The Dashboard Dilemma

Carmakers are increasingly moving away from physical controls in the cabin in favour of massive touchscreens. Maybe that’s too much of a good thing

- Sameer Kumar

Screens. These days, we simply can’t seem to get away from the damned things. Everywhere you look, people are staring at their smartphone, laptop, or desktop computer screen. In the office, many of us used to spend 8-10 hours in front of a laptop, sometimes working, sometimes pretending to work. With the pandemic-induced work-from-home scenario, the amount of time we spend glued to some screen or the other has only increased.

Hours of non-stop web browsing, social media usage, watching YouTube videos, and online gaming, chatting, and shopping have reduced our attention spans and might be ruining our eyes, but we still can’t figure out ways to get away from the all-pervasive, omnipresent screen. On the contrary, screens are reaching out for an even bigger chunk of our lives; they’re moving out from our homes and offices, and taking over our… cars. We don’t know if manufacturers believe that big, colorful touchscreens are helpful in a car, or they’re giving in to peer pressure and putting in bigger screens because everyone else is doing it, or even whether they are simply using them because it helps sell more cars because most customers seem to think screens are terribly cool.

Chasing cool, yes. Today, most car buyers think it’s incredibly ‘cool’ to not have physical control buttons in the car, and have all controls integrated into a touchscreen. Sure, bright, colorful touchscreens look pretty futuristic and elegant when used in cars since they do away with the clutter of too many physical buttons. However, most users don’t realize that touchscreens can be very distracting since they are hard to use when the car is on the move.