Human Factors Cast E009 - Controls

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this episode of human factors cast is brought to you by audible Billy do you use out of them yeah I do and right now if you go to audibletrial.com/preneurcast great well again that's audible trial combin factors cast today on the show we're talking controls

welcome to human factors cast your weekly podcast for all things human factors psychology and design here are your hosts Nik Rome and Billy Hall welcome back to another episode of human factors cat I'm your host Nick Rome joined today by Billy Hall hey guys how's it going today and also on the show today I'm very excited to have mr. Blake Arnsdorf welcome to the show Blake hey what's going on guys it's good to be here so you work with Nick huh you sacrificed goats to the Dark Gods of human factors practitioner yeah we my wand every once in a while and we get along this is a family show sir Oh

so yeah Blake works with me at Pacific science and engineering Blake what do you what do you do over there so I'm also a human factors engineer traditionally trained as a human factor scientist but do similar things to what Nick does we analyze a lot of systems try and make them better for their users so you're a scientist and you're scientist and I'm just an everyman a little little ganged up on here yeah no no no Billy Billy you you are here because Blake and I will get carried away with what we're talking about here and you're just gonna bring it back down to a level that everyone can understand and that's why we love you I feel like it's weird not being the nerdiest guy in the room right now so everything's good with you guys though we're doing good yeah we had a conversation out back and I think he has a couple more ribs

Marshall all right so Billy we mentioned it in the intro yeah my talking about today controls controls and it's just sounds really awesome you know controls controls are awesome like they're there in everything can you think of a single thing without a control a single thing without a control this table got it all right good no can do they really are everywhere though like can you think about control I'm using it a new definition you think about like a time when you've tried to manipulate something without a control most of the time when I pretend I'm a Jedi and try to hover things to my hand using the force right yeah right I guess that's a form of a control right though this is the force of control we're answering the existential questions here yeah we don't we don't shy away from what do you think like but it's interesting though cuz when you think about it your hand might even be control if you really want to look at it that way cuz it's an extra device you're using on your own right right you're real it's not an external though it's your it is yeah that's right now the force right that's that's external but it's re in tan binds us binds the Galaxy together yeah yeah because my betta chlorines work hard right now for the force alright so we mentioned many chlorines we're moving on just the nerd rants right now going on just no mention of any chlorines on human factors caste just Lloyd's okay so it seems simple but what exactly are controls alright so we kind of talked about this earlier right so it's it's some external thing it's it's a device right that manages or sort of manipulates regulates the behavior of another device or system right well is that about right Blake do you think that's where you go about I mean it's like anything you can manipulate to make changes in like as a holistic view of the system that you're trying to affect mmm so kind of like I mean the most basic one the obvious one is like the TV remote it's a controller that controls the TV yeah I mean it's it's in the name right - troll or her okay so controllers yes alright so I thought what you can think about controls right is looking at it from like a information processing perspective information processing yeah so at a high level all that's really talking about is when a human goes to touch anything or make an action happen in the world you have to know the state of the world what's going on and then based off of that you kind of figure out what you want to do and then to actually enact what you want to do in the world the changes you want to make use a control okay so it's kind of like how people like it's kind of almost like a manipulation of it you know you make a controller that manipulates the things you want to make exactly or do I mean for sure one analogy might be like in video games like in first-person shooters you're looking would be getting the scope of the entire world uh-huh didn't like president the trigger would be in acting like shooting your enemy right this we talked about this a little bit with perception before where I think it was in our design episode maybe or maybe it was maybe it was in one of our displays episodes but we talked about how the human processes information where they they see something and that is separated from the perception of it right so they get this input and then they process that input internally and then they have to make a decision on that input and then it results in a an action right in this case it would be impressing the controller so this is kind of like the idea of a magic wand type of idea you're making a wand to do the thing you want to do we're not wizards Billy I don't believe you we're looking for the truth on this podcast the truth you gotta stop bringing up the wizard thing then four more of them and they're gonna be able to have the dark rituals next week on human factors cast we'll have four human factor scientists on the show performing your rituals thank you so what type of things should I think about if I want to make a controller or control tons of things there's there's a lot of different things going on with controllers you know just off the top of my head I can think of like it's got to be compatible with what's what it's controlling right it's got to be near it especially with like displays right mm-hmm you got to have something that the location where where the control is got to make sense in order for what somebody wants to do so you want to have it located within their fuel field of view or field of reach even yeah I mean it's got to be close to what it what it does represent and that way you can pair the two in your mind and say okay this button effects that thing okay okay okay so kind of like how a universal remote worker sets itself up to your TV or anything with bluetooth actually accesses just the DB to be able to utilize just that TV they prepare you to use that that's an interesting case because although it's close by right like how many times have you messed with a ton of different remotes and gone this is not controlling the thing I want this is this is the one to the DVR instead on TV and you hit the very big problem with 50 remotes right exactly but if you have a universal remote it controls everything so I mean in that case you can say like the proximity is maybe like it within the room you know that control controls with stuff within the room right right okay okay okay so what other things there's wow there's again you think anything like there's there's literally a ton I don't even know where to see yeah so the biggest one is like giving too many people too many alternatives in a situation so if you have too many controls at once you get you introduce like a lot of complexity into your system like there's even a lot of just there's a specific law that's related to this called the hick hymen laws oh good old hick hi yeah now if you introduced like extra controls into a system the more time it takes for people to react or pick the right one I remember this like when I was coming to my grandparents house when I was a little kid they had one of those big like you they had a DVD player CD player and they had all these big thing and the controller was huge it was massive it was just this thing with all these buttons in that is that what you're talking about what the idea of complexity it was too complex yeah so that in a way is definitely the case like if you have a really complex remote with so many decisions you have to make like does this turn on the DVR is just around the DVD player doesn't even turn on the TV you have to pick one and so with all those different options right low yourself down right when you have five different controllers and you have a play button on each one that's when you're when you're overwhelmed with these alternatives it's like which play button does the thing exactly that I wanted to do right now right because that's the idea you want it that's something you probably guys look for right yeah and that kind of plays into expectancy right I mean like when when you're expecting it to do something I mean you're expecting that button to do something and when it doesn't right then it's it's jarring but also also you want displays to kind of have that like you just want to be able to hit it you want you you're expecting it to just work yeah you wanted to match your middle model or I you you've used this control before or like let's say we're in a situation like driving a car on the highway you don't expect to have to stop middle of the highway if traffic's going 65 in your mental model you're going really fast but like let's change that up and say use likes all yellow light you would expect that you need to stop okay so it's kind of like the idea that it makes certain cues we've talked about the before when we were talking about the display it's the idea of it is is that you know we go we know what motions and what buttons to pick because it feels intuitive to do so right yeah okay okay I'm just just your point on on being on the highway like I'm not expecting to stop like what happens when some jerk throws on their brakes right like that's really jarring to you you're like oh no no and you slam on yours because it's you know and you're not prepared for it that's that's why you know your reaction time is a little bit slower on the highway it's because it's not the status quo to stop I mean unless you're in traffic then you're expecting that stop it go and this relates to the idea of controls by making intuitive models that you guys can utilize in testing and things like that right well yeah and then it affects reaction time too and that's that's a big one too like let's say you are in charge of and I'm simplifying this quite a bit but like please do my monkey brain can't handle a lot say for example you Billy you're in a nuclear power plant and we have we're all gonna die they're all dead no your only job is to hit this button that happens or that like shuts down the plant right because it's about to go into a nuclear meltdown we're all right but that's your only job that's your only job typically it runs smoothly you don't worry about it yeah right right but when it does happen oh dang I have that moment of panic making sure that I'm not hitting the wrong button exactly you want decrement okay right vigilance is a whole nother episode like you should join us about that vigilance oh man okay yeah okay yeah so the idea of it is is that you know you guys taking the idea of response time you guys take that in consideration complexity and things like that like you say I'm on the freeway slamming on your brakes type of idea in the yellow light I know to hit that thing I had plenty of time to do so they hit push the brake down and do if I had to like turn a knob and pull a chain and like you know nobody still Dickstein no one's ever stopping world well let's be honest here we hardly ever do for yellow light

man you know one of the things you just mentioned kind of reminded me of we want there's a there's this whole speed accuracy trade-off when it comes to controls right like the bigger it is the more accurate you're gonna be because you can you can hit that thing really easily mm-hmm and there's there's Fitz law to which remind me to get into later all right get into that later all right thanks helping so well well let's let's talk about it now because this is where it's applicable right so yeah Fitz law which became a real quick I'm sorry Fitz like if I Fitz I sits or Fitz ISM like German high of it's like like the name not like at internet means German Fitz was pretty close oh yeah so so uh so Fitts law Fitz law is uh the like most basic I can describe it it's this complex equation but the most the most simple I can describe it is the bigger something is and the closer it is to you the easier it is to hit sounds simple right thus dating jokes in here aren't there this is a family show but yeah the bigger it is the closer it is to you the easier it is to activate right and and so obviously the smaller it is and further away from you it is it's kind of like shooting something out of target so it's human factors wizards know he wants to know he wants to Jedi wizard he wants to live that dream I will see I will I will accept human factors Jedi I will like you are a scientist sir you know that stuff is not real midi-chlorians explain it oh okay but it but anyway as human factors Jedi's we we have gone through and made this like really complex equation to explain this mm-hmm but I I mean at its basic level it sounds really simple okay design something it's big and easy to hit if it's a critical thing that you have to do why the power button is always so big or the record or play button is always so big on controllers yeah exactly I mean that distance part gets really into it too because now you're like thinking about how the layouts gonna work it's really small small set of controls you're gonna need them in a compact place at least if you have to mess with all of them but if you're getting really big you have more space to work and and we're getting back to that speed accuracy trade-off like if you have an environment and where you are limited by the amount of space that you have say a cockpit of a fighter jet or an x-wing or something right you have a very limited amount of space in which you can design controls and there are a lot of systems at play so you have to you have to like do this whole trade-off of like do I make this one bigger should I make this one more salient like which ones are going to be the more important ones those are all things you have to consider when you're doing hey I've seen this sort of stuff in practice because the idea of it is is like for example the old media players like the old iTunes media player the play button is huge and the stop buttons like right next to it so if I want to stop at a video or I'm watching a video and I want to stop it right there I go right there I hit it you know and it's right next to the play button so even though I'm on my mouse it's not a lot of distance in between so it's a really interesting point Billy because like when you're thinking about the stop and the play button they're pretty big like you were talking about they're really close together then with your like going forward and backward controls they're kind of small and off to the side a little further away so you don't make the mistake kind of taking both things into account you've got the size and the distance okay okay I'm getting this I'm getting this yeah I mean like I said there are tons and tons of things that go into controls and there's there's one sort of last point that I wanted to bring up and that's that's feedback right and so feedback is really important when you're talking about controls and how many times have you pressed something and not received a response or not you know noticed something is responding to what you just did right yeah yeah I've had a lot of times especially in like online video games where you you're like pressing buttons whatever and it's not doing anything because of input lag right or the idea like when you pick up a new game and they remap the controllers to something weird and you're like wait what what you're pushing all those things you know to usually be the situation but you have to push that triangle before it actually goes places that shouldn't forefront life that's that's going back to expectancy a little bit too uh-huh but yeah so that feedback that you see like when for example like we were just talking about with video games like if you if you providing them Pat a input and you don't see any reaction you're using visual cues for that for that feedback right like you move the left you move the stick left and you see your character move left that's feedback saying okay I've received your input and now I'm actively moving that character to the left right like they say that a lot of times in like driving car simulator sometimes when you pick up a good one you hit the button or you push down on the gas pedal you feel like you're driving cars the only a good simulator to you're gonna get all sorts of feedback not just a visual you're gonna get all that tactile feedback so they're just like vibrating and stuff yeah haptic feedback there's auditory feedback as well so you know you press a button and you hear a ding like a message received you know there's there's literally a ton of so it can become like audio-visual haptic type of thing force feedback things like that there's a lot of ways that it could even do this right and it's important to use multiple codes when you're giving feedback right because what if somebody like can't hear something in the environment they're in so you also need a visual indicator to follow up with it or something that vibrates either way see that's one of the things like we've we've hit a lot of elements to watch out for when designing controls but what really makes a good control in that situation that's a really good question you have to take in a lot of great question is you have to take in a lot of aspects so you've got to think about your the person's environment they're working in but also to you want something to be easy to find you want for present' you with lots of different types of feedback and believe it or not you needed to be labeled correctly what do you mean so sometimes you'll find the controls are mislabeled or not labeled it's easy for people to use so yeah labeling is really interesting because like you you know as as somebody who might design you know someone who might be listening to the show being like an engineer or something or software developer you might label something that's totally clear to you right like this is the do X button right and and that's clear to you but to your user that might not be the case like they might be like what does X mean in this context usually X means stop but for you or my below I'm using X's like a placeholder no I get that but I mean like we use that we use that today on our phones we use that with the telephone most people who use cell phones right now don't know what a telephone symbol is but we still use it right don't be yeah I mean when you pair that with the word phone I think is when it becomes a a good label right okay okay I see what you're saying so basically the idea of it is we know it because it's always been there you know as long as we're talking about what makes a good control there's now this is gonna be a little controversial and I want us to talk about this oh my gosh we're hitting the hard subjects in the world of design but I'm I'm gonna argue that when we tell we talked to you know just briefly seconds ago about input lag oh right yeah no there's this thing called a feedback loop where you provide input to a system right and it takes a second for that system to respond and then you see a response from the system you get that feedback right and then from there you might have done too much or done too little and then you provide more input to correct that input now think about think about like a flights it's like Microsoft Flight Simulator 95 do you remember that yeah I do I love that cockpit of high so good so much fun so what what I remember doing in that game was flying a Boeing right and you you want to bank left you bank left and the plain banks way too hard so you over correct right and then the plain banks way too far right and you know it's it's because the plane takes a while to respond to your so what I'm getting at here the controversial thing I'm gonna say and I know this isn't always the case and you can't always do this like in the example of like the Mars rovers it takes time to communicate with them to receive a signal for them to do that action and then to send back the result it takes time it just like half an hour half an hour to move it forward that's why it moves so slow yeah even moving at the speed of light well yeah there's kind of instance to you build for that yes like with UAVs similar thing you've got like a signal discrepancy going between liquid I operator makes the action in like a Humvee and what actually happens in way right but is that a good control right cuz the optimal control the optimal control would be like you you provide input there's zero lag you get that response or maybe not maybe not because yeah cuz it's almost like if okay yeah that that might be the optimal control but is it better that they've thought out the system so much they understand that the lag exists you have to work around it right yeah no it's interesting we can does it but I mean like the idea of a Boeing is and mind you I haven't really ever flown on a Boeing 747 but I mean the idea of it is is that he did it by Microsoft like I did I did I did it actually in the cockpit because we had you at our high school nice I'm a genius I yeah we had it in our junior high well yeah we had that was the a/v Club that's the only reason I joined that sucker just so it's like don't lie that's not the only reason you joined I also did it because I have a beautiful face for radio you wanted to be on radio I did we haven't talked about that yet one of these days we will but what I'm getting back to is the idea of like like a boat okay like have you guys ever driven a speedboat yeah no okay so all day that I've ever heard I mean the really super fast one is on pretty quickly but like if you start to turn like this you don't stop moving like that you know just inertia kind of gets it wouldn't that be the with wouldn't that be also taking in consideration and feedback because you got this there's no reason why a 747 should be in the air other than really big engines that thing would never fly on its own really but the idea because all that wind is hitting it even though it's aerodynamic you know am i right right but okay if you're flying a plane yeah and I'm thinking like think about these like Air Force pilots who actually fly planes when they hit left they Bank left why do that immediately there's yeah right yeah

I'm just saying a little bit I'm just saying is that optimal though cuz they immediately get that response see that's again like going back to who it's tailored for right like an aircraft pilot yeah you can have them doing barrel rolls well no no no barrel I don't know let could use the boost to get through you know what I want to know what our listeners think if you have an opinion on this let us know go ahead and leave us comments anywhere where we want to hear it send us an email well why we want you to settle the score and you talked a little bit about the sizing before too so that's something that you should actually take in consideration and good controls right yeah that's very true I mean you want to be able to put it in an optimal size depending on like how far people have to reach to get to it or what's most important like I Nick was talking about her so how often used with like Fitz law yeah yeah and and the usage fluency is super important yeah yeah but but does sizing play into frequency yes I would say so yeah because cuz if you're it it depends there's the motto of the show it does right but I would say yes if you're going to use a button less frequently frequently it's got to be smaller unless it's a critical thing right if it's your eject button you don't want that to be small you're gonna be like scrambling for that as as you're falling out of the sky you wanted something big but out of the way right so that's when you are not out of the way unreachable but just out of the way that you wouldn't hit it right right right like like up prime examples like sound boards like sound boards always have a master control knob to actually you know play up or down the sound of that or little sliders to actually yeah but faders and stuff like that so the idea of Darth Vader Darth Vader's but they have those big things that are paying to pronounce and they're yeah keep this thought they're actually looking up sound boards so the little tabs that had the Darth Vader on it it's literally Darth Vader's yeah I loved it and and with what's more impressive is that I didn't get the connection until just now and I'm really embarrassed about it shut up dude you brought up midi-chlorians to start with alright this is this is turning into a Star Wars podcast yeah right okay so like you were talking about the idea of the sizing and things like that but what about the idea of like clear defined labels on those things like the play button the phone button things like that yeah so this comes to a funny but not so funny example so if we go all the way back to when we were talking about you and the nuke plant right like there's a famous example of like the labels for buttons and toggles not being made correctly so people would make mistakes and that's not something you want happening in like a nuclear meltdown situate are you telling me the big red button that says self-destruct might not set be the self-destruct button yeah I might have been green and said press me no but really with monsters some of these people ended up wow we're getting historically yeah funny here okay okay believer saying yeah but overcome bad labeling people are using lighting taking controls apart and using beer taps and stuff like that just so they could have some kind of salient beer taps yeah what do you mean like oh instead of give me an example here yeah so instead of using a toggle to turn like your gas valves on and off they would replace it with a beer tab talking about the idea like I had a old hose by my apartment it was just actually just a hunk of rope they were supposed to turn like this because the thing broke a long time ago to those of you listening Billy making a big arcing motion with his arm like in front of him yeah yeah big arc like I'm stirring a pot like he's turning butter okay what kind of things can I use to control other things though like what kind of things do you use in these labels and sizes like like what kind of controls are there yeah like what can I use to control other things so so some of the most frequently used ones um what we talked about faders earlier those aren't the most dominant ones but I'd say buttons are probably the most dominant one there's knobs and dials switches oh there's there's a ton am I forgetting any place I know I'm forgetting some I just have my head so there's a lot I mean buttons is your biggest one like yeah car that's it's almost all buttons from your windows to your electronics and all that kind of stuff the do button there's oh geez the toggles there's toggles right there's there's different types of buttons right so there's like there's okay there's hard buttons which is you depress it you get that feedback right like you feel the thing click as you press it then there's soft buttons like you would find on your smartphone right the Bata the buttons at the bottom that you press and they do something but they're they're literally just like a touchscreen almost is that why they actually on a lot of keyboards they put a little vibration function like you're pressing down on the button on the keyboard yeah that's haptic feedback that's that is that feedback right because you don't get that depression of you know you don't get that feedback from the depression of the key you get that feedback from the phone vibrating saying hey yeah I received your input oh all right it's kind of interesting how back those kind of things mirror a physical technology right like your keyboard on your phone it gives you all that buzzing feedback or haptic feedback like you're talking about but that's similar like a keyboard it's funny because we're going so forward but yet we're still keeping core concepts of what was being before it exactly okay consistent scenes and knobs or dials you were talking about that a little bit before we get into that there's there's also so there's the hard and soft buttons right uh-huh I also want to talk about the different types of buttons so those are different types of buttons but there are more pally yeah we're gonna talk about button we really do a whole episode on buttons ah you better work hard to make this funny woo so Benjamin Button no but there's okay so there's momentary switches and there's toggles and these are these are always really cool to me so when I was building lightsabers the add just looks glance over that one folks just just go with it crickets mm-hmm alright alright so when I was building lightsabers there was a lot of like debate do I get do I get a slider to activate it do I get a toggle button to activate it do I get a momentary switch to activate it so momentary switch yeah so so so the difference between toggle and momentary think about when you're pressing a button mm-hmm when the thing stays down or depressed that's a toggle and then you press it back up it goes back up you know what I'm saying like you press it once it stays down you press it again it comes back up that's a toggle right altering the state like whatever like whatever the thing is right like yes turn on turn off now momentary switch or or button is one that you press down and while you're pressing down it works so think about like like those keychain lights where you press it together and it only stays on while you're pressing it together and then you let go and then turn oh okay yeah yeah yeah yeah okay or like the pen light you used to tease cats yes the laser pointers okay okay okay now knobs and dials you were talking about the idea of knobs and dials so that's pretty much like the idea of like I don't know like you know you're a fader on a on a light switch or you're the hottub timer yeah your car stereo okay yeah think about think about turning up the volume on your car stereo mm-hmm okay okay and there are two there are multiple types of every control Wow controls are so deep man do you feel the depth oh the day bring you in the hard topics man so it's funny about knobs right so in our human factors class that I had to take we with real deep on knobs like how how you use different types of

now we've all done it taking a test and the question was to use a knurled knob or a slick knob for this particular task now I know you didn't yeah that's not a real thing oh yeah because it's describing like the kind of feedback you're getting in your fingers right like a knurled one being something with a lot of like grit on it okay so I've lived in apartment complexes that had a hot tub and it has a little timer on it and when you or an egg timer when I push the egg timer I feel it cooking back yeah so that would be that kind of knob where you said what kind of knob is that so that's a that's that's more of a dial for me I don't know so so there are they are getting compelling here no bill is you're wrong that's a dial not a knob no so so really what you're talking about is you know something that spins for infinity versus something that clicks at intervals right now now think about your car stereo right okay I'm thinking about my car stereo turn up the volume what do you do all right I turn the knob right you turn it clockwise it doesn't stop it just keeps going it goes all the way up to 11 that's good that's how I Brock the actual the actual volume stops at some point but that knob can go forever right now think about activating like a floor fan you you have very distinct or settings you interval settings right where it locks in at that and it's not like a gradual as I turn this thing up the fans rpm increases so that's what you were talking about what the idea of a neural knob a neural knob is kind of like the car stereo right no actually that's more of a smooth knob so that's like you keep going in an infinite think yeah okay so kind of like yeah but just kind of like when you have that iPod you could actually fast-forward by just going over and over and over it was very bad a knob what is that that's less that's much control now it's like using the same function yeah it's using like the same mental model that I'm going to go clockwise turn it up it's are we really getting to the point that we're gonna have a podcast on noms because it's so depth man we should do a podcast no no it's like no I'm not I'm not even talking one episode I'm talking a series not to Knob gate yes we've already made that joke okay so limited and infinite I get that because it's based on the idea of the feedback right right yeah you're getting varying different types of feedback but okay what else is there do their switches like I said those are those are like on/off and the way those are distinct from buttons right because you have the on and off with a button with a toggle but the way those are distinctive at the they're usually like a lever right think about like like a circuit breaker in my house it has an on and an off switch exactly yeah you're you're flipping the switch and it gives me forth feedback that it is on yeah and and there are multi-state switches too we're gonna do a whole podcast on switches oh no every controls good to get some podcast no there are multiple states right so there's there's like ones that are binary right where you have two different choices right and then there's like you know the the one where if it sits in the middle it doesn't do anything like a circuit breaker yeah like when I was working at the radio station you know there's a every time he says that though I get a little bit sad I'm like I want his life to give you a little bit of history I have a history in radio Billy actually went to school for radio yes I did a long time and we have a story that will share with you some point but I cried real tears on the radio I know wasn't after it was after but I did weep and he was just he did see me cry a little I feel like we gotta tell the story now okay so later later no no okay yeah okay so so I was working at the radio station and every hour we got to do this station ID right that says what the station is what what channel you're on and what the the the call signal is now also I just want to point out that I would to school for this for a year and the idea of it is is that that's the main thing that we had to actually practice in our first year is actually call IDs station tag ideas because you get the flow and your cadence down you know what I mean this is something you're like saying to people no you record that okay you record them usually they're pre-recorded but you do record them just so that you get used to the voice and the cadence and OKO inflection and things like that being able to put in what kind of station is without actually saying the station and things like that you're listening to a.m. 9000 or you're listening to okay what 105.3 you know things like that you put in that Kane is on there you know so anyway so we're working at the station and you know I flip I will get will bring this back to controls because normally what I would do is I would play a pre-recorded message now one day Billy came to visit me at the station and he's geeking out about everything because this is something he wanted to do and now he's podcasting so he is doing it and it's great but at the time this was all new to him so he comes in and I'm I come up to him like hey you you want your voice on the air what like call in no like on the air and he loses his mind oh my god oh my god oh my god what what No so at the top of the hour I turned the fader up and this guy goes he says the station ID he says you know the tag and everything god it was so great a turnout it's not even like five seconds of airtime and this guy freaks out all right so anyway what I use there was a slider Oh brought it back others exactly that story was her point sliders are basically they are there they're like interval they're not interval they're continuous sort of controls with bound edges at the top or bottom or left or right whatever you're so think of like literally a slider a fader on a soundboard something that you can with the gearshift on an automatic car be considered a slider no or a lever or a dye or a switch would it be a switch because there's multiple states well do have multiple states yeah I hoggle option where you were talk about the one in the middle that's somewhat similar but it's like it's so good so yeah that's like a gear shift though that's yeah really interesting way I'm throwing down the compelling stuff oh yeah their own a scientist for a loop yes I am you know there's probably whole papers written about that oh you know there is okay so they're not like sliders but you're talking about like we were talking about Darth Vader's and we were talking about like like dimmers things like that things that have a predetermined yeah light dimmers are a good example yeah if you if ya you slide them down and and the response is the light at a certain you know lumens value that represents where the slider is on that control and sliders can also be a lot of sliders nowadays are apparently becoming more audible because you can even say dim the lights put on the beds music I don't know if that would be a slider that's voice control you know why that's voice thankful I actually have in my show notes let's do a separate episode on voice controls and I'm not mentioning them in this intentional see he's already trying to silence me here people I'm not ready I'm not you're this noise I rules alright you got back up now please leg help me you're my only hope now there's there's one thing that I didn't mention which there's well there's a ton of things I didn't mention there's this is just a very limited sort of remember guys this isn't even a class syllabus this is part of a class syllabus you found on the ground while walking through your campus so so just to name a couple other ones there's like a light pin a touch panel styler a stylus alphanumeric keyboards there's you have a function keyboards mouse mice track balls there's a ton of different ones really really with me you mentioned keyboards like several time yeah alphanumeric which isn't that just a series of buttons alpha yeah but it's it stick together it's a control oh I see so you know not all buttons are keyboards but all keyboards are and not all buttons or keyboards but all keyboard keyboards keyboards have buttons there it is there you know no this is why we brought them here and what's interesting about all these controls is that they have different they sort of affect the the human in different ways right so they have different ways that it affects our cognitive load like how you know how we have to think about these inputs it also has impacts on our perceptual load like how we have to which we talked about a lot last episode yeah we perceptual as well as motor load so like how you know do I have to move this lever from you know way up high to way down low which would be like a biomechanical type of deal and we're gonna talk about biomechanics so it's like the old-timey radios going back to it like we because like the idea of a control like you had the little dial but you couldn't just go to the main AM station you had to kind of like fine-tune it you know right and that's kind of like a perceptual load because you're hearing it your motor load yes your fine-tuning it and it causes fatigue because you get frustrated yes yeah yeah yeah yeah but see here's the thing is like if you use that versus if you use something else like a digital tuner you press one button and you wait for it to find the next available channel that's probably low cognitive load low perceptual load low fatigue because it's just a button you probably won't find it saying you know oh yeah you're mumbling I don't think alright so anyway know what I'm saying here is that there's different varying levels of like how that affects these things uh-huh right okay I get that so I mean different things for different devices alright so ends okay well I mean we've glanced over a lot but how can someone use this in their design like how can people well that's that's it that's the million dollar question isn't it mm-hmm and that's that's what Blake and I do is try to figure out how we can sort of organize this is why you guys are scientists and get paid the big bucks it's real crazy no but no so yeah there's there's a lot of dip applications of this right like so the most prevalent one is probably like anyone anyone can build a website now mm-hmm right and and the same principles that we talked about here apply to web design yeah so you're still looking at all those things we talked about compatibility how many decisions you're giving people what they really expect and then now you're using just what's analogous in the real world so like physical controls that match up with what we see on our phones or what's on the Internet mm-hm right and like like we just talked about sliders you have you have sliders on web design you have shades and colors things like that yeah I need you have radio buttons which are the visual equivalent of a toggle and and not only a toggle but different varying states of toggles right you could have like different different options and if you only want them to be able to select one you use a radio button mm-hmm right versus a checkbox if you want them to select many because then they can just hit many yeah they can select many items mm-hmm okay okay so I mean like a lot of people can use this in web design and things like that and heck people could also send us their websites and locations and we can actually review it for design right your mama sure that's right we will shamelessly promote our show at any turn but that's an awesome opportunity for anybody it's like they have somebody with a HF background even not cuz I'm sure you've got plenty of experience using websites knowing what you like which don't like letting people like get their product and have it reviewed prior release or like it's a brand new huge that's an awesome thing oh yeah especially it's because it's free yeah quote unquote I mean we're gonna use your stuff on the show and probably review it alive on people so you know some of Calvet stuff we won't be that mean no no but I mean like we see a lot of this sort of stuff in video games like we use sliders on like the gamma and the lighting and things like that we used uh we use like little toggle boxes on turn things on or off or set the difficulty and we use check boxes for if we want colors or a for colorblind people are starting to use that now by changing the colors by toggling colorblind and what type of color blind you are tossed really interesting yeah yeah because people are starting to do that for games because they want to get it to more people in the art field yeah actually if you use Photoshop you can actually preview what it looks like in the varying degrees of colorblindness see that's somebody that's thinking ahead right there that's awesome to hear that's that's a that's an hf guy or a UX guy yeah somebody knowing they're all you need or team that's got team it could be a team you know or or just somebody who's actually sitting there colorblind saying I'm tired of this I can't see we I've never been able to see the color green we know a few experts do people who are colorblind I just I apologize for that for anybody listening I'm sorry look look at how they're blowing people were your champions we want to make it usable and accessible for you we'll do a whole episode on accessibility I'm gonna write this yeah accessibility I like that idea so cool we know what controls are and there are so many of them how do you select the right ones for the right situation because you were talking about the idea of over cluttering a space you know in remotes right Blake yeah I mean that goes back to knowing who you're designing this thing for and so you know a task they need to complete the options that might need to be available to them so you make your best guess now based a lot on just best practices so like for for argument's sake like Nick was talking about with radio buttons you use that for specific decisions so only like one or two options you don't really give him a whole lot or something you're only gonna select one thing yeah Blake he weren't here when we talked about design but we talked a lot about like human centered design and how you want to run them through you know what it's like to actually use this product and I mean you know this as a human factors professional but you know you you basically run them through this is that way you can see if these controls are actually working for them in the long run okay so I mean you guys probably get that when you get projects you look at something you say this works great this doesn't work right or this shouldn't be here at all because you have these other things to do these other things oh it should be bigger or smaller or wider or or use the force or or you know you got to get more blood for the blood god to be able to activate wizards wizards all right so this is the part of the show where we hear from you guys our listeners Billy what do we have today today we have an email from Jerry Metzinger who's one of our patreon patrons that a legal patreon patron thanks Jerry Thank You Jerry thanks Jerry man Jerry is supporting us financially so we're putting his question on the show and Jerry writes hey guys thanks for being my weekly dose of psychology talk yeah makes me feel smart I just listened to your virtual worlds episode I was wondering if you think that VR will revolutionize gaming we already have the oculus rift the THC v @h HTC oh I'm sorry HTC vive and it hasn't done the trick will the psvr be any different that's the PlayStation VR why or why not I don't know like what do you what do you think about because you weren't on our virtual worlds episode I want to know what you think about VR just in general yes whoo that's a really interesting question I mean before like we got to the end of it I was like well in my opinion VR has got a revolutionary revolutionize so many things beyond gaming like one big one is training right yeah so like using the art acts you've run training simulations and things like that but it's really surprising seeing how awesome some of the technologies like oculus and HTC vive are that is not taking off and I wonder because I remember looking into it when a colleague of ours was getting into the oculus rift the startup cost for it's just really it's high because you gotta you have to blow like five hundred dollars on the headset and then you have to have like a two thousand dollar computer - right yeah and I mean you're look as this thing grows or whatever you just have to upgrade parts and all that kind of seems as though it's uh it's weird why it hasn't taken off a lot harder in gaming well I mean I think one of the things about it is we should also consider is the recent hit - VR which was a R I mean think about it though and I have an AR device in my hands right here I'm holding my phone you also have a VR device in your hand you're holding a phone yeah but I mean no because I don't have a specific phone that fits in a specific form of goggles that you want $800 you have to have any smart phone that fits in a piece of cardboard don't forgive me that this thing does not I have I have an LG stylo - and this thing does not fit that is a cardboard that fits in a Google cardboard don't give me that you have 0x we're gonna test this on the show one of these but still you bring a good point because we're now having to add a device in order to experience VR where is augmented reality you use your phone right and the thing about it is is that you know video games like a ps4 or an Xbox and things like that we all have those things because it was a form of entertainment it was easy to bring into the home and now it's integrated into our home I use my PlayStation 4 it's a media that plays yes and everything else more than anything else well look here's here's the thing the question is will VR revolutionize gaming there's a secondary question there will psvr be any different from the oculus and the HTC vive now to answer the first one I think that VR as it stands right now I I it has the potential it does have the potential I don't know for sure but look here's the thing is that there's this huge lack of content right now and I think that's why these things haven't taken off and it's hard to develop poor I would imagine yeah like the Unity engine you don't find a lot of people that can just code that right away maybe a lot of people who use the Unity engine correctly anyway look at the Unity engine is actually one of the most friendly ones you just pop a camera in there and it calculates the IPD it calculates everything for you interpupillary distance is what i'm talking about the distance between your pupils it literally does everything for you again and so so you did the design is not the problem it's the content creators there's not enough of them right now so like you know right now a playstation is getting this huge backing they're trying to get a ton of different people behind it they got Star Wars they got Batman they got what's another good IP that they're bringing into a Resident Evil they're bringing a ton of these things that people know and loves to get them on board and I think I think what might be that revolution it might be the fact that we're not going to experience these 40 hour games anymore we're going to experience bite-sized chunks that are like two to three hours long where you can strap yourself in a VR have your friend come over and walk them through it and they get to be in an x-wing for two and a half hours or something you know someone was that they were actually mentioning that on the roosterteeth podcast when they were talking about VR it's like you take people through certain situations you don't just hand them the Zombie Survival one even though they ask for it they you show them the the vibe lab first then you take them to the lab where they can touch everything and get used to the idea and generally good baseball have you guys had a chance to check out the Star Wars VR demo yes yes have you actually no I haven't actually done it I've never been in a VA or VR goggles I haven't either so it's really cool owns a pair so I uh never bears but lamb I am the VR guys so so the excellent VR is really cool so like you said Billy what happens is you you put on the goggles and you're in this hangar right and you see your x-wing in front of you oh they launch the x-wing one already I only did the Tatooine one it's that one's that one's a separate experience that one is uh that one's done with ILM xlab but the one I'm talking about is PlayStation VR so you you you you put the thing on you're in a hangar you see the x-wing in front of you it's amazing it's like that's my x-wing right there you you can like peek into the thing right and you're like wow you're looking around and then they kind of take you around it like like it's more worse well hang on they like you were saying they walk you around the HTC vive space they take you around the virtual space they walk you around the x-wing like you're about to rent a car you literally look for scratches on your x-wing well see I'm I would just go behind the x-wing and get into the lowrider that's there that's a deep cut if anyone got that joke so anyway so anyway some wasn't doing to get that joke and they're gonna find that hilarious so anyway so yeah then you get in the thing and then you leave the hangar you go into light speed which is just awesome and you're looking around I hate the the x-wing and you're you're there man it's awesome so just these small like bite-sized chunks of experiences I think it has the potential definitely well you got a thing to from like just a marketing perspective to people have PS ps4 is all over the place the entry really low it's a lot lower because what is it like 400 bucks for the PlayStation we are right now and it comes with everything you might 500 for the bundle 400 for just the headset if you have 400 yeah for the headset and everything no for the headset you have to buy the camera and the Move controllers I only have the camera I wonder how much the Move controllers would I think they're about 50 are they each like you need together - it's the set you need both oh okay what means still that talking about like how steep the other ones worth that's gonna make it a much bigger deal and it is now I especially with these guys that you're talking about developing such great content from legacy games yeah I'm just waiting for the ready player one moment that I can actually get into a full haptic rig and be in a virtual world oh man like oh cool yeah live that dream live that dream alright guys that's gonna be it for today if you want to be featured on our show like Jerry thanks again Jerry we're all over social media go ahead and comment on our SoundCloud Facebook Twitter or go ahead and send us an email at human factors cast at gmail.com with all of your questions you can also get to the front of the line question like Jerry did today by supporting us on our patreon site at patreon.com slash 'i'm effective cast be sure to LIKE subscribe and review us on itunes google play store SoundCloud your favorite podcast directory we're always trying to keep in touch with interesting topics that you guys our listeners want to hear about on the show so feel free to suggest away I want to thank Blake barnsdorf for being on the show today Blake oh you can find any other Twitter's that chill bro UX chill bro he rats over I like I like that as always thanks to my co-host Billy Hall right can they find you they can find me on Twitter or they can find me streaming on YouTube at con star clerk as for me I've been your host Nick Rome you can find me on LinkedIn or Twitter at Nick underscore Rome thanks again for tuning into human packaged cats until next time it's a pen