This week's homework assignment: sketch or take a picture of an Unworkable or Confusing Interface.
A lot of people brought in washing machines/driers (including, but not limited to, clothing and hair driers), we had one Remote Control, and one car radio.
I brought in my sketch of an Apple device.
Apple is supposed to be revered for it's design. Smart, right? Definitely streamlined. Simple to a fault. Strategically marketed. Superbly iconic. My list of adjectives beginning with the letter 'S' could go on.
So I was frankly surprised and slightly shocked when I tried to change the song on my roomie's iPod. And couldn't.
The Nefarious Instrument in question
This is her iPod Nano. It's the newest version, so it's a touchscreen. Which I don't actually find confusing in itself, except that this Nano is also about the size of a quarter, so making it touchscreen seems a little counter intuitive, to start. I am constantly worrying that I'm going to accidentally push a bunch of other icon/buttons at once, and cause the device to explode.
So last night, we were just sitting around, twiddling our thumbs, listening to Sixx: AM, and she asks me to change the music (to Lonely Island, in case anyone cares about what music I listen to in my "free time", which is in itself a Complete and Total Myth, but that's another story).
So anyhoo, I'm thinking yeah, whatever, I can do this, right? It's just a song, I mean, really, how hard can that possibly be?
So I confidently walk up to the screen. And poke it.
Aaaand - No. Blank. Nothing.
A list of the music that we were currently listening to. A small dark gray bar at the top for rating songs. Nothing. Else.
It might as well have been a fortress. It might as well have been a Chinese puzzle box. It might as well have been a futuristic device dropped from a passing alien space cruiser. It was blank.
How could you do this to me, Apple?
0 comments:
Post a Comment