The strange case of the DVD´s menu

Everytime we decide to watch a DVD film we always face the same problem: What surprises will give us the film´s menu to set up language, subtitles, extras…?

It´s like a strange disease: None of these menus are the same, navigation between items are always different and the resources they use to tell you where you are inside the menu change from one DVD to another. Some of them choose themselves what “they think” you want you, some not…

Why the hell a sooo simple navigation scheme has to be sooo difficult to use? I´m afraid that this is because the main objective is to make these menus visual, trendy, cool. But visual, trendy or cool should be the film not the elements to put that film to work… I bet you that lot of elderly people cannot set the way they want a simple film.

“The menus themselves suffer badly from lack of standardization”. I think one of these days I´ll try to work on some guidelines for this silly stuff the right way.

Further reading: DVD Menu Design: The Failures of Web Design Recreated Yet Again