The forgotten link: hardware UX.
My youngest daughter Jade, who is six, recently said that she didn’t understand why the TV remote has numbers on it. Surely it should have letters, she said, because that way you can tell it which program you want to watch.
As children do, she’s found an obvious flaw that’s right under our noses. There is absolutely no reason for numbers on a remote. In an on-demand world, we’re no longer loyal to channels, we’re loyal to programming. In addition, the number designations actually mean nothing. Every different city, cable or satellite company assigns channels to completely different numbers. So, even if you’re looking for a specific channel, an alpha-based search is far more useful.
Clearly most set top boxes and even most televisions are now intelligent enough to translate an alpha request into the appropriate numerical address, however none of them do and even Tivo – which is widely seen as having the best UI of any of the solutions requires you to navigate an onscreen keyboard instead of putting the keyboard on the remote.
I think that the problem that Jade identified is actually a larger one, which is that the human interfaces to hardware have not kept pace with the developments in hardware (and software). This feels like a problem that probably affects many areas. In writing this I am looking at my telephone which suffers from the very same problem. Numbers are easy for machines to recognise which is why we made people remember them early on, but today any phone is probably smart enough to translate a name into a phone number (this is why Google didn’t go far enough with Google voice – why make me remember yet another number, just tie all my numbers to my name!).
It feels like this is an area where someone can make a big difference. My wife has urged me to patent this idea, but because I’m too lazy, I’m hoping that this blog post will suffice should anyone ever make any money off this.
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Tags: Cable, hardware, Remote control, Tivo, UX
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Eva Hasson Says:
November 17th, 2009 at 12:14 amAmazing what kids come up with – they have a knack for stating the obvious that is staring us in the face. Brilliant idea. Simple. Classic…you should definitely patent it
Eva
curiouslypersistent Says:
November 17th, 2009 at 1:49 am“There is absolutely no reason for numbers on a remote.” is hyperbole but in general you make a good point. As soon as it is cost effective, I would expect remotes with a touch screen interface (iPhone/Pre-esque) to become the norm. One press to flick between numeric and alphabet…
charlesfrith Says:
November 17th, 2009 at 9:18 amLovely observation about remotes not keeping up. Needs a Dyson in there although one of my suggestions a while back was to have a really heavy chrome remote. Solid, easy to find and something to have on display rather than fall down the back of the sofa.
jean Says:
November 18th, 2009 at 11:48 amSure, that's a smart observation. But maybe if people keep the number pattern on devices, that's because of its usability : we only have 9 numbers comparing to 26 letters.
Regarding our cultural admiration facing synthesis matters, numbers look great to solve this problem.
About voice recognition, i have doubts, it doesn't work very well with cell phones (at least in France…).
My point is :
1. If we keep numbers on devices, that's maybe because men feel mort confortable with an abstract codification to controle the mystical world of medias.
2. If voice recognition dont succeed in democratizing, that's because we need to control our environment, to touch stuffs, to feel them.
jean Says:
November 18th, 2009 at 11:48 amSure, that's a smart observation. But maybe if people keep the number pattern on devices, that's because of its usability : we only have 9 numbers comparing to 26 letters.
Regarding our cultural admiration facing synthesis matters, numbers look great to solve this problem.
About voice recognition, i have doubts, it doesn't work very well with cell phones (at least in France…).
My point is :
1. If we keep numbers on devices, that's maybe because men feel mort confortable with an abstract codification to controle the mystical world of medias.
2. If voice recognition dont succeed in democratizing, that's because we need to control our environment, to touch stuffs, to feel them.
adrianho Says:
November 18th, 2009 at 9:30 pmI see your point however the trend in mobile phones seems to be away from number pads and towards keypads. Naturally some of this has to do with texting/IM/Twitter usage. Twitter has also shown that natural name addresses are popular too.
So why is that when we want to communicate with someone voia email or twitter we'll use their name but when it's through the phone we'll use a number? I don't think it's because we're more comfortable with abstract codification, I think it's simply inertia on our part and on the part of the telephone industry.
e-Strategy Internet Marketing Blog Says:
November 23rd, 2009 at 11:13 amMinnesota Monday – Communications Bloggers Posts From Last Week…
Interesting posts from Minnesota communications bloggers for the week ending 11/22/09.
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