Robert Fisher

Herein I rant about the usability of various things.

Automatic transmission selector

There are two positions on most automatic transmission selector levers than can be selected without looking at the lever: The top & the bottom.

Typical choices are: park, reverse, neutral, drive, & low. When selecting reverse or drive; I want to be looking out of the car in the direction I am about to move. When selecting park or neutral, I am stopped & free to look at the selector. (I almost never use low.)

So the two heads-up positions on the selector should obviously go to reverse & drive. Yet—nigh universally—park is at the top & low at the bottom.

Actual braindead ordering	Obviously correct ordering
P	D
R	L
N	N
D	P
L	R

Digital alarm clocks

How hard is it to include a 10-ten so that I can actually type the current or alarm times rather than having to input 3–4 digits with a single button? I have remotes a fraction the size of my alarm clock with 30 or more buttons. Some of them even hide half of them under a panel—which would be a good aesthetic choice for an alarm clock. At least my current clock has a whopping two buttons so that I can—wonder of wonders—go backwards rather than having to go all the way around.

I should not have to keep a mental model of my alarm clock's internal state—especially when I'm half asleep. How hard is it to add an indicator for such things as: Alarm 1 snoozed.

last updated 1 year ago #