My phone doesn’t take a week to boot it.
My TV doesn’t crash when I mute it.
I miss ASCII text, and my floppy drive.
I wish VIC-20 was still alive…– Three Dead Trolls (Every OS Sucks, 2000)
I love technology. Yet there is a strangely intangible quality that is lacking in almost every technology I touch. I’ve never been able to put my finger on it but two TV shows hint at it for me: Star Trek and I Love Lucy – coincidentally, both from Desilu Studios.
Flash forward to 2254. Technology in the original (and optimistic) Star Trek universe was rock solid. Spock never fretted over the latest updates to Tricoder v400.1. Stuff just worked and it worked in a predicable way. That’s not surprising. We expect that our current state of technology churn, confusion, and instability will sort it self out soon – certainly within a few centuries.
That same beautiful predictability is just as apparent in the I Love Lucy universe. Instead of computer technology, there are other systems in place that make their lives work – much of it human powered. The milkman leaves fresh milk at the kitchen door. The paperboy brings the newspaper to the step. The laundry service picks up dirty laundry and drops off clean and pressed clothes. TV shows like Uncle Miltie were part of everyone’s Thursday night. They use intercoms and movie cameras. Trains between the farmhouse in Connecticut and Manhattan have schedules printed in the newspaper on the kitchen table. They were completely comfortable with their stable technologies and the way technology interfaced with their lives.
And yet, here I am – stuck in the middle with you – wrestling four remotes and rebooting my TV. The latest phone update just broke my favorite app. Killer features are always on the horizon just out of reach. So why are so few of our current technologies and routines rock solid? When something actually achieves the Desilu Factor, (like say the Nintendo SNES or WordPerfect 5.1 for you older folks) we remember it for decades.
A comedy sketch from 2000 lampooned the sad state of computer OS’s by comparing them with the rock-solid technologies of that time: phones and TVs. “My phone doesn’t take a week to boot it. My TV doesn’t crash when I mute it.” The irony is cruel as I wait for my phone to boot.
Am I saying stability is that strangely intangible quality? Not at all; it’s more than that. Perhaps it’s the predictable stability of a good system that allows you to focus your attention elsewhere. In other words, it’s a mix of the stable technology and the established and nurtured expectations of the user. Predicable does not mean stagnant – just consistent in its design.
What if technology developers thought of the Desilu Factor as a core quality of every product? Sparkly new features will always be important but what if predictable stability was valued even more?
Spock and Lucy can’t be wrong.
The Elements of Simple 
I agree that stable, reliable technologies are essential for allowing us to focus on other things.
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