Audi and BMW have been competing to see who can offer the largest number of seat adjustments in their large luxury sedans. A major challenge: how to make all of these adjustments easy to control.

Previous solutions, especially that on the previous generation BMW 7-Series, have made it difficult to figure out–and then remember–how to make some of the less often used adjustments. Buttons often have to serve multiple duties, and these have been difficult to sort out whether they are located on the side of the center console or the side of the seat.

Audi’s solution in the new A8 is the best yet. Initially I couldn’t figure out the purpose of the wheel the encircles what appears to be a four-way lumbar control. Then I noticed that an image of the seat was displayed on the LCD screen in the center stack, with the selected area of the seat highlighted in red.

So you use the wheel to select the area of the seat–lumbar, upper seatback, side bolsters, thigh bolsters, thigh support, or seatbelt height–then make the adjustment using the shared four-way control.

It has taken decades, but auto makers are finally figuring out how to improve ergonomics through the use of display screens.