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Out of Control
The problem with most remote controls is that they have 40 buttons but only
10 are useful. The other 30 will get you into trouble if you don’t know what
you are doing.
Remote controls can be very intimidating. Early in my career I was referred
by stereo stores to install equipment that the store had sold. Often I would
find that the equipment didn’t match the customer, that it was much more
sophisticated than what was really needed. I would go to hand the customer
the remote and they were almost afraid to take it out of my hand.
I’ve seen many instructions that consisted of 80 words on How to Play a DVD.
A properly designed remote should need no instructions. I have designed remotes
that resemble a Palm Pilot® and are customized to the equipment and the
user. They can get pretty pricey – up to $2,000 or so – by the time the programming
is done. Recently, some remotes have come out that are a lot less money and
pretty easy to use. The instructions for these new remotes consist of the
words “ Press Play DVD.”
There are a lot of so-called “Universal Remotes” out there. The major
problem with Universal Remotes is that they are, universal. They have dozens
of buttons that don’t really do anything or worse yet, take you down some
dark road with no escape. If I only had a nickel for every person who
finally admitted, "Then I just started pressing all of the buttons…”
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