The idea of modernity often suggests that a novelty will bring significant improvements to our interaction with reality, promising to simplify, accelerate, clean up, or optimize previous processes. Over the last few centuries, especially after the Industrial Revolution, there has been an automatic association between novelty and progress.
This fascination with novelty is understandable because industrialization allowed generations to experience radical transformations in a single lifetime, introducing machines, electricity, automobiles, and computers, which largely improved the quality of life.
However, recognizing progress does not imply accepting all innovation as such. The technological trajectory is not linear; advancing involves testing possibilities, identifying limits, and sometimes reviving old solutions under new circumstances.
Many ideas were discarded not due to intrinsic failure, but due to lack of adequate technology or by creating new problems. The automotive sector serves as a notable case study, as few technologies have changed so much in just over a century while maintaining fundamental issues like autonomy, safety, and cost.
Although there is a tendency to decree the future with certainty, humans possess the capacity to accumulate knowledge and build upon past experiences, allowing for the development of technologies based on discoveries from centuries ago.
A crucial factor that no novelty initially possesses is usage time, the period necessary to reveal whether a solution is effective and if its benefits outweigh its limitations. Ignoring previous experiences leads to the risk of repeating tests whose results are already known.
The future without buttons
The 1986 Buick Riviera exemplifies this dynamic with the introduction of a touch screen, the Graphic Control Center (GCC). This system used a CRT monitor with green graphics to allow the driver to control functions such as radio, air conditioning, and diagnostics, functioning as a modern multimedia hub.
The appeal lay in the promise of modernity and the possibility of replacing numerous buttons and switches with a single interface, organizing information across different screens without occupying additional physical space.
However, the main drawback emerged early on: the driver had to look at the screen. An evaluation by the Christian Science Monitor in 1986 already warned about the system's potential for distraction. A physical button offers tactile references—shape, position, and resistance—allowing control without looking away, something the smooth surface of the screen does not provide.
Buick kept the idea in the Reatta (1988) with the Electronic Control Center but abandoned it in 1990, returning to physical controls for radio and air conditioning. More recently, GM, when reviewing the Riviera in 2025, admitted that the complexity of virtual controls made operation difficult while driving.
After a period of disappearance, the automotive industry resumed touch screens, driven by smartphone technology. Modern screens are flatter, more colorful, and more precise, and the public was already accustomed to gestures like swiping and pinching.
The current mistake, however, was assuming that the touchscreen would be superior for all functions. Basic functions such as temperature or volume control began to require menu navigation on flat screens, replicating the limitation of 1986. Volkswagen illustrates this regression, with its head of design, Andreas Mindt, stating in 2025 that upcoming models would return to using physical buttons for essential functions, asserting that a car is not a phone.
Additionally, the Euro NCAP protocols for 2026 began to evaluate the human-machine interface and the need for physical controls for frequent actions, indicating it was time to 'bring back the buttons.' Although capacitive surfaces have solved many problems, the error lies in abuse and the belief that the most advanced technology automatically renders what it replaces inferior.
The handle that needs another handle
Another element considered solved in the automobile was the traditional door handle, which operates without relying on electronics or software. However, TVR, in the 1990s, implemented an unusual solution in the Chimaera, eliminating the conventional external handle.
In this model, access was gained by pressing a hidden button under the rearview mirror, causing the door to pop out slightly, while the internal control remained on the center console. This approach served TVR's eccentric design, seeking cleaner lines, although the company itself was aware of the potential problems with this system.