History's 5 Best Interface Designs

Modern interface designers hate you. With few exceptions, the modern gadget is as impossible to navigate as were the seas before the sextant and the marine chronometer. The reason? The internal functions bear no relationship to anything we might encounter in the real world, so arbitrary abstractions are needed to bridge the gap between microchip and brain. Add to this the fact that the UI is often an afterthought in most devices and you end up with something like the RAZR, hated far and wide for its labyrinthine control layout.

It wasn’t always this way. Perhaps if today’s designers payed a little attention to the past they might come up with something a little easier to love, and a little less frustrating to use.