Last week Matt P. brought you a report showing the chief of design at Mercedes-Benz grumbling about the proliferation of screens in modern automobiles.
It’s a good read and it got me thinking — do you, the consumer, really hate (or like) the increase in screens across the industry?
As someone who sits his rear end behind the wheel of a different new car each week, I’ve found myself torn on the issue. Sometimes I find large screens easy to read, and if they’re well-integrated into the dashboard, that’s a plus. But I also know that they can be a pain to clean and I shudder at the repair costs involved should a screen need repair after the new-car warranty expires.
Not to mention the frustration we all feel when an automaker integrates too many controls into a touchscreen (especially if we wear gloves in the winter). And the exasperation that we have when we need to dive through menus too much. Or watching the screen go blank as a software update takes over.
Personally, I am optimistic that someday an automaker will get the balance right — it will produce vehicles with big, easy to read screens with an user interface that uses old-fashioned buttons and knobs for the most important controls. These screens will be seamlessly integrated into the dash or center stack, and the design will make it simple to access functions without endless dives through trees of options.
We’ve already seen progress in this area — volume and tuning knobs are returning and OEMs are working on better UXs, both in terms of physical control and how well the screen-only functions work. So I think it is possible.
What say you — do you like a vehicle that’s screen city? Or do you want to return to the cars of yore? Or something else?
For the purposes of this question of the day, let’s focus on the screens used for instrumentation and/or infotainment, not rear-seat screens meant to entertain passengers. Let’s also place the passenger-side-only screens Jeep offers into a gray area.
With that said, sound off below.
[Image: Mercedes-Benz]
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