Buttons are buttons, wheels are not wheels

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Doing research on camera user interfaces and design, we discovered a design problem present in an embarrassing amount of digital cameras: wheels that not behave like wheels.

Back side of a typical digital camera. In this case the Canon Digital IXUS 80

Back side of a typical digital camera. In this case the Canon Digital IXUS 80.

What you see in the picture above these lines is a  typical digital camera. Last week we went to a huge store to check camera models and we found out that many of them use the following wheel design:

Typical digital camera wheel.

Typical digital camera wheel.

The problem with this design is that the wheel does not behave like a wheel, meaning that it can not be rotated in any direction. In most cases, we saw that wheels were actually 4 buttons put together. Even worse, those buttons usually had totally different functions.

A test with users

During our user research finished recently, we tested several cameras (digital and not) with some users. Basically, we gave them different cameras to try and we observed them playing around. Most of the users were not expert in the use of cameras, what we could call “standard user” for these cameras (not professional).

For the digital cameras, almost all users tried to navigate through the user interface displayed on the screen trying to turn the wheel. Some never noticed that they could actually press the fictitious wheel.

This is the users’ voice: something that looks like a wheel must behave like a wheel, not like a button.

  • paul

    New Olympus EP-1 has a wheel that IS a wheel, check it out! It’s a very handy feature that lets you scroll thru menu options.

  • http://www.designvsart.com/about.html Alexis Brion

    Yes! There are also some new Canons with a real wheel. Unfortunately, most cameras have a fake wheel still.

    Thanks for the comment!

  • Jae

    The new Canon S90 has an actual wheel that Ken Rockwell raves about, supposedly a mind blowingly great new interface in fast quick controls.

    The newer Sony cameras all have touch screens.

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  • http://www.beemo.net/ Brian

    I’ve noticed this as well—especially with the Canon models. I do have 1 model which has a functioning wheel, but the other 2 do not. I always figured it was either a production shortcut (4 “buttons” for the price of 1) and/or a desire to keep continuity among all the existing models (those which have a functioning wheel interface). Regardless, it’s still puzzling :)

  • http://trollboy.wordpress.com Mark

    On the plus side, it saves space on the back of the camera. Whereas you could only fit 4 regular buttons separately using a circle makes room for a fifth.

  • http://www.graphpaper.com Christopher Fahey

    Almost all remote controls have this design obsession, too. The idea is, IMHO, to make the interface look sexy in a photograph or on a box to a person who has yet to think about the full implications of the interfaces use. Or, as you suspect, it’s just a creepy obsession of engineer/designers at electronics companies.

  • JJ

    Late comment on an old post, I know – but good points. If only for the near total dominance in the market of this design feature. Even when designers try to avoid the wheel, the keys are still grouped in a circular fashion:

    http://a.img-dpreview.com/reviews/Q209waterproofgroup/Images/PanaFT1/intro.jpg
    http://a.img-dpreview.com/reviews/Q209waterproofgroup/Images/CanonD10/Camera-back.jpg

    In defense, there is a need to simplify the look of the physical interface if the engineers require so many keys. I wish it could always coincide with an improvement in usability, but alas, no. Is the circle better or worse than separate buttons arranged in a circle? Or a grid of buttons? Or maybe the same layout, but in the shape of a square or diamond to dispel the urge to rotate? Most cellphones do something like that.