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If you’re ‘nearly 30’ then it’s likely you grow up with modern gadgets, and since you are on HN there is a higher chance that you have a stronger than average i

If you’re ‘nearly 30’ then it’s likely you grow up with modern gadgets, and since you are on HN there is a higher chance that you have a stronger than average interest in electronics. Your parents did not grow up like you. They grew up in a time when a few knobs is all you need to operate a home appliance. And they are probably more interested in what’s being played on TV, rather than the TV itself. The complexity of today’s electronics and softwares is getting out of control. If you have to actively explore all menus in order to use something normally, then I suspect the UI is poorly designed. But there is no incentive for their designers to improve, unless they acknowledge that their perception of electronics is very different from the average users.

sjagoe 7y ago
> The complexity of today’s electronics and softwares is getting out of control. I saw this illustrated in motorcycle dashboards a few weeks ago. I have a nice analogue speedometer and tachometer, with a small digital display showing a couple of useful things like trip distance counter. Reset the trip counter by holding down one button on the dash. My father just got the new model of essentially the same motorcycle, with an all-digital dash. Resetting the trip counter requires digging into a menu three to four levels deep, and as you say, it took us a while to explore and find the option, with some disbelief at the apparent step backward in usability.