# Once again, E* breaks more than it fixes (721)



## TomCat (Aug 31, 2002)

Nigaplease!

The new search module. Is it more functional now? In a few cases, yes, but in most cases, emphatically NO!

Let's say I love Jerry Seinfeld and everything about him. I don't, but bear with me. If I search by "title" for "Seinfeld", I will get every episode of the TV show, "Seinfeld". If Jerry pops up on Letterman, it will be missed. If I search by "info" instead, the Letterman appearance pops up, but unless JS is mentioned in the show description (sometimes stars are mentioned, sometimes not), no eps will be found. That, to me, is a BIG problem.

What should have been retained by DISH is the original option, search by both info and title, which was how it used to work before they dicked with it. Typical. These guys always seem to shoot from the hip...never really thinking anything through beforehand. This globally accepted numbnuts thinking within E* is getting old. Please stop removing functionality in the name of improving it!

Now when I search, if I really want to find every reference to a particular item, I have to search twice...once in one mode and once in another. This sucks....out loud.

So, I hearby request that a "both" (info and title) option be added/restored to the 721 search function, and also that they start "measuring twice" so they only have to "cut once". Please.


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## mainedish (Mar 25, 2003)

Friends don't let friends buy Dish Network


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## MattS (Apr 5, 2004)

Are you so lazy that you cannot move your thumb a few more times for an extra 60 seconds to accomplish this feat?


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## Allen Noland (Apr 23, 2002)

Wow, the 721 has a search feature?


Oh, I knew that. 

Like they say, you can please some of the people some of the time, but you cannot please everyone all the time.

Change your example to "Friends" and you might want the 'new way'. Maybe they they will add the option to search both sometime. 

Someone will compain about that too.


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## Mike Russell (Feb 6, 2003)

I liked it the way it was before also. I can live with it like this though.


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## DaveF (Mar 17, 2003)

Speaking of wishlists, I would like the ability to "search" for a channel name and have all the programs on that channel displayed in a single, long list. The old dishplayer (7200) used to do this (they removed that functionality in the last software upgrade) and I found it very useful. This is an easy way to find new programs that I might have an interest in.


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## dbronstein (Oct 21, 2002)

They already have this feature, it's called the guide. You just go to the channel you want and all the programs are in a single, long list. It's just horizontal.


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## DaveF (Mar 17, 2003)

dbronstein said:


> They already have this feature, it's called the guide. You just go to the channel you want and all the programs are in a single, long list. It's just horizontal.


OK wiseguy!  Have you ever tried to scroll through a weeks worth of shows in the guide? Talk about carpal tunnel syndrome. On the old dishplayer, I could go through a weeks worth of shows in a matter of minutes. And that is what these devices are all about - saving time.


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## maddawg (Jan 25, 2003)

Damn, folks whine about the most inconsequential stuff.


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## kwajr (Apr 7, 2004)

DaveF said:


> OK wiseguy!  Have you ever tried to scroll through a weeks worth of shows in the guide? Talk about carpal tunnel syndrome. On the old dishplayer, I could go through a weeks worth of shows in a matter of minutes. And that is what these devices are all about - saving time.


SKIP AHEAd AND BACK WILL GO 24HRS


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## garypen (Feb 1, 2004)

Tomcat makes a valid point, and has a legitimate complaint. It _IS_ much more efficient and convenient to search by title AND description at the same time, and not have to do it twice. Why would anyone argue the point?
Dish made a mistake by changing it. Hopefully they'll change it back. (Of course, trying to figure out WHY they would make this change is a whole other story.)


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## TomCat (Aug 31, 2002)

MattS said:


> Are you so lazy that you cannot move your thumb a few more times for an extra 60 seconds to accomplish this feat?


Guilty as charged. I am lazy. But that is beside the point. What I really am is busy...too busy to do something twice when once used to suffice, and I really resent having functionality removed from my PVR after the fact. Besides, I search with a keyboard, where I can use all 10 thumbs. 

Its like now that we've improved things without asking you, you can either drive to the store and get bread or drive to the store and get milk, or drive to the store after you drive to the store to get bread and get the milk on a separate trip, but you can't drive to the store and buy both milk and bread on the same trip. Ridiculous. How would YOU feel if the checkout line became 1 item only?

My point is that E* regularly shoots itself in the foot in the name of progress because they aren't smart enough to get it right the first time. And this example is living proof of that.


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## Unthinkable (Sep 13, 2002)

TomCat said:


> My point is that E* regularly shoots itself in the foot in the name of progress because they aren't smart enough to get it right the first time. And this example is living proof of that.


 If this is the worst possible thing that has resulted from the latest software rev we're in pretty good shape.


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## dbronstein (Oct 21, 2002)

TomCat said:


> Its like now that we've improved things without asking you, you can either drive to the store and get bread or drive to the store and get milk, or drive to the store after you drive to the store to get bread and get the milk on a separate trip, but you can't drive to the store and buy both milk and bread on the same trip. Ridiculous. How would YOU feel if the checkout line became 1 item only?


I prefer the new search because I only search by title, I don't think I've ever wanted to search by description. So to use the milk/bread analogy:

The way it was before, you had to buy both milk and bread every time you went to the store. You couldn't buy just milk or just bread. Since I don't eat bread, I was being forced to buy something I didn't want in order to get the item that I did want. Now I can buy just milk.


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## garypen (Feb 1, 2004)

dbronstein said:


> I prefer the new search because I only search by title, I don't think I've ever wanted to search by description. So to use the milk/bread analogy:
> 
> The way it was before, you had to buy both milk and bread every time you went to the store. You couldn't buy just milk or just bread. Since I don't eat bread, I was being forced to buy something I didn't want in order to get the item that I did want. Now I can buy just milk.


I thought that previously, they had the option of title alone or title and description. Is that not correct? I believe I have that choice on my 510, but I could be wrong. (Maybe I'm confusing it with Ebay's search options.)

BTW, it is much more inconvenient to have to do _two separate searches_, as Tomcat needs to do now, than it is to enter the search phrase into a title and description search, and possibly having to wade through additional results of _one search, _as you had to do previously_._


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## TomCat (Aug 31, 2002)

dbronstein said:


> I prefer the new search because I only search by title, I don't think I've ever wanted to search by description...


For a particular user, that is perfectly OK, and congratulations...you now think just like an E* programmer . But for most of us its easier to search for both simultaneously and then simply ignore found items that don't apply. Thanks to the brain trust at E*, we can no longer do that.

There are a few instances where a narrower search would be helpful, such as those that return all 200 PPV showings of "Men In Black" when "Tommy Lee Jones" is entered. So far, nothing they've added will prevent that.

The real problem here is that to ergonomically design something properly, you have to anticipate the needs of the entire universe of users, and tend to all of them as best you can without pissing all over a good portion of them. There is an implied inherent responsibility there, and to ignore that by reducing functionality (in the name of improving it) in a system that thousands of us have already paid for is both irresponsible and arrogant, which are the first two terms that come to mind when describing E* programmers...just before "barely competent".


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

TomCat said:


> For a particular user, that is perfectly OK, and congratulations...you now think just like an E* programmer . But for most of us its easier to search for both simultaneously and then simply ignore found items that don't apply. Thanks to the brain trust at E*, we can no longer do that.
> 
> There are a few instances where a narrower search would be helpful, such as those that return all 200 PPV showings of "Men In Black" when "Tommy Lee Jones" is entered. So far, nothing they've added will prevent that.
> 
> The real problem here is that to ergonomically design something properly, you have to anticipate the needs of the entire universe of users, and tend to all of them as best you can without pissing all over a good portion of them. There is an implied inherent responsibility there, and to ignore that by reducing functionality (in the name of improving it) in a system that thousands of us have already paid for is both irresponsible and arrogant, which are the first two terms that come to mind when describing E* programmers...just before "barely competent".


First off, You might want to consider drinking a little less coffee.  I hope you are not using windows, becuase this happens a lot where they might change how things work. Happens on UIs all the time.

Now to address the comment of "Most of us...", I am not sure you can make that statment blindly and actually expect some of us to believe it. I would agree that you found this feature useful in the current mechansim, but others may not have and there actually might be reason as in improving search times. I am not aware of any usability study on this issue. I would agree that having all three options makes sense in this case.

What I take exception to is that rant, yes you have an legitimate grip but in the overall sense of usability we are talking about a ant hill. You think they would have removed the EPG and replaced it with a huge clock to set the timers. 

Actually ergonomics is different, what you are talking about is usability and human factors. I believe the 508 works the way they changed it and there might be reasons for this change. I don't work for Dish so I dont' know what they might be. Maybe they were getting a lot of complaints for the time it took to do a search so they broke it down into two with the title being quick. Proving a third option to cover the existing base would have been a good idea but might not have been possible without a lot of work and this is where judgement calls come in.

Being a software developer these calls are made all the time and sometimes you have to leave a feature behind for various reasons. You are true they might have left it out because they felt the other way was better. Who knows, but in the overall scheme of things I would consider your rant a little over the top.

Oh... I would suggest writing to dish and letting them know officially that you would like them to add this feature back in. I would also suggest that the request have a lighter tone to it. Your choice but someone yelling at someone usually get less of a respons than a polite email indicating what they removed and why you felt it was a great feature.


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## garypen (Feb 1, 2004)

WeeJavaDude said:


> I am not aware of any usability study on this issue. I would agree that having all three options makes sense in this case.


Yup. Three choices would be best:
By Title.
By Description.
By Title AND Description.

If they were only able to offer two, these should be it:
By Title
By Title AND Description

I'd bet a dollar that "title and description" would be the most used of the three. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure that one out.


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## djlong (Jul 8, 2002)

I'm a fan of the Montreal Expos. On my Dishplayer, I can search for Montreal and it will search the title AND description. That way, if the ESPN game features the Expos, it catches it since it's in the description. If the ESPNA game features the Expos, it catches it since it's in the title. Don't ask me why they list it one way on ESPN & ESPN2 and another way on the Alternate channels.


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## Inaba (Jun 20, 2003)

What kind of crack are you guys smoking? Sheesh...

First, I agree with Tomcat that effectively disabling that feature is not very well thought out. While I never search on the description, so I like the new search only by title feature, the fact is, it was a stupid move. In fact, splitting up the searches into two different search mechanisms smacks of raw stupidity.

Being a programmer myself, I can't imagine the thought process that happened here to come up with the solution they did.

The first thing that would have popped into my mind when redesigning the UI for the search was to add two check boxes. One labled "Title" and one labled "Description"

Depending on what the user wanted to search on, the user checks one or BOTH of the check boxes... and then the search proceeds to search the appropriate text space according to the check boxes.

THAT would be much more ergonomic, take up less visual space, and satisfy everyone as far as these particular features go.

Adding extra stuff in is just plain stupid, when the functionality is already there... to do this, it would have required the adding of two check boxes and then filtering out results based on text location. Again, like name based recording, the amount of code to accomplish this would be absolutely trivial. I could write that code in my sleep, in less than 20 lines.

So once again, the thought process at E* when it comes to programming is absolutley mind boggling in it's lack of comprehension.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

garypen said:


> Yup. Three choices would be best:
> By Title.
> By Description.
> By Title AND Description.
> ...


I would disagree. If only two options were available i would provide "by Title" and "by Description" . Reason is simple.

The way you suggested would not allow searching just through the descriptions. The way above allows for all three possibilities with the last one being a two step process.


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## garypen (Feb 1, 2004)

WeeJavaDude said:


> I would disagree. If only two options were available i would provide "by Title" and "by Description" . Reason is simple.
> 
> The way you suggested would not allow searching just through the descriptions. The way above allows for all three possibilities with the last one being a two step process.


You have it backwards. In the case of only having two choices, A title and description search is much more useful than a description-only search. It would only add minimal extra results, but save a lot of time for those wanting to search titles and desriptions.

Of course, the best thing would be to offer all three options.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Inaba said:


> What kind of crack are you guys smoking? Sheesh...
> 
> First, I agree with Tomcat that effectively disabling that feature is not very well thought out. While I never search on the description, so I like the new search only by title feature, the fact is, it was a stupid move. In fact, splitting up the searches into two different search mechanisms smacks of raw stupidity.
> 
> ...


I will ignore the "Crack Comment".....  You are correct that a better way would be to provide two check boxes that would allow all any permutation that you desire. Not knowing the Widget toolkit that Dish uses for there UI, I would not go about making a statement that you can do this in less than twenty lines.

I have designed UI for companies in an embedded world and it is not always as simple as one would think. You don't always have the rich widget set that Windows provides. In fact this is more the exception than the rule in the Embedded world from my experience. Not sure what the TV guys have available since I have not been there. But I have seen too many issues where what simple like a simple UI change be much more complicated. I am sure if they could provide all three and it was trivial they would have. I could be wrong but without more data as to what tools, APIs, and framework I tend to give the developer the benefit of doubt.

I don't have a 721, I got one and plan on installing it this weekend so I will look to see if there is a checkbox widget used in other places. If there is not and you have to roll your own, then it is by no means trivial.

Also I don't see this as an ergonomic issue. This is a usability issue and a feature removal issue. Actually, the feature was not removed it was just replaced by a two step process from what I can ferret out of this email. The fact that there is additional steps does not make it ergonomic because this is not something done with a huge amount of frequency. I fully understand the time factor, but if one thinks of it this actually added capability. However, if these were check boxes and allowed for all permutations it would be much more usable. Wildcarding would also be a welcome addition.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

garypen said:


> You have it backwards. In the case of only having two choices, A title and description search is much more useful than a description-only search. It would only add minimal extra results, but save a lot of time for those wanting to search titles and desriptions.
> 
> Of course, the best thing would be to offer all three options.


You might be right that title/description is more useful than description only but I would disagree that this outweighs the ability to do all three without visually having to do the filtering. But without usability studies this is open to pure opinion and debate.

The only thing that I took exception too in this thread was the typically Dish bashing that has become popular here.  A lot of bashing Dish is deserved for sure and I have done my share, but this is one case where it is not necessary. Yes they change a feature and some might have found it rather useful. It is ok to make comment on it and how useful you found it and to questions why it was changed, but to Rant and name call well I think that is a bit over the top given the issue. To call them numbnuts and just plain stupid and given the fact that we don't have all the facts and parameters around this feature shows very shortsided thinking in my opinion.

However, I would say a Title and Description only search is not as good as providing a mechanism to provide all three without having to filter data visually. This was the obvious trade off that Dish devlopers had to make. I could understand how you would come to this opinion given that is how you do most of your searches and you feel comfortable doing it this way. This is obviously the way TomCat and Inaba feels.

If only two choices are available:

(Title/Title and Description): Offers you only the ability to search for Title and Title and Description. No option to do Description only.

(Title/Description): Offers you the ability to search for Title, Title and Description (Two Step) and Description. Offers all three choices.

Given that most likely usability studies are not available to tell what the most common operations are. My guess would be they took the path that offered all three options for maximum flexibility. I agree with you that providing controls to cover all three in one step would be the way to go. But given that this may not have been possible in the timeframe given, I can see why they did the second path. It is not as cracked as some may think.

Like I said in my first post, Send email to Dish and if they get enough maybe they will put the feature back in or change it so that you can do both Title and Description in one step.


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## Inaba (Jun 20, 2003)

Actually, I wasn't talking about the adding of the check boxes in the 20 lines comment... just the search coding itself. The UI stuff always takes up more lines... however, there ARE already check box widgets available in the UI, as evidenced by their use in many other places. So they shouldn't be terribly hard to impliment.

There really was no reason to go the route they did, except sheer inexperience would be my guess. It's the kind of move a novice programmer would make while trying to add functionality.

The way they did it is only very slightly easier than adding the check boxes... really the only thing more you would have to add is the logic to handle which parts of the search are filtered out based on what's checked.


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## garypen (Feb 1, 2004)

WeeJavaDude said:


> The only thing that I took exception too in this thread was the typically Dish bashing that has become popular here.  A lot of bashing Dish is deserved for sure and I have done my share, but this is one case where it is not necessary.


Personally, I haven't done any bashing in this thread. I didn't care for the way people pounced on Tomcat for his justified annoyance at this arbitrary change in UI by Dish, and came to his defense.

I still think that the inconvenience of the extra results from a title/descrption search, is far less than the inconvenience of having to run two individual searches, one for title and another one for description.

Is there an engineering "suggestion box" email address at Dish? There really should be one for requests for new features or improving existing features, in addition to reporting bugs and problems.


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## dbronstein (Oct 21, 2002)

WeeJavaDude said:


> I don't have a 721, I got one and plan on installing it this weekend so I will look to see if there is a checkbox widget used in other places. If there is not and you have to roll your own, then it is by no means trivial.


Yes there is one - "protect recording" when setting up a timer is one example.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Inaba said:


> Actually, I wasn't talking about the adding of the check boxes in the 20 lines comment... just the search coding itself. The UI stuff always takes up more lines... however, there ARE already check box widgets available in the UI, as evidenced by their use in many other places. So they shouldn't be terribly hard to impliment.
> 
> There really was no reason to go the route they did, except sheer inexperience would be my guess. It's the kind of move a novice programmer would make while trying to add functionality.
> 
> The way they did it is only very slightly easier than adding the check boxes... really the only thing more you would have to add is the logic to handle which parts of the search are filtered out based on what's checked.


Well I will have to take your word on the check box widget since I won't have my 721 installed until this weekend. As for no reason to go their route, well you might be right or wrong but unless you were sitting in the development room discussing this issue there is no way to tell if there is something under the covers that we are not aware off.

Too many times I have sat in meetings and heard of people over simplifying issues without having intimate knowledge of the codebase, tools, etc to make a determination if something is trivial or not. I agree that if they were going to change this feature it should have been such to include all four ways, this would be the way one would want to go if they could. Could be possible that they had a brain freeze and did not think it through. It happens with all companies. But, there is a slew of other possible reasons why they did what they did and they are all not stupid reason either.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

garypen said:


> Personally, I haven't done any bashing in this thread. I didn't care for the way people pounced on Tomcat for his justified annoyance at this arbitrary change in UI by Dish, and came to his defense.
> 
> I still think that the inconvenience of the extra results from a title/descrption search, is far less than the inconvenience of having to run two individual searches, one for title and another one for description.
> 
> Is there an engineering "suggestion box" email address at Dish? There really should be one for requests for new features or improving existing features, in addition to reporting bugs and problems.


Actually was not referring to you Gary... Not this time...  I think the response TomCat received was because of the tone of the orginally post. That is where I took exception and I should have left it like that. However, I felt I should try and place some context and possible scenarios that could lead to a change. Not saying this is what happend, just that this change did not warrent TomCat's Rant. Dish has much bigger issues that deserve that level.

As to which one is more useful, like I said this could be debated. I will leave it as that.

Dish does have a place to report bugs? <- I have seen the email address mentioned but I could not find it doing a search. (How ironic). Maybe someone could pipe in with the email to report bugs.


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## TomCat (Aug 31, 2002)

garypen said:


> Personally, I haven't done any bashing in this thread. I didn't care for the way people pounced on Tomcat for his justified annoyance at this arbitrary change in UI by Dish, and came to his defense.


And I truly appreciate that. You are one of the reasons I eventually returned to this forum, and I look forward to your intelligent and thought-inspiring regular posts. Some other posters on this thread are why I went away in the first place :lol: But, no worries...some still apparently have a hardon for having their doors blown off in earlier threads, and they are still quite entitled to their own particular lame-assed opinions, even though they will never let us forget that.

dictionary definitions of ergonomics:

The study of the design and arrangement of equipment so that people will interact with the equipment in healthy, comfortable, and efficient manner. As related to computer equipment, ergonomics is concerned with such factors as the physical design of the keyboard, screens, and related hardware, and the manner in which people interact with these hardware devices.

1. (used with a sing. verb) The applied science of equipment design, as for the workplace, intended to maximize productivity by reducing operator fatigue and discomfort. Also called biotechnology, human engineering, human factors engineering.
2. (used with a pl. verb) Design factors, as for the workplace, intended to maximize productivity by minimizing operator fatigue and discomfort: The ergonomics of the new office were felt to be optimal.

dictionary definition of usability

The effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction
with which users can achieve tasks in a particular environment
of a product. High usability means a system is: easy to learn
and remember; efficient, visually pleasing and fun to use; and
quick to recover from errors

Conclusions? Usability and ergonomics are not two mutually exclusive and diametrically opposed things, and not apples and oranges; more like apples and apples, like Delicious apples vs. Roma apples. IOW, while not identical, they have a high common subset meaning that in common usage and for all practical casual purposes they can be used interchangeably. The biggest difference is that one is a science built around the other. Reasonable people should be able to accept that without nitpicking, one would think.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

TomCat said:


> And I truly appreciate that. You are one of the reasons I eventually returned to this forum, and I look forward to your intelligent and thought-inspiring regular posts. Some other posters on this thread are why I went away in the first place :lol: But, no worries...some still apparently have a hardon for having their doors blown off in earlier threads, and they are still quite entitled to their own particular lame-assed opinions, even though they will never let us forget that.


Maybe you are referring to someone else but I see were this thread is going and like you I would rather not go down that road. I guess as long as the opinion matches yours it is all good and I will keep that in mind next time I try to offer some insight. If my lame-assed opinions based on 15+ years of software development in building distributed embedded applications and Human factors differ from your rant I will keep them to myself in the future.

And you are right everyone is intitled to their opinion and that is what they are "opinions".



TomCat said:


> dictionary definitions of ergonomics:
> 
> << Removed to conserve space >>
> Conclusions? Usability and ergonomics are not two mutually exclusive and diametrically opposed things, and not apples and oranges; more like apples and apples, like Delicious apples vs. Roma apples. IOW, while not identical, they have a high common subset meaning that in common usage and for all practical casual purposes they can be used interchangeably. The biggest difference is that one is a science built around the other. Reasonable people should be able to accept that without nitpicking, one would think.


I never said that ergonomics and usability are not related. I was addressing the software modification that you mentioned in your initial post. In a lot of cases ergonomics and usability work hand in hand (More so in the hardward realm). However, In the case of software functionality and how one uses it to acheive a certain function usability is the term commonly used (Did not mean to nitpick. Just trying to help with what is common software terminology to keep the thread focused on how the removed software functionality has effected the useability of the product). As for the "Reasonable People" comment, we all have our opinions of what a reasonable person is and you are intitled to yours.

I thought the point of your thread was to get feedback and it was welcomed. Guess I should have seen this as a rant and left it at that. My mistake.. I will back out of this thread. Cheers!


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