industry.
A side note on the UI
The UI is very iOS-friendly. I’m sure they knew their customers are probably mostly iPhone users and tried to use a similar language.
I like it. It’s nothing like what we’re used to see on cars, not even with Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, which are good, but this UI combined with the size of the screen is the next level.
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