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Everything with a battery should have an off switch

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Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#251

Post by dpatru »

kemayo wrote: post #227
kyaghmour wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's such a godawful book. In my view it epitomizes everything that is wrong with design today. And the worst part is that comments like these make it come off as the go-to reference to actually solving these problems. The reasons it's the worst design guidance out there is that it teaches: 1) that engineers should NOT be entrusted/involved with user design. 2) to conceptualize users as blissful idiots. 3) that obs…

> So this is what we actually get, devices that SILENTLY fail, designed for people who are assumed not to know what they're doing and who likely do NOT have any technically-literate person around them that could assist them if they could in fact identify the problem. It sounds like your complaint isn't with the advice from the book, but rather that Apple didn't follow it. They did hide away the error messages, but th…

> It sounds like your complaint isn't with the advice from the book, but rather that Apple didn't follow it. They did hide away the error messages, but they didn't provide help and insight.

> If they had done so, you'd have (presumably) been told in the software that there was a problem with certain albums, and been walked through a flow that would fix said problem. Or maybe a link to a support page that'd do the same. This, if it was done, would have been much better than showing "error 0xFHJAD1234".

The parent post addresses this: there are so many ways for for the system to fail that it’s not feasible to “inventory every possible problem in a computerized system and then provide a graceful exit”. So where an error is not gracefully handled, the system should allow for a human to see the error and solve the problem, rather than throw away the error.

>> Without any false modesty, I think I have a fairly good idea of how modern computer architecture works. Yet, I will be the first to tell you that I have no idea how any of these systems work in full. In fact, no one does. Not the best of kernel developers nor the best of chip designers. To claim that you can somehow inventory every possible problem in a computerized system and then provide a graceful exit from that or useful info is either ignorant or arrogant or both. But since you've eliminated engineers from the design loop (see #1 above), no one will tell you you're full of it.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#252

Post by tzs »

sumtechguy wrote: post #192
mod wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I buy a lot of those little timers for my business. They get pretty heavy use, maybe running timers for about 6 hours per day. They don't last anywhere near decades for us. Anyway, my insight is simply that some of them turn off the LCD after a while of non-use, and some of them keep it on indefinitely. Maybe that explains the difference between your two experiences.

I had the same exp. One I bought in the mid 90s. That original battery that came with it lasted nearly 10 years. Then another 5 with the new battery. I retired it when the plastic casing came apart. The LCD never turned off. That thing was a tank. The newer ones I am lucky to get a year out of the battery. Even using the on/off switch.

I've noticed something similar with remote controls. Receivers, CD players, DVD players, Blu-ray players, TVs, cable boxes...almost every one I've ever bought came with batteries that lasted for many years. Sometimes longer than the device the remote controlled.

Then, when the remote needs new batteries and I put in the batteries sold in US stores they would last a year or two.

The batteries that came with these devices were brands I'd never heard of and never seen at any store in the US. Usually they had lots of Japanese-looking writing on them and little English except for the brand name.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#253

Post by Silhouette »

bombcar wrote: post #211
lavela wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the real problem is that you can't keep all those little features you'd wish for in your head, so while you are making a buying decision they don't factor in as much as the lower price achievable without those features.

Perhaps we need government labels like we have on food - little boxes for common things like “battery: removable” or “on/off”.

I've advocated similar as a possible way of countering other consumer-hostile practices in the past but for something like batteries I think we're already past that point.

E-waste is a huge but so far mostly overlooked problem. Built-in obsolescence is great for exploitative businesses and bad for basically everyone and everything else. Unnecessarily restricting hardware repair or replacement might be the largest contributory factor in this problem.

Time to regulate.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#254

Post by wildmanx »

bluesquared wrote: post #169
pveierland wrote: post #67

Related to the topic, besides the energy argument and the ability to cycle system state, I'd argue the huge importance of being able to power things off for personal freedom, especially for things with connectivity. We still have the power to shut off devices and largely the ability to block their connectivity (e.g. routing TV ads through a network filter). With 5G and future connectivity, it feels as there will be p…

In a somewhat similar manner, my CPAP has a 4G modem that's a huge double-edged sword (for Americans only, you can see where this is going...). On one hand, it is nice to have an app that shows my stats, and my doctor can also remotely access how my therapy is going. On the other hand, it also phones home to the manufacturer & my insurance. When I don't hit my usage target for a specific time period, insurance stops…

CPAP: Continuous Positive Airway Pressure. A device to push air into your lungs usually during sleep to treat or give support with different conditions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_positive_airway_pre...

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#255

Post by kemayo »

kyaghmour wrote: post #249
kemayo wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So this is what we actually get, devices that SILENTLY fail, designed for people who are assumed not to know what they're doing and who likely do NOT have any technically-literate person around them that could assist them if they could in fact identify the problem. It sounds like your complaint isn't with the advice from the book, but rather that Apple didn't follow it. They did hide away the error messages, but th…

I don't mean to nitpick, but please refer to my comment regarding the inability of being able to inventory everything that can possibly go wrong in a computerized system. That's especially true given that if you take any successful engineering project, you'll see that its useful lifetime usually spans several individual engineering careers. Take something like Windows, or even Android for example. The people who were…

> And since anticipating all outcomes is by definition impossible, Norman's advice is awful.

Yes, that's why I said that I read the advice as saying it should only be followed when you can provide help and insight. You don't have to do it in an all-or-nothing way.

You can have common problems with a helpful flow that tells the user how to fix them. You can have less-common problems which just show an error code. Removing the error without providing help is the problem here, and is the thing that I feel goes against the book's advice.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#256

Post by LeifCarrotson »

michaelt wrote: post #41
exmadscientist wrote: post #3

(Background: I work in product design/new product development, and conceivably might have designed this thing! If any of those were still designed in the Western world. Which they aren't. I have designed some stuff like it, though!) Oh, great, this debate again! I shall use this post as ammunition next time I am arguing with our stupid design team about why we need an off switch on the stupid product we are designing…

> Yeah I wish we could get those prices. You might enjoy [1] about a microcontroller that's ~3 cents, in quantity 10. Of course it's only one-time-programmable, and generally pretty basic. And that's a pre-supply-chain-crisis price - these days prices have risen to 9 cents [2]. Still very cheap though! [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYhAGnsnO7w [2] https://www.lcsc.com/product-detail/Microcontroller-Units-MC...

Have you developed anything with that microcontroller, or tried to use that datasheet?

An ATTiny10 or PIC16F is so much better documented, so much better supported, so much more featureful, and so much better in every way that the average small-volume product design house will never make up the 40-cent price difference per part. How many development hours or support hours can you bill before you're penny-wise and pound foolish?

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#257

Post by zanellato19 »

Kalium wrote: post #243

> Oh, great, this debate again! I shall use this post as ammunition next time I am arguing with our stupid design team about why we need an off switch on the stupid product we are designing, because it is a giant pain to live with devices you cannot turn off. I increasingly subscribe to the thesis that many designers and design teams design primarily in an effort to impress other designers . They don't have to use th…

Oh man, do I believe this. I think every profession does this, tbh, I saw a lot of developers try to do stuff just to impress the rest of the team, but designers are one of the most impactful because they don't do stuff that is _so obvious_ like this one

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#258

Post by throwaway0a5e »

Kalium wrote: post #243

> Oh, great, this debate again! I shall use this post as ammunition next time I am arguing with our stupid design team about why we need an off switch on the stupid product we are designing, because it is a giant pain to live with devices you cannot turn off. I increasingly subscribe to the thesis that many designers and design teams design primarily in an effort to impress other designers . They don't have to use th…

Literally every industry has industry circle jerks like that.

You always get some people who build asinine crap in order so show off their "mastery" of their craft. It's just that product design and web development have more money sloshing around to provide for that kind of indulgence than residential plumbing and semi trailer manufacturing do.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#259

Post by bombcar »

Foffle wrote: post #233
bombcar wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be able to remove the “buzzer” or speaker in the device.

If it's a regular piezo buzzer, just stick a small rare earth magnet to it. Instant silence, and doesn't damage anything!

This is brilliant - I bet there's not too many sizes of piezo buzzer so someone could make little kits to sell on amazon et al ...

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#260

Post by kemayo »

dpatru wrote: post #251
kemayo wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So this is what we actually get, devices that SILENTLY fail, designed for people who are assumed not to know what they're doing and who likely do NOT have any technically-literate person around them that could assist them if they could in fact identify the problem. It sounds like your complaint isn't with the advice from the book, but rather that Apple didn't follow it. They did hide away the error messages, but th…

> It sounds like your complaint isn't with the advice from the book, but rather that Apple didn't follow it. They did hide away the error messages, but they didn't provide help and insight. > If they had done so, you'd have (presumably) been told in the software that there was a problem with certain albums, and been walked through a flow that would fix said problem. Or maybe a link to a support page that'd do the sam…

> The parent post addresses this: there are so many ways for for the system to fail that it’s not feasible to “inventory every possible problem in a computerized system and then provide a graceful exit”. So where an error is not gracefully handled, the system should allow for a human to see the error and solve the problem, rather than throw away the error.

Yes, that's what I said as well. It's why I said the problem was that Apple didn't follow the book's advice, insofar as they removed error messages without providing help for them... and so it's unfair for the grandparent-comment to blame the book when its rule wasn't followed.

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