I assume we all know how to program remotes that work for our customers. My post was not meant to do that. I used a remotes GUI as a way to make a point. BUt it looks like it did not hit its mark.

Let me try a different way.

When I was a kid, before we had a VCR, life was simple turn on TV, change volume, flip through the 7 channels to get to the one you want. It is easy in that scenario of having "a GUI (operating system or otherwise) should be intuitive. That is, it shouldn't need instructions." a small interface with just 5 buttons would have done the trick if the real-estate was there you could have direct access to each channel with 12 buttons or less.

But the more complex the system we talk about the more complex the GUI becomes.

So let's assume today all we want to do is watch TV,

1) clicking ch+/_ would be a nightmare with the hundreds of channels that exist so a 5 button gui won't work like in the example above


2) 0,...,9 (and possibly enter) is simple on the GUI side but it requires the customer knowing the channel numbers and if they don't know that 4 digit number (used with fibe in my house) someone needs to tell them what it is. So it fails his criteria of not needing instructions


3) an other option, which I have at home and do with my customers, is pre-programmed network logos (click on ABC to go to ABC) but then you can't cover all of the channels and you can only fit so many logos per page. So to make it simpler I usually divide it by individuals in the home and even then it sometimes needs more then one page of logos.

So if a guest tries to watch channel XYZ things become a bit more complicated, who do they look under, what page, maybe they look through all of them and no one watches the channel so it is not there and then they need to find the channel number so they can dial it in.


My point was simply if there is nothing to do then "any GUI (operating system or otherwise) should be intuitive. That is, it shouldn't need instructions. " can easily be true and you can fault someone for a bad GUI but the more people demand of something the more it becomes impossible to do what he said because you need to balance the needs. This thread did not start off with you asking the best way to set up remotes, like I said the remote was used as an example hoping to make my point clearer, but about PCs and they need to do everything for everyone, so I think it is obvious that not all things will be intuitive and not need instructions.