Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!spool.mu.edu!samsung!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!lll-winken!iggy.GW.Vitalink.COM!widener!dsinc!ub!acsu.buffalo.edu From: gorman@acsu.buffalo.edu (anne-marie k gorman) Newsgroups: comp.human-factors Subject: Re: ap, Windows BASIC Message-ID: <81437@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> Date: 27 Jun 91 14:39:16 GMT References: Sender: news@acsu.Buffalo.EDU Organization: SUNY Buffalo Lines: 16 Nntp-Posting-Host: autarch.acsu.buffalo.edu In article mathew@mantis.co.uk (Giving C News a *HUG*) writes: >Telephones are *incredibly* badly designed; everything from the upside-down >keypad... Actually, from the point of view of the phone company, teh upside-down keypad is very well designed. Back when push-button phones were being invented, extensive testing was carried out to see which configuration of buttons gave the lowest number of incorrectly dialed numbers. Since the phone company gives you credit when you dial a wrong number, but it still cost them money to put the call through, they wanted to minimize their costs by minimizing teh number of calls that they would have to issue credits for. Their experi- ments showed that the 'upside-down' layout minimized errors, even though it was different from teh 'standard' adding-machine style layout. Anne-Marie