Kia sticking with buttons as it ramps up in-car tech

Kia will ramp up the use of digital technology in the interior of its next-generation vehicles but will retain real buttons, according to its interior design chief.

The Korean firm's current generation of vehicles feature touchscreens to control the infotainment and heating systems but retain physical switchgear for key systems.

That is in contrast to many of Kia's new Chinese rivals, which offer interiors largely devoid of physical controls.

While Kia is looking to increase the digital features offered in its future vehicles, Jochen Paesen, the firm's interior design chief, believes the key is retaining a "balance".

He said that "we never really went away completely for buttons", adding: "There are certain functions you need to find straight away and you don't want to mess up, so we keep them physical. Now we're learning from that to increase the digital and experiential component."

When it comes to increasing that digital functionality, Kia is being careful to ensure that it does so in a way that adds value, Paesen explained.

"You can't look past the fact that China is cooking up a lot of things quickly, but it's really important that you don't just add more and more features and bells and whistles," he said.

"It's about how it becomes useful to your audience and making sure your audience buys into your interpretation of that technology. The key is finding the balance of creating a certain level of warmth and aspiration.

"As a brand, we've come a long way in the last five years, and our next step is to make sure we get more of that going while also strengthening and pushing the technology and what's available to us."

Asked about how Kia would balance physical and digital controls, Paesen replied: "There are brands that get away with just digital and it works for them, but Kia sells globally and we have studios that research markets everywhere, and when you bring it all back together, it's quite simple: we're all the same. People have very basic needs. Yes, there are people that are more tech-savvy, but the answers are not that different. 

"If to get to a function you have to go down three steps [in a menu], that's bad for everybody. So there are different ways of finding answers for that. In the future, when you will have more features, how does the car go from being a tool where you have to learn how to use it to actually helping you and make sure tasks take fewer steps? Nobody has cracked it yet, but that's the way we try to look at it.

"Technology is developing very fast, and there have been a component of novelty, especially with the Chinese brands. You've got to give them credit for pushing ideas where you go 'I didn't know I needed that'. Maybe you don't, but they've done it and you've got to respect that they have. You can't learn from what you haven't done. 

"There's a lot of opportunity in transitioning to another idea and taking it and getting it to a better place. Technology is new. Ideas are new. There are new players on the market. We all need to find our way.

"We're at a place where novelty is great, but we're going into the next phase where there's a lot of value to be found and added, and that's where you can develop your own taste, approach and interaction logic."