Blinking twelve problem
In software design, the blinking twelve problem is when features in software or computer systems are rendered unusable to most users by the complexity of the interface to them. The usage emanates from the 'clock' feature provided on many VCRs manufactured in the late 1980s or early 1990s. The clock could be set by using a combination of buttons provided on the VCR in a specific sequence that was found complicated by most users. As a result, VCR users were known to seldom set the time on the VCR clock. This resulted in the default time of '12:00' blinking on the VCR display at all times of the day, which is the origin of this term. "In most surveys, the majority of people have never time-shifted just because they don't know how to program their machines," said Tom Adams, a television analyst for Paul Kagan Associates, a media research firm, in 1990. 'The blinking twelve problem' thus refers to any situation in which features or functions of a program go unused for reasons that the designers never anticipated, largely because developers were unable to anticipate the level of understanding the users would have of the technology. The term may also