Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Really nice user interface

I just got a new dock station for my T60 at work. I must say it works so great... Here's an example:

when I want to undock my laptop, I need to:
- push the small button on the dock until something shows up on my screen
- insert my key and rotate so that the little red lock light is off
- wait until the green arrow light is on
- push the big pop up button.

Wow, four steps are required, and you will have to pay close attention to the screen and those little lights. Notice that if you forget to push the small button but do put in your key, the green arrow light will still be on but you are not able to push the popup button...

I wish I could get my mini-dock back from school.. There is only one button for undocking and one power indicator. And of course only one button pushing is needed for undocking.

This really shows us the principle of user interface design: less is more.. and more is less...