morgue’s usability seminar #12

When designing things that beep occasionally when they’re running low on batteries, don’t.
Because wandering fruitlessly around the house at 2am searching for the source of the beep that’s keeping you awake is an example of not good usability.
Next week: how not to label remote control buttons

2 thoughts on “morgue’s usability seminar #12”

  1. almost O.T., but still talking of random beeps, does anyone know how to check smoke alarms because the house was pretty smoky after I lit the fire last night and there WAS no irritating beeping, so I’m picking the random beep I was hearing a couple of weeks ago was the smoke alarm dying

  2. Should be a switch somewhere on it marked ‘Test’.
    Random beeps from a smoke alarm are indeed generated by the battery running out of juice, so you are reminded to change it.
    On topic, my phone does this. When it is running low on battery it emits a loud and annoying beep to say it is running low on battery. Which uses up more battery.

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