Over and over I find that companies produce work that reflects severly insular products. My latest case in point: a hard drive without an "off" switch.

I recently got a hard drive for my Apple's Time Machine. Now a hard drive is not a nuclear weapon; it is in fact almost impossible to fuck up the design of the hard drive: yet ... how do you turn it off? 

I probably wouldn't even care, but the fact is that I often jerk my laptop off of the cables in order to dash off to the office. this means I don't always remember to hit the "eject" button on the finder interface, which also means I have to turn the drive off when I get back to my home office and want to reattach the drive. this is true partly because I'm using a firewire connection -- a USB cable would probably obviate the problem but nonetheless, it exists and it exists as part of a pretty common use case pattern.

So yes there is an element of user arrogance here but still, the overarching question exists: what electronic device in history has ever been built without an off switch.

So how do I turn it off? Why, by unplugging the power cable of course! Does this have any risks? probably. But by the time I've reached this decision point, my options are either unplug the hard drive or restart my laptop which takes a lot of time which as Einstien proved in the 40's, equals money. More money, probably, than it would cost to replace the hard drive.

Fool Proof Your Wares

Most companies seem pretty arrogant about user testing. At best they borrow an admin and toss them in front of their product for a few minutes. This is partly because every bug you find is a bug you must fix, and by launch, you are tired of fixing bugs and just want to get it off your plate and move on to the part where your products stop costing you money (to develop) and start earning money.

This satanic instinct has to be stopped -- and ideally stopped at a high level of management. If you don't toss your wares in a box with a couple of dufuses (and guess what -- your admins are not eligable! Just being in your environment has alaready given them too much education, by which I mean, an insular mindset and indoctrination to company theology) to qualify as true fools.

Grab some dufuses in the field. put them in the box, turn the cameras on, and get the F out of their way. Film the results and send the feedback to your nerd herd.

Oh god, not him again!

If you have any sort of managed customer base, get the product in front of a few key clients. Odds are they come in three flavors:

1. The customer who never talks back
2. The customer who takes 80% of your energy with constant feedback and questions and who your sales staff is convinced is medically retarded
3. Everyone else

You probably want to run it by a few threes first; the first group probably aren't going to give useful feedback. Then, yes, you will have to run it by That guy, the one who drives your sales staff crazy. Consider this: he will no doubt continue driving your sales staff crazy; you might as well get his feedback during the production cycle when you will have the most resources available to address his issues -- in fact it is probably cheaper to do so now before you start the release process.

Why do you want to do this to yourself? First off, the fact that he complains a lot means he actually USES your product a lot. Secondly, human nature prevents most people from verbalizing their complaints -- or at best they choose their battles and only compain about the one thing that bothers them. Sucking it up is human nature, and it is the part of human nature that destoys the communication chain you need to make your products compatible with human nature. The one guy who complains the most is probably convinced that YOU are medically retarded and unable to put out a product that a normal human being can use without losing a finger: be open to the possibility that he is right.