Just because you can, doesn't mean you should...

Technology enables a lot of things: but you have to be smart about being too clever. This was brought home to me recently when we moved my mother into a purpose-built retirement home.

The building was brand new, and beautifully appointed from top to bottom. Each resident has their own flat: in addition there is a communal restaurant, gardens and lounges. The building has been equipped with under-floor heating, solar panels, heat scavenging systems and all the latest mod-cons. Which was all very impressive, and it's nice to see people investing in all the infrastructure we need to stave off climatic disaster.

But they'd taken it one step too far: they had forgotten the needs of the end user. Take, for instance, the thermostat controlling the flat's central heating. To people of mother's generation (i.e. 100% of their target clientele) a thermostat is a dial on the wall. Turn it clockwise to make it warmer, anticlockwise to make it cooler. Simples.

Not here. The X-Box fanatic who had specced the room fit had decided on a thermostat that wouldn't look out-of-place on the bridge of a starship. The combined efforts over 20 minutes of myself, my brother, two members of staff and the instruction book just about manged to get the heating 'on'. Mother would stand no chance whatsoever.

It was the same story with the door locks. Mother's generation expect a door lock to have a hole into which you insert a key. At this facility it was all keypads. For customers who's memory is failing this seems a bit daft. Actually it was bloody dangerous, as mother took a wrong turn in the corridor, went out the front door and couldn't get back in.

Yes, technology is a wonderful thing. Please, just make sure it's appropriate for the situation!