What's the Worst Technical Feature You've Used?

kooky45 asks: "In an effort to make our lives easier and more entertaining, technology designers pack more and more features into electronic devices, but often they're more nuisance than they're worth. An earlier article on LEDs discussed some of these. Another example is my Nokia 6320i mobile phone which has a back lit screen that drains the battery life at an alarming rate. When the phone is not in use the back light is off; if the battery starts to run low, it gives me regular warnings by beeping and turning the back light on! What other examples of designer stupidity have you seen?"

Comments

beeping and turning the back light on

[Miguel de Icaza]

if you're in a noisy enviroment or listening to headphones beeping and turning the back light on is a great idea. It is better to be alerted your battery is dying, than to discover you've missed hours of important calls.

Re:Honda Stereo Security

[Nos.]

So, if I'm going to steal the stereo from a Honda, take the extra couple of seconds and grab the VIN while I'm there.

Digital vs. analog controls

[dreddnott]

Definitely digital controls for almost anything. I can't stand them.

If you're in your car and working the climate control, those controls are analog for a good reason. You can see what they're set to and change before you start the car. Stereo systems are another great example (quickly turning volume up/down, not having it reset all the time). Analog dials of all kinds also give you far better real-time feedback about a given signal (delta, etc.).

Re:Digital vs. analog controls

[Vector7]

I totally agree. My pet-button-peeves:

Microwaves: I wish someone had the sense to build one with just a big knob to set the time, a small knob to set the power level (clicking to an off position if you just want to use the timer), and a big start/stop button. Put the timer on a logarithmic scale up to whatever the maximum sane length of time you might run a microwave for is (or use a continuous encoder with some acceleration programmed in the software), and read the value out on the display as you spin it.

Monitors: It'd be handy on occasion to briefly adjust the brightness on my monitor, but the digital controls on all of them I've used lately are so stifling that I rarely bother. Just one little knob controlling brightness by default, or moving the cursor when in an onscreen menu, would be a hundredfold improvement. The monitors I use everyday are like minefields - sometimes the buttons aren't even labelled, and hitting the wrong one tends to make some terrible change in monitor state that takes five or ten seconds to undo, like the picture-in-picture on the bigger Dell screens, or the bizarre "highlight mode" on my old Samsung, which can't be toggled off, but instead requires digging through menus.

Digital plus/minus buttons suck.

Voicemail

[rantingkitten]

In my day (I'm in my late 20s) we had answering machines, and you know what? They were good enough. If I left the house and came home a few hours later, I could see if there was a message, and I knew it was left sometime within the past few hours. Barring a few really specific and improbable scenarios, I don't need to know the exact damn time it was left, nor do I need the other BS like mailboxes, saved messages folders, varying greetings, and all the other claptrap.

Today? If you're the caller, you have to listen to the person's personal greeting, then suffer through another 20 seconds of "At the tone, please record your message. When finished, hang up, or press the star key for more options. To page this person, press nine. To listen to your personal horoscope..." Just shut the hell up and let me leave the message so I can get on with it, please?

If you're receiving voicemail it's even worse. "You have...two...new messages and one...saved message. To listen to...new messages...press one. To listen--" One. "First...message...received...at...ten...fifty eight...AM." SHUT UP. JUST PLAY THE GORRAM MESSAGE WITHOUT THE PREAMBLE. Christ. Why the hell do I need to know the exact freaking minute someone called?

Re:Microwave

[u8i9o0]

I have a GE above-the-stove microwave that not only won't let you cook until you set the date and time, but you can't even use the damn light on it until it's set.

I was going to mention something similar.

There's been a few blackouts lately and each time power comes back on, the display side-scrolls some text prompting to reset the time.

I actually use the time display on the unit (and the scrolling text is distracting) so that gets done fairly quickly.

But, who the hell thought it was important for a microwave to store the date?
For one thing, it never displays the date.
For another, it has no scheduling function and, even if it did, who keeps food in the microwave for longer than half a day (worst case: defrosting a turkey) anyway?

As a user, entering "010101" completes that step in the time reset. But as a programmer and engineer, this actually bothers me.

So, on the question of "What's the Worst Technical Feature You've Used?", I guess I 'use' the date feature to complete the reset protocol. But really, the date setting never actually gets used anywhere else so ... maybe I don't?

Anyway, I'm sure I've seen worse features but I just had to mention the microwave.

Print button on digital cameras

[ChePibe]

I don't think anyone else has mentioned this so I will - why on earth put a print button on the camera? While this may make sense for some cameras and some users (cheap point and shooters especially), they're now popping up on more advanced DSLRs like the Canon 30D. Who buys a $1,000 DSLR and prints directly from the camera with no post processing and not even a look at the images? Worst of all, the button can't be remapped - you're stuck with a useless button. Why, why, why?

"Operation currently prohibited by disc."

[Torodung]

Says it all.

But if you're a DVD exec, I want the buttons on my DVD player ('fast forward,' 'top menu') to work as they *should* without playing "Mother-may-I?" with the embedded OS. The menu should NEVER be restricted. That doesn't even make sense! What harm could my having instant access to your product's menu do to your bottom line?

Also, on my DVD player I can't even turn the darned thing off reliably. Is it too much to ask that a power switch be an actual -power switch- and not a "send power down signal to the OS" switch? It's not like there's a hard drive in these things. There's no need for the absurd length of time it takes for most DVD players to go from a power off *command* to a power off *state*.

Same goes for the tray eject button. Kill the motor and eject the disc already! I don't need "pretty" or "graceful," I need my disc back in less than five seconds.

Worst "feature"... Ever.

--
Toro

Text-stream interruptions

[athloi]

In the world of user design foolishness, the worst by far are programs that interrupt you while typing with error windows, pop-ups or windows suddenly gaining focus. Internet Explorer, I am talking to you here, as well as every other program that pops up a brain-dead window demanding me to hit cancel or OK while I'm busy with more important things. It's like stopping the State of the Union address to change a lightbulb.

In addition, any web page that doesn't follow sensible usability guidelines becomes a real pain in the neck. I read Jakob Nielsen to avoid most of these pitfalls when I code or design.

Six things

[ISurfTooMuch]

1. Universal remotes. Great idea in theory, but they're often hard as hell to program, especially after you lose the programming guide. Even when they're programmed correctly, they still can't perform some important function that the original remote can, so you end up having to keep both of them around, which defeats the purpose of the universal remote.

2. The meaningless icons on many electronic devices. Yeah, I know, they use them so they don't have to label the buttons in different languages for each country they sell the products in, but all these things seem to do is equally confuse everyone around the world as to what they mean.

3. Convoluted shower controls. I swear, every time I take a shower in a hotel, I have to spend several minutes figuring out how the damn controls work. How about faucet manufacturers stop trying to be cute and just give me one knob for cold, one knob for hot, and a control to switch from bath to shower. I can take it from there.

4. Wall warts. I know they serve a purpose, but do they really need to be on the end of the cord, where they take up three spots on the power strip? How about placing them in the middle of the cord, so I can use more than three plugs on my six-outlet strip.

5. Windows XP's habit of constantly reminding you that the computer needs to be restarted after an update. Memo to XP: I told you five minutes ago that I didn't want to restart, and I haven't changed my mind. How about you shut the fuck up, and when I'm ready to restart, I'll get back to you.

6. So-called water-saving toilets. Sure, they use less water, but they don't work worth a shit (pun intended). So, do you really save any water when you have to flush them twice because the first time wasn't entirely successful?

SysRq

[ISurfTooMuch]

I know that SysRq originally had a reason for existence, but its functionality was never used, and that was many years ago. If it hasn't been used by now, it won't be, so how about reassigning that key to do something useful. Just pick a use, since just about anything is better than its current use, which is absolutely nothing.

Re:Open button on a DVD player remote

[palndrumm]

Actually I really like having the eject button on the remote, especially since most DVD players these days seem to take forever to spit the disc out anyway. With the button only on the player, you're left standing there in front it staring blankly at the 'ejecting' screen on the TV for what seems like 10 minutes waiting for the disc to finally find its way out. If the button's on the remote you can press it and the player can do all its dicking around while you untangle yourself from the couch/girlfriend/cat/etc, find the DVD case, and then walk across the room to grab the disc as it pops out.

Re:Get this...

[Eccles]

How many broken CD cases do you have? How many broken DVD cases? I like DVD cases a lot better, they're a lot less fragile.

Re:It will come up sooner or later...

[IckySplat]

Ummm.... what planet are you from?
The BIOS does NOT start the CPU.
When a PC and fact most computers start, the reset pin will trigger the CPU
to start executing code at a predetermined memory address. This address is usually hard coded
into the CPU hardware. The address it loads and executes is usually the BIOS.

When x86 CPU's boot they are very limited beasts. It's up the the BIOS code to figure out
what exact model of CPU it is then enable all the neat extra features, like 32 or 64 bit modes
SMP and other goodies.

Comeon guys, this is basic stuff every geek should know.
This is something that hasn't really changed for the last 20-40 years or so /me Very disappointed :(