Found an old receipt from 2009 and it solved a UX mystery

Cleaning out my desk last weekend and found a Best Buy receipt from 2009 for a digital camera. The thing had 40 buttons on it. Menus buried 5 levels deep. I remember needing the manual every single time I changed the ISO. Now my phone has one button and everything just works. But here's the thing, that old camera taught me to read the manual. With my phone, I don't even know half the settings exist. Is there a middle ground? Has anyone else noticed we traded learnability for simplicity and might have lost something there?

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terry_hayes186d ago

Blame my old calculator watch for this one, it had 12 buttons and I still dont know what half of them do. Phones just hid all the confusion behind a screen that makes me feel dumb in a new way. Guess we swapped reading manuals for watching YouTube tutorials, some progress right?