
Lessons from Seven Years of Research into Buttons - Hooke
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2019/02/04/five-lessons-about-pressing-buttons/#.XHBZQc9KjLZ
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wyldfire
I hope the book [1] is more interesting because this article struck me as
pretty plain.

> Yet as much as people have complained about buttons over the years, they
> remain stubbornly present – an entrenched part of the design and
> interactivity of smartphones, computers, garage door openers, car dashboards
> and videogame controllers.

They could only _possibly_ be replaced by something better, right? And the
owner of the button who is summoning functionality/food/gratification is
likely to be the one who evaluates the better-ness.

[1]
[https://books.google.com/books?id=5j9tDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PR5&ots=C...](https://books.google.com/books?id=5j9tDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PR5&ots=CbqNE3ux1z)

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m463
This article appears to be anti-button.

Personally, I think the craze of removing buttons has gone too far in recent
years. What comes to mind are the iphone or tesla model 3.

I think having buttons for critical or common functions is actually a great
idea. I'm talking about well-designed buttons, differentiated by texture,
shape, size and location, not rows and columns of undifferentiated buttons.

That said, buttons aren't the only solution. A knob is probably the best way
to quickly and accurately change volume in a moving vehicle.

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jorgesborges
I rented a car that had no physical buttons. It was frustrating to change
stations or adjust the volume because there was no tactile indication that I
pressed anything correctly. I'm accustomed to hearing a click, or feeling a
press and release. It left me wondering if younger generations will have that
issue: is it just bad design, or is it too unfamiliar to me.

~~~
duxup
I wish my phone and many things had more physical buttons, even if just
customizable buttons for frequent tasks.

~~~
frosted-flakes
My phone has a convenience key on the side, and I love it (I have a BlackBerry
KeyOne). I just wish it had another one so I could set it to do more things.
Here's what I use it for:

\- single press: play/pause

\- long press: toggle rotation lock

\- conv. key + volume down: toggle flashlight

\- volume down + conv. key: toggle night mode

I can turn the flashlight on in a jiffy, without having to touch the screen,
even while wearing gloves, which is super handy. I can also pause my audiobook
while driving without having to muck around with the screen.

~~~
c22
I also have a phone with an auxiliary button and even though there are many
many things that I don't like about it (for instance it only gets 2g data) I
am loathe to replace it almost exclusively because of this feature. I have it
set to turn on the flashlight with a 1 second press and I probably do that
more times in a day than I talk on the phone.

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userbinator
The only lesson I wish new UX designers would learn about buttons is to make
them _actually look like buttons_. Don't make me wonder if a flat borderless
vague icon is actually a button or not.

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SubiculumCode
To adjust my fan without air conditioning in my car, I have to 1)Press a
Display. 2) Press OK on the display warning me about the dangers of pressing
buttons while drving. 3)Press AC display button. 4) Turn off AC display
button. 5) Turn up fan by pressing display button.

I was able to do that in my old car in a second or two with physical buttons.

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horsawlarway
What am I even reading here...

This has nothing to do with buttons other than that the author randomly brings
them up every now and then in a manner that doesn't logically follow.

>1\. Buttons Aren’t Actually Easy to Use

With the example being a cockpit in a plan with the line "It takes a lot of
training to know what all those buttons are for. (Credit: U.S. Air Force/Kelly
White)"

This is drivel.

>Yet as much as people have complained about buttons over the years, they
remain stubbornly present – an entrenched part of the design and interactivity
of smartphones, computers, garage door openers, car dashboards and videogame
controllers.

Because they work. Honestly, I actually want my physical buttons back on
things like - my phone, my kindle, my car.

But no, please continue to deride the button for tangentially related
issues...

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coldtea
> _Yet in many contexts, both past and present, buttons are anything but easy.
> Have you ever stood in an elevator pushing the close-door button over and
> over, hoping and wondering if the door will ever shut? The same quandary
> presents itself at every crosswalk button._

Both of these problems are irrelevant to whether we use buttons or not, and
don't prove buttons are "hard to use".

Just that we sometimes connect buttons that either don't do anything (elevator
open/close door buttons wired to nothing, meant to give users a fake sense of
control), or do it after a delay.

If the delay for crosswalk buttons was presented on a small timer above the
button, there would be nothing "mysterious" about the whole operation but the
control would still be a button.

If those, i.e nothing concrete and all badly formulated, are the "Five Lessons
From Seven Years of Research Into Buttons" the authors got, then I pity those
who funded the research.

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yarrel
That's barely a promo listicle.

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ykevinator
This is scatter brained

