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>By law, that ingenious bit of design—known as shape coding—still governs landing gear and wing flaps in every airplane today. And the underlying idea is all ar

by sb057 6y ago

>By law, that ingenious bit of design—known as shape coding—still governs landing gear and wing flaps in every airplane today. And the underlying idea is all around you: It’s why the buttons on your videogame controller are differently shaped, with subtle texture differences so you can tell which is which. I'm not aware of any major controller that has done this outside of the GameCube controller. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameCube_controller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameCube_controller

ceejayoz 6y ago
Xbox controllers have large buttons, small buttons, joysticks, a D-pad, and two different triggers on the back. The A/B/X/Y aren't distinguished between each other, but I suspect the four throttles for a B-17 aren't either.
- EricE 6y ago
  > The A/B/X/Y aren't distinguished between each other Sure they are - their layout is distinct and doesn't alighn with any other buttons on the controller. It's very easy to distinguish which one you are hitting even though their shape and size are identical.
  - zelos 6y ago
    The Gamecube controller did it better, I think. Each button was a unique size, shape and colour.
- jmchuster 6y ago
  There's an interesting series on youtube where a gamer has his non-gamer girlfriend play through a bunch of games on her own, and one of the common patterns is that she has no idea where the buttons are, has to constantly look at the controller, is always pressing the wrong ones. The only game that actually solved this for her was the Legend of Zelda, which has prompts that show all four buttons ABXY outlined on the screen, arranged visually like they are on the controller, and then highlights the one you need to press.
roywiggins 6y ago
The SNES controller has concave XY buttons (and convex AB buttons).
- moring 6y ago
  This confused me, but there seems to be a difference between US and JP/EU SNES devices. The buttons are only concave for US, and they are in shades of blue instead of different colors.
hnick 6y ago
I do miss the Gamecube controller, and absolutely struggle on Playstation since it doesn't have brightly coloured buttons to help me learn (I use an Xbox360 controller on my PC). Maybe this is reaching but my natural thumb position over the ABXY set of buttons does result in a different perceived texture based on what part of my thumb is resting on each button. So that might be enough since we typically don't stray far from the cluster.

by sb057 6y ago

ceejayoz 6y ago

Xbox controllers have large buttons, small buttons, joysticks, a D-pad, and two different triggers on the back. The A/B/X/Y aren't distinguished between each other, but I suspect the four throttles for a B-17 aren't either.

EricE 6y ago
> The A/B/X/Y aren't distinguished between each other Sure they are - their layout is distinct and doesn't alighn with any other buttons on the controller. It's very easy to distinguish which one you are hitting even though their shape and size are identical.
- zelos 6y ago
  The Gamecube controller did it better, I think. Each button was a unique size, shape and colour.
jmchuster 6y ago
There's an interesting series on youtube where a gamer has his non-gamer girlfriend play through a bunch of games on her own, and one of the common patterns is that she has no idea where the buttons are, has to constantly look at the controller, is always pressing the wrong ones. The only game that actually solved this for her was the Legend of Zelda, which has prompts that show all four buttons ABXY outlined on the screen, arranged visually like they are on the controller, and then highlights the one you need to press.

roywiggins 6y ago

The SNES controller has concave XY buttons (and convex AB buttons).

moring 6y ago
This confused me, but there seems to be a difference between US and JP/EU SNES devices. The buttons are only concave for US, and they are in shades of blue instead of different colors.

hnick 6y ago

I do miss the Gamecube controller, and absolutely struggle on Playstation since it doesn't have brightly coloured buttons to help me learn (I use an Xbox360 controller on my PC). Maybe this is reaching but my natural thumb position over the ABXY set of buttons does result in a different perceived texture based on what part of my thumb is resting on each button. So that might be enough since we typically don't stray far from the cluster.