You put your MP3 player on random. You have a playlist of 20 songs. What are the odds that the next song played is the same song which was just played?
I think the option is more typically called “shuffle”, which actually accurately represents what it does.
I once had a MP3 player where “random” actually did what it said (for some value of “actually”), including playing the same song twice in a row once in a while.
I did too (up to and including the “some value of actually,” as it played 20% of the songs 90% of the time), which is why I brought up that example. It annoyed me to no end that the button did what it said it did.
In general, interfaces should reflect what the user expects the interface to be, rather than what the designer expects the user to interpret the interface to be.
I think the option is more typically called “shuffle”, which actually accurately represents what it does.
I once had a MP3 player where “random” actually did what it said (for some value of “actually”), including playing the same song twice in a row once in a while.
I did too (up to and including the “some value of actually,” as it played 20% of the songs 90% of the time), which is why I brought up that example. It annoyed me to no end that the button did what it said it did.
In general, interfaces should reflect what the user expects the interface to be, rather than what the designer expects the user to interpret the interface to be.
Actually, I kind-of liked its unpredictability. When I didn’t want to listen to a song for a second time (and sometimes I did), I just skipped it.