Watching My Mother-in-law
Carol, my mother-in-law, is the poster child for work-arounds. Every visit, I find some interesting behavior she’s developed or product she’s modified that reveals a clear “duh” flaw of product design. Spotting work-arounds is easy research for designers–when I’m observing consumers (or store personnel, or customer service folks), I want to see how consumers have adapted products to their working style, or gotten around some problem with the product.
This visit (I’m writing from her house), I’m found that Carol unplugs her toaster after use because it’s on all the time. Of course, it’s not on all the time, but the designers chose to illuminate the power level indicator with a red light that is on all the time. No one wants to see a red light on a toaster unless the device is actually heating bread. It’s common for designers to misunderstand the difference between “power applied” and “on”; see all the methods for communicating the useless “standby mode” on consumer electronics. Carol doesn’t need a red light to tell her the toaster is plugged in, she needs one to tell her it’s hot. So she plugs the toaster in when she toasts, and unplugs it when she’s not, assuring that the red light is lit when the toaster is toasting and unlit when it isn’t.
My favorite Carol-ism is her solution to a problem with her stove. The oven is controlled by means of a membrane-switch control panel on the back (behind the burners). The buttons are labeled white on gray, so no matter the lighting conditions, they are 100% unreadable. Here’s Carol’s workaround:
Probably not the look the designers had in mind. The stickers curl eventually because of the heat and she replaces them. Maybe Carol’s discovered a gap to be filled: an aftermarket for stick-on membrane control customization stickers?
