Monday, November 19, 2012

Things They Should Invent: computer program for choosing condo finishes

Apparently the way you choose finishes for your new condo is you actually go to a place and look at swatches and choose them that way. 

That's so 20th century!

They need instead a computer simulation where you can click on each finish and see what it would look like in your actual unit. You could view different combinations at a click of a mouse, save them and revisit them later, and even share them.

In my particular case, nearly everyone I've ever met is inexplicably enthusiastic about the possibility of choosing finishes, so I was giving very serious consideration to crowd-sourcing the whole thing.  (The part of my brain that finds randomness satisfying would appreciate that.) Unfortunately, that's not very feasible if you have to make an appointment and be at a specific place at a specific time.  However, if everyone could log in to a website and save their preferences, I could choose my finishes by pure democracy, or have everyone put together a look they like best, or have everyone put together a look and then put it to a general vote to pick the best look.

If this were sharable by social media, it could even help create buzz for the condo builder - people might start tweeting and facebooking their gorgeous future kitchens.  Plus, it would certainly be more affordable to build a real-life version of the Sims' build function (maybe it could even be done IN the Sims' build function?) than to rent and staff physical space for people to go look at swatches for every single condo a given developer builds.

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