"hidden" features

This weekend my parents were here, and I went with them when they went to check into their hotel. As soon as we walked in, there was confusion on where the light switch should be. It's an unframiliar room, so when the switch is not in the first place you think it should be, you don't know where to look next. The light switch was found in a relatively short period of time, but there were more problems to come. When my dad turned all the lamps on, they all were very dim, and there's no overhead lights above the bed. The room did seem fairly dark, but there didn't appear to be anything else we could turn on. When we were going to leave though, he went to turn off the light and the light got brighter. It is apparently one of those lights where the more times you hit the switch, the brighter it gets (through three settings). When I went to try it on the other lamp though, the light ust turned off. I told him it was only tht lamp that did it. He came over and tried the lamp again though, and it apparently did do the three setting thing. It was all in the touch of how you hit the button apparently. That is very poor design, as I could not make the lamp cycle through it's settings but my dad could. If you hadn't been able to first see that the lamp could cycle, you may have never known. If I was alone in the room, the lights all would have permanately stayed at the first setting or off because I don't have the proper touch.

Now, being unframiliar with the original switches is expected. They should be in a place that you can see (visability) though. They were, but just not where expected. The more visible you make things, the more pleased consumers will be. The same goes for the buttons on the lamps. They should have some sort of instructions on them to let you know that they have multiple settings. Consumers can be "left in the dark" literally without proper visability cues.

Why do designers even make functions of their products invisible? It's only giving them a bad reputation and confusing their consumers. Sure they may have to change the button on their product and it may look a bit less pleasing to the eye, but if you spent the time, you could find an asthetically pleasing switch that visually shows all the possible functions.

If all designers spent a bit more time on a good majority of their products, confusion would be greatly reduced, and companies would gain more loyal customers because of the good experiences with their products