Another model for usability

After reading the recent post about the usability lessons that software vendors could learn from the MMORPG Progress Quest, an alert reader suggested another good candidate for a very usable product, and that's the Holly Hop Drive, as seen in the episode "Parallel Universe" of the TV Show Red Dwarf.

Here's how the Holly Hop Drive is described in Red Dwarf:

LISTER: (Holding up the Holly Hop Drive) Is this it?

HOLLY: What do you think?

LISTER: It’s just a box with “STOP” and “START” on it!

HOLLY: It’s fairly straightforward. If you want to start it you press “START,” and you can work out the rest of the controls for yourself.

I can't say for sure whether or not the usability of Voltage's SecureMail was modeled on the Holly Hop Drive, but I don't recall it ever being mentioned. They do seem somewhat similar, though. In one case you just need to press "START" to get it working; in the other case you just need to click on "Send Secure."