The UX in the Ubiquitous

Good evening, friends and fellow design fiends!

This week, we'll be UXploring a common household item all of us have experience with: the remote control. Which of my clickers has a user-based design that reigns supreme?

The Good: Roku

Photo of a highlighter yellow roku remote

In full disclosure, this is not the Roku remote that came with my device. It was purchased after I lost the first Roku remote, which was even more user-friendly. However, Roku does elegant simplicity very well, and this replacement remote is no exception. The buttons have multiple functions, depending on the app one is using within Roku, but because there are so few buttons to begin with, this is not a source of excessive frustration. This remote is not perfect: do I really need one-click access to six apps? No. In fact, I only hold subscriptions to two of the featured apps. However, if I did need them, I would still find the remote easy to use, as each button is clearly labeled. Did I need a wrist strap for my remote? No, but it served as a great toy when I adopted two kittens. Do I need it to be highlighter yellow? No, but I also haven't lost it (which is impressive, for me). All in all, it is well-designed with the user in mind.

Needs Improvement: Vizio

We all know the struggle: You're staying at a friend's house, and they say, "Feel free to put on anything you want!" So you grab the remote to find a channel showing Mystery Science Theater 3000, and you're suddenly faced with.....this:

a photograph of a remote with multitudinous buttons


womanscreaming.mp3

In defense of Vizio, this is horrifyingly common. The only TVs I have ever seen that did not have a complicated remote were by TCL: in partnership with Roku.

a gif of a man with an "i told you so" face

But I digress. To start with: there are so many buttons. So many. There are numbers that are completely unnecessary. There's an up and down button, but there are also separate volume and channel buttons,  so what are the up and down buttons for? Then there are buttons with ambiguous labels. How is "menu" different from "guide"? What is "pic"? What is the button to "pic"'s left? It isn't a universal remote, so what are the "play", "rewind", "stop" (etc.) buttons for? Additionally, this remote also has shortcut keys I will never use, but it's slightly more aggravating because this remote is covered in buttons. They couldn't add one more for Amazon?

Hey, Vizio? Everyone else? I'm just a simple girl who likes simple remotes, okay. Please consider my easily-confused needs in your designs.

Thanks for joining me this week on UXploration! What did you UXplore this week? Do you like complicated remotes? Do you still use the number buttons? Let me know in the comments, and keep UXploring! See you next week.

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