Will voice technology take over touchscreens in cars?
Large, interactive touch screens are becoming increasingly prevalent in passenger cars. In the case of Tesla, they are the only control interface. They are lovely to look at, but they might be more confusing than having actual physical controls.
Distracted driving is an equally increasingly dangerous problem and it is caused by the touch screens in your car and the need to ‘look’ at where you are touching as you can’t ‘feel’ a physical knob or button on the center console.
The iPhone started the touch screen craze, which is fine with us as all eyes will be on the screen when we’re using our smartphones. However, when cars are concerned, all eyes will be on the road ahead and a touchscreen is very difficult to get used to as we cannot memorise the positions of each function on it.
Add the reflection from the sun at the ‘wrong time’ and ‘wrong angle’ to this, and it just becomes quite a frustrating problem.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 10% of all fatal crashes from 2012 to 2017 involved distracted drivers. Mobile phones are a major cause of distraction, as we’d expect, but they’re an even bigger problem for younger drivers.
In Dec 2017, Ford Motor published a study that showed that parents were the most distracted drivers in the Asia Pacific. Parents often worry about screen addiction for their children, yet the data shows that adults find it hard to disconnect too.
Yes, knobs, buttons and slider switches are boring, but a driver can easily memorise their positions after using them after a few weeks with the car or even sooner. Plus, it reduces the need to ‘play’ with it during heavy traffic.
Adobe product director and expert on the use of voice in UI and UX design Mark Webster said, “If you use a touchscreen in a complicated car, it’s distracting and not a good experience.
“But something like Apple CarPlay or Android Auto brings in an interface that you’re really familiar with as you’re used to dealing with on your phone all the time. That’s actually a place where I think the design of that interface in a touchscreen works really well for that.”
Will voice work better?
Maybe the only solution is to shift the interface completely to voice. Both Google and Apple have built-in voice-recognition functionalities, allowing drivers to access and use a variety of apps via simple speech while driving, generally by pressing the ‘talk’ button in your car (normally found on the steering wheel).
But the issue is, does it really work efficiently all the time or even 50% of the time?
Well, in our experience with several high-technology in-car systems from China, Germany and Japan, we have not been able to get even 50% efficiency with voice-activated in-car entertainment systems.
The only advantage of these systems is that smartphone makers are constantly expanding the functionality and availability of speech-activated apps via their systems, meaning your car should be able to follow more and more voice instructions in time.
We have tried the Proton X70’s Hi! Proton system and we were disappointed. Then there is the Mercedes-Benz system, Hey Mercedes! which works a little better, but it is not perfect. In March 2019, BMW introduced ‘Hey BMW’ and even this voice command system had its not-so-great moments with us.
So, what next?
As mentioned, voice command is perhaps the next viable solution while we wait for a better system to emerge from the auto industry. In the meantime, touchscreen still dominates the market and we will just have to adapt when test driving new cars.
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