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Design Analysis

In: Computers and Technology

Submitted By d95157
Words 942
Pages 4
Remote controls are used frequently at home, in the office, and even in the classroom. This pervasiveness stresses the importance of having a good design in order for the user to be able to interact with the TV with minimal problems. The manufacturers take this into consideration when they built the TV by aiming to provide a remote control that supplements the TV they have designed. However, remote controls fail over time and must be replaced and manufacturers don’t tend to offer a replacement for a specific TV model. Therefore, the TV owner must find a universal remote that is useful, it supports the capabilities of their TV, and that has good usability. With this in mind, through the course of this paper I will be reviewing the design of what I believe to be a bad universal remote compared to a good universal remote by giving a personal example of each.
I had to replace the remote of my 25 year old Sony TV and I decided to get the cheapest one they had at RadioShack, which turned out to a very bad universal remote overall. Getting the universal remote setup with my TV required me to press certain buttons in the correct sequence and then entering the right code for my TV model. The whole process was straight forward enough, but there were multiple codes for my model TV so I had to perform the setup steps multiple times before I got it to sync with my TV.
Once setup, I noticed that the remote did not have buttons for certain features offered by my TV, input selection being one of them. There were other buttons on the remote that performed multiple tasks depending on the number of times they were pressed, which was annoying when trying to remember what button did what. The layout was jumbled as well, with buttons not being grouped with other similar buttons and no clear layout of buttons. It was as if the designers were adding buttons as they thought of them and put them in any available space.
Overall, the usability of the remote was very poor due to the multi-function buttons and the poor layout which made finding buttons and remembering what they did rather tedious. The remote was not very useful due to the fact of the multi-function buttons; also not having buttons for certain TV features limited its usefulness greatly. The result of the poor usability and usefulness was an emotional impact of general loathing. What was supposed to be a useful interface with the TV was now something I looked at and regretted having to use. It was apparent that design had taken a backseat in the production of this product.
When the bad remote decided it was it’s time to leave this cruel world, I decided to look for a universal remote that avoided the shortfalls and complications of the previous remote. After some research the remote I settled on was a universal remote made by Sony that was only five dollars more than the bad universal remote. As I will detail in the next paragraphs, this universal remote turned out to be very good compared to the previous remote I was using.
Out of the box the remote was able to interact with my TV without having to go through a multi step setup process like the previous remote, and without going through a trial and error process of finding the right code for my TV. The new remote also had buttons for all of the features of my TV and each button had only one function. The layout of the remote was much better as well, because similar buttons were grouped together in their own sections, so there was little to no searching around for randomly placed buttons once I had used the remote for a short period of time. This new universal remote also offered buttons for other devices, enabling me to use one remote for all my devices. Additionally, the setup for these other devices was a simple matter of pressing the set button and then the button for the device being connected, and then the remote would automatically find the necessary code for that device.
This universal remote offered great usability through a very intuitive layout design that did not require remembering how many times a button needed to be pressed for a particular function, and also eliminated the need to search the remote for a particular button that had been placed in a random position. The usefulness of this remote was superb as well since it incorporated all of the features of my TV, and it also had features for additional devices, which eliminated the need for multiple remotes in order to interact with each device. The result of this good usability and usefulness was a superb user experience, because there were little to no frustrations caused by using the remote. The most important aspect of the user experience was the fact that the remote provided a seamless interaction with the TV, the result of which was immersion in what I was watching, rather than having my attention split between what I was watching and trying to get the remote to do what I wanted it to do.
The adage “you get what you pay for” proved true in my situation. Five dollars was all that separated a very poor universal remote design and a universal remote with a good design. My interactions with both remotes made it very clear that design is a very important part of a product, even in something as simple as a remote control.

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