Apple and its wunderkin CEO Steve Jobs are well known for the, sometimes ridiculous, extend to which they go to control every aspect of their products and the user experience. Of course this is one of the major reasons that Apple has been so successful. Their operating system is stable because it is optimised for the hardware on which it runs, the iPod and iPhone are great to use because of the standards Apple puts in place to control the apps that run on them.
But when does control of the design cross the line? When is dictating how the user must interact and experience the product too much? how far is too far?
I was recently talking with a fellow blogger about her brand spanking new, and very shiny, MacBook Pro. She loves it, expect for one rather annoying feature. The caps lock button. The caps lock button is a standard feature that has been on computers for decades. When you first think about the caps lock button you really have to think hard about how you could get innovative with it.
If you can’t think a of a way, fret not. Apple found a way in 2007. In their new lines of portable computers you must actually hold down the caps lock key for several seconds to kick it into action. Or in Apple’s own words “The Caps Lock function has been modified to reduce accidental activation. The key must now be held down slightly longer in order to activate the Caps Lock function.”
Now this in itself isn’t a bad thing. This is a pretty handy feature if you are an inexperienced or just plain clumsy touch-typer (like me). How many times a day do you accidentally knock the caps lock key while typing? I know I manage it once or twice, especially when tired.
However it turns out that there is a group of people who use the caps lock key like the shift key. While typing they will quickly tap it on and off repeatedly when they need a capital letter. On the new Apple laptops this of course causes issues for this group of users, as suddenly their typing flow is interrupted by having to hold the caps lock for several seconds (I know I get frustrated when my typing flow is interrupted).
The feature itself would of course not be a problem for this group of users, expect of course for one small detail. Apple has decided that if you don’t use the caps lock key like they say you should, then too bad. There isn’t even a little feature in the preferences to turn this function off. How much harder would it be for Apple to write a couple more lines of code to make this happen?
Of course someone did come up with a way too turn off this function. It involves having to search the net (apparently the deepest darkest parts) for a hack written by some japanese computer geek.
Should the designer control even the most minute details of a design and the experience or should we as designers leave somethings alone or up to the user to decide? Should designers give more control over to users?
{ 1 trackback }
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Simple solution. Go into keyboard/mouse preferences and turn off the shift key.