Rant: PRINT THE BLOODY THING, NOW
Tech people are often the worst advisers on technical matters and almost always the worst listeners to technical complaints. The sly grin comes with the pocket protectors.
When I asked my ISP a few years ago why they couldn't instal spam filters like all PC owners have, only bigger, they told me it was technically impossible. Sly grin. Six months later they did it.
Ever asked a geek why the dusty back side of a computer -- you know, the jumble of wires and all the cockroaches -- is such a nightmare? Why the plugs are so damn hard to insert in the dark? Why there are jagged bits to cut your skin, why plugs are not colour-coded or designed to fit by feel and shape alone? Why plugs and sockets can't, in fact, be like those on chunky plastic kids' toys -- really easy?
Why do plastic cords have to have "shape memory", making them twist out of your fumbling fingers? Why is a USB plug almost the same on both sides? Why is there no design co-ordination of plugs and sockets at all? All these problems are eminently solvable, but the geeks pretend they are the questions of peasants, and the peasants agree with them. And that, dear reader, is why things never change.
Ever asked a geek why car radios now have tiny push buttons so you have to take your eyes off the road? Has there ever been a study to determine how many people this obvious design flaw has killed or maimed? Only 20 years ago you could drive and feel your radio station by turning a large knob. Car radios, like bedside radios, which you simply cannot operate well at night time, are prime examples of retrograde design, yet almost nobody acknowledges it. In fact, after many years of being a real pain in the arse about it, I'm still the only one that I know of who expects these things to make sense.
No one, not just geeks, has ever agreed with me about the radio thing, but, interestingly, no one has ever put up a counter argument. They just disagree and withdraw. I think they just think designers must be right and that's all there is to it. It's the way we used to bow to priests and dukes. But the fact remains, radios are harder to operate today than at any time in the past 80 years, and they're obviously dangerous in cars.
Now, printing off a computer. Why can't this be made easy? We can put men on the Moon, but can't click PRINT and have the content of the screen, or of the whole webpage or other document, print out immediately without (a) a tangle of wires, (b) dried ink problems, (c) the need to negotiate two separate machines and their various On/Off status, (d) page setup problems, and (e) all the myriad of things that go wrong with printers. Why should a printer be a dust catcher external to the computer? Because it always has been? (Please don't tell me it's possible to buy a computer with all these functions if you know where to shop and have enough money. I'm talking all computers for all users.)
We should be able to click PRINT THE BLOODY THING, NOW and it should come out the side of the computer in a few seconds, not minutes. WYSIWYG. End of story.
Maybe NASA should make PCs, because nobody else has got a complete handle on 'user friendly'.
When I asked my ISP a few years ago why they couldn't instal spam filters like all PC owners have, only bigger, they told me it was technically impossible. Sly grin. Six months later they did it.
Ever asked a geek why the dusty back side of a computer -- you know, the jumble of wires and all the cockroaches -- is such a nightmare? Why the plugs are so damn hard to insert in the dark? Why there are jagged bits to cut your skin, why plugs are not colour-coded or designed to fit by feel and shape alone? Why plugs and sockets can't, in fact, be like those on chunky plastic kids' toys -- really easy?
Why do plastic cords have to have "shape memory", making them twist out of your fumbling fingers? Why is a USB plug almost the same on both sides? Why is there no design co-ordination of plugs and sockets at all? All these problems are eminently solvable, but the geeks pretend they are the questions of peasants, and the peasants agree with them. And that, dear reader, is why things never change.
Ever asked a geek why car radios now have tiny push buttons so you have to take your eyes off the road? Has there ever been a study to determine how many people this obvious design flaw has killed or maimed? Only 20 years ago you could drive and feel your radio station by turning a large knob. Car radios, like bedside radios, which you simply cannot operate well at night time, are prime examples of retrograde design, yet almost nobody acknowledges it. In fact, after many years of being a real pain in the arse about it, I'm still the only one that I know of who expects these things to make sense.
No one, not just geeks, has ever agreed with me about the radio thing, but, interestingly, no one has ever put up a counter argument. They just disagree and withdraw. I think they just think designers must be right and that's all there is to it. It's the way we used to bow to priests and dukes. But the fact remains, radios are harder to operate today than at any time in the past 80 years, and they're obviously dangerous in cars.
Now, printing off a computer. Why can't this be made easy? We can put men on the Moon, but can't click PRINT and have the content of the screen, or of the whole webpage or other document, print out immediately without (a) a tangle of wires, (b) dried ink problems, (c) the need to negotiate two separate machines and their various On/Off status, (d) page setup problems, and (e) all the myriad of things that go wrong with printers. Why should a printer be a dust catcher external to the computer? Because it always has been? (Please don't tell me it's possible to buy a computer with all these functions if you know where to shop and have enough money. I'm talking all computers for all users.)
We should be able to click PRINT THE BLOODY THING, NOW and it should come out the side of the computer in a few seconds, not minutes. WYSIWYG. End of story.
Maybe NASA should make PCs, because nobody else has got a complete handle on 'user friendly'.
Pip Wilson posted item above at 8:21 PM | Permalink
1 Comments:
As far as designers are concerned, "make'm use'm" is my motto. If they had to use the products themselves, they would design them right.
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