Women in Comfortable Shoes

[Previous entry: "Christmas in January"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "Wherefore art thou, Willie?"]

01/05/2004: "Too Many Choices"

The other day, Mel heard me screaming and ran into the bedroom to see what was wrong. I hate to admit it, but I was yelling at our DVD recorder. I risk losing my Geek Card by writing this down, but I couldn't figure out how to work the darn thing and I had 30 seconds to start recording Angels in America.

So I screamed an obscenity and threatened the remote within an inch of its silver plastic life if it did not reveal its secrets to me. Unfortunately, just as I figured out what to do, Mel had arrived and recited what I should be doing as I did it. (Don’t you love when that happens?)

I write high-tech user manuals for a living. I've even read the manual for this device. But that was a year ago and I needed to know what to do NOW. I didn't have time to find the particular page that decrypted the one or two buttons I needed of the many, many buttons on the remote control.

Don't get me wrong. I love technology. I love electronics. I love gadgets. No, really. I *LOVE* gadgets. I sometimes read gadget manuals from cover to cover just for fun. But consumer devices, such as VCRs, recordable DVDs, and cell phones, are just too complicated for the average user. If I can't figure out what to do in less than 30 seconds, imagine an average, non-technical consumer trying to puzzle their way through. Impossible.

Consumer devices just need to work. You shouldn't have to wade through a thick manual to figure out basic functions. Besides, nobody ever uses all the functions on any device.

OK, maybe 2 percent of the alpha geeks out there might know every function of every device in their house. But I would guess that the average consumer uses only the basics of each. Yes, we want all the extras, just in case we need them. But we will never have time to learn how to use every feature before the device either breaks or the next version with even more stuff appears on the market.

Our household is bi-platform. Mel and I have both Windows and Mac OS computers. I use my Windows laptop in my home office, as my main machine. It's where I do my banking, my taxes, web site development, graphics work, and lots of other things. But it stays on my desk, plugged in and hardwired to the network. If I'm wandering around the house or traveling or drinking coffee in a wireless-enabled coffee shop, I use my iBook.

Why? It just works. Close the lid and it goes to sleep. Open it and it wakes up, remembers what you were doing, and even finds the wireless network on its own. I don't have to screw around with IP configurations, run ipconfig.exe to refresh or renew the IP address, or restart the PC to get it to work, as I do if I use my Windows. I can go from hardwired Ethernet to wireless with ease. I can go from my work network to my home network without opening or configuring anything.

One of Mel's aunts visited us over the Thanksgiving holiday. She had a new picture phone and she played with it quite a bit while she was here. Eventually, she figured out how to take and send pictures and how to see pictures if someone sent her some. But she never figured out how to view archived pictures. It wasn't obvious at all. So she was looking forward to reading her manual (again) on the trip home.

So here's what I want: Put as many buttons on the remote or device as you want. But hide most of them under a hidden slide, flap, or panel. On the main unit, show only big, labeled buttons that let you perform basic functions of whatever gadget you are using.

For example, a recorder (DVD or VCR) should have two banks of buttons--the first for immediate recording and the second for timed recording.

The immediate recording bank should have two buttons: Tape Speed and Go/Stop. The timed recording bank should have a Program button with sequential rotation through Channel, Date, Start Time, End Time, and Tape Speed. Every screen should have a back button.

It should also have a persistent memory that remembers your settings, automatically scans for channels, and sets the time and date after a power-off.

Every other function or feature should be hidden somewhere. Otherwise, you get information overload and you have to read the manual for three hours just to figure out how to program it.

In the meantime, it's a good thing Angels in America is 6 hours long. Maybe I'll figure out how to record it by the time it ends.