I was originally going to title this “The Design Factor of Why the JeJoue Mimi Buttons Aren’t So Good”, but holy shit, that’s a ridiculous mouthful. Like, really. Like Google would have a nightmare attempting to cache that, and it’ s not exactly catchy.
Anyways, the JeJoue MiMi is one of the better clitoral vibrators I’ve tried, and as such, I keep coming back to it to try and use it again. So I decided to use my college, university-sponsored knowledge to try and use design principles to figure out why the buttons were driving me so nuts. After all, other toys like the FunFactory Share or the LELO Insignia has buttons that are flush with the material. Here’s what I came up with:
I took a class in the Human Factors in Technology. it’s basically a giant class about what different things people expect from a product, and what makes the product extra useful. In this class, we learned something about Norman’s Design Principles. One of them is the idea of “Feedback”. When we press a keyboard key, the key pushes down under the weight, and it also makes a little clicking noise. We also see the number printed on the screen. When we push buttons in our car stereo, buttons click under our movement. We get the feedback that we want to know that we pressed the button.
I just don’t get that feedback on the JeJoue MiMi. The buttons are flush with the toy, and to be honest, at first, I thought the buttons were touch-activated instead of being a button. After a bit of messing around, I figured out that the buttons were buttons, though, and went about using the toy. I think the problem with the MiMi is that the buttons don’t really push down. They’re there, and the vibrations will change when you “push” the button, but you don’t get any sort of movement or noise that lets you know that you’ve pushed the button. It gets annoying. When added to the fact that the buttons are really tiny and hard to press, it becomes a bigger problem to deal with.
On the JeJoue MiMi, there are little buttons. The buttons don’t really press down when pressed nor do they make a sound. Aside from the change of vibrations, it doesn’t really “let” you know you pressed the button. I guess that’s probably one of the bigger reasons why the JeJoue MiMi bothered me.
I don’t know if this is what the university intended my knowledge to go towards when I take university classes, but hey – it’s more interesting than analyzing how they apply to refrigerators.
Spot-on! That’s exactly it. You can never quite tell if you’re pressing enough. And usually, you’re not.
As a design freak, I really appreciate this post.
We need more theory applied to sex toy design! I played with the MiMi at a sex shop recently. It’s such a beautiful, sleek toy, but the buttons did drive me crazy. I kept having trouble turning it off.
My very scientific test concluded that my plus button doesn’t make a sound, but my minus button does. I also seem to be in the minority because I don’t think they’re hard to press, if hit them at the right angle. If I just press into the end of the toy, they don’t go anywhere. But if I tap them lightly from the right angle, then they will work.
My Mimi also seems to so some odd oscillating thing after about 10 minutes? It’s really frustrating, more than the Form 2 glitch. It also gets weaker for some unknown reason. I’m considering writing Je Joue.
[...] and accurate discussion of the buttons (again on MiMi, but they’re the same buttons) here at the Kinky World blog. I completely failed to turn it on on the first go and then couldn’t change the speed on the [...]
F*ckin’ awesome issues here. I am very happy to look your article. Thank you so much and i’m having a look ahead to contact you. Will you please drop me a e-mail?
[...] and accurate discussion of the buttons (again on MiMi, but they’re the same buttons) here at the Kinky World blog. I completely failed to turn it on on the first go and then couldn’t change the speed on the [...]