An aside...light switches....

Just for some fun...yesterday something came up and one of the presenters was talking about how you interact (user experience) will become a key preference element when picking a product...she used online banking as an example. Many people are leaving banks in the USA if they don't offer online banking.... at my table we were discussing this and I pointed out you can't really talk about online banking in america because its so far behind the rest of the world...to which 2 Americans (ie not me) at my table said (paraphrasing)"...its so far behind in so many ways.."...which led to observations such as the voltage is lower than the rest of the world so nothing I have works...and even the light switches are on upside down...no-one believed me! Its true - but I wasn't entirely sure about India... so I checked it out with a friend...who wrote this ridiculous verbage to me - but its amusing....and all about design....and dust (part of the UX I hadn't considered in the design...)


...in reference to your text message "Light switches in India...do you flick up or down to switch on?":
...as you have lived in Asia, the answer to any question about the standard way of doing things should be self-evident - there is no standard, or if there is, it has not been followed consistently. However, most of the switches in my apartment switch things on by flicking the switch down rather than up, up being the norm in most of North America. There is a reasonable explanation for this, though - the design of the visible movable part of the switch is different here. In NA, when the switch is off, the little handle thingy is pointing downward, meaning that any dust or liquid that lands on it would tend to slide off, rather than into the internal workings of the switch via the tiny gap between the switch and the cover plate. In India, most switches are curved rocker-type things where in the off position, the upper part of the curved bit is flush with the cover plate, so that dust or liquid that falls on it would tend to slide off the bottom like a miniature ski jump. When you slide your finger down the cover plate to turn the switch on, the lower end of the rocker switch becomes flush with the cover plate, and the upper end sticks out a bit, thus allowing dust that accumulates there to enter the interior of the mechanism when you turn the switch off. All of the above assumes that the switch is designed to spend more time in the off position than on.
Of course, when you are talking about three-way switches (where you have two switches for the same light fixture, i.e. at opposite ends of a hallway
or staircase), then the position of each switch is more random.
The above is of course total guesswork (though an informed guess), and it
obviously makes more sense in India, where dust is much more pervasive!

P.S. - Yes, it was a quiet day at the office, and yes, I am thinking about applying for a position on the panel of "The Straight Dope", where you can find lots of similarly verbose answers to an amazing number of questions on an incredible variety of topics. Go to "http://www.straightdope.com/columns/000526.html" for a fascinating explanation of why the bubbles in a properly-poured pint of Guinness appear to defy the rules of gravity by flowing downward in the glass! Or, try "http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_161.html" for an answer to the question "Do bathtubs really drain counter-clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere?". Amazing!