You’re an engineer no doubt?

The problem is real, not fictitious nor frivolous. And its not simply the lack of a mollyguard on the switch, but the incredibly unprofessional way that Kevin responded. There is no excuse for that kind of response.

BTW, bad design is rampant in the software and technology industry, and it is these kinds of small things that add up to cause us to waste our time or worse.

Saeed

Of course, you’ve acknowledged this need and while doing so, even explained how a consistent presentation of the solution across your consumer UPS/backup systems might strengthen market perceptions of your brand (“we try to maintain a consistency of features across a product line, so that customers know what to expect from APC as they purchase different units over time”.)

I don’t think any of us in product management could have said it better: “In other words, in a perfect world, all the on/off buttons of our Back-UPS products would look and operate the same way.” Sounds like a roadmap objective to me. I say go for it!

Peter

Thanks for listening and writing your response. It’s good to read a reasoned response.

Now , let’s see which company gets a new line of improved, adequately molly-guarded home/office UPSs to market first!

Saeed

However, I can assure you we’ve thought many times before about the frailties that the on/off button of a UPS injects into a computer set up. To combat this problem, on some products we have recessed the button. Although, this method seems like it wouldn’t have worked in the presence of a small child with a penchant for pressing buttons. We’ve also considered requiring users to hold the button in for a few seconds in order to turn it off, but we already use this method on our units with AVR as a means to adjust voltage sensitivity transfer settings. Software changes could also be made, but many people never install it. We even put a removable “kick guard” on one of our surge protectors, but we found out that the vast majority of people didn’t read the instructions and never used it. And to further frame this issue, we try to maintain a consistency of features across a product line, so that customers know what to expect from APC as they purchase different units over time. In other words, in a perfect world, all the on/off buttons of our Back-UPS products would look and operate the same way.

While there have been a lot of people jumping on the bandwagon of the original post, to be fair, it’s worth looking at this from a UPS manufacturer’s point of view. As a product manager, I can tell you that every feature we include on our UPSs represents a trade off, a compromise between user needs and ease of use, between cost and functionality, complexity vs aesthetics. In order to be as competitive as possible in this marketplace, we strive to please the maximum amount of people with the minimum number of products. This probably holds true for most of the companies people reading this post work for. Additionally, I can also tell you that APC spends considerable resources on focus groups as we try to continually improve our products. And you’d be surprised when seemingly harmless changes deter less tech savvy people, sometimes forcing us to retreat to more “plain vanilla” features in an effort to please the most people with the fewest number of products. Frustratingly, the old adage, “You can’t please all of the people all of the time” comes to mind.

Now, having said all this, based solely on this blog, there are a few people here talking about some new ideas to better protect the on/off button. Please keep in mind that any changes critical to user interface, like this one, have to be reviewed and pass a series of “hurdles”, any of which having the potential to guide us towards (or away from) keeping this switch just as it is now. (Incidentally, testing new ideas like this is one of the best parts of my job). So while we haven’t found the “perfect on/off button” yet, APC, and a lot of others are still on the hunt.

Good luck with your 2 yr old. I used to shut the french doors to my office and quarantine my kids in the living room. I can still remember their tiny faces pressed against the glass as they drooled yogurt and saliva onto the rug, wondering what I could possibly be doing on the computer for so long. Oddly, it seems that now-a-days the situation has been completely reversed…

Andrew