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Isn't it obvious that it's faster to find the mute button on a TV remote control with 5 buttons than on a remote control with 50 buttons? I experienced that jus

Isn't it obvious that it's faster to find the mute button on a TV remote control with 5 buttons than on a remote control with 50 buttons? I experienced that just yesterday.

ardy42 6y ago
> Isn't it obvious that it's faster to find the mute button on a TV remote control with 5 buttons than on a remote control with 50 buttons? I experienced that just yesterday. It would also be easier to type vowels on a 5 key keyboard with only vowel keys, but then you'd be limited to only typing vowels. I have one of those awful ~10 button remotes, and it takes about 10 key presses to "add a show to my list" on Amazon, because the remote hides the "green" button behind a soft menu. It was also definitely not "easier" to find that button the first time. Degrading functionality to make certain functions "easier" or "more obvious" is a bad trade-off far more often than many UX designers seem to assume.
systemvoltage 6y ago
Agreed if muting the TV along with 4 other things was the only thing we do with the TV! Having a numpad to explicitly punch in the channel number, dedicated prev/next, input selection, volume and a bunch of other buttons doesn't hurt. If you compare 5 buttons vs 50 buttons to find something - what about the counter argument as follows: If you need to do 50 things but only having 5 buttons to do it? Wouldn't it get frustrating? Having to dig into menus over and over and over hundreds of times a day? What about doing this for 5 years everyday? It gets tiring, right? I would take 50 buttons any day over 5 buttons, without a doubt. I think it made me think about an important point - frequency of use. It has to be taken into account.
- leephillips 6y ago
  Experienced photographers seem to agree with you; I certainly do. The one obvious, visible thing that differentiates expensive cameras preferred by professionals from consumer models is that the former have a greater number of dedicated, physical controls. It’s much better to just move your thumb, rather than take your eye from the viewfinder to look at a screen and dig through a menu!
  - peferron 6y ago
    Why do consumer-grade cameras have fewer physical buttons than professional-grade cameras, in your mind? Is it because physical buttons are expensive to make? Or is it because a camera with fewer buttons is easier to use for untrained users? My opinion is that it's mostly the latter.
    - rswail 6y ago
      Physical buttons are expensive to make. A touch screen is a single UI element and can be changed/fixed by software. Physical buttons require individual design, additional hardware, wiring, power, assembly, failure, repairs...
      - leephillips 6y ago
        Yes, it’s because of the manufacturing cost.
        TeMPOraL 6y ago
        And related: touchscreen, purely-software UIs can be developed in parallel with the rest of the device, possibly by a different team or a subcontractor, which saves further manufacturing costs.
- peferron 6y ago
  OK, so we agree that it's easier to find the mute button on a remote with 5 buttons than on a remote with 50 buttons, at the cost of the other operations becoming harder. I'm fine with some operations being harder. For example, my remote has a dedicated button for entering the size of your room, which adjusts acoustics. How often am I supposed to change that, really? But it still made it harder for me to mute a blaring ad. Applied to a car, it means that operations performed while driving should have physical buttons placed front and center, while other operations should be hidden away in order to make the former easier to find. I drive a cheap car that appears to follow this philosophy. Here's how the dashboard look like: https://www.automotiveaddicts.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/2015-honda-fit-center-dash-touchscreen.jpg https://www.automotiveaddicts.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05... I can control the airflow without looking because it's the only knob of that size on the entire dashboard. Before looking at the picture above, I couldn't tell you where the emergency lights button was because I use it so rarely, but every time I needed to use it in a pinch I was able to find it almost instantly because it's basically the only button on the entire dash. Replacing the touchscreen with a bunch of physical buttons that I never use while driving would be massively detrimental IMO. (Note: the driver has dedicated volume buttons on the steering wheel, which is why there's no volume knob; the touch slider is for passenger use.)
  - systemvoltage 6y ago
    I think I mostly agree with you but then I have a mental block when "hiding stuff that's not needed". How about just leave them there, and the most important buttons and controls in a dedicated area at the top of the remote? Perhaps in a red blaring border box? I think this is a layout problem, no need to hide stuff.
    - peferron 6y ago
      Here's a calibration guide for a recent TV: https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/lg/b8-oled/settings https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/lg/b8-oled/settings A quick look at the screenshots will give you an idea of the sheer number of settings. Can you fathom the sheer size, and awful daily usability, of a TV remote that would expose physical controls for all these settings? Cars are becoming this way too. One example is ambient lighting customization in newer luxury cars. You can't have physical buttons for all this stuff. It just doesn't scale. Edit: I feel we were stuck for a decade in this worst-of-both-worlds situation where the number of features were exploding but could still be crammed into a 50-button TV remote or car dashboard [1]. Now that features have grown even beyond that, manufacturers are forced to move less-frequently used features into an alternate interaction mechanism. For cars, that's often a touchscreen; for TVs, that can be a remote that doubles as a pointer, allowing to control a TV like a mouse controls a computer. Thanks to that, my current car that I linked earlier [2] looks much closer to the very simple and usable car I drove as a teenager [3], both of which are IMO much more usable for an untrained user than [1]. This doesn't mean I think the Mercedes dashboard is bad; it's an AMG car, so targeted to enthusiasts who may appreciate having a physical button for traction control. But I don't think it would make sense to expose this button in an entry-level commuter car like mine. [1] http://www.seriouswheels.com/mno/Mercedes-Benz-G-55-AMG-Dashboard-1600x1200.htm http://www.seriouswheels.com/mno/Mercedes-Benz-G-55-AMG-Dash... [2] https://www.automotiveaddicts.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/2015-honda-fit-center-dash-touchscreen.jpg https://www.automotiveaddicts.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05... [3] https://www.cars-data.com/pictures/peugeot/peugeot-205-cabriolet_1966_4.jpg https://www.cars-data.com/pictures/peugeot/peugeot-205-cabri...
TeMPOraL 6y ago
Not after the third time. In an interface you're intimately familiar with (like your TV remote, your car, or a plane if you're a pilot), you should spend zero time finding things, because you already internalized where everything is. Low information density interfaces prevent gaining familiarity and remembering where things are.

Isn't it obvious that it's faster to find the mute button on a TV remote control with 5 buttons than on a remote control with 50 buttons? I experienced that just yesterday.

ardy42 6y ago

> Isn't it obvious that it's faster to find the mute button on a TV remote control with 5 buttons than on a remote control with 50 buttons? I experienced that just yesterday. It would also be easier to type vowels on a 5 key keyboard with only vowel keys, but then you'd be limited to only typing vowels. I have one of those awful ~10 button remotes, and it takes about 10 key presses to "add a show to my list" on Amazon, because the remote hides the "green" button behind a soft menu. It was also definitely not "easier" to find that button the first time. Degrading functionality to make certain functions "easier" or "more obvious" is a bad trade-off far more often than many UX designers seem to assume.

systemvoltage 6y ago

Agreed if muting the TV along with 4 other things was the only thing we do with the TV! Having a numpad to explicitly punch in the channel number, dedicated prev/next, input selection, volume and a bunch of other buttons doesn't hurt. If you compare 5 buttons vs 50 buttons to find something - what about the counter argument as follows: If you need to do 50 things but only having 5 buttons to do it? Wouldn't it get frustrating? Having to dig into menus over and over and over hundreds of times a day? What about doing this for 5 years everyday? It gets tiring, right? I would take 50 buttons any day over 5 buttons, without a doubt. I think it made me think about an important point - frequency of use. It has to be taken into account.

leephillips 6y ago
Experienced photographers seem to agree with you; I certainly do. The one obvious, visible thing that differentiates expensive cameras preferred by professionals from consumer models is that the former have a greater number of dedicated, physical controls. It’s much better to just move your thumb, rather than take your eye from the viewfinder to look at a screen and dig through a menu!
- peferron 6y ago
  Why do consumer-grade cameras have fewer physical buttons than professional-grade cameras, in your mind? Is it because physical buttons are expensive to make? Or is it because a camera with fewer buttons is easier to use for untrained users? My opinion is that it's mostly the latter.
  - rswail 6y ago
    Physical buttons are expensive to make. A touch screen is a single UI element and can be changed/fixed by software. Physical buttons require individual design, additional hardware, wiring, power, assembly, failure, repairs...
    - leephillips 6y ago
      Yes, it’s because of the manufacturing cost.
      - TeMPOraL 6y ago
        And related: touchscreen, purely-software UIs can be developed in parallel with the rest of the device, possibly by a different team or a subcontractor, which saves further manufacturing costs.
peferron 6y ago
OK, so we agree that it's easier to find the mute button on a remote with 5 buttons than on a remote with 50 buttons, at the cost of the other operations becoming harder. I'm fine with some operations being harder. For example, my remote has a dedicated button for entering the size of your room, which adjusts acoustics. How often am I supposed to change that, really? But it still made it harder for me to mute a blaring ad. Applied to a car, it means that operations performed while driving should have physical buttons placed front and center, while other operations should be hidden away in order to make the former easier to find. I drive a cheap car that appears to follow this philosophy. Here's how the dashboard look like: https://www.automotiveaddicts.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/2015-honda-fit-center-dash-touchscreen.jpg https://www.automotiveaddicts.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05... I can control the airflow without looking because it's the only knob of that size on the entire dashboard. Before looking at the picture above, I couldn't tell you where the emergency lights button was because I use it so rarely, but every time I needed to use it in a pinch I was able to find it almost instantly because it's basically the only button on the entire dash. Replacing the touchscreen with a bunch of physical buttons that I never use while driving would be massively detrimental IMO. (Note: the driver has dedicated volume buttons on the steering wheel, which is why there's no volume knob; the touch slider is for passenger use.)
- systemvoltage 6y ago
  I think I mostly agree with you but then I have a mental block when "hiding stuff that's not needed". How about just leave them there, and the most important buttons and controls in a dedicated area at the top of the remote? Perhaps in a red blaring border box? I think this is a layout problem, no need to hide stuff.
  - peferron 6y ago
    Here's a calibration guide for a recent TV: https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/lg/b8-oled/settings https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/lg/b8-oled/settings A quick look at the screenshots will give you an idea of the sheer number of settings. Can you fathom the sheer size, and awful daily usability, of a TV remote that would expose physical controls for all these settings? Cars are becoming this way too. One example is ambient lighting customization in newer luxury cars. You can't have physical buttons for all this stuff. It just doesn't scale. Edit: I feel we were stuck for a decade in this worst-of-both-worlds situation where the number of features were exploding but could still be crammed into a 50-button TV remote or car dashboard [1]. Now that features have grown even beyond that, manufacturers are forced to move less-frequently used features into an alternate interaction mechanism. For cars, that's often a touchscreen; for TVs, that can be a remote that doubles as a pointer, allowing to control a TV like a mouse controls a computer. Thanks to that, my current car that I linked earlier [2] looks much closer to the very simple and usable car I drove as a teenager [3], both of which are IMO much more usable for an untrained user than [1]. This doesn't mean I think the Mercedes dashboard is bad; it's an AMG car, so targeted to enthusiasts who may appreciate having a physical button for traction control. But I don't think it would make sense to expose this button in an entry-level commuter car like mine. [1] http://www.seriouswheels.com/mno/Mercedes-Benz-G-55-AMG-Dashboard-1600x1200.htm http://www.seriouswheels.com/mno/Mercedes-Benz-G-55-AMG-Dash... [2] https://www.automotiveaddicts.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/2015-honda-fit-center-dash-touchscreen.jpg https://www.automotiveaddicts.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05... [3] https://www.cars-data.com/pictures/peugeot/peugeot-205-cabriolet_1966_4.jpg https://www.cars-data.com/pictures/peugeot/peugeot-205-cabri...

TeMPOraL 6y ago

Not after the third time. In an interface you're intimately familiar with (like your TV remote, your car, or a plane if you're a pilot), you should spend zero time finding things, because you already internalized where everything is. Low information density interfaces prevent gaining familiarity and remembering where things are.