The not so great thing about standards.

It has been my personal experience that standards are great! They define things, simplify interactions, and reduce learning time. Except when they don't. A simple standard is easy to understand. If it's well written, it can even work. But as standards become more complex it is not so easy to make sure that all situations are accounted for.

Every big standard has “wiggle” room in it. Don't believe me? They why are there so many different implementations of individual standards. It's this “wiggle” room that is so appealing to so many of the companies and organizations that implement a standard. It provides for a perceived competitive advantage, regardless of the reality.

Standards are all around us, but we've become so accustomed to them that we seldom take notice. For instance, I own two DVD players. Each remote is different. The simple standard like a “play/pause” button is there, but they are not in the same place or even laid out the same. On one remote the play is a little button and the navigation buttons are arranged in a circular pattern with the “select/ok” in the middle. On the other remote the “play, stop, forward, rewind” buttons are arranged in a circular pattern and the navigation buttons are buried down in the middle of other nondescript buttons. Of course the simple solution would be to buy two universal remotes and stop thinking about it, but that's too easy and covers the symptoms.

So what's the solution? Unfortunately there isn't an all encompassing one. As we go about out lives we make choices that tend to limit what “wiggle” room we as consumers will take. This tends to promote those good implementations, though not always. Sometimes a good marketing campaign can overcome weaknesses in implementation, generating enough consumer desire that a bad implementation will dominate the market. This results in a slew of “me-to” re-implementations. The world hiccups a bit, and then goes on with life.

Standards are great! Really. There are so many to choose from and so much “wiggle” room in them that any two implementations of a tool (ie. dvd remote, cellphone charger, etc.) accomplish the same task, while being significantly different. It's all in what makes life more effective and convenient to us the consumer/user.

Oh, it's that "wiggle" room that keeps most of us employed. Trying to make all the different standards and nonstandard implementations work together is expensive. So standards are great, except that they aren't all that standard, and don't always solve the problem that they were devised to solve.

BTW: Today I picked on DVD players, mostly because picking on other things like cars or computers didn't interest me at the moment. It would be just as easy to make the same points about them, but I'll let you think about it instead.