Light Switch Usability
One of my pet leisure activities is puzzling over a seemingly pointless question "why (enter a name of a random everyday object) have been designed this way?"
Last weekend I took my bathroom light switch on board and after a long deliberation decided to give it a C mark (even that was generous considering its various shortcomings.)
To start with: we use this "light" switch to control our bathroom electric fan. Trick is, this particular fan model has a built-in delay at the off-state, so when you switch it on - it works right away, but when you switch it off - it waits 5 minutes and only then shuts itself. Problem I'm having regularly is this: I hear the fan working and just by looking at the switch I have no idea if I switched it off or not. The problem lies with the design of a switch itself. It doesn't acknowledge its status. Unlike in the States or Australia, Poland, like most other European countries, adopted the "rocker" switch design, whereby the switch doesn't indicate whether it's on or off. Naturally, builders or electricians who installed my switches didn't sweat over usability nitty gritties and applied absolutely zero consistency. We've ended up having each switch in the house either tilted up for off... or tilted down for off. In hindsight, I should've been a bigger usability nazi and made them stick to one consistent pattern. Rocker switch design is good, as long as you stick with a single consistent way to install your switches. Now, I couldn't be bothered calling them up and paying for redoing it, yet being a usability pervert I keep sweating over this little stupid thing each day :)
On a side note, when I travel, I keep wondering how come each country decided they needed to push their own standard for light switch. It's like each nation's founding fathers had a dream to influence the world in their own trivial way. I've decided to wikipedia the topic and found a tone of information (most of it useless electrical specs), but found some gems of examples: )
- American light switches have adopted a toggle design - 
- Continental switches - mentioned here before, follow the rocker design - 
- The real gem however is the Aussie switch. It's scary to notice how prevailing bad designs are. Mind you - there's like 19million Aussies using this thing. For real! Basically what the Aussies did was they took the American design and asked themselves a fundamental question "How do we make it even less usable?". The outcome is this beauty 
So wrapping up my keyboard-happy post on light-switches, here is my subjective list of qualities any decent light switch should have:- Status acknowledgement. The switch should inform you of its state, on / off. Classic European switches fail here.
- Findability. It should be findable in the dark & at distance (ambient light). Seriously why so few switches have ambient light built in.
- Discoverability. Actual toggle / pad ought to be prominent enough, so you can press it no problem, the interface area should be big enough,so you don't have to aim for that 1x1 inch toggle or swipe your hand across to find it.
- Discoverability. Actual toggle / pad ought to be prominent enough, so you can press it no problem, the interface area should be big enough,so you don't have to aim for that 1x1 inch toggle or swipe your hand across to find it.
- Softness. Only a gentle push is required to operate. No need to apply force. Hey! kids would like to use it too. In Australia for instance, kids to the age of 13 can't operate light switches as this activity requires a lot of force and concentration.
- Quiet. Be noiseless in operation yet give you a subtle audio feedback when you on/off it.
- Affordance. Switch should look like a switch so people know it's for switching light, not scanning fingerprints.
- Esthetics. Be elegant and native, fit the interior, don't scream "I'm so modern".
- Versatility of operation. Can turn it on /off with a wet hand, elbow, If I'm carrying something, even kick it if I feel BruceLeeish. Aussie switch fails again. Forget wet fingers, Aussie design is so hard to operate you need to stop whatever you're doing, free up your hands, take a deep breath, focus, press firmly with your index finger on a round-edge button, fail, press again, fail, press again... Presto!
- Flat. When I'm carrying something, like a sofa, I don't want damage the switch or tear the sofa fabric.
Let's not forget about the wall placement. There is science to it too. Don't want to end up with a thing like this :)
