Anyone who drives a car knows that manually scanning through radio stations can be a hassle. We may find a song on one station that we know, but keep scanning because of the possibility of a better song being on at the same time. Then while your looking for that better song you want to keep in mind the first radio station number just in case you don't happen to get lucky with a better song.
In my case, I can be trying to memorize the numbers of six different stations and what they're playing and trying to keep my attention on the road at the same time that when I want to pick a station I don't remember any of them or what they are playing and have to start all over again. This problem was greatly improved by automobile companies with the inclusion of "station savers." These are those buttons numbered one through six on your dashboard that allow you to program your favorite radio stations. This one little advancement has made it much easier on drivers trying to concentrate on the road and by allowing them an alternative to committing numbers to memory.
A human's short term memory is where a person stores little bits of incoming information that soon after will be lost pretty rapidly. Short term memory generally allows a person to store around seven pieces of information (give or take a few) at a time (Miller 1956). Our working memory is what allows us to put to use what we just collected in our short term memory. This can be seen when I previously talked about trying to remember the radio station channels. I committed the channel numbers to my short term memory and this is known because when an interference such as paying attention to the road occurred, I forgot the station numbers and had to re-memorize them. This is why the inclusion of "station savers" in radios is such a huge advantage to a person trying to drive and enjoyably listen to music.
These buttons are very useful to our memories. Having programmed radio stations allows for the use of mnemonic devices to be formed instead of memorization. For example, what type of music each programmed station plays or even their station names is correlated to each button rather than the exact station number. As well, in time we might even convert station numbers from short term to long term memory due to constantly seeing the station number when a certain button is pressed.
The ease and simplicity of radio hopping that these "station savers" have brought has permitted humans to program their likes, briefly floating in their short term memory, so they no longer have to stress their short term memory and can just enjoy their ride. Many other interfaces have been designed to make it easy for people to use their products. They all follow certain guidlines that can be viewed at http://architectingusability.com/2012/06/12/what-user-interface-designers-need-to-know-about-how-human-memory-works/.
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