Use-ability (an open letter to interface designers)

[Mark Sottilaro <sine@zerocrossing.net>]

Hello gang.

I've been crazy busy lately and have been lurking, but not much else.
Including playing music.  Things have finally calmed down for me, and I
decided to kick off my return to looping with a good old fashion sugar
cube and a room full of guitars, synths computers and my trusty JamMan.

I called this event Burning Mark, and it was a great success.

However, there were a few snags.  Most based on user interface issues.
First, my bass (a steinberger) was giving me no output.  Could I have
been so stupid as to not make sure the preamp battery was good?  Yes I
could.  Damn, a dead battery.  And in my state I had to remove 6 tiny
screws to get to that little nine volt.  What the hell?   Who the hell
designed that little feature? (btw: I LOVE the bass other than that)
Even in my total right mind if I were at a gig and the bass died, this
would have been far more than reasonable for a timely return to the
performance.

Later, my Alesis S4 plus no longer seemed to be receiving MIDI commands
from my MIDI guitar.  What the hell?  It was working fine a moment...
Oh.  That's it.  They put the MIDI channel change button right next to
the program change button.  Same size and look for each button.  D'oh!

So where am I going with this?  Here:  PLEASE DESIGN YOUR GEAR WITH ONE
THING IN MIND: THE USER WILL MOST LIKELY BE USING YOUR PRODUCT UNDER THE
INFLUENCE OF DRUGS OR HEAVY STRESS AND A CONFUSING Environment.

Now, I'm not recommending LSD for my patients who chew gum, but it does
give a good benchmark for usability.  I've been dealing with electronic
music since the late 70s and worked in a music shop for a lot of those
years.  Even learned myself how to program a DX7.  How about that?  I'm
pretty damn good at figuring out how to use gear without a manual (as
many used pieces come into a music store), so if it's hard for me, how
must it be for a not to tech savvy musician?  Here me KORG and Roland!
I've had just about enough out of you!  Same hold true for software.  I
thought that Cubase was so cool at first, but I've switched back to
Metro, because it isn't a slave to the "virtual studio" interface and is
more useable because of this.  Let's stop adding useless features like a
billion presets, and let's just make things easier to use.

OK, I'm done now.  Bye bye.

Marklar