Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!caen!spool.mu.edu!agate!stanford.edu!unix!ctnews!pyramid!athertn!hemlock!mcgregor From: mcgregor@hemlock.Atherton.COM (Scott McGregor) Newsgroups: comp.human-factors Subject: Re: ap, Windows BASIC Message-ID: <35588@athertn.Atherton.COM> Date: 27 Jun 91 17:16:13 GMT Article-I.D.: athertn.35588 References: Sender: news@athertn.Atherton.COM Reply-To: mcgregor@hemlock.Atherton.COM (Scott McGregor) Organization: Atherton Technology -- Sunnyvale, CA Lines: 71 In article , mathew@mantis.co.uk (Giving C News a *HUG*) writes: >enag@ifi.uio.no (Erik Naggum) writes: >> Can you imagine a telephone which is so easy to use that you don't >> need any time learning how to use it? [...] >> Now think of all the incredible losers in the world who >> could actually _need_ a menu-based phone. You certainly picked a bad example there. > Telephones are *incredibly* badly designed; everything from the upside-down > keypad to the stupid numeric "star 2 6 hash" commands. I don't have the reference, but I once read a number of articles about the design of the touch tone key pad. Both the adopted style (1 top left, 9 bottom right) and the "calculator style" (1 bottom left, and 9 bottom right) were tried. The adopted style was heavily preferred over the calculator style. Some reasons were that at the time, only a small minority of people regularly used calculators at the time. Additionally, many prefixes were still given in alphabetic mode: (PEnnsylvania 6-5000!) and people were confused looking for the ABC (already associated with number 2 from dial days) at the bottom middle position. So while the keypad may seem backward today, it may have been a victim of "backward compatability" to dials, and the typical knowledge skills of yesteryear. (It is also interesting to note that children often have a hard time learning to use calculator style keyboards because they are used to looking for the "1" at the top! > There are week-long training courses for secretaries to teach them to use > their telephones, because the telephones are so appallingly badly designed. > Most businessmen have no idea how to use their telephones for even a quarter > of the things they can be used for. Don Norman has written and lectured considerably about the reduced features in todays all electronic (12 or 13 key) phones where features are all overloaded on the numeric keys, vs. the old days with the multiple button -multi line mechanical sets, with the blinking hold button, etc. His comments are great. > I sat and looked at the card, doodled on some paper for a bit, and worked out > that you could encode just about every function supported by this telephone > into about ten or twenty buttons. The buttons would have words on them, and > you'd indicate what you wanted to do by pushing buttons to make a sentence. > The buttons would be arranged in columns going from left to right, so you'd > pick no more than one from each column. > Of course, it would be trickier to decode internally. So we have telephones > with "[*] [5] [6] [#] [2] [3]" instead of "[Transfer call] [to] [2] [3]", > because it's easier for the hardware people to handle. And we have > telephones with one button for each combination of operations, rather than a > smaller set of buttons which you can push more than one of. Not so hard to decode as you might think. I once visited with a manager who purchased a ten memory autodialer. It was connected on the line just in front of his normal phane, had ten keys each with a label area. The first one was hand labelled HOLD (CALL PARK), the second was UNHOLD (CALL RETRIEVE), then CALL TRANSFER, CALL FORWARD ON, CALL FORWARD OFF, AREA PICKUP, VOICEMAIL, SECRETARY, BOSS, and finally HOME. Obviously, the first 6 were all just telephone features of the *56#23 variety, and only the last 4 actual other phones to call. An obvious solution to the problem of remembering those codes, but one that seems seldom used. He said he got the autodialer himself from some electronics store Radio Shack for a few bucks of his personal money, and he felt they were well spent. Scott McGregor Atherton Technology mcgregor@atherton.com