Passing through an airport I bought the book “Boeing 777: the technological marvel” by Norris and Wagner. This gives many fascinating insights into the novel design methodologies that went into the 777, my favorite jetliner. It also introduced me to one of the ugliest airplane designs ever to disgrace a designer’s sketchpad.
The Boeing folks were looking to build a plane larger than a 767 and smaller than a 747; one idea they tried was to graft half the cabin of a 757 on the rear half of the larger 767. You can see how endearing the result looks; in fact it earned the nickname “Hunchback of Mukilteo”, after a town near the Boeing facility.
There were many reasons why this version never proceeded off the drawing board, not least among them the disgusted derision of potential customers. But what I like best is that a key reason, according to the book, is that the design failed Boeing’s “LAR rule” - which stands for “Looks About Right”. If that is indeed their guideline, they are a smart company indeed: good design has an ineffable elegance to it, and no engineer should be forced to build something that offends their aesthetic sense.
One day the ladies in the household decided they’ve had it with our handheld hairdryer, which was indeed weak and ailing. So I went to buy a new one, and decided to follow my first principle for tool acquisition: always buy the most professional, high-quality tool you can afford - it will repay the expense many times over!
I asked the appliance store guy for his best tool, and he offered me a sturdy blue unit that, he said, was what professional hairdressers (sorry, hair styling artists) use. The wattage on the label was indeed higher than any I’ve seen before. I brought it home proudly, only to discover the next day that it was no good to anyone there.
This was a new one for me: how can a tool that professionals prefer be useless to an amateur? In my world of engineering and DIY projects, this would be unthinkable. What difference can it make? A hairdryer is a hairdryer, after all.
Here’s the difference: the hairdryer is a hairdryer, but the hairdresser uses it to dry hair that is on someone else’s head! When you dry your own hair, the dryer must be short enough to fit between your hand and your skull; when you dry someone else you can just step back. The professional tool was longer, not much but just enough to make it awkward to use on oneself.
So, a lesson: always keep an open mind and challenge your own assumptions on the way a design fits its intended use. These errors seem obvious in retrospect - always in retrospect…
The ultimate clarity
Adding clear instructions is part of good product design, right?
So: I went to get a flu shot (I still get the flu each winter, but maybe I’d be getting it twice without this?) As the nurse prepared her syringe, I noticed a cardboard box of disposable vinyl gloves on her table. On the side of this box was a printed statement, which I copied verbatim:
I was so relieved that the manufacturer had had the foresight to instruct the nurse in these enlightening facts. Who knows, without this instruction she might have assumed the gloves had to be stuffed up my nose or something?
Clear instructions are good. Superfluous ones are silly. I don’t trust silly vendors…