The gradual disappearance of tactile interaction in the driving experience
I am a road-trip enthusiast, or in even more simple words — I drive for fun.
In my many jags of road-tripping and commuting in a car, I started thinking about the interactive component of the driving experience, and started wondering about the effects of modern trends in the design and technology of the dashboard. For one thing, there has been a shift away from the tactile experience of the various control implements toward screen-based interactions. We see this across the industry, from traditional manufacturers like Audi and Porsche to the innovative Tesla. Does the trend allow drivers to focus on the road or increase the chance of them getting distracted? What are the motivations and design ethics of the car manufacturers who favor these trends?
Ever since 1910, when Henry Ford initiated a never-ending boom in the personal transportation market with his Model T, the automotive industry has been adding and adapting new features and ever-evolving technology. These additions are meant to make drivers feel more comfortable and entertained; from air conditioning to radio, GPS to autopilot. Until the advent of touch screens however, designers had to be careful not to add so many features that the driver would become easily distracted and get into serious accidents. However, now manufacturers are able to offer many more features to the driving experience without having to cram more physical dials and buttons on the dash.
The design trend shift from dials and buttons to screen-based interactions can be traced by following the evolution of Volkswagen Golf (Kessels 2019). The Golf was first introduced to the world in 1974, and has been one of the most popular and well-known cars in the world. There have been 8 generations of this model in the market. Comparing the first few generations with the latest generation, we can note the increase in comfort and the explosion of new features and information access.
However, it is unclear whether using screens to present more information to drivers makes the ride safer, even with supplementary safety systems, like airbags and lane departure warning systems. The physical location of the implements in the cabin may actually have been an advantage. The dials, gauges, and buttons are always in the same place, and were not necessarily a burden for eyesight as the driver could gradually depend on muscle memory, according to a study (Hirano et al 2015). If we take a recent model as an example, such as the Range Rover Velar, most of the buttons and interactive components have migrated to the giant screen in the center console; even the button for turning the air conditioning on and off is now an intangible button on a screen. Without the use of muscle memory can a driver turn off the A/C without looking down while driving in a Velar? At the speed of 55 mph, when a driver takes their eyes off the road for 5 seconds, the distance they traveled is long enough to cover a full length of a football field (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2019).
Automakers like Audi, BMW and Mazda have addressed the visual distraction problem by placing the infotainment system screen closer to the driver’s line of sight, “the visible path of travel from your vehicle to the target area” (DriversEd n.d.), and have kept a knob or dial for some control of the system. Using this type of interaction, drivers can glance at the infotainment screen without taking their eyes off the road. The physical dial and knob is a perfect way to integrate the physical components of a car with the intangible information and elements of a screen. Mazda has even disabled the touch screen when the car is moving, when the control of the infotainment system shifts to a physical knob. However, cars like the Range Rover Velar and Ford Mustang are placing the screen lower than the driver’s line of sight, which makes drivers inevitably look down, a less safe design.
Tesla, on the other hand, a special case when talking about the interaction design of a car. One of the most controversial designs of recent years is definitely the Tesla Model 3. Similar to Henry Ford’s mass-market strategy, Elon Musk is making electric cars more affordable, in the effort to have drivers switch from the traditional combustion engine to more eco-friendly electric vehicles. Tesla is famous for the application of the autopilot system. Thus, when we look at the interior of the Tesla Model 3, the traditional display panel behind the steering wheel has disappeared; instead, there is a single screen in the middle to present the information. At first, I really hated this design, since moving important information like how fast the car is going off the sightline does not make any sense to me; when I saw this design I thought that I could improve the design by placing a head-up display under the windshield. However, after researching user reviews and trying it out in person, I changed my mind: the position of the speed and gear the car is in on the screen is actually higher than the traditional display panel, which means important information is actually closer to the driver’s line of sight, making the car safer. In addition, Tesla Model 3 is considered as one of the products that push the application of autopilot forward, since in the future, if the car could drive itself, the driver does not necessarily need to stare at the display panel behind the steering wheel to retrieve that information; in other words, the role of the driver changes, the driver will become a passenger in the future.
To compensate for the diminution of the physical components in the car, automakers like Audi have been integrating haptic touch on touch screens, the same technology as the iPhone 8 home button, to add a component of physical touch to electronic controls. However, these sorts of compromises do not address the primary issue of the importance of certain touch-based controls. I argue that there should be a baseline of tactile control components that should not be given over to electronic or screen-based controls. If the interaction in cars becomes completely screen-based, it could raise a number of safety and driver-autonomy issues.
I categorized the interactive components into three distinct categories: critical, central and supplement. Important components like steering wheel, gear shifters, and turn signals fall in the category of critical since the driver has to instantly reach out to these tactile implements rather than spending valuable time locating the button on the screen while driving at a high speed; controls for air conditioning and cruise control is considered to be central, which are important interactive components but do not have the same level of safety concerns as the first category; infotainment system is in the third category, it supports and keep the driver entertained, but driving without it is not a safety threat to the driver.
As drivers, we are now witnessing a turning point in the automotive industry, where the very role of the driver is being altered. In the past few decades of design evolution, drivers were still controlling the vehicle and learning how to maneuver and interact in an autonomous way; however, with the appearance of Tesla, or autopilot technology to be exact, drivers are becoming passengers. With this trend growing, I also predict there will be fewer human-auto interactions to do with car control, but an increase in immersive entertainment functions. The increase in the number of features and the loss of tactile interactions in cars is inevitable, but car manufacturers, on the other hand, have to establish a baseline of safety which integrates tactile with screen-based controls, if we don’t want to make our cars into multi-ton killing machines.
Special thanks to Fiore Sireci, who revised this article
References
Kessels, Casper. “Why Interaction Design Is Needed in the Car Industry.” Medium. UX Collective, April 15, 2019. https://uxdesign.cc/why-interaction-design-is-needed-in-the-car-industry-3232a02fa147.
Hiran, Masato, Shinji Kubota, Shigeo Tanabe, Yoshiki Koizume, and Kozo Funase. “Interactions Among Learning Stage, Retention, and Primary Motor Cortex Excitability in Motor Skill Learning.” Brain Stimulation 8, no. 6 (2015): 1195–1204. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brs.2015.07.025.
“Distracted Driving.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, September 16, 2019. https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/distracted_driving/index.html.
DriversEd.com. “Line of Sight.” Line of Sight — DriversEd.com. Accessed December 9, 2019. https://driversed.com/resources/terms/line_of_sight.aspx.
