Tech Volta

Describe an example of a poor user interface you encounter in your everyday life.

We, as humans, cannot directly communicate with electronics, unless fluent in binary, even then it is nearly impossible. Our electronic devices have interfaces for us to manipulate technology to do our bidding. We are the technology overlords and these interfaces are our only path to total domination. When a poor user interface is encountered it can be a very frustrating and angering experience for an end-user. It can also be extremely detrimental to our fragile psyche.

Why does such a popular device as the Apple iPod, which commands 75% market share, have such a terrible user interface? To each their own they will say or probably a lot of people like the click wheel design. In the opinion of this student the click wheel is a tool for mass destruction.

The iPod isn’t all bad, syncing music files or videos files is an easy task. ITunes is a great program that really brings the iPod to life. I understand why the iPod has been such a great success, because it’s all about the music and ease of use. What I don’t understand is how people have liked the click wheel design. All the menus on the iPod are vertical scrolling menus: they go up and down, they are not circular. How does using a circle even come close to simulating a vertical menu system?

The problem that I frequently run into is spinning the wheel the wrong way. I want to go up the menu and end up going down; it makes me sad. Also due to the sensitive nature of the click wheel I end up moving off the selected file I want, when I go to press the middle button. I go spinning and spinning my finger around, searching and searching for the one song I want. When I find the song I want, I go to play it, and end up playing the song underneath it.

The click wheel will slowly break you down, day by day, hour by hour, and you have to use it because it is the best option out there. To navigate through the massive folder structure you have to basically use the “menu” button as a multi-use key. When you want to bring the menu up you use the “menu” key; makes sense. When you want to go back a menu or drop down one folder you have to use the “menu” key again; what were they thinking?

I think the overall design appeal of the iPod would be damaged if it had tons of buttons over it, but a multi-use catch-all key can be confusing to the end-user. These are the drawbacks that I have found with iPod, but I will continue to use it because it must be controlling me.

In conclusion, the Apple iPod isn’t a bad device; in fact, it is the best mp3 player currently on the market. The usability of the user interface will probably vary greatly form user to user. Overall, this is probably one of the best designed “one size fits all” user interfaces. The new version of the Apple iPod should be coming out soon; the holiday season is on its way.

UPDATE

I wrote this on the day of Apple’s big press release, September 5th. They are still keeping the click wheel design; iPod Classic. I think with the release of the iPhone/iPod Touch Apple will revolutionize the User Interface.

This will be a future article. Stay tuned.