User Centered

Here's an interesting point from a user about one feature that VCR's (tapes actually) have that you might actually miss in a DVR:

Q: I love TiVo, but why can't I change the name of my saved shows? In the days of the video, I could tape what I want, change the name to "Broncos Highlights -- 1994" and rest assured my wife would never look at it. Now, if I TiVo something she might not like, "Naughty Nurses" is right on the saved list. Has there ever been a better product with such an obvious oversight?
--Brendan Lane, Darnestown, Md.

Sports Guy: You're a genius. They should add a special feature called "TiVo Camouflage" for an extra $9.95 a month. Every time you record a movie like "Naughty Nurses," TiVo Camouflage automatically changes the title of the show to something concurrently running on the NFL Network. That can't miss.

Via PVRBlog via ESPN

Low tech solutions like this are often a hotbed of usability. No product meets everyone's needs out the box. There is often some slight tweak or customization to get it to work exactly the way you need it. Flaw in design? Not necessarily, it's often the "best under the circumstances." So you take a look at how people use their products and you'd amazed at all the corner cases you run across.

I can see designers thinking- "well, we get the program information from the TV-guide, so the user never has to type anything, it's a user centered design!" -and it is! But for this guy, he'd rather not have that information known (although I imagine it's still a small percentage of the time he'd like this capability). Designers should take special not of the fact that he refers to it as an "obvious oversight."

I don't blame them- this is something that didn't even occur to me in the least bit, although, now that I think about it, I've been embarrassed at the (HGTV|Star Trek|etc..) programming I've had on my DVR at times, so I see where he's coming from.

Scoreboard:
DVR: 299,393
VCR: 1