Cars, touchscreens and why the pendulum has swung too far

This is a picture of a car with a touchscreen display. Looks great, right? Great. Now… before you start marveling at how cool they’ve made this picture look. Tell me something. What’s wrong with this picture? Seriously. What’s wrong here? I’ll tell you what’s wrong. It’s simple but perhaps not obvious. Not until you’ve driven such a car (as I recently did). I rented this model and drove it earlier this year and I came to the following conclusion. Cars should NEVER have touchscreen displays. Period. Never. Not ever. It makes no sense. It’s not safe. That’s the problem. The thinking behind it (or lack of thinking) is also a problem.

But let’s start with the case for why it’s a dumb, unsafe “gee wiz feature”. And it’s actually beyond unsafe. It’s dangerous. Think about it. And then think about the idea of distracting yourself with a touchscreen while driving. Not safe…when you think about it right? But, these are just my words. I’m just making a statement. This alone is not convincing. True. So let’s examine this a bit further. And let’s think about this logically for a second.

We know that 76% of commuters drive to work alone and we know that at any given time the majority of cars in the U.S are being driven by a driver with no passenger. No passenger, meaning no one else available, other than the driver, to operate this touchscreen display. A display that would need to be used when it’s time to adjust the A/C or change the music to another playlist. Ok. Why is this important? Good question. This is a touchscreen display right? Question. Is there anything you can feel on a touchscreen display which would let you know what selection you’re about to make? No. Right? The answer is no. Ok. So can I operate a touchscreen display without spending time looking at it? No. You can’t feel it. It’s not braille. You have to look at it.

And let’s be honest. These touchscreen displays (at least the ones in the above car I rented for a weekend) are not the most accurate in the world. You end up spending a LOT of time looking at this display. You might make the wrong selection. What happens then? You’ve got to back out of all these menus and scroll up and down and go thru multiple displays. This all takes time. All the while you MUST look at the display because you have no other way of knowing what you’re pressing. Terrific. But wait…you’re driving right? So where should your eyes be when you’re driving? Oh yeah…on the road. I mean…that’s just me assuming that you want to live.

So what’s the net effect of this brilliant idea to remove buttons from your car and replace them with a touchscreen? (Because that’s what happened) They didn’t simply add voice recognition. Yay voice recognition. Bravo for that. No. This car maker removed a set of buttons that you could feel like Braille to replace it with something you can’t feel that’s less accurate when you touch it. Hmmm…not safe. So I’m beginning to feel like this wasn’t such a great idea. No, that’s not strong enough. Idiotic, nonsensical… are words that come to mind. Removing buttons in favor of touchscreen displays in cars is one of the dumbest decisions we’ve ever seen made in cars in our lifetime. It just makes no sense…whatsoever. It’s purely illogical. I think that’s becoming clear. So… why? Why would they do this? What were they thinking?

I actually don’t think the motivation is that hard to explain. It’s troubling. I don’t like it. You won’t like it. It means we’ve stopped thinking critically, but it fits. The issue we see here is the Vincent Brimble phenomenon. By this I mean Vincent Brimble the hat-maker from the Raymond James ads. Many have probably never seen this particular ad, so I’ll sum it up briefly. Vincent Brimble was a hat-maker in the town of Hattington. “He only made one type of hat, the classic bowler. Then one day something curious happened. The day’s fashion trend became taller, fancier and preposterously tall hats.” Vincent wondered if he should follow the trend. He discussed it with an advisor and they agreed that this trend was illogical and impractical and wouldn’t last. It didn’t. Over time people began to increasingly see areas in which the hats were impractical and eventually the pendulum swung back towards a more classical style of hat.

How does this relate to giving drivers touchscreens to operate while driving? The answer is that the carmaker who installed this touchscreen is following the day’s trend. The designer didn’t choose to install a touchscreen display for the driver because it was practical, he/she did it because it was trendy. But why is it trendy? Two words. Steve Jobs. One more word. Apple. Here is a company that’s had tremendous success in areas where no one had been successful before. Many companies tried tablets before Apple. Nearly all failed. Many companies attempted touchscreens before Apple. None could make touchscreens universally popular. It took such tremendous effort and force of will to get that pendulum to swing this far from the no touchscreens, no tablets world in which we were living, to the one in which we now live, that one can only marvel. And with the enormity of this success a trend has been created and a host of followers has emerged. No longer are they thinking critically about where and why these elements work. Their thinking seems to be this: “Is this what Apple’s doing? Young people seem to be buying this. Ok good. Done. Give me something that looks like what Apple is doing. Do it!! Don’t talk to me about practicalities. Just do what Apple is doing!” No logic. No thought.

Alright, let’s be clear. Touchscreens have their place. We can see that now. Thanks Apple. Buttons also have a place. Trust me. They do. Such as…in cars. Let’s not lose sight of that guys. Now get out there and design us a better car.