|
 My wife Barbara likes to tease me occasionally about my enthusiasm for remote control technology. I used to have X-10 remote controls for dimming reading lights in our bedroom. They were, oh, 99% reliable ... which meant that about 3 times a year, some power disturbance in the house or neighborhood would cause bedside lamps to pop on at full brightness in the middle of slumber. Eventually I saw the error of my ways, and X-10 at home was no more.
Fastforward to March 2011. I stayed at the new Aria Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas for an industry gathering. Different from many of the other Vegas Hotels, the Aria had *everything* wired with remote control. On the bedside table was a large Control4 touchscreen. Lighting, motorized drapes, TV, music, ventilation, cooling, ... all this and more was controlled by the touchscreen. In fact, the only way to turn bedside lights on and off was with the touch screen. They had been open for about 10 months. You'd think it would be enough time to shake down the systems, but ...
My first night, I awoke around 3AM, and needed to get up for a moment. No problem - just find the touch screen (which I'd buried in the drawer because it glowed too brightly). Grope for it in the drawer, squint without glasses at the labels, touch "lights", then "bedside".
Oh my. The curtains started grinding open - both the blackout and the sheer layers. The TV popped on, and began blasting a music video. Yes - some light came on, too. Panic ensued. There I am, stabbing buttons, trying to get it to quiet down. Using the separate TV remote (fortunately, they'd left one in the room), I managed to mute the TV, then turn it off. Phew - One down.
Now - the drapes. Page thru the menus - find the drapes. Grrrrrind - the motors start. Oops - they open smoothly, but they get stuck closing. Argh. Put on more clothes, drag the desk chair over to the window, stand on tippy-toe on the chair, try to get the drapes traveller past the stuck spot. Finally - they are both closed. Now ... can I get the lights off? Nope - not without one of the curtains opening again. Argh! Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to leave the desk chair in place under the window tracks. Climb back up - drag them over the bad spot.
This room is ... haunted? By now, I was really awake. I retraced my steps thru the touch screen menus -- had I mis-tapped? Nope ... same side effects all over again! I unplugged the touchscreen (Ethernet) from the wall, and let it reboot. Would it act different now? Nope - same thing. (this time, I was ready
On the 3rd try, I'd finally made it to the bathroom, then gotten the room back to dark and quiet without any side effects. Part of me thought it would have made a hilarious Candid Camera video. Another part of me wondered "how would someone like my parents react to such complexity and malfunctions?"
The next night - I kept my flashlight on the bed stand and didn't go near the cursed touch screen.
And it got me thinking about:
- system designers who don't test their human interfaces on a wide variety of people (young, old, sleepy, nearsighted...)
- the desire to automate 'everything' because its cool to do so, or because it will save energy, or ?
- was anyone else living the same nightmare?
- and ... would calling the front desk at 3AM have any positive effect?
It was very humbling for me (who is normally pretty comfortable with automation) to be at the mercy of this terror of the night.
Its part of our job as technologists to recognize that what seems simple and elegant to us could be very challenging for people who just want to use business technology to accomplish other goals (patient care, checking homework, generating invoices, reviewing resumes ...).
While it wasn't the most restful night, my silver lining was getting to walk a mile in "user shoes".
If any of your systems seem unduly complicated, fragile, or just plain crazy ... let us know. We might have some ideas for taming the beast! At worst, we'll loan you some wire cutters!
| 
When the team that helped launch Method Home Products set out to do it all over again, developing a new line of natural skin care products without exciting chemical ingredients, they needed a modern reliable communications platform to knit their far-flung team. An initial attempt with a "cloud-hosted" VOIP vendor ended in frustration - dropped calls, and distorted voice.