iPod Interface with Honda Fit Radio

Overall, I'm pretty happy with my Honda Fit Sport. I bought last year because I needed more room for camping and biking gear than my MINI Cooper S could provide (which was a wonderful car as well, just small (hence the name)).

I didn't exactly do a full test run of the entertainment system when I bought it. I was happy that it had an in-glovebox iPod/USB connection and that was good enough for me. Now that I've had time to use it, I have a few comments to make.

Here's a shot of the console. Overall, the controls are easy to access and big enough that I only have to glance over briefly when I reach up to change a song or station.


One thing I didn't notice at all but I think should have stood out to me was that there is no Pause/Stop (or even Mute) button. I have to hit the tiny power button up the upper left hand side of the console in order to turn the music off. There have been several times when I've wanted to silence the radio quickly but had to fumble around, 1) to remember that there's no Pause and 2) to look for the tiny button. It's been a bit frustrating.

You'll notice that this is not only a radio, and as I have told you, a USB music player, it's also a CD player, so many of the controls are overloaded to support all three of these modes. It's done pretty cleanly, I feel, other than that nagging problem with the lack of a Pause button, which is standard with CD and digital music players.

There's a little bit of dissonance with the iconic representation of the controls on the center volume wheel. Left and right Seek are obvious and traditional, but the Play button is on the bottom, and then there's a down facing triangle:


Which, as it turns out, is a down arrow that matches the up arrow next to a return/back icon:


As silly as this sounds, when I first saw the down triangle, I thought it was a misprint of the the normal right pointing arrow that usually represents play, and I had no idea what the up facing triangle and arrow u-turn icon meant.

So, other than the lack of Pause/Stop/Mute, I'm pretty happy with the radio interface. It's the USB interface, specifically as it applies to the iPod that I have a few extra issues with.

In this day and age, iPod owners almost inevitably have a large collection of music on their devices (I have a mere 1700+ songs on mine). I have about a dozen play lists on this particular device and I like to bounce around between playlists, artists and songs.

The Fit's console doesn't make this easy; the iPod features are accessed through the center Vol/Push/Select button:

A ring around the button serves as both the volume control and the scroll wheel. Pushing the button brings up a series of options that you normally see on the iPod (Playlist/Songs/Artists) and then pushing again on the selection delves deeper into the menu structure.


The big problem comes when there is a very large list to run through (say 1700+ songs):


Problems:
1) The enumeration is only two digits long. It goes from 00 to 99, then resets every hundred items. So, other than when the order happens to be alphabetical (and it isn't always), the user can't be sure of where he is in the song list. Halfway? Near the end?

2) One of my favorite bands is '30 Seconds to Mars'. The '30' means the band is alphabetized all the way at the bottom. In a short-ish list of 150 bands, I have to scroll nearly to the bottom to get to them. This is a huge problem when I'm driving, as you might imagine, and I don't like doing it -- even parked, it's a big pain. The scroll wheel is easy to use, but it's not fast and it doesn't have a fast forward mode on it. I have to continually roll it 360 degrees in short bursts to go down.

And there's no way to go from the top of the list to to bottom. That is, if my first band is say, Ah-Ha, I can't "scroll backwards" and get to 30 Seconds to Mars instantly (not that helps in anyway with the bands who are half way down the list from other direction).

On the iPod itself, Apple overcomes this problem in one of two ways: 1) allow for rapid flick scrolling (where the user perpetuates the scroll by continuing to flick the screen in single direction); it's still slow for long lists, but because it works by paging, the user can still find an artist fairly rapidly. 2) Selection by alphabetic hash: By popping up the alphabetic scroll bar, the user can get very close to anywhere in the list by going to the first letter of the band that is of interest. Even in a 26,000+ long list, it's easy to get to at least within a 1000 artists almost instantly.

3) When I have the system set to Random playback and then search through a Playlist, my only option is to play the first song in the list, then hit the right seek button to actually engage the random mode. That is, simply selecting a Playlist isn't good enough; I have to select the starting song as well, which isn't very random (and per point 2, even if I knew what song I wanted, it may take a bit of effort to get to).

There are a few other little hassles that get to me on occasion, but not so badly that I can remember them right now, so I guess they're all right.

I'll be trying to review more radio consoles as I get access to them. I already know that the Honda Pilot (with the navigation system) really is a pain to use, so that may be next.

The world around us

We interface with our homes as well as the web (in case you forgot). Here's a case in my own home, which frustrates me on occasion:


It's hard to tell exactly what this is, but it's a hallway closet door opening right into the hallway light. The architect/construction folks seemed to think it was a all right for the door to only open to 90 degrees from closed and smack into the light if there was any attempt to open it further. Every time I open the door, I cringe when I hear the door bang against the light. If I happen to not be paying too much attention and open the door quickly, I'm sure I'm going to break the lamp.

The hallway ceiling is very low, that's part of the problem. One solution would have been to install a canister light instead (and there is plenty of room above the ceiling for it; I checked).

What this article is really about is not necessarily that construction workers and architects are unthoughtful, but that there are multiple challenges that need to be overcome on large projects.

1) It's hard to see what the finally product will really look like until it's done. And in the case of an apartment, once the frame is up, things start to roll pretty quickly and small details like the placement of a lamp are often missed.
2) Cost is a factor. I might guess that someone actually pointed out the problem, but too late. By then, the lamp had already been purchased and taking it back and buying a new one was not in the schedule or budget.
3) Levels of indirection. Maybe the architect really did plan for a canister light or some other better solution (though considering the age and nature of the complex I'm in, I doubt it. Lowest possible bidder won out here). But the plans went through several hands and decisions where made. And in the end, construction workers really don't care about design; they just build according to what they're told or what the quickest, cheapest way it can get done

(side note: I'm really generalizing on construction contractors, I know. But I've met plenty of them and had work done by such folks and it's a rare few that actually think in terms of design and usability. And I treasure those contractors when I find them.)

The point is, usability and user interfaces exist more than on just the web or in a computer.

Resaurant Websites

I think this says it all:

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/restaurant_website

Password Confusion

This is a classic issue I see in many places on the Web. These particular shots are from the Turbo Tax website.

The problem is obvious. The user types in a password that they're happy with, hit enter, and boom! they get a messaging telling them "Oops. We know you can do better than that."

This site gives the user a double whammy. First it says the password is too short; then, if the user doesn't guess correctly, tells him or her that a symbol is needed. Sure, the user could click on password tips... but why the extra click? All of this could of course have been obviated by simply telling the user up front what the password conditions are. On the Turbo Tax page, there is plenty of space to put the tips in plain view (and at least Turbo Tax offered the tips; I've encountered some sites that don't even give their user that courtesy).

Get the arrows right!

Simple and obvious, from Citrix's job search website. The Previous arrow is pointing the same direction as the Next arrow. And -- as a side note -- the Preview button has an arrow, which begs the question, does it need one?

This violates the concept of Convention. Traditionally, in a left-to-right reading culture, a left arrow means to return or go back ("Previous") and a right arrow implies going forward ("Next").

Since the Preview button launches a new page (or updates the current page with a new format of the recently input data), there is no particular direction to apply, so no need for an arrow.

How to ruin a perfectly good sentence

In this gem, the author uses 'u' instead of 'you' in the middle of a sentence (which he has since corrected in some versions of this article) .

I've never been a big fan of using the 'txtspk' shortcuts in any sort of document or article. It looks unprofessional, and in the case of this article snippet, it shows a generally inconsistency. Most of the time, the author uses a proper 'you', but slips up once. Bad form.

Side note: txtspk shortcuts are great when there is actually a limitation on the number of characters you can type, but not when you have a full keyboard and unlimited space. There's a time and place for that sort of thing, but it's not here.

A pop up calendar in the wrong place, but right time at least.

This is from a credit union site. It presents you with transactions for the current month and allows you to look back at the past history of transactions. However, when you click on the calendar icon, it opens another small window -- well away from where your mouse pointer is located. For me, this violates a couple of different design patterns:

• Fitt's Law -- you're given a small target far away from the initial location.
• Least Surprise -- it's a bit of shock to suddenly see another window open outside of the main window. What's it for? A spam ad?

There's a discordant association with the main window and the sub-window. What if you don't notice it? Then what?

A more viable solution would have been to connect the calendar icon with a menu drop, instead, that would let the user immediately understand the association between clicking on the icon and the results, as well as immediately knowing that clicking on the resulting small calendar would create the expected results. It would also prevent the user from having to move his or her mouse outside the scope of focus.