There’s one room in my place where there are no fixed switches (well there’s one, but it doesn’t seem to do anything). So, all the lights are on the lamps themselves. This is obviously the best user interface in terms of knowing what a switch does. It turns on the light that’s directly next to the switch. But, it’s the worst system for lighting up a dark room, because you have to make your way through the darkness to find the lamp, find its switch, and turn it on.
Lights in the wall are a compromise in terms of switch-to-light user interface obviousness in favour of being able to see the UI or to find it in the dark.
As for knowing what turns on what, if you live somewhere you learn within a week or so what light does what. Your first week after a move is normally dedicated to more important things like finding your clean underwear. So, by the time you could start labelling switches to know what they do, you often don’t need to do that anymore. The one place where labels would really help is hotels, Air BnB places, and maybe guest rooms.
There’s one room in my place where there are no fixed switches (well there’s one, but it doesn’t seem to do anything). So, all the lights are on the lamps themselves. This is obviously the best user interface in terms of knowing what a switch does. It turns on the light that’s directly next to the switch. But, it’s the worst system for lighting up a dark room, because you have to make your way through the darkness to find the lamp, find its switch, and turn it on.
Lights in the wall are a compromise in terms of switch-to-light user interface obviousness in favour of being able to see the UI or to find it in the dark.
As for knowing what turns on what, if you live somewhere you learn within a week or so what light does what. Your first week after a move is normally dedicated to more important things like finding your clean underwear. So, by the time you could start labelling switches to know what they do, you often don’t need to do that anymore. The one place where labels would really help is hotels, Air BnB places, and maybe guest rooms.