Technology Overkill

It’s all your fault. You engineers who create products, design circuits, and develop new software. You are the ones that have made products more complicated and harder to use. My question to you is this: Have you gone too far in applying all of the technically sophisticated chips and software into end products? I’m beginning to think so.

Several recent experiences got me to thinking that maybe we have misused technology. Yes, the products do eventually serve their purpose or solve some problem. However, in the process of designing them, you go overboard. The result is a product that meets the design criteria but is excruciatingly difficult to use.

I wonder if we have produced a whole generation of “over the top” (OTT) products. Installing and learning new software is the one that gets to me most. Yes, I can do it and, in fact, have been doing it for years. But it doesn’t get any easier.

Hard to Deal with Software

Over the holidays I bought some new software and installed it. Of course, it all starts with a download and then some install process. That went okay, but then the trouble began. There was a compatibility issue with my Windows PC. Missing drivers was a problem, but the software never told me what drivers were missing.

I finally called the help line at the company and they were able to pinpoint the issue. On problem: That company doesn’t provide those drivers. So out to the internet I go. It took several hours to find what I was looking for, but I did eventually locate the drivers, install them, and reboot.

所以最后，我完成了安装。但是多么沮丧和巨大的时间浪费。我真正想做的就是使用该软件。我讨厌浪费时间大惊小怪，而缺少零碎的时间。我没有完成工作。

It’s been said that software is supposed to be a good tool to improve your productivity. That’s strictly theoretical. Adopting new software is probably the most non-productive thing you can do. You must get it to work then learn how to use it. Do you software developers ever think about this? What ever happened to the concept of “user-friendly”?

Ham-Handed Complexity

最近的另一个经历使我几乎生气。我为2米和70厘米的带（我是火腿，W5lef）购买了一个新的Handi-Talkie（HT）。这是一件小事，但在420 MHz的乐队中排出5 W。不错。我想用它通过其中一颗火腿卫星进行无线电联系。我得到了一个双重2 m/70 cm Yagi天线，并带有双链体，可与HT一起使用。

问题是，这个HT与我曾经遇到过的复杂一样。它有18个按钮和三个双同心旋钮，以及4个千斤顶或其他连接器。为了使此内容易于使用，它具有200多个页面手册。但是，真正的乐趣始于显示器在多个菜单中进行操作时。许多选择可供选择。而且编程过程令人反感。

经过多个小时的课程，我确实让HT上班了。基本上，我真的不喜欢这种产品，即使它是高质量的，并且一旦您弄清楚如何使用血腥的东西，就可以很好地工作。另一个令人沮丧的耗时的产品似乎希望阻止您按预期使用它。

我责怪设计基于MCU的控件的工程师。添加功能和最少可用功能非常容易。只需编写几行额外的代码，您就可以做一些事情，例如使用第三级菜单选择更改LCD屏幕的背景颜色。无论如何，我再次花了很多时间来欺骗这件事。我只想使用它，而不是成为其运营特点的奴隶。

有帮助的提示

给你们制作这些产品的一些笔记：

• Try to make things simpler, not more complex.
• 不要假设大量的先验知识和经验来设置和使用该产品。
• 不要指望用户知道您所知道的一切。
• 仅仅因为您可以做某事并不意味着您应该做。
• Be more ruthlessly selective in adding functions and features. Will anyone really want them or use them?
• 记住什么K.I.S.S.代表。

Over the years, there’s been a dedicated movement to reduce power consumption and improve efficiency in electronic products. Why don’t we initiate a program like that to make products easier to install and use? Let’s get back to keeping the end user in mind as you design. And don’t lose sight of the objective; that is, turn a profit for your company with products that do the job in an easy way that makes the customer come back for more. Doing otherwise is just technology suicide.

Anyway, sorry for the rant. It’s my opinion that most electronic products have just become way too complex, hard to learn, time-consuming, and frustrating to use. Perhaps it doesn’t bother most people? Or they don’t recognize it as a problem? Anyway, that’s just the way it is. Maybe it’s just me?