Dear Raymond,
Number of buttons is only one factor. Many other factors come into
play -- experience, analogy, affordances, context, ease of learning,
size, built-in instructions. There are more factors we can all
identify if we think our way through different kinds of products.
Stephen gave the excellent example of a telephone. My Macintosh has
over 70 buttons, but I find it much easier to use than my Sony
Ericsson mobil phone, partly because it adds context and
communication on a larger screen with built-in instructions to
enhance experience, analogy, affordances, context, and easy learning.
In contrast, my washing machine has only two or three buttons, but it
does things I still cannot figure out because of the way it is
structured.
My desk telephone -- gads! I've had it for a year, and I am still
discovering that it does astonishing things I can't even imagine. It
would probably work if I hired one of the local teenagers to drop by
when I need to operate the phone. This is a space-age telephone
system with far too many features for the number of buttons. It has a
screen smaller than the screen on my mobil phone, and most of the
buttons control three or four or seventeen functions ("Warp speed,
Mr. Sulu!). Fortunately, the analogies to my old phone still work --
the buttons essentially work like the first push-button phones of the
1970s and 1980s, and I don't need a teenage computer genius to push
the buttons in the right order to make a call. On the other hand, I
harbor the vague suspicion that if I were only smart enough, I could
use my phone to teleport myself to the Riviera for an afternoon in
the sun while cooking dinner by remote control and investing my stock
portfolio. Alas, my phone is much smarter than I am.
Understanding these issues requires a subtle thinking-through of key
factors. I'd suggest taking a new look at Donald Norman's classic,
The Design of Everyday Things. Your might also look at Liz Sanders's
article in the first issue of Design Research Quarterly.
Yours,
Ken
--
Raymond Jepson wrote:
> How is perceived usability related to number of buttons on a product
> (our products are too inexpensive to use a GUI). I would suppose it is
> not a directly linear relation. Common sense would say people would
> think devices with 1-3 buttons would be equally easy. 3-10/20ish would
> be more difficult. Over that would be immensely complex.
--
Prof. Ken Friedman
Institute for Communication, Culture, and Language
Norwegian School of Management
Oslo
Center for Design Research
Denmark's Design School
Copenhagen
+47 46.41.06.76 Tlf NSM
+47 33.40.10.95 Tlf Privat
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