Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!caen!spool.mu.edu!uunet!mcsun!ukc!slxsys!ibmpcug!mantis!mathew
From: mathew@mantis.co.uk (Giving C News a *HUG*)
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: Re: Telephone - user interfaces
Message-ID: <20B8414w164w@mantis.co.uk>
Date: 27 Jun 91 13:21:12 GMT
Article-I.D.: mantis.20B8414w164w
References: <ENAG.91Jun27004204@gyda.ifi.uio.no>
Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK.
Lines: 53

enag@ifi.uio.no (Erik Naggum) writes:
> There are subtle reasons that the "comment" field which is used in
> news is not the right thing, such as the "name" which appears below.

My news postings don't have Comment: fields.  Only my mail does.

[ Quoting his own article in an indignant fashion ]
> |                Now think of all the incredible losers in the world who
> |   could actually _need_ a menu-based phone.

This is where you went off the rails.  It may be some amazing piece of
Norwegian subtlety, but I'm afraid it didn't work very well once translated.

> Think of it, _any_ command, request, message, idea, novel, etc, can be
> encoded with the means of 12 push-buttons (*, #, 0-9).  I already said
> it's "not at all user-friendly".  I don't think three-hundred button
> phones would be an improvement, either.

Great.  I'm not proposing either of those approaches (12 button or hundreds
of buttons), because they're both awful.

>                                         Somehow, I think I'd like to
> talk to the damn phone [...]
>                               However, a "phone" which can handle this
> usually demands both salary, benefits and limited working hours, plus
> lunch breaks.  I'd settle for numeric code sequences any day.

Well, I wouldn't.  I don't expect a voice interface, but I expect something
better than code sequences.

>                                    How I invoke those functions is a
> secondary matter to having them.

No.  It doesn't matter how many functions there are; if the user interface is
so badly-designed that you can't remember how to use any of them, they may as
well not be there.  The phone system we have here does things like call
forwarding, but because of the lousy design nobody in the office uses the
features.

>                                     If I can't have them because some
> user interface creep decides that he has to invent another bloody
> user-friendly interface first, I'm likely to strangle said creep if I
> get the chance.

Look, we already have phones with crappy numeric codes and two hundred page
instruction manuals written in half-translated Japanese.  I'm suggesting that
the 99% of people who can't handle such devices should be given an
alternative.


mathew