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IMO there is a very annoying trend in household appliances towards worse and worse UI. Basically, it started with light switches already decades ago, at least

IMO there is a very annoying trend in household appliances towards worse and worse UI. Basically, it started with light switches already decades ago, at least in Europe. In the past, you had switches that themselves indicated what state they are in, so if you cluster them on a board it's incredibly easy to find the one switched on at the moment [1]. Then, some moron came up with switches that don't show anything anymore [2]. Nowadays you're lucky if you get switches on anything at all. This [3] is how a standard stove looks like in new Swiss apartments nowadays. Good luck explaining this to your grandma. You idiots, it has one job, getting more or less hot! Recently I took a residential elevator that just had an empty touch field when you came in. No indication of what you could do whatsoever. This immediately gave me anxiety, and I'm just 31 goddamnit. Anyways, what happened was that once the elevator door closed it gave me a selection of floors to go. [4] facepalm Please, for the love of what's holy, stop improving what doesn't need improvement! In german we have a word for this: "Verschlimmbessern". (a combination of verschlimmern='making it worse' and bessern=improving) [1] https://adventurelightingblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/light-switch.jpg https://adventurelightingblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/li... [2] http://www.schulungshandbuch.de/WebRoot/Store22/Shops/62784718/54C3/771A/FC18/5950/9A6B/C0A8/2ABB/1470/Lichtschalter.jpeg http://www.schulungshandbuch.de/WebRoot/Store22/Shops/627847... [3] http://media3.siemens-home.com/Product_Shots/915x515/MCSA00681395_2_EH645BB17E_def.png http://media3.siemens-home.com/Product_Shots/915x515/MCSA006... [4] https://www.google.co.jp/search?tbm=isch&q=schindler+touch&tbs=imgo:1&gws_rd=cr&ei=xWq6V6_KAcjK0ATj9JqYBg#gws_rd=cr&imgrc=33lIUZ1H5KvvxM%3A https://www.google.co.jp/search?tbm=isch&q=schindler+touch&t...

seshagiric 10y ago
+1 for the elevator anxiety. In my case there were no buttons inside the lift!! Really, nothing. One had to select your floor BEFORE entering the lift.
- jpatokal 10y ago
  That's called a destination control system, and it works that way because of the massive efficiency gains of letting the elevators work out who should go where.
  - slavik81 10y ago
    Efficiency gains are a big deal, too. Consider that even being able to get away with one fewer elevator saves space on every floor of the building. The taller the building, the more valuable it is.
  - sheraz 10y ago
    Link to video describing said system: https://youtu.be/WTIXVS0620Y https://youtu.be/WTIXVS0620Y
  - lostlogin 10y ago
    What's with this? You have floor you're on and a floor you want to go to. If some else presses a button before the lift passes, pick them up too. Awfully conventional, but everyone understands it.
    - seshagiric 10y ago
      Its a havoc when there is a crowd, like the floor housing the common cafeteria/lunch place in an office building. In a group of people waiting, inadvertently someone misses out to specify their floor and panics! Also, surprisingly large no. of people make a mistake in selecting the floor they need to go to (visitors, new joinees...)
    - jpatokal 10y ago
      Until you're in one of those office buildings where everybody has lunch at exactly 12, meaning first you wait an eon to find an elevator where you can squeeze in, and then you ding-ding-ding-ding your way slowly down to the ground floor, stopping at every floor to show people that this one's also full!
      - logfromblammo 10y ago
        Couldn't you just use a weight sensor to determine whether an elevator cab is over x% of its rated capacity, and make that one ineligible to respond to external calls until after some people exit? That wouldn't require changes to the user interface, and the doors would only open if someone can actually get on. That, plus an assumption that most trips are between the ground/garage floors and one of the higher, occupied floors should be sufficient to reduce congestion without requiring someone to push a floor button before entering the cab. Adding a clock to the elevator controller would also help, such as by stationing empty cabs at the exit floors in the mornings, and distributing them among the occupied floors in the evenings. I can think of a lot of ways to improve elevator scheduling without changing the user interface, and even if I did change that, I could certainly provide some mechanism to select a specific floor without installing a touchscreen GUI. Wave your employee access RFID badge at the button panel to pick the floor where your cubicle is, for instance.
- ddacunha 10y ago
  Five years ago we moved in an brand new office with this type of elevators. It had bugs but improved over time. A traditional elevator only know where your are. This type of elevator also knows where you want to go and can optimise for passenger throughput.
  - m_mueller 10y ago
    Can't they just make it such that there's still buttons inside, maybe given lower priority and some help text explaining that it's best to choose outside?
DiabloD3 10y ago
Okay, so, I program, do sysadmin work, and all sorts of highly technical stuff for a living. If it becomes a thing where only that oven can be bought, and all ovens have those insane controls? I'll quit eating. I swear to God, I will give up eating altogether.
- delecti 10y ago
  If that happens, just embrace the dystopia and switch to an un-food like Soylent.
  - meddlepal 10y ago
    People are tasty.
- kristopolous 10y ago
  And like that, "Raw Vegan" doesn't sound so extreme any more.
- m_mueller 10y ago
  All I want is a gas stove with built-in electric ignition like we have in Japan. It's simple, immediately hot, easy to repair and IMO elegant.
  - nerdponx 10y ago
    If you don't mind tiny apartments and the smell of hot garbage, move to New York City. Many apartments still use gas stoves
  - lostlogin 10y ago
    Try induction. As a side skill you can learn to arc weld with a potato instead of a welding rod.
    - m_mueller 10y ago
      What I showed in the pic is induction probably, most new stoves in Switzerland are. It's ok for directness, but nothing beats gas. I don't even need the damn knob to tell me how strong it is, I can see the flame! There's beauty and fun in cooking with something as simple as fire.
marcoperaza 10y ago
I like physical knobs and buttons on cars too. Not only are they easier and safer to use while riding due to tactile feedback, but they also work when they're off so you can, for example, turn down the volume before turning the car on.
- m_mueller 10y ago
  Listen to the latest ATP. Marco explains how his tesla's turn signal indicators don't click anymore when the central console has a problem - they stay silent until he reboots the thing with some button combo. :-(
- wineisfine 10y ago
  This is for example still very much with BMW and Audi. And I'm glad they do keep buttons etc around. The funny thing is that less prestigious brands like Citroen, go all "futuristic", trying to be fancy, and doing so remove all tactile interfaces. It's one of the reasons I would never buy a car like this.
- gambiting 10y ago
  That is the worst part of Teslas to me - why the hell is EVERYTHING on this huge display?? Changing temperature or music volume without tactile feedback is the worst thing.
beambot 10y ago
You can blame Apple... they convinced everyone that design was important, so now every shitty company in the world is ineffectually trying to push the boundaries to create something "iconic." (I only semi-jest... I've seen this process IRL.)
- m_mueller 10y ago
  I know where you're coming from, but Apple is IMO much better at modernising UI. They usually don't just change for the sake of change, there tends to be an advantage over the old way. And the new way is often even more tactile than the old. Only discoverability of advanced features is a problem, but that's IMO less of a problem with a device that you use daily.
  - beambot 10y ago
    I believe you are agreeing with me... Apple does a damn-good job of design -- applied correctly. Their stodgy contemporaries' poor imitation is the problem. (Eg. Honeywell -vs- Nest)
    - tbirdz 10y ago
      Honeywell may be stodgy, but I'll take my ugly Honeywell programmable thermostat over the slick Nest that can get bricked remotely.
      - kalleboo 10y ago
        I think by "poor imitation" he's referring to this. Would you trust this over a smart device created by a software-first company? http://yourhome.honeywell.com/en/products/thermostat/lyric-thermostat http://yourhome.honeywell.com/en/products/thermostat/lyric-t...
    - flux_w42 10y ago
      Actually it's the other way around: http://www.wsj.com/articles/honeywell-google-settle-lawsuit-over-nest-labs-thermostat-1462548673 http://www.wsj.com/articles/honeywell-google-settle-lawsuit-...
mnutt 10y ago
Regarding your first two examples, most new construction where I live (NYC) has switched over to a similar [0] which from my understanding is for accessibility reasons, and I suspect the second example is for the same reason. They don't require any fine motor skills whatsoever, you can pretty much just press in their general direction to toggle. [0] https://d3jpffnds3bao3.cloudfront.net/catalog/category/cache/2/image/150x/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/Lutron_CA-1PS-WH.jpg https://d3jpffnds3bao3.cloudfront.net/catalog/category/cache...
- m_mueller 10y ago
  Yes, those are alright - but most in Switzerland don't have a tilt (for indicating state). It's like noone even cares about stuff like this nowadays. In the past I thought German/Swiss design to be some sort of pinnacle of function and design, but not anymore.
  - laksjd 10y ago
    There's a reason why Germany/Austria/Switzerland don't usually have state-indicating toggle switches and it's because toggle switches make no sense in multiway switching [0] systems where multiple switches control the same lightsource. I'm not sure how common multiway switching is in the US, but it's certainly super common in Europe and I guess that's why we use non-state-indicating switches, even in circuits with a single switch, because so many circuits are controlled from multiple switches that there's no point in having them indicate state. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiway_switching https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiway_switching
    - m_mueller 10y ago
      Is there really not a good and robust solution to this? Like, say, a condensator that charges for up to 20 toggles and a tiny motor that actuates all the switches that aren't depressed manually? I'd have this over digital switches any day.
      - TeMPOraL 10y ago
sotojuan 10y ago
At one of my old work places the two elevator call buttons were replaced by a touch screen with... two elevator call buttons. Nothing improved, just the same interface with the same two buttons, but now in a touchscreen that was more expensive and can crash.
- mentando 10y ago
  And not barrier-free I would imagine.
  - dsr_ 10y ago
    Blind people can gently touch the wall, find the buttons, and figure out which one is up, because it's over the down button. Try that with a touch screen.
    - fnord123 10y ago
      Right, but if they add or remove floors, they don't need to change the touch screen. Eat that, normal buttons! /s
    - scaryclam 10y ago
      Heck, a lot of physical buttons also have braille on them
- pi-rat 10y ago
  Reminds me of many of the first VOIP softwares often mimicking physical phones (some didn't even accept keyboard input for punching the number, you had to use the mouse). Applications skinned like photographs of physical items => horrible UX.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  Whenever I see monitors and touchscreens, I keep any eye out for crashes and errors. It's always interesting to see what should be simple, dedicated-hardware devices taken down by a Windows 10 update or some revealing error message (why does the mall's you-are-here screen use Internet Explorer?!)
zyxley 10y ago
The saddest part of that switch thing is that there are plenty of "stateless" switches around that still indicate light status: http://www.atticmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/tour-our-dom-ledmom2-435.jpg http://www.atticmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/tour-our-... They work nicely for home automation purposes, since you can set them up so that the LEDs on the side match up to whatever the current light status is (dim to bright from bottom to top).
- m_mueller 10y ago
  Not a big fan. I don't want LEDs giving off green light everywhere in the house at night.
  - zyxley 10y ago
    When the lights are turned completely off, the LEDs on the switch turn off, too.
    - m_mueller 10y ago
      Ok. Granted, that's quite smart.
      - acqq 10y ago
        No it's not. I've had kind-of-that "smart switches" in the office. To turn on the light the appropriate button is to be pressed (among 20, it's kind-of a control panel). Once the light is turned on, the red LED is turned on at the edge of the button. So it fits the proposed "turn the LED on when the light is on." The problem: in the evening it gets dark, you want to turn on the light and come to the dark corner with the panel where the 20 buttons are, and you have no idea which of 20 will turn on the damn light (to add the insult to the injury, it's some in the middle of course, these in the corners are something whatever). And as the punishment, if you hit the wrong buttons you will raise or lower the blinds or change the heating or turn on the fans in the ceiling. I ask these who installed the system: can you make it having the LED by the button on when the light is off (invert the logic). "Can't do, the whole module (20 buttons and the LCD display) is made in the factory and can't be tweaked." A "smart" control panel from hell. My other favorite comparable bad button is one actual button on the remote controller for one TV-on-computer device. It was probably some generic remote customized by the company for that device. The problem: one button, easy to hit, just blocks the whole device and leaves the software running in the background. Of course, it can't be reprogrammed.
legulere 10y ago
I'm German and never saw a light switch like in [1] in my whole life.
- paublyrne 10y ago
  I'm almost certain it's an immersion heater switch.
- majewsky 10y ago
  +1 I'm German, too, and I only ever saw these switches in contemporary settings UIs instead of checkboxes.
- Eugr 10y ago
  They are still pretty common in the US, especially in the older buildings.
PhasmaFelis 10y ago
> [3] http://media3.siemens-home.com/Product_Shots/915x515/MCSA00681395_2_EH645BB17E_def.png http://media3.siemens-home.com/Product_Shots/915x515/MCSA006... I will say this much: that seems totally intuitive to me. You tap the button for the burner you want, then tap the +/- buttons to get your temperature, right? I like having each burner's setting readout all together in one place, as well. Everything else about it is terrible. Oven controls need to be tactile, they need to be immediate, and they need to not be three inches from a hot pan. That'll cause enough burns just from fumble-fingering in normal use--now imagine that your pan has caught fire and you're trying to select the left front burner and press - 8 times while your hand is showered with flaming grease. Who could possibly have thought this was a good idea?
- venomsnake 10y ago
  A rotating knob is a lot more intuitive.
  - henrikschroder 10y ago
    You'd think it's hard to screw up a rotating knob, but they've found ways to do that as well! When I went shopping for a stove years ago I found out that some have knobs that only go one way, so to switch a burner to max, you have to twist it all the way around. Extremely annoying. I ended up going to a showroom and twisting all the knobs of all the stoves to find out which ones didn't have that limitation. I must have looked like a crazy person, but I got one I liked in the end. The stove I ended up buying had one variable-size burner, and that knob had a bounce-back switch at the end, so you have to turn that knob the wrong way around to max it, but I could live with that. Why a regular burner would have the limit beats me. The only thing I could think of would be some sort of extremely crude and ineffective child-protection, but all stoves have a child-lock anyway, so what's the use?
    - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
      The stove where I live right now has knobs whose full range of motion is a quarter-turn, and the flame goes out if you turn it more than halfway down, so effectively you only have one-eighth of the knob to use. If you try to set it to low heat, you'll usually go too far and put the flame out unless you pick up the pan and watch the burner while turning the knob a millimeter at a time. It's absolutely amazing what people can manage to screw up.
l_zzie 10y ago
fwiw, stateless light switches are nice in that you can have many light switches controlling the same light. Not saying they're perfect but they have advantages.
- c22 10y ago
  If you're willing to lose state feedback anyways you can also do this with toggle switches.
l_zzie 10y ago
fwiw, stateless light switches are nice in that you can have many light switches controlling the same light. Not saying they're perfect but they have advantages.
wwweston 10y ago
> IMO there is a very annoying trend in household appliances towards worse and worse UI. I feel like you could drop "in household appliances" from that statement and still be telling the truth. I'd be willing to bet that anyone reading this could think of examples in software where those making product decisions seem to be operating off of these principles: * Refine relentlessly (vs stop improving what doesn't need improvement) * Be heavily state-dependent as a way to minimize presentation of options. But don't call attention to state. * Minimize any affordances. Rely on implicit interaction patterns you assume the user has already learned. * Minimize everything. Remove options. Hide what you can't remove. The less the software does, the less the user has to think, right?
- lostlogin 10y ago
  My oven has a top element, a bottom one and a fan. Somehow it has seven settings and a temperature knob. It's awful. Thanks Smeg.
  - 4ndr3vv 10y ago
    >Somehow it has seven settings With three things that can be switched on or off there are 7 state permutations (plus all off) > It's awful. The alternative being three separate toggle switches. While this would be easier to scan and make a decision if you wanted granular decisions every time you cooked something, 90% of the time the oven will be set to the same setting; ALL ON. I think that having a single switch, rather than three is a more efficient UI for this.
    - jschwartzi 10y ago
      Unless you know how to cook. Then the analog controls are a godsend because they let you control the rate at which heat is applied to your food to a great degree. The setting you might use to boil water is not the same one you'd use to cook an egg. Ditto for sautee versus cooking a steak. The problem is that the people designing UIs for products don't actually know how to use the products. They don't have any concept of how a user uses the UI. So they just assume that less is better without stopping to consider why someone would want to control the temperature of their stove.
voltagex_ 10y ago
Funnily enough your second example of the switch that has no state would be perfect for my new LIFX lightbulbs (yes, I am aware of the irony of posting this in this thread) The state of the lightbulb is decoupled from the state of the switch - the switch itself is always on [0]. [0]: Yeah, this isn't great because idle power is >0W. This is where a centralised lighting controller with mechanical switches would help, but that's more invasive than just putting in some new bulbs.
cardinalfang 10y ago
That stove interface is particularly annoying because it takes a single operation with a knob into ten finger presses - on, select element, power up 8 times. I managed to find a stove with direct access to all power levels for all elements at the cost of less cooking surface.
akerro 10y ago
My grandmother has a switch like this one [1]. Now the switch is like 60 years old. The scroll under the switch is to dim light, far-right - provides max power to light bulbs, far-left, minimum power, but light bulb still works. Button above it just turns it on and off. It's beautiful, works after decades, shows state from distance, it's practical. I wish it was still sold. Now I need application for mobile device, WiFi to achieve the same... http://img04.olx.pl/images_tablicapl/358414699_2_261x203_sciemniacz-wlacznik-z-czasow-prl-dodaj-zdjecia.jpg http://img04.olx.pl/images_tablicapl/358414699_2_261x203_sci... http://img12.staticclassifieds.com/images_tablicapl/392911693_5_644x461_uwaga-nowkasciemniacz-staly-podtynkowy-typ-rs-2z-czasow-prl-kujawsko-pomorskie_rev013.jpg http://img12.staticclassifieds.com/images_tablicapl/39291169...
- dozzie 10y ago
  > My grandmother has a switch like this one [1]. Now it's like 60 years old switch. Oh boy, how fugly it is. I had the same xD Still, it did an excellent job and was almost indestructible.
- m_mueller 10y ago
  give that thing a bit of a redesign, put up nice LED lights with a warm color and you have the perfect 'smart' light. In Japan there is a company selling good but cheap LED fixtures with very simple and well built remote controls, temperature setting and three dim modes. It works perfectly with existing switches, you can reset its state by switching on and off twice in succession and the remote buttons are illuminescent. That's smart. Keep your wifi and app interfaces away.
  - akerro 10y ago
    Links?
    - m_mueller 10y ago
      here you go: http://ohyamalights.com/classifications/olcld-decorative-ceiling-light http://ohyamalights.com/classifications/olcld-decorative-cei... for some reason I can only find the remotes in Japanese sources. I suppose they're afraid of English customer support calls... http://image.rakuten.co.jp/e-akari/cabinet/led/1892240-e.jpg http://image.rakuten.co.jp/e-akari/cabinet/led/1892240-e.jpg
majewsky 10y ago
If you haven't read it yet, check out "The Design of Everyday Things" [1], which covers just this kind of annoyance, and is a great 101 on any kind of interface design (be it physical or on a computer). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_of_Everyday_Things https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_of_Everyday_Things
hawski 10y ago
There is a nice book about things like this, but it is a bit dated. The Design of Everyday Things [1]. Devices are produced not to be useful, but to be sold. People want more value for money so they select a thing with more buttons (seeing a button for a function) or more splashing lights. Usually the cheapest devices of established lot are simple, but may be not energy efficient. Probably the flashiest are mid-tier and the most expensive are sometimes like good looking cheapest option, but more energy efficient. I am thinking of getting big screen display. What I would prefer is to get computer monitor around 40-50 inches connected to my computer and Chromecast. For audio I would like to use separate appliance. Cheapest most effective solution is probably to buy TV (and it seems all of them are to some extent marketed as Smart) even if I don't intend to use most of it. Other option that I consider is to have 24-30" monitor on wheeled stand so I can easily pull it closer to couch. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_of_Everyday_Things https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_of_Everyday_Things
maxerickson 10y ago
I went to Home Depot's website and sorted range+ovens by price. The 50 cheapest or so (I stopped after 2 pages) all had a knob for each burner. One had a knob for the oven, but that was maybe notable. So the 'functional' marketplace hasn't abandoned sense for nice looking stuff with complicated hidden controls. Siemans still uses knobs on their gas cooktops: http://www.siemens-home.com/ae/productlist/cooking-and-baking/hobs/gas http://www.siemens-home.com/ae/productlist/cooking-and-bakin... Presumably the mechanical valve works better than an electric one.
KallDrexx 10y ago
That stove baffles me, if for no other reason than one slip of your finger and you can easily touch a hot burner or pot.

seshagiric 10y ago

+1 for the elevator anxiety. In my case there were no buttons inside the lift!! Really, nothing. One had to select your floor BEFORE entering the lift.

jpatokal 10y ago
That's called a destination control system, and it works that way because of the massive efficiency gains of letting the elevators work out who should go where.
- slavik81 10y ago
  Efficiency gains are a big deal, too. Consider that even being able to get away with one fewer elevator saves space on every floor of the building. The taller the building, the more valuable it is.
- sheraz 10y ago
  Link to video describing said system: https://youtu.be/WTIXVS0620Y https://youtu.be/WTIXVS0620Y
- lostlogin 10y ago
  What's with this? You have floor you're on and a floor you want to go to. If some else presses a button before the lift passes, pick them up too. Awfully conventional, but everyone understands it.
  - seshagiric 10y ago
    Its a havoc when there is a crowd, like the floor housing the common cafeteria/lunch place in an office building. In a group of people waiting, inadvertently someone misses out to specify their floor and panics! Also, surprisingly large no. of people make a mistake in selecting the floor they need to go to (visitors, new joinees...)
  - jpatokal 10y ago
    Until you're in one of those office buildings where everybody has lunch at exactly 12, meaning first you wait an eon to find an elevator where you can squeeze in, and then you ding-ding-ding-ding your way slowly down to the ground floor, stopping at every floor to show people that this one's also full!
    - logfromblammo 10y ago
      Couldn't you just use a weight sensor to determine whether an elevator cab is over x% of its rated capacity, and make that one ineligible to respond to external calls until after some people exit? That wouldn't require changes to the user interface, and the doors would only open if someone can actually get on. That, plus an assumption that most trips are between the ground/garage floors and one of the higher, occupied floors should be sufficient to reduce congestion without requiring someone to push a floor button before entering the cab. Adding a clock to the elevator controller would also help, such as by stationing empty cabs at the exit floors in the mornings, and distributing them among the occupied floors in the evenings. I can think of a lot of ways to improve elevator scheduling without changing the user interface, and even if I did change that, I could certainly provide some mechanism to select a specific floor without installing a touchscreen GUI. Wave your employee access RFID badge at the button panel to pick the floor where your cubicle is, for instance.
ddacunha 10y ago
Five years ago we moved in an brand new office with this type of elevators. It had bugs but improved over time. A traditional elevator only know where your are. This type of elevator also knows where you want to go and can optimise for passenger throughput.
- m_mueller 10y ago
  Can't they just make it such that there's still buttons inside, maybe given lower priority and some help text explaining that it's best to choose outside?

DiabloD3 10y ago

Okay, so, I program, do sysadmin work, and all sorts of highly technical stuff for a living. If it becomes a thing where only that oven can be bought, and all ovens have those insane controls? I'll quit eating. I swear to God, I will give up eating altogether.

delecti 10y ago
If that happens, just embrace the dystopia and switch to an un-food like Soylent.
- meddlepal 10y ago
  People are tasty.
kristopolous 10y ago
And like that, "Raw Vegan" doesn't sound so extreme any more.
m_mueller 10y ago
All I want is a gas stove with built-in electric ignition like we have in Japan. It's simple, immediately hot, easy to repair and IMO elegant.
- nerdponx 10y ago
  If you don't mind tiny apartments and the smell of hot garbage, move to New York City. Many apartments still use gas stoves
- lostlogin 10y ago
  Try induction. As a side skill you can learn to arc weld with a potato instead of a welding rod.
  - m_mueller 10y ago
    What I showed in the pic is induction probably, most new stoves in Switzerland are. It's ok for directness, but nothing beats gas. I don't even need the damn knob to tell me how strong it is, I can see the flame! There's beauty and fun in cooking with something as simple as fire.

marcoperaza 10y ago

I like physical knobs and buttons on cars too. Not only are they easier and safer to use while riding due to tactile feedback, but they also work when they're off so you can, for example, turn down the volume before turning the car on.

m_mueller 10y ago
Listen to the latest ATP. Marco explains how his tesla's turn signal indicators don't click anymore when the central console has a problem - they stay silent until he reboots the thing with some button combo. :-(
wineisfine 10y ago
This is for example still very much with BMW and Audi. And I'm glad they do keep buttons etc around. The funny thing is that less prestigious brands like Citroen, go all "futuristic", trying to be fancy, and doing so remove all tactile interfaces. It's one of the reasons I would never buy a car like this.
gambiting 10y ago
That is the worst part of Teslas to me - why the hell is EVERYTHING on this huge display?? Changing temperature or music volume without tactile feedback is the worst thing.

beambot 10y ago

You can blame Apple... they convinced everyone that design was important, so now every shitty company in the world is ineffectually trying to push the boundaries to create something "iconic." (I only semi-jest... I've seen this process IRL.)

m_mueller 10y ago
I know where you're coming from, but Apple is IMO much better at modernising UI. They usually don't just change for the sake of change, there tends to be an advantage over the old way. And the new way is often even more tactile than the old. Only discoverability of advanced features is a problem, but that's IMO less of a problem with a device that you use daily.
- beambot 10y ago
  I believe you are agreeing with me... Apple does a damn-good job of design -- applied correctly. Their stodgy contemporaries' poor imitation is the problem. (Eg. Honeywell -vs- Nest)
  - tbirdz 10y ago
    Honeywell may be stodgy, but I'll take my ugly Honeywell programmable thermostat over the slick Nest that can get bricked remotely.
    - kalleboo 10y ago
      I think by "poor imitation" he's referring to this. Would you trust this over a smart device created by a software-first company? http://yourhome.honeywell.com/en/products/thermostat/lyric-thermostat http://yourhome.honeywell.com/en/products/thermostat/lyric-t...
  - flux_w42 10y ago
    Actually it's the other way around: http://www.wsj.com/articles/honeywell-google-settle-lawsuit-over-nest-labs-thermostat-1462548673 http://www.wsj.com/articles/honeywell-google-settle-lawsuit-...

mnutt 10y ago

Regarding your first two examples, most new construction where I live (NYC) has switched over to a similar [0] which from my understanding is for accessibility reasons, and I suspect the second example is for the same reason. They don't require any fine motor skills whatsoever, you can pretty much just press in their general direction to toggle. [0] https://d3jpffnds3bao3.cloudfront.net/catalog/category/cache/2/image/150x/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/Lutron_CA-1PS-WH.jpg https://d3jpffnds3bao3.cloudfront.net/catalog/category/cache...

m_mueller 10y ago
Yes, those are alright - but most in Switzerland don't have a tilt (for indicating state). It's like noone even cares about stuff like this nowadays. In the past I thought German/Swiss design to be some sort of pinnacle of function and design, but not anymore.
- laksjd 10y ago
  There's a reason why Germany/Austria/Switzerland don't usually have state-indicating toggle switches and it's because toggle switches make no sense in multiway switching [0] systems where multiple switches control the same lightsource. I'm not sure how common multiway switching is in the US, but it's certainly super common in Europe and I guess that's why we use non-state-indicating switches, even in circuits with a single switch, because so many circuits are controlled from multiple switches that there's no point in having them indicate state. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiway_switching https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiway_switching
  - m_mueller 10y ago
    Is there really not a good and robust solution to this? Like, say, a condensator that charges for up to 20 toggles and a tiny motor that actuates all the switches that aren't depressed manually? I'd have this over digital switches any day.
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago

sotojuan 10y ago

At one of my old work places the two elevator call buttons were replaced by a touch screen with... two elevator call buttons. Nothing improved, just the same interface with the same two buttons, but now in a touchscreen that was more expensive and can crash.

mentando 10y ago
And not barrier-free I would imagine.
- dsr_ 10y ago
  Blind people can gently touch the wall, find the buttons, and figure out which one is up, because it's over the down button. Try that with a touch screen.
  - fnord123 10y ago
    Right, but if they add or remove floors, they don't need to change the touch screen. Eat that, normal buttons! /s
  - scaryclam 10y ago
    Heck, a lot of physical buttons also have braille on them
pi-rat 10y ago
Reminds me of many of the first VOIP softwares often mimicking physical phones (some didn't even accept keyboard input for punching the number, you had to use the mouse). Applications skinned like photographs of physical items => horrible UX.
deleted 10y ago
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Bartweiss 10y ago
Whenever I see monitors and touchscreens, I keep any eye out for crashes and errors. It's always interesting to see what should be simple, dedicated-hardware devices taken down by a Windows 10 update or some revealing error message (why does the mall's you-are-here screen use Internet Explorer?!)

zyxley 10y ago

The saddest part of that switch thing is that there are plenty of "stateless" switches around that still indicate light status: http://www.atticmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/tour-our-dom-ledmom2-435.jpg http://www.atticmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/tour-our-... They work nicely for home automation purposes, since you can set them up so that the LEDs on the side match up to whatever the current light status is (dim to bright from bottom to top).

m_mueller 10y ago
Not a big fan. I don't want LEDs giving off green light everywhere in the house at night.
- zyxley 10y ago
  When the lights are turned completely off, the LEDs on the switch turn off, too.
  - m_mueller 10y ago
    Ok. Granted, that's quite smart.
    - acqq 10y ago
      No it's not. I've had kind-of-that "smart switches" in the office. To turn on the light the appropriate button is to be pressed (among 20, it's kind-of a control panel). Once the light is turned on, the red LED is turned on at the edge of the button. So it fits the proposed "turn the LED on when the light is on." The problem: in the evening it gets dark, you want to turn on the light and come to the dark corner with the panel where the 20 buttons are, and you have no idea which of 20 will turn on the damn light (to add the insult to the injury, it's some in the middle of course, these in the corners are something whatever). And as the punishment, if you hit the wrong buttons you will raise or lower the blinds or change the heating or turn on the fans in the ceiling. I ask these who installed the system: can you make it having the LED by the button on when the light is off (invert the logic). "Can't do, the whole module (20 buttons and the LCD display) is made in the factory and can't be tweaked." A "smart" control panel from hell. My other favorite comparable bad button is one actual button on the remote controller for one TV-on-computer device. It was probably some generic remote customized by the company for that device. The problem: one button, easy to hit, just blocks the whole device and leaves the software running in the background. Of course, it can't be reprogrammed.

legulere 10y ago

I'm German and never saw a light switch like in [1] in my whole life.

paublyrne 10y ago
I'm almost certain it's an immersion heater switch.
majewsky 10y ago
+1 I'm German, too, and I only ever saw these switches in contemporary settings UIs instead of checkboxes.
Eugr 10y ago
They are still pretty common in the US, especially in the older buildings.

PhasmaFelis 10y ago

> [3] http://media3.siemens-home.com/Product_Shots/915x515/MCSA00681395_2_EH645BB17E_def.png http://media3.siemens-home.com/Product_Shots/915x515/MCSA006... I will say this much: that seems totally intuitive to me. You tap the button for the burner you want, then tap the +/- buttons to get your temperature, right? I like having each burner's setting readout all together in one place, as well. Everything else about it is terrible. Oven controls need to be tactile, they need to be immediate, and they need to not be three inches from a hot pan. That'll cause enough burns just from fumble-fingering in normal use--now imagine that your pan has caught fire and you're trying to select the left front burner and press - 8 times while your hand is showered with flaming grease. Who could possibly have thought this was a good idea?

venomsnake 10y ago
A rotating knob is a lot more intuitive.
- henrikschroder 10y ago
  You'd think it's hard to screw up a rotating knob, but they've found ways to do that as well! When I went shopping for a stove years ago I found out that some have knobs that only go one way, so to switch a burner to max, you have to twist it all the way around. Extremely annoying. I ended up going to a showroom and twisting all the knobs of all the stoves to find out which ones didn't have that limitation. I must have looked like a crazy person, but I got one I liked in the end. The stove I ended up buying had one variable-size burner, and that knob had a bounce-back switch at the end, so you have to turn that knob the wrong way around to max it, but I could live with that. Why a regular burner would have the limit beats me. The only thing I could think of would be some sort of extremely crude and ineffective child-protection, but all stoves have a child-lock anyway, so what's the use?
  - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
    The stove where I live right now has knobs whose full range of motion is a quarter-turn, and the flame goes out if you turn it more than halfway down, so effectively you only have one-eighth of the knob to use. If you try to set it to low heat, you'll usually go too far and put the flame out unless you pick up the pan and watch the burner while turning the knob a millimeter at a time. It's absolutely amazing what people can manage to screw up.

l_zzie 10y ago

fwiw, stateless light switches are nice in that you can have many light switches controlling the same light. Not saying they're perfect but they have advantages.

c22 10y ago
If you're willing to lose state feedback anyways you can also do this with toggle switches.

l_zzie 10y ago

fwiw, stateless light switches are nice in that you can have many light switches controlling the same light. Not saying they're perfect but they have advantages.

wwweston 10y ago

> IMO there is a very annoying trend in household appliances towards worse and worse UI. I feel like you could drop "in household appliances" from that statement and still be telling the truth. I'd be willing to bet that anyone reading this could think of examples in software where those making product decisions seem to be operating off of these principles: * Refine relentlessly (vs stop improving what doesn't need improvement) * Be heavily state-dependent as a way to minimize presentation of options. But don't call attention to state. * Minimize any affordances. Rely on implicit interaction patterns you assume the user has already learned. * Minimize everything. Remove options. Hide what you can't remove. The less the software does, the less the user has to think, right?

lostlogin 10y ago
My oven has a top element, a bottom one and a fan. Somehow it has seven settings and a temperature knob. It's awful. Thanks Smeg.
- 4ndr3vv 10y ago
  >Somehow it has seven settings With three things that can be switched on or off there are 7 state permutations (plus all off) > It's awful. The alternative being three separate toggle switches. While this would be easier to scan and make a decision if you wanted granular decisions every time you cooked something, 90% of the time the oven will be set to the same setting; ALL ON. I think that having a single switch, rather than three is a more efficient UI for this.
  - jschwartzi 10y ago
    Unless you know how to cook. Then the analog controls are a godsend because they let you control the rate at which heat is applied to your food to a great degree. The setting you might use to boil water is not the same one you'd use to cook an egg. Ditto for sautee versus cooking a steak. The problem is that the people designing UIs for products don't actually know how to use the products. They don't have any concept of how a user uses the UI. So they just assume that less is better without stopping to consider why someone would want to control the temperature of their stove.

voltagex_ 10y ago

Funnily enough your second example of the switch that has no state would be perfect for my new LIFX lightbulbs (yes, I am aware of the irony of posting this in this thread) The state of the lightbulb is decoupled from the state of the switch - the switch itself is always on [0]. [0]: Yeah, this isn't great because idle power is >0W. This is where a centralised lighting controller with mechanical switches would help, but that's more invasive than just putting in some new bulbs.

cardinalfang 10y ago

That stove interface is particularly annoying because it takes a single operation with a knob into ten finger presses - on, select element, power up 8 times. I managed to find a stove with direct access to all power levels for all elements at the cost of less cooking surface.

akerro 10y ago

My grandmother has a switch like this one [1]. Now the switch is like 60 years old. The scroll under the switch is to dim light, far-right - provides max power to light bulbs, far-left, minimum power, but light bulb still works. Button above it just turns it on and off. It's beautiful, works after decades, shows state from distance, it's practical. I wish it was still sold. Now I need application for mobile device, WiFi to achieve the same... http://img04.olx.pl/images_tablicapl/358414699_2_261x203_sciemniacz-wlacznik-z-czasow-prl-dodaj-zdjecia.jpg http://img04.olx.pl/images_tablicapl/358414699_2_261x203_sci... http://img12.staticclassifieds.com/images_tablicapl/392911693_5_644x461_uwaga-nowkasciemniacz-staly-podtynkowy-typ-rs-2z-czasow-prl-kujawsko-pomorskie_rev013.jpg http://img12.staticclassifieds.com/images_tablicapl/39291169...

dozzie 10y ago
> My grandmother has a switch like this one [1]. Now it's like 60 years old switch. Oh boy, how fugly it is. I had the same xD Still, it did an excellent job and was almost indestructible.
m_mueller 10y ago
give that thing a bit of a redesign, put up nice LED lights with a warm color and you have the perfect 'smart' light. In Japan there is a company selling good but cheap LED fixtures with very simple and well built remote controls, temperature setting and three dim modes. It works perfectly with existing switches, you can reset its state by switching on and off twice in succession and the remote buttons are illuminescent. That's smart. Keep your wifi and app interfaces away.
- akerro 10y ago
  Links?
  - m_mueller 10y ago
    here you go: http://ohyamalights.com/classifications/olcld-decorative-ceiling-light http://ohyamalights.com/classifications/olcld-decorative-cei... for some reason I can only find the remotes in Japanese sources. I suppose they're afraid of English customer support calls... http://image.rakuten.co.jp/e-akari/cabinet/led/1892240-e.jpg http://image.rakuten.co.jp/e-akari/cabinet/led/1892240-e.jpg

majewsky 10y ago

If you haven't read it yet, check out "The Design of Everyday Things" [1], which covers just this kind of annoyance, and is a great 101 on any kind of interface design (be it physical or on a computer). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_of_Everyday_Things https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_of_Everyday_Things

hawski 10y ago

There is a nice book about things like this, but it is a bit dated. The Design of Everyday Things [1]. Devices are produced not to be useful, but to be sold. People want more value for money so they select a thing with more buttons (seeing a button for a function) or more splashing lights. Usually the cheapest devices of established lot are simple, but may be not energy efficient. Probably the flashiest are mid-tier and the most expensive are sometimes like good looking cheapest option, but more energy efficient. I am thinking of getting big screen display. What I would prefer is to get computer monitor around 40-50 inches connected to my computer and Chromecast. For audio I would like to use separate appliance. Cheapest most effective solution is probably to buy TV (and it seems all of them are to some extent marketed as Smart) even if I don't intend to use most of it. Other option that I consider is to have 24-30" monitor on wheeled stand so I can easily pull it closer to couch. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_of_Everyday_Things https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_of_Everyday_Things

maxerickson 10y ago

I went to Home Depot's website and sorted range+ovens by price. The 50 cheapest or so (I stopped after 2 pages) all had a knob for each burner. One had a knob for the oven, but that was maybe notable. So the 'functional' marketplace hasn't abandoned sense for nice looking stuff with complicated hidden controls. Siemans still uses knobs on their gas cooktops: http://www.siemens-home.com/ae/productlist/cooking-and-baking/hobs/gas http://www.siemens-home.com/ae/productlist/cooking-and-bakin... Presumably the mechanical valve works better than an electric one.

KallDrexx 10y ago

That stove baffles me, if for no other reason than one slip of your finger and you can easily touch a hot burner or pot.