> The market -- thus far -- has simply addressed these issues from an old
> school lightswitch mentality:  One state is *positive*, the other state is
> *negative*.
> It seems they've tried to implement what people know for colours:
> Green is ON
> Red (or neutral) is OFF.
>
> What text do you think should be displayed on the buttons in each state?



Another method for the on/off is that the light will be lit when ON and not
when OFF. This is not only very obvious and intuitive, but it saves the
company $.05 per unit in cost for a red LED. That sounds like nothing, but
in large volumes, you could be talking tens or hundreds of thousands of
dollars.

Text on hardware can also be a very touchy issue. There are complications
with translations, readability (using your example of wrenching your head
around the back of your machine to try to see it), legibility (if you don't
have flat space, your font size will be like 7 points and unless you're 22
years old, you won't be able to read it) and cost and feasibility of
printing on that surface.

So, that being said, I vote no text at all. Let the medium be the message.

~Lisa
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