Turn Me On

Some people are tech savvy, and can bring a computer or phone or smart appliance to heel with little effort. Should things go off course, they are adept at troubleshooting the problem and executing a solution. Others, well, not so much. These individuals know which buttons to press to do their usual tasks, and are fine if all goes according to plan. But should there be a glitch, they are up a creek without an electronic paddle. First they panic, then they look around for help, then they reach into their limited electronic toolkit and execute the most basic and powerful reset there is known to expert and novice alike: turn it off, turn it on.

In probably more than 80% of cases that's all it takes. And why is that? Tech does a myriad of things. Most times when we want to move to the next task we just jump across without shutting down the thing we were working on. It makes for lots of open jobs with potentially conflicting sets of instruction and demands. Should the system be unable to juggle or figure out what the heck you are asking of it, it gets confused. And knocking it out and making it start all over again usually helps. 

Perhaps the best explanation came courtesy of an experienced online hand who goes by KDY_ISD. As described in the "No Stupid Questions" section of the Reddit website, "Imagine you live in a huge, ancient city with winding streets that have many twists and turns. You want to get from your house to the grocery store. Somewhere along the way, you aren't paying attention, and take a wrong turn. Now you're lost. You don't recognize any buildings. What do you think is more likely to help you -- going around and around in circles, or magically teleporting back to your house and starting again from the beginning of the route you already know? That's what power cycling does. It takes a device that's trapped in some kind of problem, picks it up, and puts it back down at the starting line again. 'Ah, the starting line,' it says. 'I know what to do from here.'"

Makes sense.  There's just one problem: finding that power switch.

Designers and engineers who create cars and vacuum cleaners and screen interfaces are always trying for a fresh take. They change the cabinet, the color, the way you attach the accessories. Sometimes it's an improvement, other times it's just different for the sake of being different. And so you wind up bitching because the menu for "bold type" no longer lives where it used to. Eventually after poking around a bit you find it, and it becomes part of your muscle memory going forward.  

As to the aforementioned power switch, like the key or button that starts your car, you would think they would be put in roughly the same place no matter the manufacturer or model. You should be able to walk up to a device, extend your right hand to the top edge or right side or bottom corner, and turn it on. But that would make sense.

And so you find the situation we were we in. We had several large screen televisions spread around the room, each showing a different video. First thing in the morning it should have been a simple matter and a few moments to fire each up. One was a Sharp, one a Sony, one an LG and two were Samsungs. And every single one of them, even the two from the same manufacturer, had power switches in different places. One was bottom right, one was back center, one was on the right edge. There were buttons, rockers, even a small joystick. We had to run our hands over and around, feeling for something that made sense. The crew looked like a bunch of blind men trying to determine if the beast in question was an elephant, a camel or a horse.

Eventually we got them all turned on. But why? Why take something so simple and elemental and make it hard? No one will ever buy or not buy a device because of the design and placement of the power switch. I'm a simple guy: if you want to turn ME on, just make it easy to turn IT on.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford turns his computer off every night. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.