As far back as I can remember, I’ve fiddled with the settings. Computers, lab instruments, routers, phones – a chief selling point was how much access I had to settings and how much could be customized.
I recall that during my “Cloud” project at Nokia, the folks at IDEO used to say “Settings are for geeks,” in that only the geeks really cared about settings and modified anything. The corollary is that the settings out of the box need to be spot on for most folks.
Spot the non-geek
And you can tell who are the folks who don’t mess with settings. They are the ones who:
– have wifi routers with crazy SSIDs and passwords
– use the annoying Nokia, ATT, TMobile, Verizon, Apple ring tones
– use the goofy Galaxy, Apple, Samsung signature in their email sent from their phones
– have MyHD or UNTITLED named hard drives or generic bluetooth device names
Recently, I was talking to someone, who shall remain nameless, about his wifi router and he was wondering why my router name and password were so usable. I not only told him why, but mentioned that one time last year at his house, I helped his daughter move his wifi router to be in a better spot in the house (enough to amaze him) and decided not to change the name and password because I knew it was too much at one time. Perhaps next time I’m at his place?
Yes, I change settings
For me, changing settings is partly to make something fit how I want to use it, especially if the manufacturer tries to brand me with a ring tone or email signature – how dare they. But, also, it’s to make things work in a human way – I always set router, hard drive, and bluetooth device names. I have always made my own ring tones. I even change the settings in my car.
Though, once set up, I usually don’t fiddle with them. I’m not that fickle to keep tweaking settings. Once set, I’m usually fine for a long time.
Am I alone?
What I don’t know is how prevalent this is. I suppose if you are reading this, you’re like me. But when I look around my office and family and friends, I feel quite alone in this. It’s almost become a sort of parlor trick to tell people what I did when they do a double-take and ask “How did you do that?”
I suppose really we should make sure that the out-of-box settings are most respectful of the user and that, much like the iOS “Hello” set up, we guide the user in personalization steps. Though I doubt the manufacturers will make it easy to remove annoying branding.
Oh, well.
Are you a setting geek like me?
Image by Les Chatfield
