Fed up with annoying touchscreens? Manufacturers are having second thoughts too

Telegraph

13-04-2025

While modern cars feature a wealth of safety and infotainment features, drivers frequently find them annoying and distracting. Might the solution be for car makers to pay more heed to the human factor; the needs of the driver?
Dr Mike Lenné is chief safety officer at Seeing Machines, which specialises in driver monitoring technology designed to spot driver distraction. As a former Prof in Human Factors at Monash University's Accident Research Centre, he's also a renowned advocate of human factors research in automotive and is in no doubt: 'It is 'the' silver bullet,' he says.
Lenné explains: 'Human factors by definition is a profession that seeks to understand people, their abilities and limitations, and to incorporate that knowledge into the design of products they use and the environment in which they use them. So it's critical.'
A perfect example of what happens when car makers fail to take account of human factors is best demonstrated by the prevalence of increasingly complicated touchscreen systems on dashboards, which can be difficult to use and distracting for drivers.
This was recently shown in a comprehensive test conducted by Auto Express on 10 of the most popular systems, to rate the worst and best performers (see table below).
In-depth touchscreen test
It simulated urban driving conditions at a test track using three drivers with varying levels of touchscreen experience. Each completed an identical route in 10 cars, while performing five common touchscreen tasks:
Turning off lane keep assist
Activating navigation to 'home'
Raising the interior temperature by two degrees
Switching on heated seats
Tuning the radio to BBC Radio 4
An Auto Express judge sat beside each driver to record the times taken for each task, which were averaged out to provide a single task time for each car.
An 'undistracted' lap time was set in advance at 2 minutes 22 seconds. Then each driver followed the same route in all 10 cars while performing the tasks.
It's probably no coincidence that the top three places in the test were occupied by car makers that appear to take human factors very seriously and consequently provide less annoying technology than many rivals.
Clear winner
Skoda came top in the test with the Skoda Navigation in a Superb. Auto Express praised its 'huge, sharp touchscreen, intuitive infotainment system and brilliant 'Smart Dials'', noting that: 'At a time when most manufacturers are doing away with physical buttons and switches for the sake of minimalist interior design, and in certain cases to cut costs, Skoda has not only kept them but added more functionality to create the Superb's aptly named 'Smart Dials'.'
A spokesperson for Skoda explained how it uses human factors: 'User experience (UX) research helps us understand the users' behaviour when interacting with displays or handling control buttons. Currently, UX research is one of the cornerstones of customer centricity. We take many different aspects into account, such as cognitive load, data analytics, possible distraction or the level of overall convenience and satisfaction of the entire user experience.'
Similarly, BMW Group (owner of Mini) confirms that it also uses human factors research. 'It is a multi-step process that is continually refined until the customer is satisfied. We adhere to the highest standard for human-centred design for interactive systems and we have a dedicated in-house team here at BMW Group who lead this.'
How users are affected
Given the annoyance and distraction caused by increasingly complicated touchscreen systems crammed into dashboards, it's disappointing that many other makers have failed to adequately assess how their technology affects users. Yet, perhaps we shouldn't be so surprised, as car makers struggle to please different generations of drivers while also wanting to keep costs down and use legacy solutions.
Paul Barker, editor of Auto Express, clearly identifies cost savings as the prime reason for poorly designed touchscreen systems: 'By combining myriad manual controls into a single digital system perched atop your dashboard, car makers are able to reduce time and money spent on design, development, manufacture and assembly, making significant savings across the board.'
Impact on sales
Nor is it only there that drivers suffer annoying tech, as Lenné warns: 'It's about time the industry acknowledged what's going on. With interior sensing technology, the level of driver interaction skyrockets, as does the importance of great design. Taking shortcuts and developing systems that beep and bop enough to pass regulatory tests is not passing the driver acceptance tests, we are seeing that already, and it's only a matter of time before poor acceptance impacts sales.'
Still, the tide may be turning. Recently Volkswagen confirmed that it was bringing back physical buttons for the most-used functions following customer feedback. A spokesperson claims: 'Volkswagen believes the user experience should be as simple and useful as possible, while incorporating the most exciting, cutting-edge technology that our customers have a right to expect. It's about evolving cars through continual improvement in order to meet ever-changing demands.'
'In terms of road safety, car manufacturers need to get the balance right between information overload and minimalism,' stresses Edmund King, president of the AA. 'Cars need to be intuitive for all drivers so they can concentrate on the road ahead rather than the screen to the side.'
Back to physical buttons
Fortunately, drivers won't have to rely solely on the common sense of manufacturers, since independent car safety body The European New Car Assessment Programme (NCAP), which carries out the industry-standard crash tests, is also addressing how poor design may lead to distraction, as part of its 2026 protocols. From 1 Jan 2026, vehicles without physical 'hard' buttons or switches for the indicators, hazard lights, horn, windscreen wipers and SOS function will receive lower marks in crash tests.
As Richard Schram, technical director at Euro NCAP, points out: 'We want to avoid distraction by design. Poor vehicle controls will distract you and, with driver monitoring mandatory, even warn you when you are trying to control your vehicle. We do not claim that we know the best controls design, but we want to break this trend. Luckily, this is heavily supported by consumers themselves.'
Ultimately, reducing the incidence of annoying car tech will also require the human factor experts within car producers to be listened to: people such as Dr Lee Skrypchuk, senior technical specialist – human machine interface at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), whose self-declared aim is 'to ensure that technology enhances rather than overwhelms the driving experience'.
Skrypchuk is convincing when he states: 'Driving is one of the most safety-critical tasks people perform, with user expectations shaped by the simplicity and responsiveness of today's technology. Effective design requires a careful balance of the environment, user capabilities and task demands.'
One can only hope that the accountants will permit human factors experts to eradicate poorly designed automotive technology long before it has an opportunity to further annoy and distract drivers.