Dumbing Down, or Necesary Blinders
This seems so simultaneously a great idea and an absurd by product of the times we live in. Take a piece of paper, wrap it around your remotes, and make cutouts for those few buttons on those remotes for your guests to use. It will keep them from nagging you about how to use your home theater setup. Mark up any special instructions right on the paper.
This excels in putting information literally at your users fingertips, and focuses them at the precise time they need to use this information. It is like the ideal software designers user interface… its like a great waiter or butler, there lurking about but only visible when you need them- and they probably know what you want.
As a social convention, it reminds me of the post 9/11 period when all the news channels started the streaming ‘bug’ at the bottom of the screen, constantly parading the news across there. Some viewers wanted that constant drip of information, others’ blood pressure raised unnecessarily, still others advocated sticking paper across the bottoms of their TVs to block out that drivel.
Do we live in a society that has amassed too much information, and we as junkies can’t wean ourselves off it? Do we not know that there is an off switch? Are we really no better off simply because we do have too much information?
As usual the answer is not simple. But we can easily adapt to improve our lives. It can take more thought, a chance for us that welcome the challenge of using our noggins. Otherwise, we will have to depend on others to wrap paper around our free will, and let us know what our choices are. I’d rather design my own necessary blinders, thank you.
