Little offtopic, but I disagree that Tesla's touch screen makes it look "futuristic". In fact lack of more traditional displays, knobs, etc. makes the car interior seem very empty, giving you impression of riding something that was built by an amateur in his garage. I mean, if I was building a prototype of my own car I would probably just have bought an iPad and have glued it to a dashboard.
I own a 2010-2014 Lexus RX-350 with a tactile feedback "mouse" / "joystick" for the UX that was later replaced by Toyota / Lexus in newer models and I will never understand why. The cursor when it moved over a button will feedback to the mouse to make it more difficult / needing a nudge to navigate away from the button but still feels very natural. I am not sure why this type of UX was completely abandon but after driving older and more recent cars this was the clear winner for the task of navigating an interface while also operating a huge SUV through traffic.
I drive a Tesla. Not having haptic feedback has not been a problem for me. It took just a few minutes to become familiar with the UI and, after a few days, I found it easier and more intuitive than anything else I had ever driven. In comparison, I recently tried a friend's prestigious German car. This car had dozens of controls on the steering wheel, steering column, dashboard, etc. After a few hours, I still found everything confusing.
I think there is room for improvement<p>#1 - why do you have to take your hands off the wheel?<p>#2 - when you DO take your hands off the wheel, the targets should be well positioned (high) and easy to hit (large). Now they are neither. Multiple taps are terrible (eg raise suspension for a driveway)<p>#3 - listen - to ui experts, to customers - there are enormous forum threads devoted ui complaints (v9 vs v8, crappy usb ui, etc)<p>I think Steve Jobs ran into most of this sort of stuff with the original scrollwheel iPod and managed to pull off a good UI for the time by "sending it back to the kitchen". I think some of these UI decisions should be sent back.<p>Good thing is things can be improved in a software update (apart from the nonexistent model 3 dashboard).<p>I will say, most people with a tesla don't want to give up their car.
For me a huge amount of driving depends on muscle memory and tactile feedback. I’m pretty much Tesla’s target audience but that’s a deal killer for me.
> Stretching your arm all the way across the dashboard to fiddle with a vent may not be ideal from a Fitts-ian standpoint, but you can accomplish it without ever taking your eyes off the road. The Tesla’s touch screen, though, makes no-look operation impossible—which raises the stakes for any non-ideal button positioning.<p>Does it actually? It seems to me whether it's a physical button or not, a glance is usually enough to hone in on it. If you're going for completely blind groping for a knob type action I guess I understand, but I don't do that.<p>A fixed button on a fixed screen should be almost as easy to fix in muscle memory as a physical button or switch.<p>Small codicil: I much prefer physical buttons and dislike the tendency for physical interfaces to disappear.
Can someone who owns a Tesla talk about nighttime operation?<p>LCD displays this large and bright can mess with low light adaptation. Unlike OLED technology, LCD’s just can’t make really dark blacks and glow.