A UX designer walks into a Tesla Bar (2021)

Having owned a Tesla for over ten years now, I’ve lived the real pain of being at the mercy of the manufacturer who can completely change how your car works overnight. Annoying in Figma, dangerous in a Tesla.

Some comments dismiss this author as a new driver with a learning curve but Tesla has impacted muscle memory several times now. Why did they change this row of icons anyway? I don’t think they take the responsibility seriously.

I really like the 1+1=3 cognitive load analogy on the cost of adding a "single" click to something. One of the most aggravating things in the last 15 years is a seemingly industry wide decision to "declutter" menus by burying even very simple, common actions 4-5 menus deep, often with icons that have no discernible clear meaning until you click around for a while and figure it out.

Why? Seriously, why?

Tesla has the worst interface I’ve used in a car (it gets -1000 points for making the driver futz and swipe dangerously on a touch screen to angle the air vent), and it seems to keep getting worse - but the best driving fundamentals I’ve used in a car.

If I could take the lower half of a Tesla Model Y with a totally average Toyota upper half at the Model Y pricing I would buy that car in a heartbeat. Just swapping the infotainment unit to customizable Android Auto with CarPlay and I would consider it. It’s such a shame to have good engineering bundled together with bad opinions.

I plain hate how digital modern cars are.

So many useless features and all the core stuff is harder to use.

I was so frustrated with my w213 E class Mercedes, I went back to a used fiat Punto.

Everything is much easier and better, it's less comfortable and my SO has hard time sleeping in it on long trips, but aside that it's much better.

Gets a scratch? Who cares. Someone bumps my car while parking? Who cares. Fuel economy? Much better. Maintenance cost? Much lower. Insurance? Much lower.

Everything is analog and easy to use.

I am more and more convinced that I will only be using vintage cars in the future, and all this digital stuff can die on the spot, and Tesla crap more than anything else.

I'll throw another anecdote into the rapidly filling bucket: A buddy of mine gave me a ride in his Tesla. When we arrived, I reached for the door handle and opened the door - a natural, smooth motion, at the end of which my hand found a handle that I could pull.

My buddy told me that that's the emergency release, and to not use that, because it can damage the car if used too many times, and had to show me the real door handle. (I have already forgotten where it is.)

It's probably good that in an emergency, my hand would naturally reach for the thing that would release me from the car - but on the other hand, it's wild that the natural muscle memory of decades leads me to a thing that'll fuck up his car.

I had a Tesla for a couple of years and then sold it.

I'd buy another EV. I wouldn't buy another Tesla, because of the UX. Lack of physical buttons and changing UI. The infotainment screen crashed a couple of times in a year, the car was fine but suddenly the only place for car status feedback was gone. Lastly, not having a console in front of you, and needing to look to the side to see things like speed limit just felt unacceptable.

Funny to read because Musk famously said "Any product that needs a manual to work is broken." It's a mantra that has guided my work in UX and my design thinking overall. It was even a quote I had on my personal website many years ago, back when Musk had credibility.

It's indeed getting worse and worse driving cars.

I drive a Tesla Model 3 daily and agree to the critism about it's interface. On my last holidays I rented a Suzuki Vitara. Indeed it's much easier to find and operate the standard controls like for climate. Also cruise control with its 6 buttons took only a little learning.

The worst turned out to be CarPlay, a feature I always thought I'm missing with my Tesla. Occasionally it just didn't work, even though the phone was connected. So you get no navigation or you stop/start/wait until it works. And repeat that after every car stop situation. And when it works, forget about zooming or seeing anything more than the next step on this tiny display.

All in all I was happy to return to my Tesla again. But then I know all important controls from memory.

Anyway: Analog cars ruled indeed. I'd just use a simple phone holder too rather than anything like CarPlay.

I guess somebody has to defend Tesla's UX so I'll do it. Apart from the lack of physical controls, and the aggressive pace of changes I find it quite intuitive. Better designed than most software.

edit: I'm not saying it's flawless, but the alternatives are even worse. On balance, I like it.

This is why physical buttons are generally superior. Yes, Teslas look cleaner because there aren't buttons, but the tradeoff is that the learning curve is steeper.

One thing that has always annoyed me is how some icons are flat (e.g. phone) and some have depth (e.g. camera). How hard is to make all the buttons have the same style?

What I don't understand is how society at large is so bad at "professional" UX. How did we get to this point, the constant dumbing-down of user interfaces that results in a more complicated and confusing product. Who are these UIs working for?

I see a lot of these posts about how Tesla UI (and touchscreens in cars in general) are unsafe and cause accidents. Intuitively it makes sense, but I haven't actually seen any evidence that Teslas or other touchscreen-heavy cars are actually involved in more accidents per mile. Would be curious if there's any studios on this to back up these claims, or is everyone just making intuitively true claims without evidence?

AS a UX professional myself, I find the tesla UI changes incredibly annoying and detrimental to functionality. They reek of random "redesign" with no thought of function. The buttons in the car controls are greatly superior to the tiny icons.

In fact if you take a look at the UI in general, it's all pretty disconnected. We have 50% of the screen taken up with a visualization of the cars around you (but not all of them, and you can't 'trust' it). Next to it we have a map. The map directions are not shown on the visualization. You can't use the visualization to check for cars as you would in mirrors, as its not accurate. So why is it even shown? They could use it to show navigation routes rendered as they are seen, so offramps are shown to the user in 3d rather than the overhead map tiles. That would be actually useful.

I will never own a vehicle that doesn't have common/critical functions on physical buttons - exactly because of crap like this. We aren't incentivized to leave well enough alone - things have to constantly be "improved" and then you end up with dangerous experiences like this.

The lack of physical controls, the nicks on the wheels, and secret mantras to open rear doors in case of power failure is what currently keeping me from buying a tesla.

I honestly believe the ux mistakes of Tesla are more the reason for the consistent -50% yoy earnings drops than anything to do with musk directly.

I’ve starting seeing newer teslas indicate the complete opposite direction than they are turning many times in recent history. They no longer have an indicator stalk (as of 2024 model 3) but instead two small buttons on the wheel close enough that I’m not surprised this happens. I don’t think they should be allowed on the road as-is. I’m surprised they pass safety standards. No indicator stalk is definitely a bridge too far.

The auto wipers not working is another. It’d be ok if there was a wiper stalk. There isn’t.

In much of the world you can buy better electric cars for less. Electric cars which don’t have an overly minimalist interface. The USA has high tariffs so Tesla will survive here but they are giving away their international market share with their designs.

Note that other car manufactures are just copying whatever Tesla is doing. Including these bad parts.

it was a good read. but i also note the date on it is Dec. 2021. perhaps things have changed (i have no idea). i do think it is a risky business to change your car's interface with an update!

The post was 2021 but the pain is still true for today. Also, does anyone know how to turn off AC just for the passenger side? Even when I’m driving alone, I still have both sides on.

It would also help If they didn’t change the layout every 6 months.

That version gave you the ability to customize the bottom bar. You can still put that same icon in the same stop if that's what you want.

This post is outdated. The 2021 update sucked. They quickly fixed these issues.

> I borrowed a friend’s Tesla 3 yesterday. About 5 minutes into the ride, the windshield started fogging up. I couldn’t find the defroster on the large control screen Teslas are so famous for.

5 minutes and they don’t know where all the buttons are? Colour me shocked. Any new car needs human recalibration of muscle memory.

I want more buttons too but any new car has you scrambling in rain, fog for buttons. Even your muscle memory for looking at the speedometer is all askew.

I do think that the HVAC system could use permanent buttons, or at least persistent screen buttons.

Edit: My favourite bit about being irrationally downvoted is when someone comments about how I should “read the article more carefully” when they themselves have not read the article or my comment carefully.

The actual meta value is the twitter UX is design to produce pilling on of a comment to drive ad sales rather than an actual conversation thus replaying a UX designer walks into an Elon designed and run Social Media Platform....meta upon meta squared

Tap climate, tap demist. It's really not that hard.

If you frequently need to demist, simple drag the demist option onto the app bar, then it's a single click.

The notion that every function needs to be accessible with a single click is what leads to ridiculously busy cabins that look like aircraft flight decks.

Complaints about Tesla changing its UI ("real pain of being at the mercy of the manufacturer who can completely change how your car works overnight") are also ridiculous. Owning a Tesla is a rewarding experience precisely because its OTA updates work consistently well, and its UI is well-thought-out and responsive. If Tesla wasn't allowed to change its UI, we'd never have great features like the customisable app bar. And in any case, in the years I've owned my Model S, there has only been one major redesign of the UI, and it greatly simplified and improved the whole experience.