What You Want v.s. What You Need (and When)

I snapped the image above over the holidays while visiting my aunt and uncle.  I pounced on the opportunity to document something firsthand that I had seen many times before online and in fieldwork.  We've all experienced the confusion of trying to use a remote control which had literally dozens of buttons more than we would interact with in daily use.  This low-tech solution strikes back with paper and masking tape.

This issue has been repeatedly addressed via ultra-simple remote controls, but the seemingly obvious solution never seems to stick.  Examples include Mitsubishi's pen remote (1990), Go-Video's Palm Mate (1993), and Samsung's Pebble remote (2009), among others.  I have yet to see one of these examples sitting out at a home I visit.  

Will we ever learn - or is is more of a case of serving needs which change contextually?  I suggest there is more than one customer to satisfy here, and that may be defined as much by time as by who:

• The end user, confronted by a daunting array of tiny buttons  when they simply want to turn up the volume.
• The end user, trying to make a purchase decision.  They may not understand all of the techno-jargon, but they can see when one product seems to have a lot more to offer than another for the same price.
• The retail buyer, tasked with pulling together a competitive offering of products each year.  Their customers may never get to touch the product if it is boxed or online, so bulleted and tallied lists of features have strong influence.
• The Manufacturer, attempting to minimize parts, costs, and SKUs across multiple products and markets.  Extending the reach of a product by adding more buttons on the same overlay is a small incremental hit compared to offering unique products tooled and designed for niche markets.

Working backward, the last two are different people with similar aims - but the first two are the same person separated by stage of ownership.  

I'm apparently not immune to this either, as evidenced by my last car purchase.  The rally-inspired performance capabilities and countless small convenience features sure were seductive when I was contemplating the purchase, but did they really make sense during my daily commute in heavy traffic?  Well, maybe that's not the best example, as it still brings a smile to my face every time it pummels my kidneys with it's stiff ride and presses me back into the seat in second gear.  Logical... well, not really.  Emotional... oh yes.


“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.” 
 - E.F. Schumacher