My favorite kind of crosswalk button
As I was crossing the street today, I remembered the crosswalk buttons on my street in Davis. I think they’re really great because they give you so much feedback. You can’t help but know what’s going on. When you press it, it kinda clicks. And it makes a beep. And the light flashes. And it continues to beep until you get a signal, at which time it tells you to cross (the ones in Davis actually spoke, telling you which street to cross). That’s tactile, aural, and visual feedback all in one device!
Contrast that with the pesky buttons at most crosswalks. The most common kind are mysterious buttons that you suspect weren’t connected to anything. I usually press these 5 or 6 times, just in case they really aren’t connected to anything.
More recently I’ve started seeing a button that has no button–you just touch it. This at least makes a beep for you, but just isn’t quite as good as my favorites.
Picture from Flickr’s acordova
Samsung Knack keypad
The Samsung Knack: another cell phone keypad gone wrong.
My grandparents recently took a leap into the 21st century by signing up for a cell phone. I’ve had my iPhone long enough that I had forgotten how ugly and painful the majority of cell phones really are! Invariably, the worst cell phone offenses come from the keypads.
My grandparents ended up with a Samsung Knack because it was cheap and had reasonably large buttons. In fact, Samsung really gets some points for the generous key size and dedicated keys for ICE, 911, and speakerphone. But even with these minor wins, function was clearly sacrificed so that the phone could be made more ugly.
The most grievous offense is the navigation pad. The little dots are impossible to press, and for some reason the arrow keys have dots instead of arrows, obfuscating their function. To make things worse, there’s a little “OK” button in the middle that ends up getting half of the key presses meant for the arrows. The “OK” button seems to be totally redundant anyway, since “Send” does everything “OK” does.
How about the button labeled “Clear.” It doesn’t clear anything. It can be used to navigate up one level in the menu hierarchy or as a backspace key. Totally counter-intuitive to group these functions; even worse to call it “Clear.”
The symbols on the pound and star keys are also particularly confusing, and the buttons on the sides of the phone were way too easy to press accidentally. I could go on and on about how bad this keypad is, but instead I think I’ll go write a thank-you note to my iPhone.