Hi tim I fully sympathise, but I suspect the reason is that with
everything
covered by smooth plastic there is less to get gunged up and go wrong and
its probably easier to give a touch screen a wipe down. But I doubt
many
of the things which have touch screens will survive long enough for that
to
be really significant.
Ed
-----Original Message-----
From: vicsireland-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:vicsireland-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Tim Culhane
Sent: 11 July 2007 09:37
To: vicsireland@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [vicsireland] What's so wrong with buttons?
Hi,
*** warning this is a major rant, so if you're not in the mood then
delete this now ***
I was told in the gym I go to last week that they were getting new
threadmills this week. Sure enough, when I arrived in last night,
there
they were.
I had made a private bet with myself that these new machines would be
the
type that use touch sensitive controls, rather than good old fashioned
buttons. And guess what, I've had to pay out to myself!
The control pannel on the machines is a featureless mass of smooth
plastic.
Even if your fingers had the sensitivity of an exposed root canal
treatment,
I doubt they would be able to detect the buttons on the machine.
I just can't understand what designers of these devices have against
buttons. Ironically the only button on the machine is the stop button,
which is a huge plastic affair which you could probably press with your
elbow, let alone your finger.
It seems that more and more these days buttons are just not the in
thing.
For example, Apple's new IPhone has a touch sensitive screen rather than
the
traditional phone keypad. The machines which were slated for use in
electronic voting had touch sensitive controls and now even the damn
threadmills can survive without a button in sight .... Or even touch.
Where will it all end? Even now somewhere I bet they are designing
shirts
which have coloured dots on the material which you line up in order to
"button" up your shirt. The fire alarms will have a helpful notice
beside
them saying brake glass and move your finger gently over the green circle
below. I'll be there, flames licking around my legs, trying to find the
green circle.
Oh for the days of nice clearly discernable buttons. The nice big
square
plastic ones, or those funny shaped squishy rubber ones. I even had a
remote control once where the buttons were actually in the shape of the
print numerals!
Its not even that the threadmill control pannel is particularly small
or
the display screen needs to be particularly big. I reckon you could
fit a
decent size piano keyboard on to the control pannel. So I have to
assume
that the only reason these machines are designed in this way is to make
them
look "fancy".
Just another example of design for nobody except those with a
pathelogical hatred of buttons.
Anyway, I'll finish up now, but if I ever meet one of these anti
button
designers, I'll personally burn their eyes out with a red hot poker and
then make them use there "fancy" new machines.
Tim
-------------------------
Tim Culhane,
Critical Path Ireland,
42-47 Lower Mount Street,
Dublin 2.
Direct line: 353-1-2415107
phone: 353-1-2415000
Tim.culhane@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.criticalpath.net
Critical Path
a global leader in digital communications
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