What Cars Can Learn from Camera Design

For years, car manufacturers have chased the dream of the “clean” digital cockpit — replacing buttons and dials with glossy touchscreens. It looked futuristic, giving designers a blank canvas to show off technology all while reducing manufacturing costs.

It also made cars harder — and in some cases, more dangerous — to use.

Drivers are now frustrated by buried menus and interfaces that demand their attention at the very moment it should be on the road. Critical displays—like head-up interfaces—are being replaced by a single, overloaded screen. What began as innovation has quickly become a safety risk.

I’ve never been much of a car guy. Engines and torque don’t do much for me. But as a kid, I was obsessed with car interiors — the tiny usability puzzles hidden inside. I remember my dad taking my brothers and me to a car show, and while everyone else admired the exteriors, I was inside the cabins studying cup holders. Every manufacturer had its own folding mechanism — small mechanical ideas about convenience and behavior. A budding interaction designer, apparently.

If I were designing a car interior today — trying to balance physical and digital — I wouldn’t look to Tesla or Xiaomi. I’d look to Fujifilm.

I’ve used cameras from every major brand. Sony builds technical marvels: sharp sensors, world-class autofocus, impeccable image science. But using one feels like navigating a car touchscreen at highway speed — endless menus, buried options, and no clear opinion about what matters. You can map buttons, sure, but the experience never feels cohesive.

Fujifilm takes the opposite approach. Their design starts with the photographer’s mental model — the triangle of aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. Those three variables define photography, and they shape every camera body they make. I can step outside, look at a scene, and adjust everything before even turning the camera on. Each control is consistent, deliberate, and tactile.

But Fujifilm doesn’t reject digital; they refine it. Their in-camera film simulations recreate the chemistry of classic film stocks — translating the darkroom into pixels. It’s technology used to deepen craft, not distract from it.

That’s the lesson for car designers. Physical controls should handle what drivers need by feel—steering, climate, speed. Digital should enhance what benefits from visualization—navigation, for instance, where roads change and exploration thrives on a larger canvas. But unlike cameras, car interfaces must operate in motion. Safety isn’t a design constraint to work around; it’s the guardrail that defines the road.

Design isn’t about removing complexity. It’s about placing it where it belongs. Fujifilm understands that. It’s time car manufacturers did too.