gdanmitchell wrote:
Your points about the Fuji have been made by others. Some absolutely love the form factor, the single focal length lens, the external controls... but there have been widespread acknowledgements that the menu system isn\'t so swell. (This is the sort of thing that I was alluding to when I made my comment in the previous paragraph about how these cameras will evolve.)
melcat replied:
Good user interfaces don\'t \"evolve\"...
Oh, they sure as heck do! Of course, as you point out, they begin by being designed, but I\'m unable to think of an interface that is presently highly regarded that remained stuck in its initial form, and I can think of quite a few that evolved substantially over time.
If you know much about technology design, you are undoubtedly aware that initial design is often heavily affected by what engineers know how to do and believe that will work, tempered to a greater or lesser degree by user testing and so forth. And you also know that it isn\'t until the device/system gets out into the world and is used by end users that it faces the true test, at which point designers respond and modify and improve it. Menus are improved, knobs moved, switches added or eliminated, ergonomics changed, capabilities added or taken away.
My point regarding the interface to the control systems of digital cameras - which was the point I was responding to relative to the Fuji camera - is essentially that designers have not yet figured out the most effective ways to provide access to control of features on these cameras. While we are getting better at understanding this for small p&s cameras (but they are still not easy for users to figure out beyond the obvious controls) and getting better with DSLRs (but dig down in the menu structure to find some specific feature sometime...), it is not at all obvious yet how to create \"the right\" interface on a camera that is small, simple in some ways, complex in others, and meant to work for both sophisticated and relatively unsophisticated users.
The interfaces for these cameras will most certainly continue to evolve and improve.
Dan
Jan 20, 2012 at 09:16 AM
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