Surprise Surprise: Study Confirms Touchscreens More Distracting than Buttons
With each new vehicle launch, manufacturers reinforce their commitment to simplifying the lives of motorists thanks to this or that wonderful new technology. Certainly, many of them are welcome; some of them actually do simplify our lives. But others, not so much.
And that is precisely what a new Swedish study has just concluded. It found that touchscreens with their numerous menu pages can cause real distractions for drivers on the road.Photo: Volvo The interior of the 2005 Volvo V70, a festival of physical buttons The study by Swedish car magazine Vi Bilägare came to the rather predictable conclusion that buttons are safer than touchscreens by calculating the time it takes to perform simple, routine operations.
The magazine then timed drivers completing each task while driving their respective vehicles at 110 km/h. Unsurprisingly, those in the old Volvo completed the four tasks most quickly, taking only 10 seconds on average.Photo: BMW The multimedia screen of the BMW iX Vi Bilägare points out that the lack of buttons is not the only problem. The way the multimedia systems are designed also plays an important role.
The message is clear: simplify. The most frequently used functions need to be quick, easy and intuitive to accomplish.