Push buttons or a knob ? User interfaces.

[ChrisGibboGibson]

From the subject line this could be anything.

It was prompted by the thread re scopes.

Obviously 3 buttons (or 2 or even 1) to scroll through a menu and adjust
whatever is cheap but does it work in the long run ? Do people continue to buy
because of the user interface ?

I wouldn't buy a hi fi that didn't have a volume knob. When my phone rings I
just switch the TV off because it's instant, using the normal up/down buttons
takes too long (more than 0.1 seconds). Am I being old fashioned ? Will other
people happily buy things without intuitively simple controls ?

I like analogue/digital scopes that have the old knobs to set volt/cm and uS/cm
etc. It seems technically more accurate to use a menu but never intuitively
right.

Having said that I've only just got used to digital meters. Analogue seems so
much easier to watch a "trend" on. Is it fashion ? Am I just old ?

Gibbo

 

[John Woodgate]

I read in sci.electronics.design that ChrisGibboGibson
<chrisgibbogibson@aol.com> wrote (in <20041002195408.15758.00001350@mb-
m13.aol.com&gt about 'Push buttons or a knob ? User interfaces.', on Sat,
2 Oct 2004:

Having said that I've only just got used to digital meters. Analogue
seems so much easier to watch a "trend" on.

Yes, indeed.

Is it fashion ?

You could call it that; another word is 'stupidity'. I ran across this
in 1975, in some factory test gear that attempted to us a digital
voltmeter to measure the audio output of an AM radio in the factory!

Am I just
old ?

Yes, old and wise.
--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
The good news is that nothing is compulsory.
The bad news is that everything is prohibited.
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

 

[John Woodgate]

I read in sci.electronics.design that dB <dmb06851@yahoo.com> wrote (in
<1757808.0410031031.6a405afb@posting.google.com&gt about 'Push buttons or
a knob ? User interfaces.', on Sun, 3 Oct 2004:

And there's the daft use of a rotary control such as the volume control
on my car radio which changes the volume in lumps. Large lumps.

Yes. Or stupid small ones. I've been educating the PA people over the
last n years (n-> 8 sideways) that **3dB* steps work (for loudspeaker
line-level volume controls using tapped transformers, and for everything
else). Enough to hear but not enough to be too much.
--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
The good news is that nothing is compulsory.
The bad news is that everything is prohibited.
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk