Chad must be a Jakob Nielsen clone. He obviously cannot accept that designers are knowledgeable. Chad doesn't understand the way the product was intended to be used. Design error? No.

Hey, do I sound like a consultant yet?

Posted by: Jack on September 29, 2002 04:56 PM

 

Now that it's nighttime and the lights are low, I'm reminded that several pieces of my stereo equipment have "off" lights.

When the equipment is active, an "on" light is lit. When I turn off the equipment, the light dims and another light turns on to indicate the equipment is "off." Ummmm, what the hell? The one piece of equipment I never use -- a dual tape deck -- I keep unplugged because the energy waste annoys me. I don't care how many pennies a year it comes out to, the idea is just plain bad.

Every once in a while those damn "off" lights trip me up and I hit the power button thinking I'm turning the device off.

Posted by: Jack on September 29, 2002 11:48 PM

 

I think the reason a light comes on next to the power button when a machine is off is in case you want to turn the machine on without turning the lights on to see where the power button is. It's for those of us who like walking around our homes in the dark. :)

As for the modem, I thought it was pretty clear what the extra light was for, but my first inclination is to read, so I read the button descriptions before looking at the lights under them. A sock over the lights would definitely have hindered this approach, but in that case, I wouldn't have seen the lights, either.

Posted by: jan on September 30, 2002 10:43 AM

 

As a rule, I don't like seeing a light when the machine is off. However, it does two important things:

1. It reminds you that the machine is connected (important if it is a component of your stereo system or a peripheral of the computer) and therefore drawing energy, system resources, etc.

2. It tells you that the machine itself is functioning.

I wonder how many "is the machine plugged in?" embarrassments have been avoided since off-lights have been engineered into products.

As far as off-light usability, what I like to see is when a product (such as my Sony receiver) has a green light when the unit is on, and the same indicator shows a red light when the unit is off. I like that because the red light is very easy on the eyes (you can sleep comfortably even if it is very close) and because I identify with the color scheme: go/stop.

Chad's example didn't bother me much from the standpoint that the unit shows both a connection and a power state using three separate indicators. When power is off, that light is not lit, but the lights showing that the unit is connected are on.

What I find less usable about that arrangement is that you can't tell from a Ki>distance what is going on. Anyone might make the mistake of seeing a green light and assuming power was on. Plus, you have to have prior knowledge of the way the device is constructed in order to understand that it specifically denotes connected cables.

How they could get around this? Perhaps one button that is green for on, red for off but connected, and no light at all when any one of the connections are disconnected.

Posted by: Lydia on September 30, 2002 03:58 PM

 

The idea of a dim red light for an "off" status makes sense to me, as long as it's in the same place as the bright green light. I've seen radios with this setup and it makes sense to me.

Chad Lundgren a Jakob Nielsen clone? Well, you do know I'm something like half Danish right? (My original name was Lundgreen, which was cleverly altered two generations back by dropping the e to make me look more Swedish.) It's the whole vast international Danish usability conspiracy, and I'm not talking pastries either, buddy.

Along other Nielsenesque lines, I'm going to do a bit of shameless self-promotion. I'm currently looking for work, having been laid off last Thursday. The cable modem post John linked to was posted the next day after said layoff, and this is indicative of my plan to keep the focus on usability on Zen Haiku.

Posted by: Chad Lundgren on October 1, 2002 12:21 AM

 

Aw, and here I was thinking you were related to Dolph Lundgren. ;)

Posted by: MadMan on October 1, 2002 06:22 AM

 

My old Usenet signature was "Chad 'No relation to Dolph' Lundgren" for quite some time. I don't think I'd mind so much except that his movies are inevitably cheesy, at least the ones I've sat through. It could be worse. My brother's name is Jeffrey. The googling is left as an exercise for the reader on that one.

Posted by: Chad Lundgren on October 1, 2002 02:27 PM