111–120 of 120 posts
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I use my nose, it works well if you can aim it.
My wife and I just discussed this solution, less than a minute before seeing this, with walk signals in the winter while wearing gloves. We found a problem: what if you get stuck? A cold, runny nose is almost as bad as a tongue (yet another solution).
My Samsung TV has capacitive buttons - in the shiny black surround, labelled with tiny iconographs in very, very dark grey. It took me several minutes to even find the 'on' button when I first got it.
I would totally buy his book if I didn't find the prices of tech books to be completely absurd. I remember how for 15 years VHS movies cost from $79.95 to $119.95 because they figured their only customers were video rental stores. The problem was they were selling each movie once for $80 instead of selling it 500 times for $20. Since fixing their flawed pricing model, far more movies are sold than before, to the poin…
as long as my phone's primary interface is a capacitive touchscreen, i don't see a problem with the buttons being capacitive as well. it's really just an extension of the screen interface, dedicated to a specific purpose. yes, it sucks that i can't press the buttons on my phone with mittens on. but i wouldn't give up my capacitive touchscreen in exchange for a phone that operated solely by physical buttons.
Note that while you're using it, you never accidentally hold your phone with a finger covering your screen. That's because you're looking at the screen. You know where it is. It's bright. It's easy to see its edges. It's the focus of your attention. The bezel around the screen, on the other hand, is not, but merely touching it in the wrong place will cause your phone to do unexpected things.
Its interesting to hear designers on a rant about capacitive buttons. Switches are the bane of most electrical engineers because they cost a lot and they have a finite lifetime. So generally they are thing that is going to 'kill' the product. And because they are both mechanical and have moving parts (in the non-capacitive variant) when they break the users just push harder trying to get them to work and that can cra…
The concern is accidental activation, which you kindly pointed out happens fairly easily.
Others already have made a point that the feedback would be useful for the disabled.
For me, the feedback is quite important - a lousy keyboard with those membrane keys causes un-registered keypresses or double taps. A good key will give the user that feedback without the need of viewing the screen.
Basically all the androids with the capacitive buttons drives me nuts because of that.
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The devices themselves have a finite lifetime. As long as the switch outlives the projected time to obsolescence of the device, it's fine. And I know there are switches out there which can do that... What really irks me (and what I'm surprised to see so few people spell out) is that there's no tactile feedback on capacitive buttons (or microwave-like buttons). Tactile feedback makes every aspect of the UI profoundly…
an idea for tactile feedback if used in low power version, well below "pain" level: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System#Effects Developed by CPI here in Palo Alto.
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For most purposes, I find the idea of buttons on a stove inferior to plain old knobs. I can see some merit to the idea of programming an oven to change temperature after a certain amount of time or some such, but a lot of stoves have buttons without any such capabilities. Most stove buttons I've seen are membrane switches with plastic over them, presenting a smooth, easily cleaned surface. These seem to be the optima…
I like the concept of knobs on stoves. But there doesn't seem to be any sort of standard so when one breaks or goes missing you're on the hunt for a replacement. Not so bad for a fairly new one, but when you have a 50 year old gas stove.... I'm sure visegrips makes good money on people that need pliers for their hobs.
As an aside, I'd rather cook on a 50 year old gas stove than most stoves I've used that had any kind of buttons. There's nothing quite like fire for cooking.
What is a capacitive button? EDIT: Oh, I see now. They are buttons that respond to electric impulse from the fingers on touchscreens. The solution the author seems to be seeking is: everyone should use the old Nokia bricks?
The iPhone doesn't look like a Nokia brick, yet it has a hardware home button. Similarly, the Nexus One had hardware buttons below the screen. On the other hand, the Nexus S uses capacitive buttons. Hardware buttons are typically easier to press, have better feedback (even when compared to haptic feedback), and easier to find when your eyes are closed. Hardware buttons do not imply "Nokia bricks".
I would totally buy his book if I didn't find the prices of tech books to be completely absurd. I remember how for 15 years VHS movies cost from $79.95 to $119.95 because they figured their only customers were video rental stores. The problem was they were selling each movie once for $80 instead of selling it 500 times for $20. Since fixing their flawed pricing model, far more movies are sold than before, to the poin…
I didn't set the price, but I will note that tech books typically only sell small numbers, regardless of price. It's a small target market.
Sure there are tech books on antenna design for satellites that don't sell many copies. But there are other topics that are of far more board interest. Usability is one of them.
As of May, 2002, the U.S. Department of Labor - Bureau of Labor Statistics says there are approximately 562,700 computer programmers in the U.S. That's just one job title and the field has grown since then. There's also software engineers, web designers, programmer-analysts, etc. Easily a couple million jobs.
Paperback like you have there costs $2.87 to print in quantity 3000 in Singapore. There's a lot of flexibility in working with the price. I would experiment with it but that's just me. Presumably your publisher has experimented. But maybe he hasn't. Perhaps he assumes that the potential number of people interested is less than 2 million. Perhaps he thinks it is 100 or 200. I bet it's more than that though.
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I didn't set the price, but I will note that tech books typically only sell small numbers, regardless of price. It's a small target market.
It's only a small market if your publisher keeps telling himself that. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Sure there are tech books on antenna design for satellites that don't sell many copies. But there are other topics that are of far more board interest. Usability is one of them. As of May, 2002, the U.S. Department of Labor - Bureau of Labor Statistics says there are approximately 562,700 computer programmers…