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Usability fail: car radio volume control

For some reason, it’s easier to write about what bothers you or what you would call a fail, than it is to write about wins! I’ve decided to look out for what delights me in the real world, but until then wink, here’s what I found frustrating the other day.

My girlfriend was driving the car and I wanted to put the radio volume up. After 30 years of crancking up the volume, my mind got tricked into thinking I just needed to look for a round centrally located knob. That’s the volume-crancking-button on any other device right?

Not on this radio it wasn’t. Instead, you will be changing the GPS destination or even radio station, depending on what preset the device is set at that point.

Usability Fail

The volume control appeared to be a push button on the left side of the radio, no biggy if it wasn’t for that nice shiny attention-grabbing round knob in the central of the radio console.
If you have other real life examples of how the usability of things could be improved let me know or blog about them, I’d love to see them.

My next post will hopefully feature a usability or customer service win, unlike that last fail.

About the author

Hi there! I'm a freelancer who can help you build a great application or website - yes, also for mobile devices. If you speak Dutch, check out my eBooks.

Hire me, whether it's to help you build your next project or to organize a workshop. I teach about web design + development in college and I'd be happy to put a workshop together for you.