"All of the appliances and systems are brand-new: the HVAC, the lighting, the entertainment. Touch screens of various shapes and sizes control this, that, and the other. Rows of programmable buttons sit where traditional light switches would normally be. The kitchen even has outlets designed to rise up from the countertop when you need them, and slide away when you don't."
"Light switches, which have been self-explanatory since the dawn of electric lighting, apparently now come as an unlabeled multibutton panel that literally required a tutorial session from a technician. Pressing the same button twice might turn the lights on and off, or you might have to press one button for on and another for off. "It depends" is the name of the game-which is exactly what you don't want when you're trying to find the bathroom in the middle of the night."
"The TV is a recent model from Samsung. The picture is great, once it finally boots up-after you've spent way too long staring at a black screen wondering if you hit the power button or not, then hitting it again and realizing you just switched the whole thing off even though it never seemed to be on in the first place."
My folks stayed in a newly constructed, modern rental with all brand-new systems and appliances. The house featured touchscreens, programmable button panels, and pop-up countertop outlets intended to streamline living. Usability proved poor: unlabeled multibutton light panels required a technician tutorial and behaved inconsistently, complicating simple nighttime navigation. The television required long boot times and forced navigation through app menus, turning casual viewing into a frustrating task. Kitchen appliances were similarly opaque, with multiple people repeatedly pressing buttons to coax the dishwasher and other devices to respond. The modern features prioritized novelty over intuitive function.
Read at The Atlantic
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]