Why Volkswagen’s return to buttons is a UX triumph
I borrowed a car recently that had banished almost all of its climate buttons, amongst many others, to the digital realm.
Trying to adjust the temperature whilst bouncing along a rutted road became a game of chance. My hand hovered, jabbed, missed and jabbed again.
I had to take my eyes off the road to navigate a sub-menu, and in those few seconds the cognitive load shifted entirely from driving to operating a computer.
It highlighted a fundamental truth about modern automotive interior design, where usability has sometimes been sacrificed at the altar of clean design.
In my daily driver, I rarely look at the dashboard. If I need to change the volume, my hand goes to the left and finds the knob. If I need the heated seats, my fingers locate the end of the climate panel and press the button there. It’s a no-look interaction, guided entirely by feel.
This is why the reveal of Volkswagen’s new ID. Polo interior this week felt like such a significant moment. It’s a compact electric car that, finally, admits that buttons are not the enemy.
The science of ‘blind reach’
The return of physical buttons isn’t just about nostalgia, although the Polo’s graphics definitely hark back to a simpler era. It’s about neuroscience. We have two modes of thinking available to us, popularised by Daniel Kahneman, as System 1 and System 2.
System 1 is fast, automatic, frequent and subconscious. It’s the mode you’re in when you’re in the flow of driving on a familiar road, and ideally on most roads. You change gears, signal and adjust your throttle and position without active thought.
System 2, however, is slow, effortful and calculating.
Navigating a touchscreen forces you into System 2 thinking. Because a screen lacks any kind of topography except around the edges, you cannot navigate it using proprioception (the body’s ability to know where its parts are and how they’re moving).
Instead you must engage your conscious visual brain to find the target. When you do that, you’re no longer driving – you’re operating a computer.
Physical buttons unlock the ‘dorsal stream’ of our visual cortex – a vision-for-action pathway. It’s what allows athletes to catch a ball without thinking.
By reinstating physical controls, VW is allowing us to remain in System 1, keeping our focus on the road where it belongs. “Driving with flow” should be the mantra for every car interior designer, and it seems Wolfsburg finally got the memo.
A course correction
VW’s journey here has been turbulent. The Id.3 and the Mk VIII Golf were heavily criticised for their reliance on sliders -–specifically, unlit capacitive strips that were invisible at night, along with capacitive buttons with haptic feedback on the steering wheel.
It was a classic case of form over function, likely driven by cost saving and perhaps an industry obsession with chasing Tesla’s minimalist aesthetic, even where many car enthusiasts hated the concept.
But the new ID. Polo feels like an admission that they got it wrong. It represents a new era of ‘phygital’ (terrible word) cockpits. The key functions, such as demisters, temperature and hazard lights are arranged along what can be described as a physical shelf that’s easy to locate by feel.
You can toggle these switches up or down with a thumb and finger. It’s a stark contrast to the previous generation, where the demister was hidden on a panel that, specifically on right-hand drive models, was awkwardly obscured by the steering wheel.
VW has listened. The new interior strikes a balance. They have placed buttons carefully to leverage muscle memory while maintaining the useful benefits of a large screen doing what it’s good at, like navigation and media selection.
Design with a wink
There’s an emotional durability to this approach too. Andreas Mindt, VW’s Chief Designer, summed it up, “We have created an interior that feels like a friend from the very first contact. Clear physical buttons provide stability and trust, warm materials make it appealing, and charming details such as the new retro views of the instruments show the typical Volkswagen wink.”
He calls it ‘Pure Positive’, but I call it common sense.
The interior blends retro and modern touches with aplomb. The driver display features a ‘Retro Mode’ reminiscent of a Golf Mk1 from the 1970’s, putting digital needles into square binnacles. It’s charmingly skeuomorphic, and it also signals that technology can have soul.
Crucially this shift aligns well with a broader industry tightening.
Euro NCAP, the safety body, has started to penalise manufacturers that turn essential safety functions like wipers and indicators into complex interactions. The pendulum is swinging back from minimalism.
I don’t think it’s a bad thing that VW tried radical ideas with the ID.3 and ID.Buzz. Innovation requires risk. But true innovation is also recognising when a traditional solution – the humble button – was actually the superior technology after all.
The ID.Polo suggests that the future of car interiors may not be about more pixels, but better interaction. It’s a return to clicks you can feel, and to driving without distraction. Welcome back, volume knob. We missed you.