I've got a nice black Dell tower unit. I really like it, I really do. I just have a quibble about some design aspects. See it's a tower and it's on the floor below my desk. Pretty common setup. The problem is with the CD drive buttons, they're under the CD drawers. Now imagine you're me and you're sitting in your chair and you want to put in a CD. You reach down and fondle the front of your tower until you find the CD button. The drawer comes out, you put the disk in it and reach for the button again. It's under the drawer, and the drawer is sticking out... so you really have to reach for it, leaning way out of your chair and fumbling around for a few moments.
It's a pain, it really is and I'm thinking they should have put a second set of buttons on the top. Did they do any user testing of these things? Were they all on top of people's desks at the time?
I'll tell you a secret, but you have to keep it quiet...
The cool cats like me use slot loading CD/DVD drives. They make you look styling, and alleviate the problem you describe.
Posted by: terpia on July 8, 2003 10:40 PMMr. Terpia, 'slot loading' sounds vaguely sexual, can you enlarge on that subject?
Posted by: buggy on July 9, 2003 10:06 AMI agree, the design on those tower CD drawers leaves a lot to be desired. A friend recently showed me that I didn't have to fiddle around finding the button underneath the tray to put the disk in. She said I could just push on the leading edge of the tray and it would go in by itself.
I have tried this and it works, although it bothers me to have to physically push on the tray. I can hammer on the inconveniently placed button underneath the tray and it doesn't bother me. Hammering on the the drawer does bother me. Somehow it seems much more risky. I think it's discomfort with the momentary resistance I encounter when pushing on the drawer. The button doesn't offer momentary resistance. It consistently resists my efforts, so I don't worry. What the heck does that mean?
Human factors engineers are obviously still in short supply.. and I suppose that the computer anufacturers are still in business, and believe that as long as we buy what they build, there is no reason for them to put out a well-designed or even well-thought out product.
There is a setting under "My Computer" that says Eject Disk. Why isn't there one that says Inject Disk?
Dorsie
Posted by: Dorsie on September 6, 2003 08:12 AM