Tesla’s Touchscreen UI: A Case Study of Car-Dashboard User Interface
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No, the Tesla implementation of this is lazy. Every other car with lane assist has a warning light in the corresponding side view mirror. This forces the user to look into the mirror, which also means a failure of the system to detect an obstacle is not a big deal.
The only annoyance I have with it is if you are in a double left turn lane and actually use your signals. It'll beep at you since it detects a car and doesn't know you are turning vs changing lanes.
Well, maybe every other car except for Acuras, but who's counting.
1. I love the size and quality of the touch screen. Nothing in other cars compares. Usually screens are small, low resolution, require forceful touch or aren't touch. (Recent issues with screens failing in heat are a big minus, but I'm sure technology will improve soon.)
2. I barely use any of the "buttons" (or other controls) while driving. I almost always use the same temperature, and usually set it when I get in. Same with navigation destination. Edit: In any case, I think the big safety risk is using central controls at all, regardless whether they're touch-screen or physical buttons.
3. Most controls that you use while driving should be placed on the steering wheel - things like music/radio and cruise control. I don't recall how it was in Model S, but many other cars have this, so I consider it a solved problem.
4. Reverse video camera, in most cars, automatically starts when you start reversing (I don't remember reversing in Model S so maybe they didn't do implement this yet). As this requires the car to come to a stop, even pressing some obscure button can't be "unsafe", at most a nuisance.
5. Some controls are important and are usually not on the steering wheel - things like lock/unlock car doors, and the 4 blinkers button. I think these would best be placed on the driver's door, or alternatively on the top of the center console (above the screen) so that the passenger can also access them.
6. I don't use lane assist, and I'm not sure whether having it is a great idea... people might come to rely on it and thus become worse drivers on their own. It's often implemented as a light in the side mirror, which I personally dislike - the implementation is bad (false positives, or turns on when I'm not changing lane) and the light flashing at the edge of my viewing field distracts me from the road ahead, so I always want to turn it off. I think a useful UI would be, to change the sound that the blinkers make, if the car detects an obstacle on the side.
To conclude, I can't wait until big touch screens are adopted by other car manufacturers and most other buttons are removed.
2. Climate control maps to the right-hannd steering wheel scroll wheel by default, so you don't need to take your hands off the wheel o change temp or turn it on or off.
3. Music is on the left wheel control; play/pause, volume, and next/prev buttons. Cruise and AP are on the stalk.
4. Reverse cam comes up along with the ultrasonic sensor distance view (and Autopark UI) when changing to reverse. I can't help but add my wishlist item to have the two side cams also display in this view or Tesla to do the pseudo-360 view.
5. Central door locks on tesla are quite a bit smarter than in many other cars, so I find I generally don't have to use the lock control all, but when it's needed, it's a soft button at the top of the screen. The car auto locks/unlocks the doors with the drive selector and further, when the doors are locked and the car is moving, they cannot be opened accidentally. Hazard control is a physical button to the left of the screen which is a good decision.
6. Tesla's lane assist features are actually relatively new, and they are doing some pretty interesting things-- most interestingly if the AP system is pretty damn sure the lane change is a bad idea it will as of the latest software raise audible alarms and the steering motor will actively resist the wheel movement. That is the most important thing IMO because the real problems happen when the driver changes lanes without awareness, and while the lane change indicators might catch the drivers attention moreso than a car in the blind spot, an inattentive driver might not be paying attention to any of that. For this reason too I believe the mirror indicators in other cars are stupid. My line of reasoning is that if I am looking in the side mirror, I shouldn't need the indicator. But then again most people have their side mirrors set up to look too close to their car and create huge blind spots.
Still, I can't give the whole UI a pass. There are some really egregious issues with it that as a software developer make me clench my butt a little bit. For instance on the current software release, turning the traffic overlay on absolutely kills performance because some developer made an error by specifying some timer as 200 milliseconds when it was supposed to have been 200 seconds. Notwithstanding this, the whole thing still freezes or crashes about once a week too. Like, how am I supposed to really trust the autopilot if Tesla can't even hammer out a decent and well-performing UI on top of a rock solid OS after 7 years?
1. Agreed. The size is extremely nice, and the resolution is high enough that you aren't squinting at the screen. I can see what I need at a glance.
2. Agreed. The only controls I use are switching between Spotify and Bluetooth, and this is rare enough that I can do it at a stop. If you are constantly playing with the temperature, you're doing it wrong.
3. On the Model S this is true. On the Model 3 I haven't found if it's possible to control the fan from the steering wheel. That'd be nice to have, and remove my most common touches. I like the auto fan speed, but it's noisy over 5, so I'd like to set a cap, which is why I'll mess with fan speed.
4. It's automatic on both. You can manually leave it on. My wife does this in the Model S because she keeps a screen on the back window (to keep the kids from overheating in the third row) and can't see as well because of that, so she uses it as her rear view mirror. I think it's crazy distracting.
5. The doors would be more intuitive for the lock/unlock, but the screen placement is reasonable. I don't want my passenger messing with my hazard lights. The glove compartment opener is hard to find on the Model 3 compared to the Model S (if you want your passenger going in there).
6. I don't really use it either. When I want to change lanes (or the car asks to change lanes) I visually check first. Anyone who's driven one for more than a few minutes knows not to trust the screen, so it kind of fades into the background.
I agree with the conclusion. I've driven a bunch of rentals lately, and some of them were completely absurd. A 2018 Mercedes had 4 buttons, 4 up/down toggles, 2 scroll wheels, and 2 little nubbins that could be swiped in any of 4 directions or clicked, all on the steering wheel. I counted 26 possible interactions. But on the whole, the little grubby touchscreens in other cars are all sorts of terrible.
I find the whole haptic feedback issue a bit silly. First off I went from a Chevrolet Volt to a TM3. So lets start off with buttons.
Steering Wheel TM3, two omni direction buttons. Two stalks. Volt, 5 buttons to do the same purpose as the two on the Telsa, then four more buttons for extra functions on front, three lever like buttons on back of wheel.
Center Stack TM3 - touch screen, only the quick actions menu leads to one level sub mensu Volt - touch screen with four dedicated buttons and knob below. Menus and be many layers deep, some are four or five deep. HVAC below has thirteen buttons and two knobs.
The come all the controls on doors and seats. Some cars put some items in different places meaning for each car you need to adapt. However as I will state below, you never really need to use the majority of them so it does not matter.
Most cars are like the Chevrolet Volt, there are between thirty to fifty buttons. Now tell me how that is worse than a touch screen. Lets double down on this, how many buttons do you actually use during the course of a drive. Try this, put a sticker on each before a drive and remove those you use. How many can you reach for any not take your eyes off the road. Any radio or screen will do that regardless.
The kicker is, you don't need to interact with the UI of the Tesla or the super majority of most buttons in any car these days because for the most part settings are set and forget. HVAC systems are set to maintain a temperature, radio stations or music is usually only volume tweaked plus many other items are automatic like headlamps and even wipers.
I was accustomed to my TM3 before I got home the day I picked it up. I can get accustomed to nearly any car in minutes as the most used controls are always where you expect them, from turn signals to horns to volume control over the radio. I will say this, the navigation on voice is superb in the TM3.
Are there flaws with the Tesla UI, sure. Namely you still must use your phone to change play lists. I know of no other brand with this limitation. I do think the horizontal display of the TM3 is superior to the vertical display for both information pickup and icon spacing. I agree the top icons can get hard to see when map features underlap and that needs to be tweaked to fade those map images
As far as comparing with the Volt, the Model 3 and Volt are in two different leagues. The volt is a mass market EV that could’ve been had (ironically, they discontinued it ;) for well under $30k. Model 3 starts at 40k and is competing with BMWs, Audi’s and Mercedes with much better ergonomics due to increased R&D spending over something like a Chevy.
First, the car knows who you are and adjusts the seats, mirror, and steering wheel for you when you get in. The concept is to eliminate controls which have no more need to exist. If someone else was just driving and you switch with the car still on, Tesla keeps a list of driver profiles!
You tap once to drop down the list of driver profiles, and then tap on your name. Boom. Seat, mirrors, and steering wheel are immediately setup.
This is so much better than the silly “1” and “2” buttons on the door on my wife’s Mercedes, which you have to hold down to make everything move, and for gods sake they don’t even work until you start the car! My wife is tiny, I can’t get in the seat without moving it first, so while standing outside the car, I stretch my foot in to reach the brake pedal and then reach around to press the Start button, so that I can then press... and hold... the “2” while the seat moves into position. Mind numbingly stupid.
To give another example, all the headlight switches that cars have, like that big dial left of the steering wheel on most cars where you can select from 3 or 4 headlight modes. Totally gone from the Model 3. Headlights and daytime running lights are full auto. Even high beams are full auto, although the left stalk will activate them manually if you want.
Granted, I can see that Mercedes implementation is stupid -- of course you want it to work before you managed to squeeze in and start it, but that's a Mercedes problem, not an advantage of the touchscreen (which, of course, you also can only reach once you got inside). FWIW, on my 2011 car this is not a problem, button is in the door and works whether the engine is on or not.
I completely agree about the excess buttons that are never used. Climate temperature I basically never change.
Climate On/Off I do wish was a little easier, but even better would be a Climate ‘Eco’ switch which persisted across drives, which would avoid resistance heating or A/C as much as possible. Then I could totally ignore all the climate settings altogether.
All in all I am very rarely reaching for the touchscreen during a drive. A massive array of buttons would not make my drive any safer at all. When I do have to switch on defog I do have to glance at it, but the same was true for my last car with buttons because even after 13 years I would never find it in a field of climate control buttons by groping around without looking.
Most of the complaints don’t make sense to me. I don’t think I’ve ever manually activated the rear-view camera? Placing a phone call is actually pretty great with large touch targets for recently dialed numbers, and there’s always voice controls.
And of course missing the forest for the trees. The interior design of the TM3 envisions a future where there isn’t even a steering wheel and the rest of the car design doesn’t change one bit.
It’s the perfect expression of Musk’s overpowering optimism and leaning further into the future than most people even dare to dream.
Overconfidence in the current AutoPilot capability leads to some accidents, and even fatalities. But the UI itself is actually stunning and highly usable. In particular the maps and GPS are leaps and bounds better than I imagined could be possible in a car.
That would be a good design for a Tesla in car screen. Large bold touch targets.
Could not disagree more. I find it matters greatly - with buttons and switches on the central console, I simply don't look away from the road to adjust the heating, turn the demist on or whatever. Only takes a very short while to become accustomed to where they are in a new vehicle, and extent of rotation etc. Then it's 99% muscle memory. No eyes required.
Which of course is entirely impossible with touch screen - you have to look, every single time. Swipe or press is irrelevant - it's the look that's the problem.
Like most I appreciate a decent map screen, but I detest the rise of touch to replace standard switches and buttons in a vehicle.
Do you own a modern smartphone?
If I can use something else I will. Phones are small enough there really isn't a better alternative to a mouse, but I would still rather have a physical keyboard than a touch keyboard. On laptops with touch pads I always connect a mouse. If it's a laptop or desktop with a touch screen, the last thing I want touching the screen is my greasy fingers. I have a mechanical keyboard and gaming mouse for a reason. They are superior input devices.
The notable exception for might be climate controls, as those tend to be placed well enough to reach without looking. Many other physical controls aren't done so well.
Do you navigate your phone while driving? The implication is that with physical button interfaces you can do a lot of stuff without moving your eyes from the road.
I own a smartphone since 1 year ago and I don't like the touchscreen, I almost never type on it and when I am forced to I hate it. The advantage vs my old phone is the accessibility features in Android makes it easier for me to read my messages and when needed I can use Text To Speech.
Touchscreen input did not won because is better but because it is included in the screen so you can keep the device smaller, but keep in mind that the important functions on the phone are still done with physical button like the Power button, volume buttons, you can usually open your camera by tapping a physical button a few time, why ? Because nobody wants to waste time and open an app to change the volume.
I wouldn't do that if my phone had physical buttons either. I mean, it isn't as if the driving interface in question has no physical controls. The ones that it has are roughly analogous to your power button, volume buttons, etc.
The ones that people are debating are a bit like the physical mute buttons that phones used to sometimes have. Some people still want them, some don't care, but there is plenty of debate.
No? I don't understand why the ability to use my phone while driving is important here.
> Touchscreen input did not won because is better but because it is included in the screen so you can keep the device smaller, but keep in mind that the important functions on the phone are still done with physical button like the Power button, volume buttons, you can usually open your camera by tapping a physical button a few time, why ?
Touchscreens won because they're versatile: enough so that I don't actually have a physical button on my phone to open the camera.
Usually there is a way to open the camera by pressing say volume Up 3 times, it would open the camera much faster then you having to turn on the screen and tap a camera button that could be hard in sun light.
Do you enjoy typing on a phone or trying to hit those small buttons on the menus or in some apps? a few pixels miss would start a different action.
I hate it but it could be just me, I have eye problems and I use the phone with largest possible fonts and other accessibility features on.
Haptics are important, especially if you do not want to look at the input device. I tried writing on an iPad. It just doesn't work beyond extremely basic use cases and you need to check everything.
I don't know if a photodiode is cheaper than a mechanical switch, but I hate this trend in consumer products to more touch input. It certainly has advantages in durability and dirt protection, but interfacing by touch is just so bad.
Yes, I do, but that doesn't mean I hate touchscreens…
Yes, and where I live it's illegal to operate while driving.
Mine too. I can't wait until more cars have Tesla-like touch screens. I don't really need/want more buttons than 4 blinkers and lock car doors.
Unfortunately screens are going to be hard to avoid given that all new cars in the US are required to have a backup camera. That is, at least, a useful feature. Some cars like newer Audis even have backup camera screens that only pop up when you're reversing. Pretty nice.
Push button start is also going to be hard to avoid, almost all new cars I'm aware of have it. There's some features to disable for security reasons though, such as where touching the door handle will unlock the car if the key fob is near. There are reports of thieves employing signal repeaters to use this to steal cars while the fob is in the house nearby.
Lastly, push-button shifting, what a mess. Thankfully there are still many cars that don't implement this feature and my hope is it will remain a fad or not popular.
I ended up buying a 2019 Forester. I wasn't happy that it had a screen but at least on the trim level I got it's smaller (and cheaper!). I'll have to make peace with this one because it's the future. It also has push-button start, but this is pretty much unavoidable as well on new cars.
The mobile-like interface, the far positioning and small buttons make it difficult to use while driving. I'm not saying that these are the proper UX choices to discourage screen usage while in motion, but perhaps that reason influenced the aforementioned choices.
For example, one of the biggest complaints of touch screens mentioned in the article is lack of haptic feedback. I believe Audi/Porsche solved that really well in their latest models by using (multiple) touch screens that provide physical feedback upon pressing. In addition, half of the “buttons” have a fixed placement and can be blindly operated.
Plus hell of a lot of "change it for the change of changing it" (e.g. regular gauges would be far better and more reliable).
It took me about 5 minutes to get use to the model 3s display - even without the binnacle. My Honda feels horribly cluttered on the rare occasions I drive it.
We do this already when we eat or drink in the car, turn to look at a passenger during conversation, read a billboard, etc.
Is this actually true? Isn't it recommended to never eat or drink in the car while driving, that being on the phone or conversing while driving lowers driving skill, etc?
All of which are other things you should not be doing while driving.
people will defend the one button mouse just because.
> study proving that the way information essential to driving (e.g. changing lanes, checking rear view) is scattered in several disconected features/screens.
> all threads are people defending that you should not fiddle with controls while driving, and because of that the article is wrong and the touchscreen is perfect.
get a grip people. at least pretend to have read the article.