[IxDA Discuss] Phone numbers should be numbers

[Tom Corbett]

Mark,

The system that Jeff describes below worked quite well. Numbers were easier
to remember and chunks could be constructed from context.

The fact that Bell only "belatedly realized that they were running out of
number combinations" relates to namespaces. Last year 10,678 of 17,578
airport codes were in use. Although that left 6,900 valid airport codes
available, those 6,900 were not necessarily desirable. In namespaces,
certain symbol combinations tend to be favored. After about 50% of the
namespace has been filled, it becomes increasingly difficult to find favored
combinations. This explains, for example, why Calgary airport is coded
"YYC".

-Tom

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jeff Howard" <id at howardesign.com>
To: <discuss at lists.interactiondesigners.com>
Sent: Monday, November 20, 2006 1:35 PM
Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Phone numbers should be numbers


> Hey Mark,
>
> Just wanted to chime in with a defense of Bell Labs' mapping of
> letters to numbers. It was originally a mnemonic device unrelated to
> marketing. Up until the 1950s, phone numbers here in the US weren't
> strictly numeric. The first two numbers corresponded to the first two
> letters of the name of the exchange where that line was located.
> "Operator, get me Murray Hill 7-0093" became MU-7-0093
> (68-7-0093).
>
> http://ourwebhome.com/TENP/Recommended.html
>
> The switch to all-numeric prefixes and area codes only came when Bell
> belatedly realized that they were running out of number combinations.
> That left the letter-mapping as a vestigal tool that could be
> leveraged by marketing.
>
> So while Bell's intentions were originally pure, they were later
> co-opted in a way that I hate almost as much as Mark does. The
> conversion for input is maybe a trivial inconvenience, but it
> infuriates me. I think people's position on this has something to do
> with how well they retain numbers. I don't remember a 10 digit
> number, I remember 3 chunks. In most cases I can discount the area
> code, and when I was growing up I could discount the prefix as well.
> That means I can still order pizza from my high school pizza joint by
> remembering 2300 and constructing the rest from context.
>
> A few other observations. Memory (of letters or numbers) isn't as
> much of an issue any more. These mnemonic devices are useful if you
> encounter a marketing message and phone number in some environment
> without access to a phone. Like the 1980s. But now you have your
> phone with you. Call it. Or take a snapshot. And once you've called
> a number, you rarely have to remember it again. Your phone does it
> for you. But there's a disconnect: it doesn't show you the letters,
> it shows the numbers. During input, that makes the visual readout that
> modern telephones provide for error correction much, much less
> helpful. And heaven help you if you try to recognize "CALL-VON" on
> your phone bill when all you see is 225-5866.
>
> Yellow cab has a nice mnemonic here in San Francisco that gets around
> this problem. 333-3333. No letters, but super easy to remember.
> Although, like Steve Wozniak's 888-888-8888 number, potentially easy
> to accidently input.
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