The world’s most complicated thermostat and where to find it
- A user experience observation of a home thermostat
Introducing the world’s most complicated air conditioning thermostat for home. If you have time, please watch this nearly 11 minute-long Youtube video — How to EASILY program the thermostat. That’s right, it is so easy to use that its guide only takes 11 minutes to watch. If you are in a rush, please skip the video. I have summarized the process below. If you have an emergency, the bold texts are all you need from this reading.
Briefly, besides the switch of the fan and the switch of Heat/Off/Cool modes, there are five buttons and one screen on the interface: Set, Hold, Run, Up, and Down. To program this thermostat, we have to go through a series of setting after pressing the “Set” button:
Step 1. Set time: firstly pick am or pm; then pick the hour; then select the day of the week.
Step 2. Set temperature: pick a temperature you like.
Step 3. Set a schedule: there are four sessions in a day — Wake, Leave, Return, and Sleep. After you finish one session, you have to start from step 1 for the next session.
In total, you have 4 sessions per day X 7 days per week = 28 temperatures to set. For each temperature, you need to set a time (hour and minute) for it. And you have to press the “Set” button: 4 times per temperature setting X 28 = 112 times. Remember, you can only move between settings by pressing the “Set” button. And you only have an Up button and a Down button to make changes. There is no button for you to go back or cancel your last operation. If you mess it up, keep pressing “Set” to the end and START IT ALL OVER AGAIN.
When you are finally happy with the setting, press the “Run” button and the program will be saved and executed. That’s right, unlike the “Set” button who does tons of things, the “Run” button only does one job, which is to run the program.
If I want to temporarily change the temperature instead of messing up the program, I can press up and down and hit the “Hold” button. The AC will start to send air at my new temperature. But soon when it comes to the next session according to the existing program, it will automatically change back to the programmed temperature.
Wait, why do we even need to PROGRAM a thermostat at all? We should just be able to set temperature and hit “Run”. Maybe set a timer when we go to bed. Isn’t that sweet?
I guess the big idea behind this exclusive programming experience could be: once the user programs the thermostat at the very beginning, the AC will automatically run at the temperatures the user desired. It seems so smart, so energy-saving, and so effortless.
However, reality doesn’t always agree with imagination. As far as I know, many users of this type of thermostat are not so happy. Here I’m not going to talk about other issues such as wasting energy, or unhealthy temperature causing illness, and so on. As a product designer, I’ve got some thoughts on usability to share.
Usability thoughts
First, NEW USERS have no clue on how to use it without reading or watching a guide. I swear to whichever God you believe that I have never found any manual of thermostats in any of the houses I’ve ever stayed. I figured them out mostly by playing with them. I always recall a rule of thumb of product design in my favorite book Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug: Good design is self-evident, obvious, or self-explanatory. Don’t make the user think, or guess, or lost in endless trials and failures. And especially don’t ignore new users. A new user will become an experienced user, of course. But there are way more new users and potential new users out there. Taking this thermostat as an example. What if it is installed in every room in a busy hotel, in every apartment in a rental property, in every classroom in a public school. How many new users will be simply abandoned by a design like this? Isn’t their time valuable? Doesn’t their feeling matter?
Second, users need to REMEMBER what those buttons are for and REMEMBER how to change settings in the future. If you forget anything? You are always welcome to watch that 11 minutes video at any time! For example, if you set some temperature just for once and want the AC to run. You’ better not press that “Run” button, but instead, you should press “Hold”. Excuse me that I’m not a native English speaker, but somehow I always think “run” means to do something, and “hold” means not to do it but to wait.
Third, this fixed daily-routine design ASSUMES all users will leave home to work and ASSUMES all users in the room agree on the same comfortable temperatures and never change, which are obviously unrealistic. The work-from-home we are experiencing this year is a great counter proof of the first assumption. As for the second assumption, it’s even easier to find a counter-example: my most comfortable 74 F may become a bit warm in a heatwave strike, yet a bit chill in a rainy week; and become a bit warm when my home is packed with party souls, yet a bit chill when I’m alone in an empty living room. Not to mention that my husband always tries to silently change my favorite 74 F to 69F or lower when he’s alone. How can a solution succeed when it’s based on wrong assumptions?
Fourth, during the programming process, mistakes are IRREVERSIBLE. This particular product has ZERO tolerance for mistakes. You have to do everything correctly or you have to start all over. There is no “back” key or “cancel” key if you have just accidentally pressed a wrong button, or simply changed your mind. Unfortunately, humans make mistakes and have regrets. Maybe a saint or an idiot won’t mind it at all to press the same button 112 times again and again.
Finally, I see there is a misunderstanding between the designer and the users about the GOAL of this product. The designer sees an opportunity to make his design stand out from the other thermostat by making it self-operatable. After all, concepts like “green”, “intelligent”, and “effortless” are so appealing these days that they almost always guarantee a big sell. However, our poor users here just want a normal controller that can turn on and off the AC and decide how cold or warm it should be. No surprise. No wondering. No confusion. When a designer devotes himself to making something different instead of making something right, he’s gone far off the track. The more effort he puts, the worse the result will be.
Alright, now guess where did I find this world’s most complicated thermostat? Boom! Right here in my home.
Thank you for reading.
