{"id":203,"date":"2012-01-25T05:55:00","date_gmt":"2012-01-25T05:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pim.famnit.upr.si\/wp\/?p=203"},"modified":"2021-11-17T11:20:50","modified_gmt":"2021-11-17T11:20:50","slug":"remote-control-hide-bad-design-with-the-size","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pim.famnit.upr.si\/wp\/?p=203","title":{"rendered":"Remote control &#8211; hide bad design with the size"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Remote control units (RTU) tend to be complicated, over-covered with buttons that no one ever uses and coupled with a non-ergonomic shape! <\/p>\n<p>Some argue that <a href=\"http:\/\/designmind.frogdesign.com\/blog\/the-peculiar-logic-of-remote-control-design.html\">complicated designs were a long term tactic of media companies<\/a> ;). <\/p>\n<p><em>&quot;&#8230; Maybe all of those legacy buttons that no one ever uses (the various<br \/>\n&#8216;Picture in Picture&#8217; controls and the colorful A,B,C interactive TV<br \/>\nbuttons) are part of a deliberate design strategy? Maybe they are there<br \/>\nprecisely to add to the cognitive load \u2013&nbsp;the accumulated effect being<br \/>\nthat valuable functions, like fast forwarding, are much harder to learn. &#8230;&quot;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Good for the network companies which can now embrace DVR&#8217;s. No one will skip the commercials because it&#8217;s impossible to find the right button (or combination) for it.<\/p>\n<p>I recently passed by a Radio Shark and saw this SupaLens Jumbo 8 in 1 RCU! Apparently you can <strong>beat complexity and ugliness with size<\/strong>. Or at least authors of it thought so. To my surprise, the net offers tons of such products.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pim.famnit.upr.si\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/rcu.jpg\" class=\"no_float\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The good thing about it: <strong>IMPOSSIBLE TO LOSE<\/strong>! The product beside is a UK electricity plug which is HUGE (compared to EU or USA plug). So The Remote is<strong> little less tha 30 centimeters long and 15 wide<\/strong>. <strong>The target audience is older people<\/strong>. But <strong>does it really have to be this ugly<\/strong>?&nbsp; And <strong>complexity is still there<\/strong>! There was a good article about HCI for elderly in ACM INTERACTIONS a few years ago I cannot find. The RCU&#8217;s were one of the bad examples. Anyone remembers this article? I&#8217;d be glad to read it again.<\/p>\n<p>However, not all RCU&#8217;s are badly designed. TiVo&#8217;s RCU for example has a <a href=\"http:\/\/deconstructingproductdesign.com\/tivo-remote-control\/\">nicely designed peanut shape<\/a> with essential buttons on it (combined with the on-screen menus). Another one is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jnd.org\/dn.mss\/activity-centered_design_why_i_like_my_harmony_remote_control.html\">activity based Harmony remote<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Remote control units (RTU) tend to be complicated, over-covered with buttons that no one ever uses and coupled with a non-ergonomic shape! Some argue that complicated designs were a long term tactic of media companies ;). &quot;&#8230; Maybe all of those legacy buttons that no one ever uses (the various &#8216;Picture in Picture&#8217; controls and&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pim.famnit.upr.si\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pim.famnit.upr.si\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pim.famnit.upr.si\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pim.famnit.upr.si\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pim.famnit.upr.si\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=203"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pim.famnit.upr.si\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1454,"href":"https:\/\/pim.famnit.upr.si\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions\/1454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pim.famnit.upr.si\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pim.famnit.upr.si\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pim.famnit.upr.si\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}