How user experience is transforming car dashboards
User experience in automotive design has become one of the most talked-about topics in the industry over the past few years, especially after massive touchscreens started taking over modern vehicle dashboards. That button-filled dashboard everyone was familiar with has gradually been replaced by increasingly generous touch-sensitive displays, and along with this shift came a question that just won’t go away: is this transition actually making life simpler and safer for drivers? 🤔
In theory, automakers have started bringing UX teams into the vehicle development process earlier, recognizing that the interface needs to be considered from the very beginning rather than treated as a last-minute finishing touch. In practice, however, reality turns out to be a lot more complicated than the corporate talking points suggest.
Budget cuts, communication breakdowns between different teams, and a mindset that leans more reactive than strategic continue to hold back real progress in the quality of automotive interfaces. This is exactly the landscape that specialist Chris Schreiner, founder and director of User Driven Strategies, knows inside and out. With an extensive career that includes stints at giants like General Motors and Motorola in human factors engineering, plus more than 15 years dedicated to consulting on industrial-scale UX issues, Schreiner offers a refreshingly honest perspective on where the industry stands and what still needs to change for the integration of technology and usability to truly work inside cars.
What he describes is a picture that blends genuine progress with persistent obstacles, and understanding that balance is essential for anyone following the future of mobility.
The role of touchscreens in vehicle innovation
Touchscreens arrived in the automotive world promising a revolution in how drivers interact with their vehicles. The idea was to consolidate dozens of functions into a single digital surface, reducing the visual complexity of the dashboard and opening the door for software updates that could improve the experience over time without swapping out physical parts. This promise of continuous innovation appealed to automakers and consumers alike, who started associating large screens with more modern, tech-forward vehicles.
The problem is that when you are driving at 60 mph on a highway, tapping a small icon on a flat screen with zero tactile feedback is a radically different experience from pressing a physical button you can locate without taking your eyes off the road.
According to Schreiner, many automakers adopted touchscreens following a logic more closely tied to marketing and cutting production costs than to any proven improvement in user experience. Replacing a dashboard with 40 physical buttons with a 15-inch screen might look cleaner and more elegant, but it shifts the burden onto the driver to navigate menus and submenus while driving. And that extra cognitive load is anything but trivial.
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Usability studies consistently show that distraction caused by poorly designed interfaces can significantly increase the amount of time a driver looks away from the road. The challenge, then, is not the technology itself but the way it is implemented and how much research with real users gets done before these solutions hit production.
Some brands have already started partially walking things back, reintroducing physical controls for critical functions like audio volume, climate control, and answering phone calls. This move does not represent a failure of touchscreens but rather a maturing of automotive design that finally acknowledges not everything needs to live inside a screen to be considered modern. True innovation lies in finding the right balance between digital and physical, using each type of interface where it makes the most sense. And that kind of decision only emerges when UX teams have an active voice in the early stages of a project, something Schreiner passionately advocates for and that is still far from being the norm across the industry.
The paradigm shift in automotive design and the influence of CMF
One interesting aspect highlighted in the original article is the parallel between the evolution of automotive UX and the trajectory of CMF, which stands for Color, Material, and Finish. Just as CMF began to be included earlier in the vehicle design process, gaining more relevance in strategic decisions, UX has been following a similar path. Automakers realized that waiting until the final stages of a project to think about the user interface led to rework, inconsistencies, and products that fell short of consumer expectations.
This shift, at least on the surface, seems positive. UX teams are being invited to meetings earlier, participating in discussions about system architecture, and having, at least formally, more room to influence decisions. The problem, as Schreiner points out, is that having a seat at the table does not necessarily mean having decision-making power. In many situations, user experience professionals end up functioning as validators for choices that have already been made by engineers, product managers, or marketing executives.
When UX enters a project only to confirm that a previously made decision is acceptable rather than actively participating in defining the concept, the discipline loses its transformative potential. It is like inviting an architect to weigh in on wall colors after the house has already been built. They might suggest a nice palette, but they are not going to fix structural problems that were baked into the foundation. This dynamic is one of the reasons so many automotive infotainment systems look visually appealing but frustrate users in everyday use.
Why integration between teams is still the biggest bottleneck
One of the most revealing points Schreiner raises is that the core problem is not about the available technology but about how automotive organizations structure their internal processes. Integration between engineering, design, marketing, and UX teams remains fragmented at many automakers. Each department operates with its own priorities and timelines, and the end result is a product where the interface feels like it was designed in isolation from the rest of the vehicle.
When the UX team only gets called in to validate decisions that other departments have already made, the work becomes cosmetic and loses its ability to drive meaningful change. This dynamic creates interfaces that look great in promotional photos but frustrate drivers in daily use because they were never tested in real-world scenarios.
Beyond the organizational issue, there is a budget factor that directly impacts the quality of the user experience. User research costs money and takes time, two resources that are frequently the first to get cut when a project faces schedule pressure. Schreiner notes that many automakers treat usability as a luxury line item in the budget, something that can be trimmed without immediate consequences.
The problem is that the consequences show up later, in the form of negative reviews, complaints on forums, declining customer satisfaction, and in more serious cases, safety risks. The lack of integration between long-term strategic vision and short-term operational decisions is what keeps this vicious cycle spinning, and breaking it requires a cultural shift that goes well beyond hiring more designers.
The reactive versus proactive approach to interface design
Schreiner also draws attention to a fairly common pattern in the industry: a reactive stance toward usability issues. Instead of investing time and resources to anticipate the difficulties drivers will face with a given interface, many automakers prefer to ship the product and then fix the most glaring problems in subsequent updates. This approach might work in the world of mobile apps, where updating software is fast and cheap, but in the automotive context it carries significant risks.
A driver who cannot quickly adjust the air conditioning temperature because they need to navigate through three different screens is dealing with a real distraction in an environment where seconds of inattention can have serious consequences. Fixing this after launch does not erase the negative experience the user already had, nor does it eliminate the risks they were exposed to. The proactive approach, on the other hand, involves extensive testing with prototypes, simulations in real driving contexts, and constant design iterations before the vehicle ever reaches the production line.
This kind of process demands a larger upfront investment, but it tends to produce safer, more satisfying products that are ultimately more profitable for the automaker in the long run. After all, a customer who is happy with the usability of their car is far more likely to stay loyal to the brand when it is time to buy their next vehicle.
What to expect in the coming years
The current landscape points toward a future where the integration between hardware and software in vehicles will become even more complex, especially with the arrival of more sophisticated voice assistants, augmented reality head-up displays on windshields, and partial autonomous driving systems that require clear interfaces to communicate to the driver when they need to take back control. Each of these technologies adds layers of interaction that need to be carefully orchestrated so they do not overwhelm the person behind the wheel.
Innovation in this space will increasingly depend on professionals who understand not just pixels and code but human behavior, cognitive ergonomics, and the context of use in dynamic environments like traffic.
Automakers that manage to put user experience at the center of their automotive design decisions will have an enormous competitive advantage in the years ahead. Not because large screens will disappear, but because consumers are becoming more discerning and less willing to accept confusing interfaces simply because they look futuristic. The generation that grew up using smartphones intuitively understands the difference between a well-thought-out interface and one that was thrown on the screen without any real criteria. And that expectation is going to push the entire industry to raise its standards.
The work of people like Chris Schreiner is essential in this process, serving as a bridge between what technology enables and what people actually need when they are inside a car, connecting innovation with purpose in a practical and measurable way.
The balance between digital and physical will be the key
Finally, it is worth remembering that touchscreens are not the villains of this story. They are powerful tools that, when applied well, can simplify tasks, personalize each driver’s experience, and receive constant improvements through over-the-air updates. What makes the difference between an excellent interface and a frustrating one is the process behind it, the amount of research invested, the quality of integration between the teams involved, and the company’s willingness to listen to real user feedback.
The future of automotive design will not be defined by the size of the screen but by how intelligently each interaction is crafted to serve the person who matters most: the one behind the wheel. 🚗
The vocal minority that has already expressed frustration with new digital dashboards is actually doing the entire industry a valuable service. Every complaint is a data point that can fuel real improvements, as long as automakers are willing to listen and act. The moment is challenging, as Schreiner himself acknowledges, but it is also full of opportunities for those who understand that user experience is not a department — it is a philosophy that needs to permeate every stage of vehicle development. 🎯
