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As I’m struggling with my WiFi yet again (I’m on the point of conceding that my MacBook has dodgy wiring - off to Regents Street I go…), I was interested by this article on the pointlessness of mobile signal strength bars.
We, the public, have no understanding of communication technology. We simply trust the designer to translate a complicated number into an easy scale; but even then, the scale is meaningless in isolation. We only know from experience that zero bars means “Don’t bother”, two means “Dodgy” and five means “Perfect”.
The New Scientist blog goes on to comment that it would be more useful to turn this into something that actually makes sense to the user. Granted, labels like “No reception”, “Poor quality”, “OK” would indeed be far more useful. The problem is, no network operator would permit it. Not only would they not be keen on a device that cheerily bleats out negative messaging about the carrier network, but it is already alleged that networks manipulate battery strength indicators - reception standards would probably be equally ’subjective’. [Research apparently shows that customers' use of their phones dips when their battery falls below 50%. The solution? Force the manufacturers to skew the indicator, of course!]
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