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Question of the Month: What design feature do you think is overused, something added out of habit rather than real need?

cstanton

What's a design element or feature you think is overused, something people include out of habit rather than necessary?

When planning a project, it's easy to add unnecessary features in the design phase. These are the "just in case" or "that's how it's always done," but sometimes, those extra elements can add cost, complexity, or waste without really improving the project.

Bonus question: What design feature do you believe is underused?

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  • Underused is great question. One thing I find annoying is the practise of minimizing the number of buttons, which ends up making the user interface slow, complex and non-intuitive. Think household thermostats. Does anybody remember how to program a VCR? Buttons can also be overused - like up/down buttons when a volume knob or slider is faster and more intuitive. Remember when you could just rotate a dial to the temperature you wanted.

    Remember when microcontrollers and SBCs came with a "monitor"  - a supervisory program that would allow direct control of all I/O or examining/altering memory. I miss that functionality. 

  • in reply to dougw

    Can't stand it when there are so few buttons on some products, if it makes the user experience worse. I've got one piece of equipment that I cannot turn off, without this three-step process: (1) pressing the power button, (2) wait for the LCD to blink through some options every two seconds until it reaches "Off", then (3) quickly press the power button again!

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  • in reply to dougw

    Can't stand it when there are so few buttons on some products, if it makes the user experience worse. I've got one piece of equipment that I cannot turn off, without this three-step process: (1) pressing the power button, (2) wait for the LCD to blink through some options every two seconds until it reaches "Off", then (3) quickly press the power button again!

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