Re: Re[2]: Japanese tech communicators

[Robert Plamondon <robert -at- PLAMONDON -dot- COM>]

>      At
>      work, our ultra-fancy, ultra-expensive Canon FAX machine has what may
>      be the worst user's manual ever written, along with a non-intuitive
>      user interface and a frightening number of buttons to push.

>Reminds me of the telephone. What would you say if one of the engineers
>suggested a user interface like this:

>"We'll just give them a number pad. I know, it looks stark. Tell you what;
 we'll
>add two more buttons to square the arrangement at 3 x 4. We can use those
>buttons for some other features when we add them, or perhaps some third party
>folks will figure out a use for them. That's right, there's no delete key. We
>figure if the user makes a mistake, it'll be easier just to make him start all
>over again from the beginning."

That's not how it happened.  Anyway, doesn't the touch-tone
phone predate long-distance direct dialing?  It's not such a bad
system when the maximum-length phone number is seven digits long.
It's pretty inadequate now, though, with eleven-digit phone numbers
(more for international calls) -- not to mention PIN numbers, access
codes, and so forth.

But the phone keypad is at the opposite end of the spectrum from the
FAX machine I'm complaining about.  The phone keypad has twelve
large, single-function keys.  The FAX machine has about fifty tiny,
illegibly marked keys, some of which have two functions.
And, unlike the telephone, there is often no obvious way to cancel
a mistaken operation, such as dialing a wrong number.

The alphanumeric display is cryptic.  There is no magic decoder ring
in the manual.  The key labels are cryptic.  Many are not defined in
the manual.  Calling the index "incomplete" is an insult to incomplete
indexes everywhere.

But the technical illustrations are beautiful.  No very helpful, but
beautiful.  Big, too.  You get easy-on-the-eyes illustrations,
possibly in a vain attempt to compensate for the microscopic buttons
and labels.

I can't decide which is worse:  the documentation or the user
interface.  Both should have been drowned at birth.  While there
are many examples of clear documentation of Japanese products, and
even clean user interfaces, this ghastly FAX machine is not
particularly non-representative.

        -- Robert