{"id":54,"date":"2010-07-02T23:22:00","date_gmt":"2010-07-02T23:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pim.famnit.upr.si\/wp\/?p=54"},"modified":"2021-11-17T11:22:27","modified_gmt":"2021-11-17T11:22:27","slug":"too-many-buttons-to-many-functions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pim.famnit.upr.si\/wp\/?p=54","title":{"rendered":"Too many buttons? To many functions?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some interfaces are <strong>designed for purpose<\/strong>. One of them is certainly (yet another) computer <strong>mouse<\/strong> with <strong>a lot of buttons<\/strong> &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/warmouse.com\/\">the WarMause<\/a>. When I read the news about it on Monday (28th) and I had to see this thing. I can imagine how this mouse could be used in a <strong>CAD software<\/strong> or <strong>computer games<\/strong> (I&#8217;d actually rather use designed input methods for a game rather then multiple purpose mouse). But I don&#8217;t see its value in a day to day work (like reading and answering emails or writing a letter or even browsing the web). On the other hand <a title=\"Douglas \nEngelbart\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Douglas_Engelbart\">Douglas Engelbart<\/a> envisioned that we will have a <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Computer_mouse#Early_mice\">computer mouse in one hand and a 5 button keyset<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Computer_mouse#Early_mice\"> in the other hand<\/a> for everyday use which is something similar to multibutton mouse. <\/p>\n<p>This mouse has so far <strong>90<\/strong> (!!!) <strong>modes<\/strong> (listed as one of main advantages of this product). To remember all these can be a challenge and can result in a huge <strong>cognitive effort<\/strong>. Besides there are<strong> &quot;only&quot; 20 buttons<\/strong> (which I can see) and a wheel. I would probably use a few buttons but the rest would just be unused. <\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pim.famnit.upr.si\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/warmause.png\" \/> <\/p>\n<p>One such example is a microwave I have at home. It has 20 buttons and it does miracles (probably more than 100 modes). But I only use one button for everything. It&#8217;s a predefined &quot;warm a cup of X&quot; button which lasts 25 seconds. If I want to warm up a plate of soup I just press it twice (50 seconds) or three times (1:15) and so on. If I want to warm up a piece of pizza I just stay there and stop the microwave after 10 or 15 seconds. Really simple. And I bet other people do something similar. <\/p>\n<p>But we also learn interfaces &quot;by heart&quot;. For example I never look at the car radio and I know probably half of (15) buttons&#8217; positions and their functions. The rest of buttons I simply don&#8217;t use. Or a TV remote controller. How many of us use it without looking at it? But do we use all buttons? Probably not. I&#8217;d guess I use 2\/3 of them.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>The question is <strong>where to draw a limit<\/strong>. While industry produces new toys\/appliances\/machines with millions of functions, and for as long as people are going to buy these just because a functions list is really long, we will have poorly designed interfaces. Which means more buttons with even more modes and not that designers did not put effort in the design &#8211; I bought my microwave only because its design (shape, colour) was superb and I bought my TV not based on a remote controller. How many times do we hear people praise their Mhz\/GB\/PPi\/etc and they don&#8217;t even know what these mean?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>PS: another such mouse is <a href=\"http:\/\/eu.razerzone.com\/gaming-mice\/razer-naga\/\">Razer Naga<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some interfaces are designed for purpose. One of them is certainly (yet another) computer mouse with a lot of buttons &#8211; the WarMause. When I read the news about it on Monday (28th) and I had to see this thing. I can imagine how this mouse could be used in a CAD software or computer&#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":[6],"tags":[96,97,53,98],"class_list":["post-54","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-5-physical-interfaces","tag-buttons","tag-car-key","tag-design","tag-mind-map"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pim.famnit.upr.si\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54","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=54"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pim.famnit.upr.si\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1760,"href":"https:\/\/pim.famnit.upr.si\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions\/1760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pim.famnit.upr.si\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pim.famnit.upr.si\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pim.famnit.upr.si\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}