Design: over-rated until you encounter a Poor Example
Earlier this month I was tempted to write a cute little comment on the fun you can have helping a new hire figure out how to use a fax machine.
Until I did just that - tried to figure out the machine.
I quickly concluded it wouldn't be fair to poke fun at anyone for having trouble with the machine - because the user interface was horrendous.
There were five buttons with some reference to memory. You had to play a fun whack-a-mole type of trial and error game to figure out which one would release the fax you had saved in memory.
Being persistent and stubborn, I finally managed to coax answers out of the offending office appliances,
without resorting to as much profanity as Bricktop - great video here.
Although it was certainly getting close at times.
It did, however, remind me of
this splendid article about design - and it has to be excellent.
Like a dishwasher in a public area, a fax machine is one of those devices where you don't have the luxury of assuming that everyone will have a chance to read the manual - it has be intuitive, damnit!
It's a shame we even have to use fax machines these days - but I've seen excellent products which made the job a breeze.
And I've seen the train wrecks that are little more than waffle irons with phones attached. For shame to any manufacturer who skimps out on poorly designed machines.
You go on the same list as the manufacturer of the CPU fan that's dying on me and the mp3 player with a battery that died less than a year after I got it.
I'll be taking advantage of my short day tomorrow to make some warranty calls!