<p>Your columnist drives a large British four wheel drive whose ancestors earned their reputation in places where roads were regarded as a luxury. For several decades, vehicles from this stable crossed Africa, climbed mountains and splashed through rivers. Their charm was partly that they were extraordinarily capable and partly that they were simple. If the going became difficult, you stopped, locked the differential, selected second gear and proceeded gingerly. His present car is a much posher descendant. It is faster, more comfortable and has enough computing power to run a bank. It can tell him the temperature of each tyre, the gradient of the road and whether someone in the back seat has failed to fasten a belt. What it cannot do is allow him to change a simple setting without first applying for a course in information technology. This, apparently, is progress. </p> <p>The modern dashboard has become an enormous computer screen. Car companies compete to make it larger and more complicated. The old switches have disappeared because switches are presumably considered vulgar. Instead, if you want to alter the air conditioning, change the fan speed, switch off some electronic warning or adjust a driving setting, you begin at the home page. You then search for the correct icon, open another menu, examine several choices and finally press the one you want. If you press the wrong one, you return to the home page and begin again. All of this while travelling at 100 kilometres an hour. The absurdity is obvious. We are repeatedly told not to use our mobile phones while driving because looking away from the road is dangerous. Quite right too. Yet the same car may require its driver to stare at a tablet mounted in the middle of the dashboard merely to reduce the fan speed. Apparently, distraction is dangerous if the screen belongs to Apple, but becomes innovation if the screen is bolted to the vehicle. </p> <p>The old switch had one enormous advantage. You knew where it was. After a few weeks of ownership, your hand could find it without your eyes leaving the road. Want more air? Turn a knob. There was no need to consult a menu or wonder whether the software had suddenly changed overnight. Your columnist is not suggesting we return to cars with starting handles. Modern electronics have transformed navigation and fuel efficiency. A reversing camera is a splendid thing. Satellite navigation has probably saved more marriages than most counsellors. The issue is not technology but the ridiculous assumption that once something can be digitised, it should be. This is not confined to motor cars. Companies everywhere suffer from the same enthusiasm. Banks replace a helpful person with six layers of telephone menus. Hotels replace a light switch with a touch panel that requires spectacles at two in the morning. Restaurants replace menus with QR codes, so four people sit around a table staring at their phones before ordering dinner. Somewhere, a management consultant has probably described all this as frictionless. It is really the opposite. </p> <p>The management lesson is straightforward. A product should be designed around the person using it, not around the technology available to build it. Convenience matters and so does familiarity. And sometimes the best interface is not a screen but a knob that clicks. The more worrying lesson is that companies copy one another. One manufacturer installs a giant screen and everyone else assumes customers must want one too. Soon the entire industry is racing in the same direction, congratulating itself on innovation while making the product terribly unpleasant to use. Good management occasionally requires the courage to do less. Ask what problem is being solved and ask whether the latest clever feature makes life simpler or the brochure more impressive. </p> <p>There is nothing backward about a switch. Sometimes, progress is knowing when not to replace it. </p>
<p>Your columnist drives a large British four wheel drive whose ancestors earned their reputation in places where roads were regarded as a luxury. For several decades, vehicles from this stable crossed Africa, climbed mountains and splashed through rivers. Their charm was partly that they were extraordinarily capable and partly that they were simple. If the going became difficult, you stopped, locked the differential, selected second gear and proceeded gingerly. His present car is a much posher descendant. It is faster, more comfortable and has enough computing power to run a bank. It can tell him the temperature of each tyre, the gradient of the road and whether someone in the back seat has failed to fasten a belt. What it cannot do is allow him to change a simple setting without first applying for a course in information technology. This, apparently, is progress. </p> <p>The modern dashboard has become an enormous computer screen. Car companies compete to make it larger and more complicated. The old switches have disappeared because switches are presumably considered vulgar. Instead, if you want to alter the air conditioning, change the fan speed, switch off some electronic warning or adjust a driving setting, you begin at the home page. You then search for the correct icon, open another menu, examine several choices and finally press the one you want. If you press the wrong one, you return to the home page and begin again. All of this while travelling at 100 kilometres an hour. The absurdity is obvious. We are repeatedly told not to use our mobile phones while driving because looking away from the road is dangerous. Quite right too. Yet the same car may require its driver to stare at a tablet mounted in the middle of the dashboard merely to reduce the fan speed. Apparently, distraction is dangerous if the screen belongs to Apple, but becomes innovation if the screen is bolted to the vehicle. </p> <p>The old switch had one enormous advantage. You knew where it was. After a few weeks of ownership, your hand could find it without your eyes leaving the road. Want more air? Turn a knob. There was no need to consult a menu or wonder whether the software had suddenly changed overnight. Your columnist is not suggesting we return to cars with starting handles. Modern electronics have transformed navigation and fuel efficiency. A reversing camera is a splendid thing. Satellite navigation has probably saved more marriages than most counsellors. The issue is not technology but the ridiculous assumption that once something can be digitised, it should be. This is not confined to motor cars. Companies everywhere suffer from the same enthusiasm. Banks replace a helpful person with six layers of telephone menus. Hotels replace a light switch with a touch panel that requires spectacles at two in the morning. Restaurants replace menus with QR codes, so four people sit around a table staring at their phones before ordering dinner. Somewhere, a management consultant has probably described all this as frictionless. It is really the opposite. </p> <p>The management lesson is straightforward. A product should be designed around the person using it, not around the technology available to build it. Convenience matters and so does familiarity. And sometimes the best interface is not a screen but a knob that clicks. The more worrying lesson is that companies copy one another. One manufacturer installs a giant screen and everyone else assumes customers must want one too. Soon the entire industry is racing in the same direction, congratulating itself on innovation while making the product terribly unpleasant to use. Good management occasionally requires the courage to do less. Ask what problem is being solved and ask whether the latest clever feature makes life simpler or the brochure more impressive. </p> <p>There is nothing backward about a switch. Sometimes, progress is knowing when not to replace it. </p>
