Rusty Saber: Overly technical gizmos make products unusable

Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University.

Have you ever wondered why some products are so complicated that you need a degree from MIT to operate them? Your intrepid pundit (that's me) has wondered about such things.

Product planners don't set out to create gizmos so complicated they cause users to tear out their hair and use language that can't be repeated here. I doubt that any product designer begins a project by saying with a cackle, "This time, I'm going to design something that nobody will be able to use.'' This may be the result, but not the intended one.

Because of rapid technological advances, some products are over-designed out of a desire to use as many new doodads as possible, which may cause the product to be more complicated than consumers want to master.

New technology is attractive, but not if there is more of it in one place than the consumer desires.

Other products that are working well often are changed just to be different. What may have been intended as a breakthrough product turns out to be a breakdown.

On this subject, Jim Hopkins, in a USA Today article, said, "Too often, innovation is dominated by engineers who don't get enough input from consumers." Among those cited by Hopkins are automobile dashboards with more complex functions than any driver needs or wants. Others include the proliferation of constantly changing digital cameras and computer gizmos; all creating confusion among many consumers.

In an effort to cram as many high-tech gadgets as possible into cars, real world usage can often become a nightmare. The more expensive the car, the more gadgets there are to confuse users.

Two such examples mentioned by USA Today are the dashboards of Mercedes-Benz and BMW automobiles. When a reporter from Autoweek asked BMW company officials how many features were available on the BMW 7 Series, none could answer. One design executive wasn't sure, but he guessed "700 to 800." Too complex, indeed.

As for me, the dashboard feature I most want is a heating and cooling system that's simple, yet efficient. Your new car is likely to have a new set of complex temperature control instructions operating a system that probably doesn't heat or cool any better than your old car. Change for the sake of change at work.

The same goes for the lights, windshield wipers, radio, CD and/or cassette player. If Congress wanted to do something truly productive, it should pass sweeping legislation requiring automobiles sold in this country to have similar temperature control systems, lights, windshield wipers and sound systems.

Why is it necessary to have all sorts of ways to operate the lights? Light switches should all be in the same place, and work the same in all vehicles. Ditto everything else.

The chief problem caused by the variety of car mechanisms is most apparent when one drives a car for the first time. The worst-case scenario is renting a car at an airport and driving at night in a strange city.

The plot thickens as one figures out how to operate the car. Regardless of the abundance of a car's expensive bells and whistles or the lack of them, some standardization would be nice, and perhaps safer.

Modern digital cameras have moved beyond me.

I draw looks of pure disdain when I say that I still use a regular 35mm camera that takes pictures, but it doesn't print them or send copies to everyone I know at the touch of a computer mouse. I'll have to let digital camera zealots decide for themselves if cameras have been over-designed.