intelligent design
Consider a simple object: a remote control suitable for using when giving a presentation using PowerPoint or some similar emanation from the deepest pits of hell. You might think that designing one of these isn't too hard, and you'd be right. Unless the designer happens to be one of the dweebs at, say, Targus.
This device has the following user interface elements.
- A laser pointer button. This bit's OK.
- A nasty joysticky disc thing. In ordinary use, this does nothing.
- Two buttons, one on the left and one on the right. The one on the left moves forwards through your presentation. The one on the right moves backwards through your presentation.
- A mysterious unmarked button. The function of this is to make the remote control stop working.
The documentation (which explains, in some sense almost equivalent to "doesn't explain at all", why the above is so) has a section entitled "Troubleshooting", which answers the questions "The presenter is not working or is interfering with another remote device -- what should I do?" and "What do I do if the response time of the presenter's mouse is slow or intermittently stops working?". Inexplicably, it doesn't answer the question "The interface design of the presenter is insane. What should I do?". The answer, my friend, is "throw it in the bin"; the answer is "throw it in the bin".
The design of this device is so poor that it is inconceivable that they can have done any testing with real users. I have just been organizing an internal conference at my company, and we had one of these things; without exception, every presenter who used this device had trouble with it, even though they had all had it explained and most of them had seen others struggling with it.
