Bluetooth Pairing UI Fail

Logitech K380 bluetooth keyboard pairing UI is likely difficult for but the most advanced users.

I gave this keyboard, a temporary replacement to my Apple wireless, to my wife to use with her iPad – it’s a neat keyboard in theory but I never was comfortable typing on it. She now seems pretty happy with it, at least compared to typing on glass.

But for normal people this keyboard, and Apple’s for that matter, presents a UI problem. My wife wants to connect the keyboard to the iPad – at first glance how does she accomplish this task? There is nothing in this picture that supports that task, that supports her mental model of connecting 2 devices together.

She knows it’s a bluetooth keyboard, so she looks through the settings app. on the iPad and finds Bluetooth settings within which shows which devices are connected. No luck there.

So she asks.

I tell her she has to pair the devices. There is no UI to support that label. Because I have previously learned the UI from numerous other bluetooth devices I come over try long pressing the bluetooth icon and eventually we are in action. Known of that is at all obvious or learnable without outside guidance. Most bluetooth devices, especially the Apple BT keyboard I have, which has you long press the power button (!), allow users to fail in this basic task.

If we look to minimalistic or very simple UI the task should be automatic, like with Apple’s new EarPods. If we are unable to accomplish that then we need more obvious UI that directs the user to task completion – like a button with a label that has connect/pair or an icon with a universally accepted connect/pair meaning. The bluetooth icon is slowly becoming that symbol but I bet most people would not recognize it as such in tests.