Part 2
What went wrong with the interaction of modern cars?
Since I published my article about the interaction of modern cars back in September 2018, tons have changed in the automotive industry. If you haven’t read it yet, I recommend taking a look at that article first, as this one is more of a follow up on the same topic.
Volkswagen Golf was my primary example there, with a good reason; it is usually regarded as the standard in its class and with more than 30.000.000 of them on the roads, it is very well known. I had predicted that in line with the latest design trends, the new version would have a different location for the infotainment screen (swap places with air vents) and I was right! The new Golf has been launched recently and with this Mk8 version, VW changed many things with the car, especially on the interior design:
The most welcoming news in terms of safety is that seeing the infotainment system is now easier to see, thanks to a higher location of it on the dashboard. When the gauge cluster and infotainment screens are on the same eye-line, it is safer for the driver to get the information displayed. Keeping your eyes on the road or as close as possible to it is makes more sense and VW has finally caught up with the competition on this. The new Polo, T-Cross and T-Roc had already a very similar set up with the way the information is displayed to the driver. I predict the next Tiguan and Passat will also see similar updates into the interior design when their next generations arrive.
The new owners of Mk8 will like the new infotainment system but they will probably be disappointed trying to use the menu on that display whilst driving. “Touch” is still the main interaction method here and to make things worse, we see fewer knobs for main controls, such as the lights and volume knob. Unfortunately they are gone now. For the lights and vision, we now have a touch sensitive button cluster:
One might argue that it was not used very often, the “Auto” setting takes care of fiddling with it every time we use our cars but the problem here is that this is part of an overall design design decision made by VW and it is to get rid of all knobs on the dashboard. Volume knob was probably the last standing castle for knobs but even that is gone, instead we have a strip now:
Here is a closer look if you couldn’t see it in the picture above:
A volume knob at the center wouldn’t hurt instead of a touch strip in my opinion. We may also have a new problem with this design, you may now accidentally change the temperature whilst trying to adjust the volume all the while trying to keep your eyes on the road! Or you may accidentally turn off the infotainment when all you wanted was to decrease the temperature on the left side of the cabin, thanks to the location of the touch sensitive power button located next to it. I guess it will take some time to get used to these new locations and input methods!
But of course the new Golf has been received with good news from critics and press, mostly well deserved to be fair. It is better to drive, has better safety features, newer tech, cleaner engines etc. It has been labeled as a finely polished machine and having a futuristic interior. And yes, it looks cool and shiny but just because it doesn’t have any physical buttons shouldn’t mean that it is futuristic on the interior. There can be a future with knobs and physical buttons as long as we, the humans, still drive at least for another decade until autonomous driving is the new norm. Then designers can feel free to have all the touch sensitive buttons and screens and experimental user gestures on the interior but until then the driver is still the user and car companies need to focus on making their experiences easier and lives safer.
The Mk8 will be a huge success but is it really going to be the mainstream car of the future? VW thinks the answer for them might be ID3, not Golf. Ashamed by the Dieselgate, VW has recently put significant money and resources to make the electric line of cars a success, starting with ID3. Thankfully, the interior design of the car is approachable, it is not very experimental and requires less time to adopt. It almost looks like a BMW i3 from inside, which is a good thing:
Naturally, you will find some similarities with Golf Mk8, such as the touch strip under the infotainment screen and touch sensitive buttons for lights and vision. This new design language will probably be the blueprint for the next ones on the VW pipeline and for many other car manufacturers too. Unfortunately this design still doesn’t solve the problem of trying to reach out to a small area on a glass screen to touch and interact with the car.
On the bright side, there are some improvements, such as the new heads up display. It is much bigger and if VW can deliver something like the image below, it might be a game changer:
Theoretically speaking, this might pave the way into a future where we don’t have screens at all. The information you need can potentially be available on the windscreen, projected or displayed through a transparent display technology. The interaction may take place with controls on the steering wheel, eliminating a need for finger input into a glass surface. Voice interaction is still years ahead to understand many languages and accents so things are not very bright there. And gesture controls are still behaving erratically. Looks like the old physical buttons and knobs might be around for a little while.
Having said that, we have already started seeing bigger screens:
At first the displays for gauge cluster and infotainment were separate but now the trend is towards a single display to rule them all! Wider and bigger. In the very near future, we may even see a screen on the steering wheel:
So what does all this mean? It means interacting with your car is still a complex procedure and requires your attention and your finger on a perfectly smooth glass surface whilst driving. As of today, touch input is still the main design trend here and we still have to learn new interaction methods, such as touch strips and hand gestures for each new experiment made by car manufacturers. I think it is fair to say that things are slightly more complicated than ever.
Is this the future we dreamed? Maybe I will write a follow up on this topic in the next couple of years with a bit more optimism, but until then, good luck to us all whilst trying to change the fan speed and temperature on our new futuristic cars.
