When Elisha Otis invented the ‘safety elevator’ mechanism in 1852, elevator crashes have become a rare event indeed. But these days “crash” has a new meaning, which Otis couldn’t have foreseen. Consider the elevator in the photo, from the Azrieli towers in Tel Aviv. It has a wonderful new control system with a large computer screen to tell you what’s going on.
And, as you can see in the photo below, it has crashed…
Too bad the weary traveler has no way to follow any of these cryptic instructions.
In fact, we run all too often into this situation: a computer-embedded system that sends admin-level error messages at a user that has neither the ability nor the expertise to address them. A simple blinking red light captioned “malfunction – call maintenance at tel. 1234567” would at least be actionable!
Every seasoned traveler knows the drill: you go to baggage claim, everyone’s bags arrive except yours, and you start running around to try and locate it. If you’re lucky, you end up finding your suitcase standing, forlorn and confused, with a few other bags in some corner or another. How it got there nobody can tell, and you don’t ask.
Imagine my delight when I saw, in Newark airport (if memory serves!) this elegant setup. All the orphaned bags were collected in one place, safely locked but visible to all, so you could claim them with ease.
Good idea!
Here are two retractable tape measures. The one on the left is a classic by Stanley, the other, made by Panyi, clearly a cheaper clone. Looks the same, works the same… except for one small difference.
Notice the difference?
This type of tape measure has a stated offset printed on it, equal to the width of its metal case, to allow taking inner measurements. In the Stanley unit, the number is +50 mm, a clean round number that’s easy to add to the number you read on the tape. I also have a Stanley tape of different design that uses +60 mm… again, a nice round number.
But the cheap knock-off uses +55 mm – far less easy to rapidly add in your head. Couldn’t the manufacturer bother to add or subtract 5 mm to the case size?…
Bad, bad designer!
Today we have a guest post from our loyal reader George Trudeau of Hyannis, Massachusetts.
George sent me this photo:
And here is the story:
I went to a Doctor appointment and took the elevator up to the second floor office by pressing the great big 2.
When I left the office, I was still thinking more about my appointment than how to operate an elevator, so I pressed the button under the 2, the doors closed, and I returned to my thoughts. Eventually I realized nothing was happening so I pressed the button under the 2 again… It even has arrows pointing to it.
If I wanted to go sideways I might have pressed the right button the first time.
Nice catch! Not only is the up/down direction represented sideways, but the line in the “Close doors” icon does look like a “1” in the same style of the “2”. Of course, you have to be distracted to make this mistake… but usability is about ensuring proper user interpretation even when distracted!
Here are the headlamps of two Mazda cars. On the left, a Mazda 323 from the first half of the past decade, the other a Mazda 3 from the second half. Both fine family cars.
See the difference in design strategy?
The car on the left has the headlamp split into two parts. The one on the right uses a single assembly.
Why do I care? Because when either lamp gets broken in an accident – and for the outer, the turn signal, this can be even a minor scrape – you need only replace one small cover in the older car, and the entire large assembly in the new one. An assembly they will charge you a ridiculously high sum for.
And yes, some may find the newer design more aesthetic; but the modern highway is a battlefield, not an art museum. We’re better off with cars designed with repair cost in mind. But then, it’s easy to conjecture that that’s what they are – just not in the owner’s interests…
