a pressing issue

(4 comments)
2006.12.22
My latest UI gripe: physical buttons that change their function when you press and hold, versus just pressing. Three case studies as of late: In some cases I can see why the designer does this, sees "press and hold" as a way of reusing buttons, adding functionality without the "clutter" cost or physical cost of extra buttons there. But there's no real iconography or concise language for "press and hold for function X", so it just makes these functions more obscure. (And in the case of Monkey Ball, there's absolutely no excuse. Games are all about reacting to input, providing feedback. If you press every button on a controller looking for a command you think you should be there, you should activate every command, not have to press and hold everything for an indetrminate period like some sort of mad functionality Easter Egg hunt.)

Dumb UI designers: making your life a little worse in a thousand little ways.