OT: poor design rant

[sm_jamieson]

I won't even get onto the humax foxsat that does some things brilliantly but some small things hopelessly.

The Panasonic Dect phone KX-TG7323EG (set of 3 phones): Has phonebook that can be sent to other phones, matching incoming calls to addressbook, does all the things I thought to check for. Does not do the basic things surely it should:

1. Cannot page all the other phones at once, can only page a certain one. Same with transfering calls. How useless is that ?

1. Cannot use the speakerphone when the unit is in the cradle on charge. How idiotic is that ?

2. Cannot copy addressbook to all the other phones at once, have to do each one separately.

Who designs these things ? I was chatting to a friend and we agreed that most of the electronic devices you can buy could have been designed better by us.

Simon.

[Andy Burns]

A different person to the one who designs the Philips ones ...

[sm_jamieson]

Oh. I went to an effort to find the best reviewed sub-60 quid ones, and this panasonic came up tops. Do the Philips ones match the incoming caller ID to addressbook and show the name on screen ?

I noticed some of the newer or more expensive panasonic ones say "can use the speakerphone when on charge." Well DUUURRR ! How they forgot about that before ?

Simon.

[RogerW]

With most consumer electronics, the marketing men insist that the device is released for sale as soon as the engineers have completed two-thirds of the design.

[Andy Burns]

panasonic came up tops.

Generally I would say the Panasonic have a good reputation

name on screen ?

Yes, and you don't need to do anything to sync the address books, there is only one address book (and in/out/missed calls register) apparently stored in the base rather than in the handsets - or that's how it works-out.

[sm_jamieson]

Yes, I've often thought the engineers cannot be that stupid.

Or there is a commercial decision to leave out some functionality to create price points, but the published specifications do not cover everything. If its a choice between mono or colour screen, well thats fine. But for more detailed things ...

Simon.

[Dave Liquorice]

You answer you own question "newer and more expensive". The real master of this sort of marketing is Apple and the i series of gadgets.

[David in Normandy]

Poor design is something I've come across numerous times. Designers just haven't thought through their design in the real world.

Example 1. Anyone remember the Scorpion saws? I think they were B&D. Seemed like a useful bit of kit until the blade assembly broke. Turned out there was a single spot weld taking all the force of driving the entire blade mechanism. When that failed the unit was useless.

Example 2. A black and decker garden shredded with spinning blades that I spent more time unblocking than using. Total crap; not fit for purpose.

Example 3. A metre long aluminium rule. Very handy, it has feet and inches on the top edge and centimetres on the bottom edge. If you flip it over there are still feet and inches on the top edge and centimetres on the bottom edge. Anyone with an ounce of sense who uses these things in the real world knows that it would be much better for these two units of measurement to be the other way up on the other side.

[Mike Barnes]

Being able to look at the user manual online is an excellent way of checking it out before purchase.

[David in Normandy]

Another example of poor design:

I bought a hand held electric tiller / rotorvator for around £100. Perfect I thought for the Mrs to weed on her flowerbeds without bending or much effort, also ideal for me to weed between the rows of vegetables in the veg garden. It looked similar to a very slim upright vacuum cleaner but with a couple of blades on the bottom to turn the earth. Only around a 6 inch blade width, great for hoeing in small places.

It worked fine for a couple of hours then it hit a small clump of baked dry earth the size of a golf ball and the blade stopped dead as the clump got stuck between the blades and the plastic blade housing. After removing the clump the machine failed to turn the blades again. I dismantled the machine and discovered that its design was simply an electric motor turning nylon cogs to drive the blade mechanism. The first time the blades jammed the teeth were stripped off the nylon cogs. It had no spring clutch mechanism to handle this sort of incident so it just self destructed. Anyone with half a brain would know that gardens contain solid bits of earth or small rocks and that hitting such is inevitable sooner rather than later. How this got off the drawing board and into production beats me. Hell I'm not an engineer but even I can see the design was fatally flawed.

[Dave Liquorice]

Quite agree, you can find out what the kit can actually do rather than waht the marketing depart think it can or want to tell you about. Any bit of kit that doesn't have it's full user manual online is at a considerable disadvantage.

[Adrian C]

Quite. We're currently shopping for a chimmney style cooker hood. I found one at John Lewis and downloaded the manual primarily for checking dimensions. However, the words "not designed for extracting steam" have now confused the selection process.

SWMBO is now demanding manual downloads for everything....

[Tim Streater]

By "chimney style" do you mean it's a faux chimney? The only type of cooker hood that's worth a damn is one that extracts to the *outside* of the house.

[js.b1]

Apple is best defined as 10% usability, 90% marketing. They got a lot of usability wrong, but they got more than enough right that once combined with marketing and usually low tech engineering they could make very low cost products with very high markup. Add to that the ability to create multiple iterations which drove repeated customer purchases rather than substitution.

Historically products lacked two key parts in their design. #1 - Usability study of competitors products (had they done so they could have created a market share killer product, consider atrocious mobile phone operation). #2 - Usability study of how to arrange the interface & operation - based upon how people actually used it.

A good designer can not anticipate all usage, but they can at least make the thing usable.

Jump to current era. Now many products come off a standard chipset in China. There is thus less room for usability customisation - indeed much ends up as a "what can we do and stick it in a DOS text list" rather than thinking how people will actually use it.

The solution is very simple. You make it possible to flash a new interface, either designed by yourself, improved after production or bought as an "app". Instead of "apps" you are buying "interfaces" and can charge for it at minimal production cost multiplied globally.

Every time someone tries to teach usability to engineers they walk out the room, likewise so often do the profits.

[Adrian C]

Nope, it's a real chimney, a witches top hat above the hob. And a flat roof overhead to vent through, so can't see how it would not extract steam....

Manual Says No...

[sm_jamieson]

A quick web search reveals that many extractor instructions contain the phrase "will not extract steam". There appears to be a couple of variants of the phrase so maybe it is copied from some kind of regulation document. I don't get it. Someone suggested maybe it means most of the steam will condense in the filters or grease trap (the wire grid).

I will have to choose an extractor hood soon also.

Can anyone explain ?

Simon.

[PeterC]

I've a 2m level in which the vertical capsule is about 5 - 6cm from one end. My eye level is about 1m 83cm and so I can't use the level unless I stand on someting. If the capsule had been about 50cm from the end...

[Bill Wright]

Just dig a hole and put the bottom end of the level in it.

Bill

[dennis]

If he digs a five foot hole and turns the level around it will be eye level when he stands in the hole.