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Comment by jaysonelliot | Hacker News Reader

While I'm a massive fan of what Tesla is achieving with their cars, and I lust after the Model S, the giant touchscreen in the Model S gives me pause.

Is it really such a good idea to have a glowing screen dominating the interior at night? To say nothing of the opportunities for distracted drivers trying to navigate a button-free interface that can't be operated without taking your eyes off the road to look at the items you're pressing, or the opportunity for modal errors that abound in systems like this.

Echoes of the disastrous usability in the BMW i-Drive system are ringing in my ears. I hope Tesla has learned from the mistakes of others. I'd very much like to see an independent UX evaluation of the Tesla's driver controls.

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Coming from reviews by recent owners (of which, I will be one in about a month and a half) and my own test ride, the distraction level is actually very low.

At night, the display switches to a white on black interface with a dimmed screen brightness. Unless you are seriously distracted by any light in your car at night, this isn't going to get in your way. Really, the only way you can make it worse is by leaving a website up with animation on it or bright colors.

In addition, any important info (navigation, media playback, range indication) is available on the dash display. The default interface is relatively static, so it's not going to try and distract you from driving. The most motion is going to come from the dash, and that's right below your eye line, provided you're actually keeping your eyes on the road.

I saw this at the Beta event last year and even though I wasn't the driver, I ended up spending most of my time looking elsewhere besides the center display. The car and the driving experience is really front and center, not the touchscreen.

"Really, the only way you can make it worse is by leaving a website up with animation on it or bright colors." ... Does this mean I can surf the web on it? Does this feature get disabled automatically once past a certain speed?

I would like to think people are not stupid enough to multitask while driving. After all, we already have these things http://www.amazon.com/Notebook-Laptop-Mount-Truck-Holder/sim... to mount laptops into cars and trucks. We should not have to do this kind of hand-holding.

Yes, there's a full WebKit-based browser. It does not get disabled so your passenger can interact with it while you're driving.

But these are general safety issues that Tesla has let the driver decide for themselves, rather than forcing a decision with an automatic disabling at certain speeds. You can also drive the car off a cliff, if you so choose. It's really up to you to have some common sense about things like this. But the default interface and night mode are designed to not be a distraction, so only you and your passengers can create a distraction (which can happen in any car).

Looking at this video walkthrough of the interface, there seems to be quite a lot to distract the driver: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hVd_ABhNBA

Texting and driving is dangerous enough. The opportunities for a less-than-stellar driver to take their focus away from the road seem to abound.

It looks like it makes an amazing demo. I have to question the wisdom of giving the driver of a car access to this level of complexity while driving. Watch the video around 3:45 and look at how many steps the driver has to go through just to open or close the sunroof.

There are times when a simple dedicated button, while not as sexy to show off to the motoring press, can be a much more elegant solution than a series of overlapping menus and windows on a touchscreen.

Wow, that is one ugly interface. Give me knobs any day over this crap.

It looks different from Motortrend's pictures. Maybe the color scheme can be changed?

In any case, this is lightyears ahead of what competitors have to offer.

One major benefit over hardware? - it's easily changed. Almost certainly will you eventually be able to apply whatever skin suits your fancy. It also opens up very interesting opportunities for the homebrew scene.

I think it’s just unacceptable for the interface in such an expensive car to look so ugly. You may be able to fiddle with it, but that never seemed like an acceptable excuse to me. When I pick the knobs I know what I get. It might not be really possible to change them, but at least I could pick something I liked.

I've had mine for 3 weeks, and so far I haven't been any more distracted than I was in my last Japanese semi-luxury sedan. The most common actions (media pause, volume, skip and climate control) are on the wheel, and using the map with multitouch is much easier than using a joystick or wheel in an Acura, Lexus or BMW.

The biggest issue with any touchscreen in the car is the lack of tactile feedback. I have to take my eye of the road to find the button I need even if I know its location relative to the other buttons.

I haven't personally driven one, but in my opinion things like that are only as distracting as you, the individual, make them. It's analogous to texting while driving. Is the fact that I have a phone I can do an amazing variety of things on a distraction while driving? Yes! But, do I do those things while driving? No! I don't see this as anything different. Just don't touch the shiny thing when you're busy driving an automobile that can kill someone or yourself.

That being said, it is a gigantic target for negative media coverage because of it, and as soon as someone is dumb enough to get in an accident because of it, people are going to be calling for Elon's head. (maybe not, but it's certainly within the realm of possibility)

Well, if it's anything like the Chrysler 300, the touchscreen dims as the ambient light decreases. There are buttons on the back of the steering wheel to move around the stereo system, without looking at the screen.

The 300 also has a voice system like a lot of vehicles these days, so that you can hit a button on the front of the steering wheel and give voice commands.

The solution is just an auto-dimming brightness trick away, right? Also, FYI - most things on the screen can be controlled using the HUD and steering wheel buttons. So both your fears seem largely unfounded.

The touch screen inverts the colors, so it's black for night driving. I haven't seen it in action, but they say it does the trick.

I drive a 1998 car and I love how everything I can do is a physical button. I can set the temperature to the exact degree I want without looking at the screen, since pushing both the temperature up and temperature down button at the same time sets the temperature to 72 degrees.

I also drive a 1998, and I would love something like that. My temp controls are sliders, and the two options seem to be "is this thing actually on?" or "blast furnace".

Voice controls would be better. Press a button on the wheel and say "set temperature to 72 degrees".

It honestly didn't seem that bad (I sat in one, but didn't drive it).

The best solution IMO would be gesture based, vs. buttons, but since it's Android, one could conceivably write a better gesture-based UI on your own and distribute it to other owners.

(and, a better audio UI -- if you worked on the microphone vs. most production cars, you could probably feed google or siri with a clean enough feed to be accurate, especially in a constrained domain, even at 110mph)

And better UI in general; the current one isn't pretty and as futuristic as it should look ;).

That is why I still love my 06 Toyota Camry They have turn dials I can switch the temperature knob just by muscle memory knowing where the position of my hand is, without every looking at the screen. Or hitting an up or down button and checking back to see if I got to the right temperature. This is definitely safety over technology for me

Agreed, the giant screen is ugly and a total distraction.

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