The Kindle Diaries - Part 6

I don't expect my opinion here to change the way you feel about owning a Kindle. I suspect that the early adopting, forward thinking Grey-Area-reader-about-town is on to their second or third Kindle by now. You've seen how cute the new ones are and even though the first one is just fine and there's nothing wrong with it at all... hey wait, is the screen staying a bit greyer than it should? Is that a tiny but visible amount of retention from the previous page I can see on the next page? No? Are you sure? Better get a new one just in case.

I am very happy with mine. It gets hours of use every day and it goes everywhere with me. There is the odd formatting niggle with some books, not enough to really detract from the enjoyment, just enough for me to think, "I would fix that if I was them," but on the whole, I couldn't be happier - except for one industrial design "feature" in one of the major accessories. The Kindle reading light.

The second most used thing in the house after the eBook, is the little reading light you can get for it. I'm not a world-class sleeper and get a lot of reading done in the small hours. The little light has been a boon. If you stick a good quality battery in it, like a lithium, it lasts for months. Like I said, hours every day and I've had one battery change since August last year. But, there's one bit of design on it that really gives me the poops - The on/off switch. It's particularly silly.

If you are using a reading light, it is very likely because you do not want to disturb the person asleep next to you. I would have thought that was probably its raison d'être but the on/off switch goes against this design imperative. Mounted on the flexible head of the light (the little bump you can see in the picture) it's a slider switch with pretty stiff notches to get between the three settings. These settings go from left to right: High - Off - Low. For those of you hip to this sort of thing, you will know the folly in placing the "off" position in the middle of settings.

Applying enough pressure to slide from one of the "on" positions inevitably fires the little switch from low to high and back again. Getting the pressure right, on a flexibly mounted head, to just get it into the off position usually requires a bit of back and forth. So what you are doing is lying there next to your slumbering partner, performing a miniature dance rave before finally getting it right and hoping you haven't woken them. I also can't believe that it would be that hard to correct. Emergency Contact's is the same model and it is wired in reverse. Low - Off - High. How hard can it be to move the off to the first position?

This is the thing that I find odd about this sort of boo-boo. These basics in usability have already been covered in other parts of the manufacturing world. If you look at a well designed modern gas stove, the circular regulating dial will go; off, then highest to lowest. This allows you to set your cooking to a simmer without the dial being knocked into a position where you're gassing yourself. Good, simple yet thoughtful design. 

A Grey Area - continuing to worry at the big issues in 2011.