I am in Las Vegas for a conference this week. The hotel is really nice, but I encountered this bizarre keypad to work the curtains in the room.
There is no natural mapping between the buttons and their functions. I went through quite a bit of trial & error before figuring it out. And the problem is that even once you figure it out, it's not very logical. At its core, this design violates the Recognition rather than recall usability heuristic:
Minimize the user's memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another. Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate.
Update on 9/25: It seems that this little innocent photo is creating some polarizing opinions ranging from "You're an idiot for not seeing how simple this is", to "I agree - you guys need to read 'The Design of Everyday things!', to the more fundamental question of why you would even need electricity to open curtains... Check out the discussion here.
1 comment:
I run across these things from time to time in busniess travel. Usually I am so confused I do nothing. You are very brave! Relating this topic to web design, I often run into this problem when trying to figure out certain rich user experiences.
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