When designing a system there is always the temptation to use the latest and greatest technologies. This is based on the (generally true) premise that new technologies are superior to older technologies. The implicit reasoning from here is that using a more advanced technology will result in a better solution. In practice however this does not always hold.

As an example I recently purchased a second 24 inch monitor for my home system. I selected a Samsung 2493HM because it was the size and resolution I wanted and had decent reviews. One element of the reviews I do wish I'd paid more attention to was in reference to the monitor controls. My existing Dell 2407WFP uses (as do most monitors) a number of buttons on the front bezel to control the monitor. These buttons are simple and effective. The button isn't exactly cutting edge technology but they happen to work fairly well.

Samsung however have decided that buttons, being functional, have no place in the design of their monitor. They've replaced them with touch sensitive controls on the bezel in the same place where the Dell has buttons. They've decided that the more advanced touch sensitive technology is an improvement because it results in a cleaner design. Unfortunately they're completely wrong about this.

Physical buttons are more visible true, but it turns out in practice that this is a good thing. A physical button has a defined boundary that makes it obvious what is a control and what is not. The touch sensitive controls do not. Worse, Samsung have marked them using symbols that are extremely difficult to read in most lighting. As such actually finding the controls is annoying.

Touch controls are also inferior in their tactile response. A physical button gives feedback when pressed, the touch controls do not. You must also lift your finger entirely off a touch control to press it again or avoid it assuming another keypress. These factors combine such that the experience of actually using the touch controls is extremely frustrating. It's even more annoying when a side by side comparison of the look of the two monitors has me giving the styling win to the Dell, as they've foisted barely functional controls on me without actually achieving their goal.

The lesson from this is that what is on a technical level a more advanced technology can in context be an inferior solution overall. In this case the drawbacks of the new technology (ill-defined controls, lack of tactile response) were ignored over perceived benefits (lower design profile). However the selection of a new technology may also be invalid due to integration costs, general availability, differences in reliability and integration and consistency issues with existing technologies. Failure to adequately justify that the benefits of the new technology outweigh the true costs of adopting it is unfortunately common but no more appropriate for this.

You could also take away the lesson that selecting technology on appearance alone can have a significantly negative experience on the function (which is the entire point of a system in the first place) which is something I may expand on in a later post.