CSCI 1300 Critique Journal: Sennheiser PXC 450 Headphones
In this article, I will discuss some of the various user interface issues that I have come across when using my Sennheiser PXC 450 Active Noise-Cancelling headphones.
Over 3 years ago, I got these headphones thinking that they would not only be an excellent contribution to my studying ability, but also useful during my upcoming semester abroad where I would be travelling frequently and might desire peace and quiet in even the most hectic traveling scenarios. I wanted headphones that were also stylish and had great noise-quality. These attributes were appropriately satisfied, but it was not until I began using them frequently that some of the design attributes began to annoy me.
First of all, the size. These headphones are definitely big. At first I was happy about this, since large headphones are fairly stylish nowadays and they felt very comfortable against my head. Because they are so big, though, the bottoms of the ear cups extend a little past the jaw in certain head orientations and sound is able to link in from the outside. They also look comically large on anyone who has an average or smaller head.
The controls for volume up, volume down, on/off, and “talk through” are on the outside of the right headphone cup. The “talk through” feature is a cool feature where you can click the button to bypass the noise reducing elements of the headphones by playing sound that is picked up from microphones situated on the outside of the headphones. This is useful when you want to listen to important flight information and don’t want to take off your headphones. This is also useful if you want to look like a secret service agent by tapping this button and listening in on the conversations of people around you. Unfortunately, your cover is blown by the LED on the outside that turns from red to green when you turn on the talk through function (I don’t see any reason why they would bother with an LED that is only visible when you are not wearing the headphones).
The volume buttons and on/off button are shaped in a circle around the talk-through button, and their shallow profile makes them almost flush with the rest of the ear cup. Aesthetically, this is a slick design, however, these buttons are quite difficult to operate. Because they are on the outside of the headphones, you need to operate them through touch, but their shallow profiles and atypical layout always make me doubt whether I clicked the right button.
A simple change to this design would be making the buttons less shallow and more distinct. However, I realize that potential reason the buttons were made so shallow was to limit to possibility of accidental pressing. Therefore, I would recommend that they relocate the buttons to, for example, the edge of the ear cup, as many other headphone manufacturers have done.
Other design changes I would suggest include making the headphones overall smaller to fit a greater range of potential customers and employing voice feedback to indicate changes in mode, rather than the LED light on the outside of the headset. Alternatively, control buttons and an LED could be moved to the audio cable, where commands can be confirmed visually as well as by touch.