Modern cars are increasingly equipped with large touchscreens, which increasingly replace dedicated buttons for many functions.
Today, it is not uncommon for functions such as the air conditioning, the sound system or the active security systems to be controlled by clicking around among the menus on the touch screen.
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Tightened requirements for touch screens and buttons
Rummaging through the menus while driving can be distracting and lead to serious safety risks in traffic.
How car manufacturers design the car’s controls, such as the balance between touch controls and physical buttons, can have an impact on how easily the driver is distracted.
Therefore, stricter requirements will soon be introduced around touch screens and buttons in new cars, reports We Car Owners.
Tougher crackdown on “bad design”
The stricter requirements are not about how the touchscreens and buttons may be used while driving, but rather how they are designed. The requirements come from the organization Euro NCAP, which crash tests cars and gives them a rating for their safety.
“It is well known that bad design can contribute to the driver taking his eyes off the road for an unnecessarily long time,” says the organization in a press release that Vi Bilägare has access to.
Going forward, the organization will be stricter in its requirements for how the cars’ controls and screens are designed in the interior.
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Then the requirements are introduced
The requirements will not mean that the cars must have physical buttons for selected functions.
Instead, Euro NCAP must produce a test report that reveals how the controls for, for example, climate control, sound system, fog lights and hazard warning lights are managed by the driver, and how easy they are to use. One can, however, request that specific “time-critical” functions such as blinkers, windshield wipers and warning lights be controlled with physical controls.
The hope is that this will prompt car manufacturers to make the controls as easy to use as possible.
Euro NCAP clarifies that a bad rating on these points will not directly mean that a car is disqualified from the highest overall rating of five out of five stars.
The plan is for Euro NCAP to implement the new requirements in its tests from January 2026. In 2029, the requirements for good and simple design will be further tightened.
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