Carmakers increasingly turn to touch screens because they are cheaper than designing and installing panels filled with physical buttons and switches, plus they look modern and cool, which helps sell cars faster.
But are they really that great? To find out, let’s dig deep and do our own investigation of them. Like Inception, we will systematically peel back each layer of an infotainment screen UX onion to reveal its inner workings.
How Do Touchscreens Work?
Today’s Wonder of the Day was inspired by Cohen who asked, “How do touch screens work?” as an intriguing query for Wonderopolis.
Capacitance-based touchscreen technology is the standard in modern touchscreens, featuring a layer that stores electrical charge and sensors with built-in monitors. When a user touches the screen, he or she disrupts conductive copper tracks on its surface and absorbs some of the charge stored there; sensors then detect this absorption and relay that information back to a microchip controller for precise location of touch events.
Controllers then translate that information into commands that the operating system can understand–much like how a mouse driver interprets cursor movement into computer clicks–so software can take action accordingly. Similar technology is found in self-order kiosks at McDonald’s; auto manufacturers face an additional challenge of making this technology useful and safe within vehicles’ already distractive environments.
Why Are They So Distracting?
Touchscreens can be a significant distraction to drivers. Each time someone looks down at their touchscreen to adjust radio or climate controls, their eyes leave the road for too long – potentially leading to dangerous and fatal distracted driving crashes.
Many car manufacturers are beginning to move away from touchscreen controls in favor of voice and physical button/dial controls. Some may implement voice command systems; however, these may not always work reliably and require drivers to concentrate more on using them than on driving safely. Others are going back to physical buttons/dials.
Consumer outrage has driven this trend; car buyers have consistently told manufacturers that they prefer buttons over touchscreens for operating their car, and industry has responded. According to What Car?’s report, nearly 60 per cent of British drivers prefer operating their vehicle using buttons rather than touchscreens; Euro NCAP even mandates certain features be controlled with physical buttons in order to pass its crash tests.
How Do They Work in the Real World?
Over the years, automakers have increasingly transitioned from physical knobs to touchscreen interfaces for controlling vehicle controls, leading to considerable confusion among vehicle owners and increasing frustration levels among vehicle drivers. It is easy to see why.
Touchscreens require your attention, which diverts it away from the road, as well as lacking tactile feedback like that provided by a mechanical slider bar or button – this makes reacting quickly more challenging in high-stress situations where reactions need to happen quickly.
Many companies have tried to address this problem through voice command systems and adjustments to user interfaces (UI). While these solutions provide better control than indirect controls found in older cars, they still cannot offer as much functionality. Recently however, several automakers have begun moving back toward traditional knobs and buttons due to consumer backlash rather than any impending regulations; it’s still an encouraging sign.
What’s the Future of Touchscreens?
While touchscreens may provide convenience as a single, centralized control panel, this functionality comes with its own set of disadvantages. Multiple studies have demonstrated that fiddling with a touchscreen while driving can significantly slow down reactions and increase risk. As a result, one prominent European safety monitor has threatened to ban cars that use touchscreens in certain key areas of their infotainment systems until they feature physical buttons or knobs instead.
Car makers like Porsche and Volkswagen have already begun scaling back on their touch screen obsession, opting instead to add more physical buttons into their vehicles in response to consumer feedback. It remains to be seen if these efforts will succeed; hopefully more of these efforts will lead to creating touchscreen technology that’s easy for drivers to interact with without distracting them from driving safely; until then it is important that drivers remain aware of potential dangers related to taking their eyes off the road to poke at an unwieldy touchscreen display.
