Touch or No Touch: Touch Screens Aren’t for Everything!

Touch Screens Aren’t for Everything

The 38th Automotive News World Congress, held as part of last week’s (Jan. 2014) Detroit Auto Show, featured a number of industry executives, including AutoNation boss Mike Jackson. AutoNation is the largest auto retailer in the U.S. with 210 stores coast to coast.

After talking growth and inventory levels, he took some time to discuss in-vehicle technology (at about the 1:40 mark at the link provided).

He said that customers want to “bring their life” into the car, which is to say their smart phone and all its functionality. That’s not news. What is news is what this automotive insider with a bit of experience has to say about touch screens.

Jackson cites Tesla, which uses its center stack (center mounted) touch screen in the Model S to control nearly everything, eliminating nearly all buttons and knobs. No manufacturer has so thoroughly embraced the touch screen. He flat out says “I don’t think that’s the future,” meaning that having to move one’s attention to a screen to find the right spot to touch for just the right amount of time is an unnecessary distraction. And we would add potentially dangerous.

Thanks for the Support

We’ve made this very point before, several times, and it’s truly great to hear someone with some actual clout in the industry back us up. Touch implies the use of only a finger, but the reality is that a touch screen takes more eye attention than a knob or button.

It is true that space for new features is a real issue, but so is keeping a driver’s eyes on the road. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has set voluntary guidelines for touch-screen systems that call for a drivers’ attention be drawn for no more than two seconds at a time, which is still an eternity at 60 miles per hour.

There simply has to be a role for knobs and buttons and rocker switches, etc. Well placed, they can be accessed with just a glance or even by feel.

This of course assumes that solid, error-free voice recognition remains a distant objective.

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