There is a joke among engineers that a lot of high-tech companies go broke because their customers are too stupid to use the gizmo they/re selling.

That may be funny to engineers, but it/s no laughing matter for millions of American consumers.

When is the last time a house sitter or baby sitter came to your home and you spent 20 minutes trying to explain to them how to use the TV and DVD player? Or how about this scenario: You fly off to a vacation, renting a car at the airport. After you get going, you spend the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out how to turn on the windshield wipers, or the lights, or the air/conditioner.

The problem is that geeks design gadgets and normal people struggle to make them work. Too many gadgets are counter-intuitive. Why, for example, would you have to hit the &#8220startC button to turn off a Windows XP computer? Or why, on many cell phones, do you push the &#8220endC button to turn the darn thing on?

A Xerox engineer explained at least part of the problem when he said, &#8220It/s really hard to be easy.C

OK, but couldn/t someone pay more attention during the design phase to how normal people will be using a product? It doesn/t seem that much to ask.

A group called the Usability Professionals Association sponsored a World Usability Day a few weeks ago, the goal being to promote the design of gadgets that not only work, but can be figured out by anyone savvy enough to have the cash to buy the gadget.

We look forward to the day when we can buy a new device, bring it home and flip the &#8220onC switch, and away we go.

December 4, 2005