Bad design: Dell Latitude D620 edition
Hardware like this is extremely difficult to support. More user testing, please.
Suppose you own a Dell D620 laptop, and you want to find the wireless on/off switch. It’s on the left side of the laptop:
The markings you need to identify the switch and know which way to move it, are printed in light gray ink on the silver-gray surface of the laptop. At very close range, at just the right angle, given excellent eyesight and ideal lighting conditions, it is just barely possible to read the markings:
But even the slightest glare obliterates the markings completely:
This is not rocket science: markings on hardware should be readable. How frakkin’ hard is it to make the lettering contrast with the background? And to place them where they can be seen from the user’s perspective? These markings actually angle slightly toward the desk. Why not flat white markings on the charcoal gray part of the laptop, above the connectors and switches? Many users have other things on their minds, and not necessarily perfect eyesight to boot.
Remember stereo equipment from the 1970’s, with crisp black markings on brushed aluminum? Here’s my old stereo in poor lighting, with a bit of glare and camera movement, still readable:
And don’t even get me started on Windows’ wireless control that isn’t smart enough to stop popping up and stealing focus from other applications when the laptop is already connected to a wired network. Even when the physical wireless switch is in the ‘off’ position.
(By the way, my Lenovo X40 has none of these problems. The markings are embossed in the laptop surface so I filled them in with silver Sharpie marker against the black surface. And Linux seems to know when it’s hooked into a wired network and politely refrains from bugging you about the wireless.)
Well, you are just an old fuddy duddy who needs new glasses or cataract surgery, George!
Don’t you know that black on black is the “in” thing and has been for over a decade? And the tinier the instructions, the better? I started marking up my remote controls and appliance buttons with Sharpie markers and colored tape 15 years ago.Posted by Still Me on 12/04/08 at 11:28 AMOh to go back to the words Forward. Reverse, Mute, and even on and off instead of squares,rectangles, dots, and etc. I’m an old fuddy duddy too and find it irritating to have to guess if the remote, the cd/dvd player, or vhs are going to work because I don’t understand the pictures.
Posted by momma on 12/04/08 at 01:55 PMHmm .... I’m on a slippery slope here. I heart all things Apple.
Posted by Three Cent Stamp on 12/04/08 at 07:50 PMUh-oh, hope you don’t accidentally find the post where I trashed Apple laptop hardware design. I did like their software, though.
Posted by George on 12/04/08 at 08:08 PMThat’s not a REAL 70’s stereo!
The volume controls were labelled back then,
and THIS ONE GOES TO ELEVEN
Posted by Eunoia on 12/05/08 at 03:41 AMI often see thingies which seem to lack all semblance of human engineering. And, of course, the trite expression “what were they thinking” comes into my head.
There’s a word for designing stuff so that it is easily usable by humans, but I forget the word. I don’t feel bad, lots of manufacturers have forgotten it, too.
Posted by gerry rosser on 12/06/08 at 08:41 AMI really don’t like Apple’s keyboard and mouse design. Especially their current generation of “two button” mice, which I used dozens of times before realizing that they had two-button capabilities. Now that’s some horrible design!
Their keyboards are so-so, much better than they used to be. My Mac currently has an HP mouse and a Unicomp keyboard, and it’s just about perfect (though there are definitely some UI tweaks I’d like to see, but whatever).
Posted by Lucas on 12/07/08 at 02:21 PM
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