Behind the wheel of a Tesla Model 3: It’s a giant iPhone – for better and worse
I just can&#x27;t get past the idea of replacing all the instruments and switches with a single giant touchscreen mounted in the center of the dash. This seems like a <i>terrible design</i> to me.<p>Physical controls don&#x27;t move around, so you can find them without having to take your eyes off the road, and they respond exactly the same way every time you use them, so you can interact with them without having to do context-switching in your head. On a touchscreen controls can be there or <i>not</i> be there, or respond to input differently from one moment to another, depending on what mode the touchscreen happens to be in (here&#x27;s Jef Raskin complaining about this very problem, 25 years ago: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wired.com&#x2F;1993&#x2F;06&#x2F;1-6-guis&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wired.com&#x2F;1993&#x2F;06&#x2F;1-6-guis&#x2F;</a>).<p>And then Tesla takes that single touchscreen, which is bad enough all by itself, and moves it to the center of the dash, so now you can&#x27;t even check your speed without looking down and away from the road. Aircraft designers have known for <i>decades</i> that you can improve pilot performance by presenting important information front and center via a heads-up display (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Head-up_display" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Head-up_display</a>). It&#x27;s like Tesla took all this research and practical experience and set out to design the <i>opposite</i> of what it cries out for: the world&#x27;s first <i>heads-down</i> display.<p>And of course every other car manufacturer will rush to copy this terrible design, because (1) Tesla is cool and (2) people <i>loooooove</i> touchscreens. So the more touchscreens the better, right? Jam those touchscreens in everywhere! Soon you won&#x27;t be able to flush your toilet without swiping through four levels of user interface (and eventually, three auto-playing video ads jammed between those levels). Sigh.