Things that are meant to be better but are not better

@MotherOfCatBoy

I did a couple of units of 'Human Computer Interaction' at uni and we looked at that type of thing.

We were banned from saying, "user friendly" because what was user friendly to one wasn't to someone else.

ATM machines don't just give you your card back first, they also play a noise that makes you think your money is being counted, it is just a noise.

And we looked at what people expected, the train v underground is interesting.

Thinking about things not being the same for everybody, it's so frustrating if I google how to do something with my particular phone or laptop and the instructions tell me to go to settings, then choose x then select y etc, but when I try to do that there's no x in settings and no sign of y.

I've got an A54, and I don't like it anywhere near as much as my old Huawei. The camera is way better, but the useability is far worse.

Oh, that's a bummer. It should be in Settings > Advanced features > Motion and gestures. Just checked it's still there in mine (A54, updated itself this morning) but who knows? Much like the meanings of words, they aren't the same for everybody 😬

I've just done this with The Mentalist - started watching on Netflix then they wanted to charge something ridiculous like £18 a season so I bought a set of DVDs second hand for £2.50.

I hate things with little led lights to let you know it's on. My speaker loudly tells me it's connecting to Bluetooth and then randomly loudly tells me it's disconnecting long after I've stopped listening to music. This feature cannot be turned off. My washing machine and tumble dryer play a tune when they finish and the dishwasher beeps. None of these is remotely necessary. I love having power cuts because there are no led lights, no humming and buzzing, just silence. I do love sat navs and online banking apps are excellent. So I'd say some things are greatly improved but some are not. Also upset at the lack of a headphone port in my phone.

Thanks @GarlicStyle I've been in to my Settings but can't find anything to do with Palm Swipe to Capture

The sound in films. I know dialogue is much more realistic nowadays, but all the mumbling (Casey Afleck, I'm looking at you!) and extra background noise mean I really struggle to hear what they're saying.

This These videos rarely have subtitles so I can't hear them

@RaraRachael I could never get the two buttons thing to work, so I put the Take Screenshot option in the drag-down menu.

@RaraRachael, I swipe with the edge of my hand. Much easier!

https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS10002500/

They call it Palm Swipe but you don't do it with your palm .🤷‍♀️ I am also fed up with the 21st century's disregard for the actual meanings of words!

If I wanted to take a screenshot on my previous Samsung Galaxy phone I pressed a button simultaneously on each side of the handset - worked perfectly well. On my latest one you have to press 2 buttons on the same side of the phone. It is so hard to do - I just can't seem to do it and instead send the volume blaring.
It worked perfectly well the old way, so why the hell change it to something worse?

Trying to buy stuff on Amazon without getting sucked into signing up for a free Prime trial requires skill and concentration. It's almost like a video game where you have to avoid the monsters!

@MotherOfCatBoy Absolutely. I remember a long article in New Scientist about that, in the mid 90s. Some points I remember were:

National Rail ticket machines (pre touch screens) wanted the destination first, then ticket type. London Underground wanted it the other way round. It was this basic inconsistency that was a problem. Woe betide you if you got it wrong - you were punished by having to wait for the error message to clear; but at least there was some feedback.

Cash machines learned one lesson: they give you back the card first, followed by the cash. It used to be the other way round, but people would grab the cash (what they had come for), and forget the card.

Video recorders were considered the worst culprits for being difficult to use, covered in tiny buttons which nobody uses; for example, a button to change in or out of British summer time. One button used twice a year, which could be pressed by accident; and most people wouldn’t bother with it anyway, they’d look up the conventional method of changing the clock. Steven Fry once said in a sketch comparing himself to medieval man said “I have a new video, although I don’t know how to work it”.

Many government websites are now good for clarity; all wording brief and to the point. But Amazon - forget it, little buttons everywhere, and if you click the prominent “buy now”, you get signed up to Amazon prime by stealth.

While it’s great that you can easily find out how to do most things on the internet, I don’t always want to be forced to watch videos (and adverts). I want instructions I can read.

Far be it from me to praise the BBC, but surely the News at 10 on BBC1 is exactly what you describe?
And I still buy DVDs and CDs, mainly at classical music venues.

Ha, @Yellowhammer09, I wondered why they'd changed the name of that button to "The Side Button". Which side button was unspecified. One side button does volume (and gesturey malarkey if you can be arsed, which I can't). The other side button does power, or it did.

I was so pissed off at this inchoate instruction, I abandoned the mission and can't even remember what it is I was trying to do. And now I daren't turn off my phone 😂 Or ... should I say I daren't side button my phone? Fuck knows.

And AI assistants can FOTTFSOFATFOSM!

It took me over 5 minutes to figure out how to turn off my new phone today. The power button just brings up the Google AI assistant; why has Google changed the usage of the most obvious button of all?

Touchscreen anything. Including this phone. I want proper buttons on this thing!

I talked to someone in a second hand game and CD/ DVD store the other day who told me (to my surprise) that sales have gone up recently. He said streaming services often have a movie or series then pull it again and it leaves users frustrated so they come in and buy the boxset or a favourite movie. I also miss the visible personality stuff when you go into someone's house. I used to love looking through a friends CD or DVD collection or bookshelf.

As for your original question OP, just about everything! Tech had gone too far and become too embedded in our lives. Haven't rtft but I can't be the only one who wants to scream when I have to download an app and go through about 20 online steps to pay for parking. I could give a million examples. I feel like we are no more than puppets to a very small group of rich powerful US companies who control our lives.

The engineer looked at me like I was mad when I insisted the “smart” meter be installed in dumb mode.

“But it can communicate directly with your energy provider!” Yes, and having had the fuckwits at SSE attempt to charge me the GDP of a developing nation each month because they fucked up the billing, that’s exactly what I want to avoid.

Clippy was always an arsehole. “It looks like you’re writing a letter!” Yes, I am and I don’t need a fucking animation to help me do it.

The little bastard deserved everything he got.

On buttons versus touch screens - donkeys years ago as a marketer, I read quite a bit about the history of Usability and the way you should get feedback when you do something so you know it’s done - like a click when you press a button or turn a dial. Not only more satisfying but it means you know you’ve done it properly. Apparently it started in the 1940s with fighter pilots and they redesigned plane cockpits to be as simple and tactile as possible so that you didn’t have to think twice about which lever to flip when you were heading for the ground at terminal speed. In fact “Don’t Make Me Think” was the title of a highly influential book about web design, which sought to put these principles to good use online by making sure the user knew exactly how to get to the next page in a nice short process.
Unfortunately I think since the invention of the internet of (pesky) things and touch screens, all this useful hard earned wisdom has gone down the toilet, and now my 96 year old DF can’t use his oven or his telly properly because they’re too bloody complicated and devoid of actual buttons!

This all reminds me of Sirius Cybernetics in the Hitchhiker’s Guide - Share and Enjoy!