How cool is this site?? History of the Button.
Yes, that’s right, it’s an entire blog about buttons (like the kind you press, not the kind you have on your shirt). And I think it’s an incredibly fascinating angle on how people view technology. In an age where techie folks (like me) have our heads above the clouds thinking about complex technologies (usually with complex interfaces), it’s interesting to see how much richness (and difficulty) a button can give you.
Anyway, it reminds of this meme, which Steve Jobs keyed on the Apple Remote having 6 buttons and their competitors having dozens.
I suppose the software version of this is the perpetually ill-used dialog box. Lots of examples here. Here’s another set of examples.
(I see crap like this all the time, sadly)