Looking Out To Sea

Geoff Pullum had a good whinge about poor user interface design the other day, so I feel inspired to do the same. Or similar.

We really had no clue what to judge when we started looking for a television but we quickly realised that nobody puts any effort into the design of the remote control. In the end we went for the TV with the nicest picture because that’s where the manufacturers put their effort. There was almost nothing to choose between the remotes. They were pretty much all terrible.

Even worse, though, is the design of the remote for our Humax PVR. With a PVR you either want to record or to play previous recordings. So why is the first step to playing previous recordings, the button to list everything you have recorded, hidden beneath a sliding plastic cover? To prevent you accidentally watching TV?!

But it’s sad that there are no good television remotes. It’s impossible to buy something to encourage the good manufacturers if they’re all equally bad. Though if you do a search for criticism of remote controls most of the complaints revolve around how ugly it looks. Clearly no one cares whether the device is usable as long as it looks like a bloody Apple product.