I've noticed that people seem confused when they dont have a "power" or "on" button.

I wish control4 would get rid of their big red button. People always want to hit that damn button like it's a giant magic power button that can read their minds!

True story.


I installed a small system for a friend down the street from me. Get a cal just a couple days later and he can't turn the system on.

I go to meet him a few hours later, after he gets done playing golf (and getting loaded).

I walk down to his house and find his girlfriend sitting there watching TV.

Moments later he walks in, see the TV on and asks me what I did.

Told him to ask her.

He does, and she tells him "I pushed this button" as she points to the power on button.



I laughed and walked back home.



Worst part? He did the same thing more times than I could count.

Ditto URC. People always head for those buttons.

URC also makes a mistake when the default location for power commands is the ON or the OFF button, because then we have to jump hoops to use those buttons globally.

ON and OFF hard buttons are ugly to deal with.

Usually, cable TV is the focus of the system. In this context I use OFF to shut down the system and go to the home page. ON gets cable TV going. From the home page one can choose other activities. It drives me crazy, but many users users are comfortable with and expect to shut down before going to another function.

Each user is different. Before I start the program, if I can I watch the customer use their system and push them a little bit to use the system in unexpected ways, I can observe how sophisticated they are and identify potential sticking points that will require some program or behavior modification.

In addition to the customer, one must keep the system friendly for house guests and baby sitters. (And hope that they don't attack the cable box's POWER button -- I don't include a visible cable box POWER button in any of my programs)

Amen.

My favorite along this line is a customer for whom I programmed a Marantz RC5200. The program would take him from the home page either to a TV that motored out and turned from a cabinet, or a projector where a screen lowered. I made it strictly a this or that kind of program and told him to go back HOME when he wanted to change from one to the other.

I dropped by one day and found he had both the TV and the projector on, impossible per my program. It was only impossible if he followed instructions and hit HOME before making a change. He had learned to turn on one, go to the other, then use the BACK button to go back to the first one. Unintended, indeed!

It can be tough to win the GUI war.
If you program all the function buttons for something like a cable or sat box on a touch screen, you end up with a lot of buttons and some clients that look at it and become afraid to use it. They often have no idea what 1/2 the buttons do (never used the PVR/DVR functions and don't even know what it means)
All they want is guide, the arrows, CH+/- and a number pad.
Or you get the other type who wants total control over absolutely everything, like treble bass etc.
I have had a client ask me what the right arrow button (play) did.
It did not say play, so it was not obvious to him.

No you don't. You just keep using the MX850 with its outdated software.

I'm the opposite from some of you guys. The URC remotes with both an on and off button are colored green and red respectively. I program the On button to power the system on and take you the most widely used source (Cable/SAT). The red off button, of course is the system off. A quick rundown of the remote and the client gets it. For those really technology challenged people, they typically don't use anything BUT cable or sat, and its dead simple, "Green for GO, Red for STOP". They always get it. For the more technically inclined people, press whichever source you wish to watch/listen to. Press the Red off button when done. Dead simple. It just works.

Winning!!!!!

And during the demo, I'll usually mess with all the equipment.
Turn the receiver to an unused input, change the surround program
Put the tv on the wrong input
And pending the STB, I'll turn it off.


makes for a great demo with 5/6 other remotes sitting on the table!

Yep. They gotta be there. Have ON mirror the Cable or Watch TV button. Off means video and sound off for THAT room. One remote per room. They may think controlling two zones with one wand makes it simpler but are easily persuaded otherwise when told that every time they will have to first tell it which room they are in.

I just wish URCs cheaper wands would say On and Off instead of "System" on the green button and "Power" on the red button. It always confuses people and I honestly can't understand the person's logic who came up with that.

aint that the truth.

I agree. Don't know why they labeled that. Once I started saying green for go/red for stop, people seem to get it instantly though. Most people that grab the remote without a lesson go right to the green button anyway.

The hoop jumping literally takes 10 seconds of programming time via punchthrough.

Ditto what everyone else said about the ON being the macro for cable TV. We call it the babysitter button. Babysitter don't know about Sonos, Blu-Ray, etc. Babysitter want TV. TV=ON.

How about ANGLE. Ever use that button?

The cure is to put buttons that the client NEEDS, and only those, on the remote.


This symbol has meant PLAY for at least forty-five years. Gizmodo says they first appeared on reel to reel tape machines in the 60s, which matches my memory. The articles I've found show the arrow on, for instance, Grundig tape recorders, not being there in 1961 but being there in 1963.

So you can tell your client that it's been used for more than fifty years and it's time for him to learn it.

+1.