The Case for Boring Light Switches

October is busy season for conferences which means every week I’m staying in at least one hotel and sometimes more than one in different cities, so I do what most frequent business travelers do ... take a picture of my hotel room number so I don’t mix it up from the night before. We all have these sorts of hacks to make it easier to be a road warrior. There is also a list of familiar travel gripes that you’ll often hear when several of us get together, and often the light switch comes up.

There are always hotels designed by someone to be so elegant that finding the right light switch becomes an unwanted evening crusade. Often, it’s nowhere near the lights. Sometimes, the nightstand has no switch at all, you just tap the light. Or the base. Or double tap. The worst designs are voice activated, which no one wants. This is an unnecessary game. I’ll admit, I was triggered by an article in the NY Times this week suggesting that perhaps your light switches are boring and showing some flashier alternatives. Maybe there are. And at home, more creative liberties with light switches would certainly be an understandable “fun upgrade.”

In hotels, the opposite should be the standard. Finding and flipping a light switch should be a thoughtless movement. Sometimes being customer centric and well-designed means being as boring as possible too.