This morning as Finley and I left the house for a cool and brisk morning walk, I noticed the cabin lights in our Honda Odyssey were on. I went back in for the keys, opened the front door, and looked for the cabin light switch. I wasn’t able to find one, so I figured the light itself must be the button. Yes, how clever, the light is the button! A toggle button: push it once and the light is on. Push it again and the light stays on. Push it again and the light stays on. HUH?
I figured the lights must remain on while the doors are open, one of those helpful features engineers force on you that are well-intentioned but somehow don’t survive daily use without revealing a few flaws in the idea or the implementation, so I closed and locked the doors. Of the six cabin roof lights, four of them turned off when I locked the car. I unlocked the car, opened the door, and pressed each of those lights exactly once, then closed the door and re-locked the car.
Finley and I finally left on our walk, but I realized this is an excellent example of a bad user interface, revealed by the interaction of two systems, the light/switch assembly, which probably works as intended, and the “convenience” feature of turning on the cabin lights when the doors are open: since the auto-on feature doesn’t turn the lights off until the car is locked, if you park the car and turn on one of the lights with the doors closed, then open the door, conveniently activating the cabin roof lights, you have no visual cues to remind you that one of the lights is ON, as opposed to just on.