Random thought...
I just realized one of the worst (or best) examples of terrible control mapping:Cable box remotes.
I was trying to set up my grandfather's tv/dvd/cable system a year ago. The cable guy had already come through and hooked everything up to 'work' with his cable box. He had even set up one of those universal remotes. Those things are TERRIBLE, for not only are there more buttons on them than are possible to count, but each button serves quadruple duty. There are something like four buttons across the top that serve as selectors for which device you would like to control, like CABLE, TV, DVD, or AUX. The only thing that tells you that you are on a particular device is a small red light next to the corresponding button.
Then, in order to begin watching tv you must go through a complicated routine. Switch the remote to the cable control to turn on the cable box, then switch to TV to turn on the tv. Now if you want to change channels you need to switch back to CABLE before pressing the channel buttons (labelled + and -). If you forget to do this then you will change the channel on your tv off of the channel that connects it to your cable box which in some cases won't seem to be a problem as you can still surf channels on your tv. However your speakers and DVD are hooked up through the cable box so if you want to use that and are on the wrong TV channel you are SOL.
In summary, too many buttons, too many functions, impossible to achieve what you want.
Ah, yes. My parents have a similar situation. In their case, the universal cable box remote doesn't even do all the things the TV remote does. If you accidentally change the channel on the TV (which happens often), then you have to grab another remote, which totally defeats the purpose of a universal remote. You see, their "universal" remote can't navigate any of the menus in the TV! It has the arrow buttons, but they change the channel and the volume instead of navigating the menus, even though dedicated channel and volume buttons are present... I was not able to fix the issue.
ReplyDeleteMy parents also like turning off the "Auto Motion Plus" in their Samsung TV when watching movies, since having it on makes movies look like they were filmed with soap opera cameras. Of course, you have to use the TV remote...
How true, George! My gosh, those things are horrendous. Just trying to find the mute button on the thing for my grandmother was a horrendous affair.
ReplyDeleteTurns out—for lack of better investigation on my part—you have to go back to the original TV remote to mute it. How frustratingly annoying!
She has switched to AT&T's U-Verse, so there's a new remote to learn...and probably fail at now. My money's on no new features, but the screen is prettier. And, as you know, prettier counts. Ah, more ideas for UI posts...