Do you have any thoughts on user interfaces? You know, those things that are our way of controlling the stuff around us, whether it be your computer, smartphone, microwave oven, home theatre or even your car dashboard.
The modern-day interface is usually graphics / icon based. I remember an old friend of mine back in the 80s remarking that in his opinion, this was not exactly a step forward, as we used to communicate that way with pictures before we invented writing.
Buy hey, there is money to be made and after Apple and Microsoft nicked the ideas (allegedly) from Xerox, we are now seemingly stuck with an icon based environment.
The reason I bring up this subject is caused by a real-world situation. Shortly, I am taking a bit of a holiday, a real holiday this time, and mostly away from screens, keyboards, word processors, the internet and mobile phones (unless of course I choose not to).
As we are having a house sitter looking after the place, including DougieTheDoggie, the cat, fish and various chickens, I needed to make up a sort of compendium of things that needed to be done on a daily basis. You know, who to feed what, where stuff is stored, details on vets, plumbers and the local shops etc etc.
One of these things of course included using the home theatre system. Ours is powered by a Fetch box, something I have had for quite a few years now and love it. It is connected to a Sony receiver / amp and also attached are a Panasonic Blu-ray player, Google Chromecast and a Sony PS4. Because of the house layout, I don’t use Wi-fi for these devices, instead good ol’ ethernet cable has been laid back to the D-Link modem. Far more reliable and faster for video etc in this circumstance.
Now you’d think that to explain to someone how to use this setup would be quite easy to do, but as I won’t have the opportunity to do it face-to-face, I decided to write it all down for our sitter.
In the past I have written manuals, training courses and even a 400 page+ “Bible” on a piece of web building software, but I was more than a little surprised to discover to put to paper how to use free to air TV, get to Britbox, Disney and Prime, play a DVD etc took nearly 1000 words!
This included what to do in the face of a power cut and how to reboot the modem.
The problem was the necessity to describe each device separately in detail as they all operate in different ways and use different images for what amounts to the same thing.
A good case in point is the Fetch box. Now far be it for me to criticise it as I love the freedom it gives me to watch what I want, when I want, find stuff I haven’t seen in years and even simultaneously record multiple channels, all for minimal cost.
But whereas the remote for my Phillips TV panel has an “OK” button, the remote for the Fetch equivalent is a paw print! How do you explain that? (Yes, I know, “Fetch” has the doggy analogy, but even so …)
I also had to explain how to backtrack if a wrong button was pressed and effectively, cover every possible eventuality. And here, the same operation can also have different names further confusing the issue.
Isn’t it time that all the manufacturers got together and standardised on these things. If road traffic systems around the world can all have the same signs, surely it can’t be that hard? Maybe going back to words might help? At least you won’t have to guess what a blue and white diamond hovering in mid air means (TCL remote control).