Ditto with an increasingly bewildering array of controls or settings for cellphones, computers and electronic gadgets in general.
The problem is that all these oh-so-brilliant gadgets are put together by supremely gifted geeks who seem to presume that everyone else on the planet spends - like them - most of their waking hours playing with electronic gadgets and are, therefore, equally adept at navigating and piloting them.
These advances have been made, incidentally, with a corresponding decrease in the font size of the lettering on the remote control denoting function, almost to the point of invisibility. Or, alternatively, words have been superseded altogether by icons whose symbolism is shrouded in hieroglyphical obscurity.
I have another casebook example of geeks gone gaga in terms of losing contact with the real world.
Some years ago I belonged to a club, many of whose members were technically inclined individuals who worked in professions requiring varying degrees of electronic expertise. At a certain point (this is how long ago it was) it was decided that the club would benefit from a new VCR (video cassette recorder - remember those?).
Subsequently, a top-of-the-range model, very expensive, turns up looking a bit like Darth Vader's briefcase - a sleek, shiny affair unsullied by any obvious and obtrusive control knobs or buttons.
While it was unquestionably state-of-the-art, the technically inclined club members were still nonetheless mystified as to which art it was the state of. Eventually one determined member sat down with the manual and after a day and a half managed to work out how to get the state-of-the-art triumph to actually play a videotape, and, at a pinch, to record a programme.
At this point, club members collectively decided that our deputised technician had sufficiently established who was boss, that honour had been satisfied, and subsequently the machine served no other purpose than as a very expensive drinks stand. But truth be known, the geeks had triumphed once again.
These fancy controls are all well and good, and undoubtedly some techno-freaks gain satisfaction from being able to tweak every last setting and app on any given appliance to the nth degree.
But the geeks need to understand that most of us don't want to go through the equivalent of programming a moon rocket launch in order to be able to start/stop, send/receive, play/record or see/hear.
There should be at least two default settings - one for Joe Blows (JBs), one for Geek Freaks (GFs). The JB controls should have no more than a dozen or so tabs, all with clearly worded or at least abbreviated functions.
If abbreviated, an equally clear key fleshing out the commands should be close at hand on the control. The GF control can then have however many hundred microscopically iconned tabs it likes - preferably on an entirely separate remote altogether!
We Joe Blows of the world need to rise up and strike a blow on behalf of visually impaired electronically challenged simpletons everywhere.
-Frank Greenall is a freelance writer and cartoonist living on Bastia Hill
