Hi tim I fully sympathise, but I suspect the reason is that with everything covered by smooth plastic there is less to get gunged up and go wrong and its probably easier to give a touch screen a wipe down. But I doubt many of the things which have touch screens will survive long enough for that to be really significant. Ed -----Original Message----- From: vicsireland-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:vicsireland-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Tim Culhane Sent: 11 July 2007 09:37 To: vicsireland@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [vicsireland] What's so wrong with buttons? Hi, *** warning this is a major rant, so if you're not in the mood then delete this now *** I was told in the gym I go to last week that they were getting new threadmills this week. Sure enough, when I arrived in last night, there they were. I had made a private bet with myself that these new machines would be the type that use touch sensitive controls, rather than good old fashioned buttons. And guess what, I've had to pay out to myself! The control pannel on the machines is a featureless mass of smooth plastic. Even if your fingers had the sensitivity of an exposed root canal treatment, I doubt they would be able to detect the buttons on the machine. I just can't understand what designers of these devices have against buttons. Ironically the only button on the machine is the stop button, which is a huge plastic affair which you could probably press with your elbow, let alone your finger. It seems that more and more these days buttons are just not the in thing. For example, Apple's new IPhone has a touch sensitive screen rather than the traditional phone keypad. The machines which were slated for use in electronic voting had touch sensitive controls and now even the damn threadmills can survive without a button in sight .... Or even touch. Where will it all end? Even now somewhere I bet they are designing shirts which have coloured dots on the material which you line up in order to "button" up your shirt. The fire alarms will have a helpful notice beside them saying brake glass and move your finger gently over the green circle below. I'll be there, flames licking around my legs, trying to find the green circle. Oh for the days of nice clearly discernable buttons. The nice big square plastic ones, or those funny shaped squishy rubber ones. I even had a remote control once where the buttons were actually in the shape of the print numerals! Its not even that the threadmill control pannel is particularly small or the display screen needs to be particularly big. I reckon you could fit a decent size piano keyboard on to the control pannel. So I have to assume that the only reason these machines are designed in this way is to make them look "fancy". Just another example of design for nobody except those with a pathelogical hatred of buttons. Anyway, I'll finish up now, but if I ever meet one of these anti button designers, I'll personally burn their eyes out with a red hot poker and then make them use there "fancy" new machines. Tim ------------------------- Tim Culhane, Critical Path Ireland, 42-47 Lower Mount Street, Dublin 2. Direct line: 353-1-2415107 phone: 353-1-2415000 Tim.culhane@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.criticalpath.net Critical Path a global leader in digital communications ------------------------ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.476 / Virus Database: 269.10.2/894 - Release Date: 10/07/2007 17:44 No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.476 / Virus Database: 269.10.2/894 - Release Date: 10/07/2007 17:44