HCI: Maybe they’re bad maybe I’m just dumb
- This controls the apparatus on top of the stoves here in Freddy. One controls the light and the other controls the fan. This is a close-up picture and you can still only barely see the fan/light markings. On top of that, the fan switch has three settings for no, light, and heavy suction. You would assume that the “no” setting would be the same as the off position of the light switch on the right, but actually the current position is the off position for the fan. Logically, of course, switching it up turns on light suction and down turns on heavy.
Put the three settings in a series. Up for off, neutral for light suction, and all the way down for heavy. We’re not savages.
2. In typical Youtube fashion, the fever dream of one of their unpaid interns has been implemented as a feature at the behest of no one. Enter the latest addition to Youtube’s playlist function, the afk warning. After what feels like 10 minutes of video, Youtube will pause the playlist if you have not tabbed back into the site within that time. Surely this won’t be an issue for the millions of users that start their music playlist then focus on something in another tab. Oh shucks.
The rest of the playlist isn’t even bad, but this feature is my red cape. The easiest fix is to just remove it, the next is to give some kind of notification or pop-up so that users can resolve it without having to tab back in. Or just use spotify.
The fan/light issue is a good one. Similarly, it bothers me that on most fans that you put in your room / on your desk, there’s a knob that goes Off, High, Medium, Low. (It should go off, low, medium, high.) But the current arrangement works best for the electrical rheostat. Off = max resistance, high = a little resistance, medium = medium resistance, and low = high resistance. So the settings are natural if you think “I’m adjusting resistance.” But not if you think normally.
Re YouTube, I guess they want your eyes, since that’s what they get paid for. Surely there’s a plugin to work around that.
For YouTube I think people may have been using playlists to increase money flow, since YouTube pays based on how long people watch now.
You’re definitely not dumb! I’m taught in industrial design that we have to make products that are intuitive to everyone. We should assume that people won’t read the instructions, so we make instructions shorter (if any), and make the product as if you don’t even need to use them. Some people learn by doing, not by memorizing instructions.
Yep, got them memorized now. But first couple of weeks were a little annoying