![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.theusRus.de\/Blog-files\/Hozelock.png\" "\\"WYSIWYG")
<\/p>\nProgramming a VCR was the classical example of failed user interfaces. Given that the only thing that we need to specify for recording a show on a VCR is the starting date and time as well as the running time, it is hard to believe that it is really that hard.<\/p>\n
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As summer finally seems to be over now, I found myself switching off the automatic water timer, which helped growing tomatoes and zucchinis to unprecedented size and yield.<\/p>\n
Looking at the tool, I was once again surprised, how simple and effective the interface is, which the manufacturer choose to program this watering computer.<\/p>\n
Instead of letting the user wander through menus on a (too) tiny LCD screen, there is only one central dial, which can set<\/p>\n
For each function, there is a button to confirm the setting, and you are done. A simple color coding tells you which scale belongs to which function\/button.
\nYou are thus not able to set the watering to 5 times a day for 8 minutes each – but watering every 6 hours for 10 minutes will dispose the same amount of water.<\/p>\n
I chose a similar approach of limited but explicit choice for selecting bin width and anchor point of histograms in Mondrian<\/a>. Instead of giving the user the (apparent) freedom of choice, Mondrian prompts the most common values one would choose for data on that scale – and in the vast majority of all cases the desired bin parameters can be choosen directly from the menu.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.theusRus.de\/Blog-files\/HistoBin.png\" "\\"Choosing")
In cases where some odd value needs to be specified, the “Value\u2026” option does the job – and, btw, doing it interactively is of course even nicer …<\/p>\n