Users and Maps

Abstract

Your rental car is waiting for you down in the parking lot. It has one of those new climate control systems that has several modes and an LCD display (figure 2.1). Let us examine this system, because it will help us to better understand the kind of difficulties we frequently encounter with modern devices in which the old set of knobs, dials, and switches, which were previously provided to the user, are now squeezed into a small display with multiple modes. There are many advantages to this trendy shift to modes and LCD displays—it saves space, is easier to clean, reduces wear and tear on bulky controls, and, of course, looks more modern.