Why does the spun-up indicator point down and the spun-down indicator point up?

 

The behavior that I expect from mechanical and GUI "switches" is that the position of the switch indicates the current state.  The user flips or clicks the switch to change the state.

 

I have searched and haven't found the previous discussion that I'm sure exists on this.  My guess is that the Web UI may be out of date so the thinking was that the button isn't really a reliable indicator.  I would argue that doesn't matter.  If it indicates "spun up" but it's really spun down, clicking on it should send a "spin down" command not a "change state" command, so it doesn't really matter that it was already spun down and the GUI was out of date.

 

I think the rationale is that it is a button and the shape indicates the action that will be taken if it is clicked.  Therefore a downward arrow for spin-down.

Now that I see this written down I think the OP is right.

 

As far as I can tell it is the only button in the design that is the opposite of its state.

When I first noticed the indicators in the earlier betas I was also confused by the symbols. I agree that it makes sense that they should be in the opposite direction. Although I was too lazy to say anything and have just come to accept it they are opposite 

When I first noticed the indicators in the earlier betas I was also confused by the symbols. I agree that it makes sense that they should be in the opposite direction. Although I was too lazy to say anything and have just come to accept it they are opposite 

I think the question is whether they are state indicators or indicative of the action that will happen when you click on them.

 

From the comments most people seem to think of them as state indicators in which case they are backwards.

When I first noticed the indicators in the earlier betas I was also confused by the symbols. I agree that it makes sense that they should be in the opposite direction. Although I was too lazy to say anything and have just come to accept it they are opposite 

I think the question is whether they are state indicators or indicative of the action that will happen when you click on them.

 

From the comments most people seem to think of them as state indicators in which case they are backwards.

I agree, it really depends on if the indicators are perceived as state indicators or what clicking them will trigger. I can see both sides but I think initially I thought it was backwards.

One thing I have noticed is that the 'spin down' (down arrow) is located low down while the spin up (up arrow) is higher.  If you took their position to indicate current state then the spin down should be in the upper position (when disk is currently spun up) and vice versa.    However I guess the position could be an artifact of something else that is not so obvious?

Why does the spun-up indicator point down and the spun-down indicator point up?

 

As others have mentioned - they are not indicators, but action buttons and, as such, the orientation is correct.  The spun down/spun up indication is conveyed by the colour of the circles next to those tiny  buttons.

 

Regarding your image of a toggle switch - the orientation of the switch will not appear at all unusual for our North American cousins!

The up/down symbols are (miniture) action buttons for an individual disk, like the Spin Down and Spin Up buttons on the Array Operation page.

 

When hovering over them, it will show the message "Click to spin <action> device" ...

Regarding your image of a toggle switch - the orientation of the switch will not appear at all unusual for our North American cousins!

Whoa, so you're saying that the orientation of that switch is opposite in Europe?

Regarding your image of a toggle switch - the orientation of the switch will not appear at all unusual for our North American cousins!

Whoa, so you're saying that the orientation of that switch is opposite in Europe?

 

Yep.  In UK, toggle up is off, toggle down is on.

I think the real test of the UI is whether a new user understands it the first time he encounters it.  I know for me that was not the case.   

 

It's no longer an issue for me because I've figured it out, but I brought it up on the assumption that future new users will be confused as well.

Regarding your image of a toggle switch - the orientation of the switch will not appear at all unusual for our North American cousins!

Whoa, so you're saying that the orientation of that switch is opposite in Europe?

 

Yep.  In UK, toggle up is off, toggle down is on.

Lets not even get into 3 way switches

Regarding your image of a toggle switch - the orientation of the switch will not appear at all unusual for our North American cousins!

Whoa, so you're saying that the orientation of that switch is opposite in Europe?

 

Yep.  In UK, toggle up is off, toggle down is on.

 

Except that the labels would also be the other way around as well, the toggle tip still points to the label

Very relevant and interesting

 

http://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/36207/which-way-should-be-on-for-a-switch

As others have mentioned - they are not indicators, but action buttons and, as such, the orientation is correct.  The spun down/spun up indication is conveyed by the colour of the circles next to those tiny  buttons.

 

I think the reason for my confusion was that that it's not obvious that they are buttons and not intended to be indicators.  They appear at first glance to be indicators, but as you pointed out, the actual indicator is right next to them.  So I think I would ditch them all together and just make the "LED" indicator click-able. 

 

That still wouldn't be obvious that it's an action button, but at least it wouldn't appear to be indicating the opposite of the current state.

 

Or change the up arrow/down arrow to a little picture of a toggle switch so knuckle draggers like me will grok it

I am tempted to suggest there is enough evidence to promote this to a bug.

Real LOL

 

hit the nail on the head

Definitely not a bug because it works as designed.  Just a suggestion to make the UI more intuitive.

Technically that is correct obviously. However it looks like 50% of people think it does the exact opposite of what it is designed to do and to me thats a bug.

Technically that is correct obviously. However it looks like 50% of people think it does the exact opposite of what it is designed to do and to me thats a bug.

Broken As Designed

Why not just change the indicator picture to something that more clearly indicates wake vs sleep? Like an open eyeball for awake and a series of 3 staggered z's for asleep? I think the whole debate is hinging on whether we want the icon to show the current state, vs what happens when you click it, and indicators typically show current state. Separation of array drive state and spin state icon doesn't mean they both can't be normal indicators. If you change the icon from an up/down indicator to a sleep wake indicator it becomes more clear to me that it is the current state, and hovering over the icon clearly tells you to click to change that state.

Of course we already beat on this for 6 pages before final was released.