You either love him or hate him, but he Ferrari Luce It has not left almost anyone indifferent. The firm’s first 100% electric car is a statement of intent. A commitment to the future that, to do so, gets rid of a good part of its past. And in that setting there is a unique element: the prominence of physical controls and the reduction in the relevance of screens in cars.
Why bad design can be lethal. Leo Abrams was publishing these days a video interview in which he asked Jony Ive because of something he had said in the past: “people are dying because of bad design.” What did that mean? In the case of the car, the answer for him was clear:
“Multitouch technology is wonderful for a mobile phone, because when you’re using a phone, you’re looking at that phone. But multitouch technology shouldn’t be in a car, I think, because if you have to do basic things, it requires by definition that you don’t look at where you’re going in the car, and that you look at the screen.”
Stop looking at the screen so much. For Ive the danger is obvious: if you don’t look at the road, you have a good chance of having an accident. It is a discourse already known in the automotive segment, and since touch screens they became fashionable the debate has always been there. Replacing traditional physical controls with controls that were more typical of a mobile phone or tablet seemed like a recipe for disaster. The Euro NCAP certification body took this into account for your tests: five stars can only be achieved if some functions (turn signals, hazard lights, horn, windshield wipers) ensure the use of physical controls.
muscle memory. The problem is not the screen itself, which is tremendously useful for things like GPS navigation, but rather that “touch blindness” that these touch screens impose. Physical buttons allow you to use muscle memory: you can operate them without looking. Touch screens force you to look where you press, which we insist, introduces serious risks while driving.
Multitouch technology is not for everyone or everything. Ive also reflected on how any tool has the potential to be used for good and evil “in unpredictable and unexpected ways”, and that is one of the reasons why for him the role of touch technology in the Ferrari Luce had to be almost anecdotal.
“I was very fortunate to be involved in the development of multitouch technology. It’s a fantastic technology that makes some new user interfaces possible, but it has to be used appropriately, thoughtfully and carefully.”
Result: fewer screens, more touch. The interior of the Ferrari Luce It was the first thing we were able to know about this carand it was already clear at that moment that this was going to be a Ferrari very different from the rest of the Ferraris but that retained that love of touch: the Luce uses physical controls, rotary dials, switches and buttons everywhere. The screens are also present, yes, but touch is clearly a priority over sight, at least when it comes to controlling the vehicle’s options.
This is about being better. At the beginning of the interview, Ive made a point: “just because the power source is electrical, one seems to assume that the interface should be digital and that is a big leap and I think that thinking that is presumptuous.” It seems evident that from the beginning Ive and the Ferrari designers and engineers were clear that this car was going to be differentand Ive himself confirms it: “We are trying to solve problems in new ways. Not to be different or new, but to be better.”
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