From CNN:
Not only are the latest gadgets packed with more features than ever, they're also harder than ever to figure out. Culprits span the gizmo gamut from DVD players to digital cameras and wireless devices. Even televisions are increasingly acting more like computers, those notoriously confounding beasts.
Jaruzelski's shiny new communicator, incidentally, turned out to be loaded with features he said he'd never use: games, text messaging, Web-surfing, and customized ring tones.
Larry Sherby, 50, of Palo Alto, California, also eschews frilly gadgets.
Sherby got a digital camera from his wife a year ago but only uses its most basic features to point and shoot.
Forcing the flash? Timer? Long exposure? No way.
Even tech-savvy users manage to get frustrated by gadgets with automatic features or one-button steps.
"The more a product could do, the more that could go wrong," observes usability expert Jakob Nielsen, a principal of the Nielsen Norman Group consulting firm. Nielsen has a postdoctorate degree in computer science yet struggles with the 35 buttons on his DVD player's remote control. "The button I use the most -- pause -- is the smallest and in the middle of five other buttons," he gripes.
No laughing matter
The fact that some people still have blinking displays on their VCRs because they couldn't figure out how to program the machines is a long-standing joke. But techno-hurdles really aren't a laughing matter.
Time is wasted on poorly written, Bible-sized manuals. Patience is lost on customer service calls. Extra trips are made to the store. Consumers pay for bells and whistles they never use.
Neil Carty, an independent filmmaker and admitted gearhead in New York, hates the snags in getting his gadgets to run properly.
"You want to play with it as soon as you get it, and you don't want to find out that you have to go and get something else like an adapter," he said.
It's a computer, that's what it is. [The camera's] got menus and menus. I have to consult a manual anytime I try other features and then I forget how to do it.
Often, consumers make do. Some rely on geeky relatives or friends to install or troubleshoot.
Sherby, a laser equipment salesman, has three computers, a wireless router and high-speed Internet access at home, but all are working fine thanks due only to the help of his son's friend.
Others, like Nina Burns of Redwood City, California, pay extra for installation or service warranties. Burns, the founder of a parenting advice company, recently made use of her computer's $200 service warranty when she couldn't get the external DVD-writer to do file backups. Burns also lets her husband handle the VCR and DVD player hookups. She just keeps a one-page cheat sheet they drew up by the TV so she knows which remote control buttons to press.
