[tinsmith]

What you described should be the industry ideal. I point to my 2017 Kia Niro as a good example of this. For the most part, it offers physical buttons for all common and "while driving" actions, leaving the touch screen to be an effective passive display for navigation. In fact, this is largely why I purchased the vehicle after test driving a few others that had much bigger touch screens, but less physical buttons. The Niro felt the most balanced.

Oddly (perhaps not?), I use this same thought process when shopping for smartphones. One or two physical buttons is not enough, especially with screens being prone to the same failures they were 10 years ago.

[sbradford26]

So my wife owns a 2017 Kia Niro and I have a 2017 Hyundai Ioniq. The cars have the same drive train and the infotainment systems and controls are similar but there are small differences between the two of them. For one both cars have dials for controlling the temperature but my Ioniq has a dedicated display for the temperature while the Niro only has a display overlay that appears when you adjust it.

Just always thought it was odd to have a physical control for something but then relegate the display for that control to a pop up on the touch screen.