Except for Roku, I haven’t seen a simple remote in houses of any people I visit. They all look a bit complex. Gotta study each one before using it. I think Roku’s remote is a close to ideal example of design the author is thinking of. The top half, except the star, is super-intuitive and easy to read. Bottom half are shortcuts you can ignore or use since options are shown on startup. My grandmaw was up and running in minutes. Great capability, great usability, and great price = great investment. :)
On the opposite end, my brother had a TV I couldn’t turn off at night because (a) remote was missing and (b) TV had no buttons. A TV with no buttons? WTH? I could unplug it but that’s cheating. I mean, I’m a guy whose built electronic shit. I should be able to figure out how to turn off a TV. Thinking of possible marketing BS, I guessed they might have started doing touch buttons like on a HP media laptop I had. Feature I hated the most but it looked cool, right? (Rolls eyes.) Maybe the buttons were invisible. I just started tapping the front and sides of the TV where I thought designers might put buttons. Eventually they appeared like magic out of a movie I saw as a kid. Probably the gimmick aside from buttonless, smooth surface. Some trial and error got me to the right one.
Friggin horrible TV experience. I had to put way too much thinking into its design just to turn it on or off. I can only imagine how much the remote might’ve sucked.
Is this even controversial? Even in the 80’s I’ve seen remotes that hide most of the controls beneath a flip panel.
Except for Roku, I haven’t seen a simple remote in houses of any people I visit. They all look a bit complex. Gotta study each one before using it. I think Roku’s remote is a close to ideal example of design the author is thinking of. The top half, except the star, is super-intuitive and easy to read. Bottom half are shortcuts you can ignore or use since options are shown on startup. My grandmaw was up and running in minutes. Great capability, great usability, and great price = great investment. :)
On the opposite end, my brother had a TV I couldn’t turn off at night because (a) remote was missing and (b) TV had no buttons. A TV with no buttons? WTH? I could unplug it but that’s cheating. I mean, I’m a guy whose built electronic shit. I should be able to figure out how to turn off a TV. Thinking of possible marketing BS, I guessed they might have started doing touch buttons like on a HP media laptop I had. Feature I hated the most but it looked cool, right? (Rolls eyes.) Maybe the buttons were invisible. I just started tapping the front and sides of the TV where I thought designers might put buttons. Eventually they appeared like magic out of a movie I saw as a kid. Probably the gimmick aside from buttonless, smooth surface. Some trial and error got me to the right one.
Friggin horrible TV experience. I had to put way too much thinking into its design just to turn it on or off. I can only imagine how much the remote might’ve sucked.