I really like how you brought to the fore this concept of intuition as it relates to UI/UX in technology products. There’s a certain cachet in being able to operate technical devices. There’s similar social capital to be gained in creating useful results using technology. If only the embedded intuition of operating the device worked with the goal of creating useful results with the device.

The biggest “what were they thinking” part for me is why they cram a whole GUI with config options and menus into a clock when almost every use case for a VCR is already connected to a perfectly workable display which is much better suited to a GUI in the form of the TV. Later VCRs had onscreen rather than on-device GUIs but by then institutional momentum was too far along to redesign the remote when they moved the GUI out of the device and onscreen. Truly a missed opportunity.

I don’t know anyone involved in any VCR product. If I did I’d be asking them a lot of questions. But I have a hard time thinking they meant to make it so hard. They probably were clapping each other on the back and congratulating each other. They were inventing future ways of using content and for that they deserve praise. They just sucked at understanding how hard it is for non experts to put themselves in the mind of experts, someone whose inner mental world has jarringly different contours and whose mental model of reality may have little to no correspondence whatsoever with their own.