Is Your Mobile Phone Blinking 12:00?

from the how-the-hell-do-you-program-this? dept

Thu, Nov 11th 2004 6:50am — Mike Masnick

The famous blinking "12:00" on a VCR has been a symbol of bad user interfaces and confused non-tech-savvy consumers for years. However, with increasingly complicated mobile phones coming out, some are wondering if the mobile phone represents the VCR of this generation: a device that's simply too difficult for your average user to understand its most basic features. As the writer notes, this isn't because people don't read the manuals, but that the phone and software makers seem to make the interfaces as complex as possible, giving very little thought as to how the average user would actually get stuff done.

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4 Comments

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Alan, 11 Nov 2004 @ 7:23am

No Subject Given
The main difference between the mobile phone and the VCR is that people usually get "the blinking 12:00 set to the right time" by asking someone else for help. Since the phone is always with you, it's not uncommon for a person to ask someone else with the similar phone how to do something. Regardless of this fact, the point still stands that the phones are too complicated.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Nov 2004 @ 12:14pm

Crap UI design
Several phone in my office have a mute function. Except, it only mutes the phone call, not the voice mail notification a minute later.
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- Anonymous Coward, 11 Nov 2004 @ 12:28pm
  
  Non-issue
  Non-issue
  
  Version adjust the time for daylight savings on the network.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Nov 2004 @ 5:24pm

Controling complexity
Well, these devices are getting more complex. We're up to the point where
we can take pictures with the cell phone and use it to send pictures by
connecting to the internet.
One thing that doesn't help is that the GUI of these devices is limited to
a (literal) handful of buttons. The challenge is to be able to do what you
want on the cell phone with the few buttons that they do provide on the phone.
-cmh
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