Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!atha!aunro!alberta!cpsc.ucalgary.ca!news From: roseman@cpsc.ucalgary.ca (Mark Roseman) Newsgroups: comp.human-factors Subject: Re: Stupid Phone! Message-ID: <1991Jun26.230244.17461@cpsc.ucalgary.ca> Date: 26 Jun 91 23:02:44 GMT References: Organization: U. of Calgary Computer Science Lines: 21 It's interesting... I did some contract research/development for one of the manufacturers of fancy business sets, in this case one of the types with the lcd screen, tons of features, and oodles of buttons. They did a fair bit of usability studies, or so I was led to believe, but I still couldn't understand how some of the things in there got there. I've seen people use these phones - they are not obvious! (On the plus side, there's none of this *26 crap, unless you want a feature that you don't have a button for, in which case its improved - you can press the "feature" button then 26 :-) ). I did an HCI course last year which involved a design/implementation project. The one chosen was a PC front end for handling all the admin stuff. Some guy saw it after his company had spent $$$ on a training session with the manufacturer just so end-users could handle them, to say nothing of whoever gets stuck configuring them! -- ============================================================================== Mark Roseman Dept. of Computer Science, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alta. T2N 1N4 (403) 220-5769 roseman@cpsc.ucalgary.ca {ubc-cs|alberta}!calgary!roseman