Computer-based touch screen controls are becoming ubiquitous in cars. They are used to operate everything from audio to air conditioning. But are they more of a nuisance than they're worth?
The MyFord Touch control and display system includes LCD screens that flank the speedometer and a screen in the center stack.
We live in a touch-screen world. Just ask the designers of the iPhone, iPad or any Android device, and they'll tell you there is no better way of putting a near-infinite amount of information and control within a defined space than on a screen that you can interact with directly. Automakers have been integrating touch-screen interfaces into dashboards for several years now, digitizing the controls for everything from navigation to climate-control systems onto large console-mounted screens with an ever-increasing architecture of menus and submenus that now rival the complexity of desktop PCs.
Take the new $58,000 Hyundai Equus, for instance. It not only has an 8-inch screen in the console for everything from navigation to climate control to camera-based parking guidance, the car also comes with its owner's manual installed as an application on an included iPad.
What's driving the need for in-car screens? "Computerization and wireless technology have greatly increased the range of entertainment options," says John D. Lee, a human-factors expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. New cars have satellite radio and Bluetooth links to cell phones, they can play MP3s and read text messages, and many of their computer-controlled systems can be customized by the user. "Screen-based systems make it possible to dramatically increase the number of functions and features available to the driver," Lee says. "Presented as individual knobs and buttons, they would likely exceed the space within arm's length of the driver."
Sounds ideal, right? Not so much.
It's no coincidence that the high-tech feature creep that has necessitated the in-car LCD screen has evolved concurrently with a new concern about the dangers of distracted driving. So far, most distraction-related accidents have resulted from drivers taking their eyes off the road to dial or answer cell-phones, or from the relatively new, boneheaded phenomenon of texting while driving. The statistics are chilling: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that 5,474 people were killed and an estimated 448,000 were injured in distracted-driving accidents in 2009. According to the Insurance for Highway Safety, drivers who use handheld devices are four times as likely to get into serious crashes.
Part of the rationale for integrating a wide range of entertainment and telecommunications devices into a vehicle's controls is to deal with the fact that, like it or not, drivers are bringing phones and iPods and various texting devices into their cars. It would seem better for them to hunt for a song or a phone number on a custom-designed 8-inch console screen than to fumble around for those things on the tiny screen of a portable device. Yet as the complexity of a car's operating system has grown, it seems that the auto industry may be learning all the wrong design lessions from gadgets that they are trying so hard to accommodate.
The Problem
Recently, Consumer Reports slammed the MyFord Touch system, which is at the forefront of a new generation of advanced automotive computer interfaces. Ford had previously gained accolades from auto journalists and customers alike for its Sync system, a voice-recognition technology launched in 2007 that allows drivers to control many of a car's functions with voice commands. Voice recogntion has long been considered a holy grail for automotive interfaces, since it theoretically allows drivers to control complex systems without taking their eyes off the road.
Synch resulted from a partership between Ford and Microsoft (MSN Auto's parent company), and its voice recognition was good enough to call up names from the driver's cell-phone contact list, and even to find individual songs and artists by name on an iPod. The new MyFord Touch system - also known as MyLincoln Touch in the new Lincoln MKX - expands on the voice control with one 8-inch touch-screen and capacitive slide controls built into the center console, plus two 4.2-inch screens integrated into the instrument cluster and a series of steering-wheel-mounted multidirectional control pads.
Ford says the system "helps you keep your eyes on the road," but Consumer Reports' senior automotive engineer Thomas Mutchler thought otherwise, calling the system so complicated that it could become a distraction while driving. "The basic idea's OK," Mutchler says. "There's nothing wrong with having multiple ways of making an input. If you have four ways of adjusting climate control, that's fine, but at least one of them should be a good one. The touch-screen and the buttons are small, and it's hard to find the one you want to push."
He then fired off a litany of ergonomic crimes: "The touch-sensitive capacitive switches are finicky and don't work well when it's cold. The steering-wheel comands are menu-driven, so you have to go through a couple of steps to do something that could have been done with the turn of a knob. The voice commands work sometimes and they don't work sometimes, and you feel kind of stupid talking to the car when there's someone else in the car with you."
It's a pretty strong indictment: The system that was supposed to be designed to help you manage complexity so that you don't get distracted ends up being so complex that it becomes the distraction. As you might expect, Ford sees things differently. A spokesman says the system provides a "smarter, safer, simpler way to connect drivers with many in-car technologies and their digital lives." He said that customer feedback on the system has been positive, but that Ford takes feedback from both customers and Consumer Reports seriously when it comes to upgrading and improving the system. Indeed, as software-based operating systems, Sync and MyFord Touch can be updated relatively easily, and some upgrades to the system have already been made.
The 2011 Audi A8's MMI system features a new touch-pad. It's designed for easy interaction, so the driver doesn't have to take his or her eyes off the road for long.
It's Not Just Sync
Ford is hardly the only manufacturer that has had to defend itself against criticism over distracted driving. Just last year, Audi engineers were surprised and shocked after The New York Times ran a picture of the manufacturer's MMI Touch system, which had just been unveiled at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show, under the headline "Driven to Distraction." One Audi engineer said that the system had been designed specifically to mitigate the distracting influence of smart phones, MP3 players and other devices, and that any suggestion that a motorist would stop using these devices if cars stopped integrating their functionality was naive.
Whether it is a good idea in the first place to build "infotainment" systems into vehicles will probably remain an open debate for some time, yet the "complexity and confusion" issue is surely made worse by the fact that every manufacturer has its own take on how the technology should be implemented, guaranteeing almost zero standardization.
Audi's MMI system in the A8 has a touch pad that can be reconfigured digitally and that can interpret finger gestures. Mercedes-Benz's Comand system has a dialing puck and an optional dual-view screen that lets passengers and drivers see different things. Lexus has a center-console-mounted Remote Touch mouse with force feedback to enter commands on the screen. And these interfaces are by no means consistent with a brand; some cars have basic touch-screens, others have pucks, dials or multidirectional buttons. Almost all manufacturers have some sort of voice control, but commands are so varied that drivers can end up calling out a thesaurus-worth of synonyms - "Heat!" "Temperature up!" "Warm!" "I'm freakin' cold, turn on the heater!" - just to get anything done.
It Isn't Going Away
Regulators and safety advocates would certainly like to see most of this technology removed from the driving experience. But most automotive experts agree that screen and voice-control systems are here to stay. There are guidelines for good interactive system design; the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers published a 90-page document outlining the best practices for the industry in 2006. It's long-winded and a bit dated, but Lee of the University of Wisconsin-Madison summarizes the basic wisdom of the document in a few points:
- Complex displays that require the driver to search for information using glances longer than two seconds should be avoided.
- The interaction should not "time out" or force the driver to attend continually to the task. The driver should be able to interrupt the task easily and return attention to the road.
- Visual information should be placed near the driver's line of sight.
- The display should be easily readable with text and icons that can be seen at a glance.
Sounds simple, right? But the guidelines are voluntary. Even NHTSA, which is working on its own guidelines, isn't planning on forcing automakers to build their systems to any particular standard.
In the meantime, it seems that confusing systems are the inevitable growing pains of an industry stumbling to find its footing in the fast-moving world of information technology. Despite his concerns about Consumer Reports' criticisms of MyFord Touch, Mutchler sees plenty of room for hope about touch-screens.
"Ford's problem isn't one of ambition, it's one of execution," he says, pointing out that the Toyota Highlander and Chrysler's new UConnect system use large touch-screens with simple menu structures. "Everyone's going to go to this sort of system eventually. Research has shown that touch-screens are more intuitive to use. The next step is the one that quite a few researchers are worried about. What's the impact of a constant flow of Facebook updates or text messages being read to you constantly and you wanting to respond to them constantly? I don't think there's a great answer yet on how you can respond to that cognitive load and still drive a car."
Sam Foley is a Connecticut-based automotive journalist who has written for GQ, Forbes, USA Today, the New York Post and various other publications.
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