The iPhone-isation of the Car Dashboard is a Mistake!

I still miss the tactile feel of the Qwerty keyboard on my Blackberry every time I type a long message on my iPhone. Never mind the fact that Blackberry has long since succumbed to the merciless march of progress, every time I watch a video on said iPhone I see the value of a screen that extends from end-to-end. I’ve since also fallen hook, line, and sinker for the Apple ecosystem, so I’m certainly not yearning for the good old days. Or am I?

You see, while I clearly see the point of maximising screen size for my phone, I can’t quite follow the same logic for the dashboard of my daily driver. To adjust the temperature of the AC, for instance, I’d much rather reach for a dedicated button without having to take my eyes off the road, as opposed to having to navigate through a bunch of menus while attempting to avoid rear-ending the car in front.

Check out this column by Srinivas Krishnan where he also goes on a rant on this particular pet peeve. Except, he does so by citing facts and customer satisfaction surveys (or dissatisfaction surveys as the case may be), which point out that the number one concern that new car buyers have today is the result of on-board systems that are unintuitive and cumbersome to use.

Also Read: Euro NCAP to Give Higher Safety Ratings to Cars with Fewer Screens

Add to that a myriad of active safety features that are being added to new cars, all of which also require users to go through numerous menus and sub-menus to deactivate or tweak before being able to set off in peace. In Europe, for instance, all new cars are fitted with an ‘Intelligent Speed Assistant,’ which monitors speed limits using GPS and digital speed maps and triggers a speed warning every time the driver is deemed to be even 1km/h over the speed limit – even if that happens to be on your own driveway. Perversely, this system is also designed to be difficult to disable – in fact that’s mandated as well (ostensibly by someone with a sick sense of humour) – and if you do choose to disable this “Speed Assistant,” you have to do so every single time you turn the ignition.

It's this type of over regulation and excessive computing power that’s taking the price of new cars through the roof. And it’s this tech for the sake of tech, as opposed to so that it improves the experience for the driver and passengers, that’s putting people off buying new cars and driving up demand for used cars in the West. If we’re not careful, we’ll see a similar trend in India as well. Designers, product planners and regulators all need to remember that tech should enhance the experience, not detract from it. Nor should it be a vanity project.

Vanity projects lead to exactly the kind of slippery slope that the industry seems to find itself on at present… let’s hope they’re not too distracted by navigating through complex menus to apply the brakes before it’s too late.