The Good Old Payphone
I was walking around town the other day on my way to a job interview when I caught site of this beauty. Oh yes, this has been around since well around the early ’90s as long as I can remember. I used them in school, since mobile phones were not around back then and these were cheaper even after mobile phones did appear. They were quite a few in the beginning, but after a while became quite frequent in our daily lives.
As you can see, they’ve fallen in the meantime, many to vandalism, most to trend. Thing is, it’s just not worth it to travel with a card in your pocket rather than a mobile phone. Well, onto the design bit. It’s a simple device with the soul purpose of making calls. So it should have a full keypad with # and * in case you need them, a card slot, and a display to show the number. It has a nice black receiver which feels a bit heavy but otherwise nice, a clearly visible card slot, and a nice big readable LCD display. We can check those off our list although I have some reservations on the LCD but it does its job well. The really strange bit though is the control pannel.
On the left we have a set of instructions. Very suggestive, very well balanced and quite understandable. First means pick up receiver and wait for tone, then insert card chip side up, and finally dial number. The odd bit however comes in the buttons. While there are the normal international phone buttons, there’s also a few that have me perplexed. We start with the triangle button which is pretty common sense for volume. But not as suggestive as one may like. Also, I have no idea how it works by looking at it. Does it go louder? Does it display a menu? And we know that users don’t like to guess so they don’t use it. Now onto the really strange ones: (more…)
Interface Design 101
I must first present myself. I call myself eydryan and I’m crazy about design. Meaning I like design but know nothing of it. So, here I am, presenting you with designs of, well, everything I get my hands on and judging them from a consumer point of view.
There will be photos and plenty of them, as I’m a passionate photographer, but don’t expect them all to be keepers. This is after all about the design and not jpg quality.
Nothing more to say other than enjoy and please comment to your heart’s desire.
