There have been two related design trends in recent years that irked customers more than maybe anything else: giant tablet-sized displays in the center of the dash and the removal of physical buttons.

 

The Germans were no stranger to this trend. Brands began racing to see who could fit the largest screen in a dashboard while also integrating usable controls into it. Mercedes-Benz may have won that race from a pure screen-size perspective, but its CEO also acknowledges that it may have gone a bit "too far." Not with screen size, but in removing physical buttons and replacing them with on-screen controls.