Techno-Frustrato
Yes, bells and whistles sell product.
However, these days the frustration resulting from the half-baked technology solutions dominating store shelves is now front-page news, as evidenced by the New York Times Sunday edition (Comforts of Home Yield to Tyranny of Digital Gizmos 4/28/02).
Do we consumers just accept this tyranny as the way of the world? Is it okay to buy defective products for top dollar, then be told, "the product is fine, it's just that you, Sir, Madam or Ms., are stupid"? Consumers need to insist on common sense ground rules for the products they buy.
For starters let's address the lingo . . .
Bug: This is a small undesirable insect, not a cutesy euphemism for defective product. Ditto for "Glitch."
Work Around: A term for normal human activity, as in 'I have some "work around" the house to do.' It should not be used as a commonplace directive to consumers, who, when they reach out for help, are instructed to act like product engineers.
Update: This is something akin to a local news bulletin at 11:00 p.m. Don't even think that a consumer should have to go to a website for a download, or send away for some new piece of digerati to make the gizmo work!
Quick Start: A term intended to mean getting up and running fast--with or WITHOUT AN ENGINEERING DEGREE from a CalPoly, Stanford, MIT, or tenure at the Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory.
The Good Housekeeping, UL, and EZ Rated seals are all tools that help identify products on-the-shelf that have met certain important standards. Exercise your rights, as well as your good judgment; choose the products that have met the higher standards and on average you will choose better products.
For example, the Good Housekeeping seal will allow for better warranty protection, while the EZ Rated seal assures that you can setup and use your purchase quickly. If the product is poorly designed, and it can be very hard to tell from just looking at the box, it will not carry independent certifications like those listed above.
Unless we as consumers refuse to purchase poorly executed products we have no power to improve our plight. Vote yes for consumerism with your dollars.
We have no choice over what software runs our home PC, but with most other technical offerings we do have choices. If we choose to buy only the products that have been well-designed, -documented, and -supported, then the producers will be forced to adjust their offerings to more consumer friendly ones--at least the producers who intend to stay in business will!
