House-Off Switch - green'n'easy...

From designer Jack Godfrey Wood (through Gizmodo and Yanko), the "House-Off Switch" is a single button which turns off all non-essential electrical items in the home. This is a wonderful example of design enabling, or even suggesting, desired behaviors. All the ad campaigns begging people to turn out their lights when leaving home don't change the fact that it's still a time-consuming pain - light controls are usually scattered throughout a house or apartment, and getting all of them is no small feat. This makes it easy - even tempting, and hopefully (if that button has a good tactile feel, or is accompanied by a distinctive sound) downright satisfying...

Of course, this requires a sufficiently intelligent setup, which may be a barrier for first-time users - those who don't realize at first that putting the microwave in a house-off controlled outlet will give them the dreaded blinking 12:00 every time they power back up. Ideally, it would allow the convenience of each individual wall socket to be toggled between house-off control and always-on modes; but even then, users would have to be smart about using powerstrips. One added bonus is that this could help with safety as well as green living - having this switch control the oven, stove burners, and iron socket could quell that nagging "did I leave the oven on?" fear!

In the end, this is about matching controls to usage patterns. People need to shut down their houses when they leave, so make a control for it. (Just like people might want all-open, all -closed, or leave-cracked buttons for car windows and sunroofs?) The things people want to do and the things people should do: make them easy to do and make them satisfying to do. And they'll do it!