Buttons buttons buttons

Posted by james on Sep 6, 4:13 PM

Recently on Buzz-out-loud, CNET's podcast of approximately 50-minute length, they talked about how Steve Jobs has a <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118532502435077009.html">phobia of buttons</a>. He wants as few buttons on his devices as possible, to the point of ridiculousness. This has been one of my complaints about Apple products; their near-irrational aversion to buttons or anything complicated. I guess the problem here is the misapprehension that complicated things are bad.

Granted, Apple has been successful partially (or perhaps mostly) because of their stubborn adherence to simplicity. I admire how their gadgets "just work" and are usually high quality. But there's almost always a tradeoff between simplicity and efficiency, and in this arena Apple has shown itself to be uncompromising. If you look at professional-level specialized physical interfaces (like multi-track studio audio mixers, POS registers, or even just keyboards) they often have a great deal of complexity... lots of buttons! Modern cash registers always amuse me because sometimes there's a button for each food (McDonalds) or for each individual action (return, exchange, gift card, etc). With a simple device, you can learn it more easily (assuming it's well-designed) and get up and running quickly, compared to a more complicated device. However, there's also an upper limit for these devices for their top efficiency. A way to think about it is my iPod. I have a 3rd generation, which means it has 4 buttons (previous track, menu, play, next track) a scroll wheel, and another select button. Great, looks simple, and it's easy to use. But I always wish it had a "random/shuffle" button. I'd love to be able to play through my songs randomly and then turn off random so I can just play whatever album it landed on. That's how my old carputer did it (more on that in a later rant).

Another poster child for Apple's stubborn simplicity-religion is the apple mouse. For the longest time they've had a one-button mouse, and even in the modern era they stick to it. It works for the most part, but the problem is that you really do have to right click sometimes. OSX has many places where you need to right-click to get to something, and it's very useful. Granted, you can Command-Click to simulate it, but that's a horrible idea from an efficiency/human-computer-interaction (HCI) point of view. You can think about it like this; say you have a computer and someone gives you the option of either a 2 button mouse where each button does a different thing, or another mouse where you have one button and have to press other keys on the keyboard at the same time to do different things. Which one sounds simpler?

The Apple model works if you like the appearance of simplicity, or if the user is simply a techno-simpleton that will rarely if ever investigate the whole "right-clicking" thing. For everyone else, it's a step back. The problem here is that it's not truly simpler. There is a shift in complexity, not a straight out reduction of it. In the iPod example, you can turn shuffle on/off by clicking the Menu button (a few times till you reach the main menu, since it's also a Back button), scroll down to Settings, scroll down to Shuffle, click the Select button a few times to turn it on/off, then click Menu, then scroll down to Now Playing, and click the Select button. On my carputer, you clicked the Random button once to turn random on, and again to turn it off. In the button example, you have one button that can do dual-duty as two buttons once you add in a keyboard. The complexity is not gone, it's hidden. That's great if you don't need extra functionality and/or are intimidated when looking at buttons. It's bad if you are comfortable with technology and like to do more with it.

Of course it's a compromise one way or the other, and of course it's personal preference that has more to do with your personality and usage traits than with the objective "goodness" of any given product. But Apple is a good example of being a bit too far in the hidden, simplistic, simpleton-friendly fashion.

Most of this is a bit obvious. The new part is that the wall street journal article vindicates my feelings that Apple sometimes has a subjective and illogical attitude towards buttons and complexity. My next mp3-player will probably not be an iPod. I want to be able to do more with my player, and I want more convenience. I don't need a device with tons of buttons... just the ones that make sense.