From: David Cantrell Date: 11:46 on 09 Jul 2004 Subject: Fancy coffee machines Here at $new_work we have a very fancy drinks machine. Unfortunately it's so fancy that it gets in the way of my coffee fix. Normally, a drinks machine would have a list of all the possible drinks on the front, with two digit codes. Hit two digits and get a coffee. This one, however, has menus of options. I have to hit 6 for "speciality coffees" then get another menu. Hit 6 again for "espresso"*. Then 2 for "double espresso". Then 1 for "no sugar". At this point there are no further options, but I still have to hit "start" for it to spit out my drink. Five button presses instead of two. Sometimes, I'll hit 6 ... 6 ... 2 ... 1 only to be told that it's run out of cups. Grrr. Even all of that I could live with, cos I'm sure the menus won't change that often and I can remember 6621start easily. But I have to pause between button presses for the menu to re-draw, and it re-draws SLOWLY. The fancy graphics-capable display appears to build up each character a pixel at a time, and the list of pixels to light up feels like it's being sent over a piece of damp string. I bet it's just a serial port running at 4800 baud at the most. So here we have bad interface design (menus, ugh); bad software (only telling me at the end that it can't dispense my drink, and not listening to the keypad when redrawing); bad hardware; AND it makes crap coffee. Truly this is hateful. * - never mind that these bear no resemblance to espresso, it's the caffeine that counts
From: Ann Barcomb Date: 11:56 on 09 Jul 2004 Subject: Automated phone menus (was: Fancy coffee machines) On Fri, 9 Jul 2004, David Cantrell wrote: [...] > Even all of that I could live with, cos I'm sure the menus won't change > that often and I can remember 6621start easily. But I have to pause > between button presses for the menu to re-draw, and it re-draws SLOWLY. > The fancy graphics-capable display appears to build up each character a > pixel at a time, and the list of pixels to light up feels like it's > being sent over a piece of damp string. I bet it's just a serial port > running at 4800 baud at the most. I've been calling the phone company a lot because of problems with my ADSL since I moved. Their phone menu has the same annoying trait. First, it tells me that it costs me 10 cents a minute, then it gives me the menu. Then another menu. Then another menu. I know the numbers I need (1,1,1), but it won't accept input until it has told me the cost. I _know_ the cost, that's part of why I want to hurry up! For each successive menu, I have to wait until it has at least described the first option before it will accept my input. - Ann
From: Mark Fowler Date: 17:41 on 19 Jul 2004 Subject: Re: Fancy coffee machines On Fri, 9 Jul 2004, David Cantrell wrote: > So here we have bad interface design (menus, ugh); bad software (only > telling me at the end that it can't dispense my drink, and not listening > to the keypad when redrawing); bad hardware; AND it makes crap coffee. It could only be worse if it had a purely touch sensative keypad so that you had no tactile feedback whatsoever. Mark.
Generated at 10:27 on 16 Apr 2008 by mariachi