Empathetic Design

I'm on the subway on my way to work this morning and arrive and Downtown Crossing (where I switch from the orange to the red line). As I get off the train I can hear the music of some subway performer. As I walk past the musician I recognize him. Turns out he is a guy I used to go to high school with, Andrew. We talked for a few minutes and apparently he still lives in our hometown and when he isn't playing coffee shops and the like, he comes to Boston to make a little extra cash on the side. Interesting, I thought. We talked for a few minutes about trivial things and then I got back on my way to work, and he got back to his.

As I'm waiting for the red line train, I run into my company's administrative assistant (who also waitresses at an upscale restaurant in Cambridge at night), who is also on her way to work. I have talked with her here and there, but never at any great length about anything. We spent the 30 minute journey to work talking about (what else?) work. The interesting stuff came when she started to tell me about why she is working as an administrative assistant there. Turns out she has a degree in teaching and interior design, but wanted to get into product design, and figured that an administrative job at the company would be a great way to learn about the industry. Go figure.

The reason that I am sharing these two encounters is that they display how different people's lives are. I know, "Duh". But for me, I understood this fact only at a macro level, not at a micro level. I mean, I knew our lives were different in some ways and similar in others, but I really couldn't articulate what those were. I feel that many of us fall into the same trap. It's likely considering that 90% of our interactions are with similar people, be they friends, family or coworkers. Stepping outside of this comfort circle of contacts and trying to understand someone different from you requires actual work, but it can be an enriching experience; enriching in the sense that by being empathetic towards others you can see the world through a different set of eyes. Let me tell you, when your profession/passion is designing products, services, or experiences for others, that empathy an invaluable tool. Unbeknownst to me, being my ambivalence towards learning about others lives on anything deeper than a superficial level was wasting a golden opportunity to exercise my empathetic muscle.

Well here is my resolution: make a conscious effort to understand the details of the lives of others, so that I naturally empathize with others. There is no doubt in my mind that this understanding will lead to higher quality designs that accurately addresses the issues that the user faces.

A Critique of the Dyson® AirBlade

I was killing some time at Logan Airport the other day, waiting for my brother's delayed flight to arrive. I had a drink at the bar and (consequently) went to the restroom. After handling my business I noticed something rather attractive on the wall. It was the new Dyson® AirBlade hand-dryer. I had seen some pictures of it on a few other blogs, but was still a little surprised to actually see it in front of me. Needless to say I washed my hands (quickly, as the anticipation of using this thing was akin to a child at 5:00AM on Christmas morning waiting for his parents to wake up) and scooted over to the Dyson®. The following are the takeaways (both good and bad) from my experience.

We'll start off with the good, because I'm a positive guy

• The device is attractive, a quality that sets apart from most other hand dryers.
  
• It uses technology similar to that used in industrial settings (air knives can be used to remove moisture from bottled beverage containers)
  
• Its automatic…which is good
  

Now a few not-so-good notes

• The device is appropriate for a certain height person. If you are too short you need to cock your elbows to get your hand in the slot.
  
• The air-knife is not as powerful as I expected. Thus when compared to a traditional hand dryer, I did not notice an improvement in the dryness of my hand or the time it took to get that way.
  
• However, the air knife is powerful enough that its initial burst can cause your hand to contact the appliance. One could argue that all of the hands that use this are freshly clean, but there is still something about touching things in a public restroom that seems unclean.
  
• Not incredibly intuitive. This is admitted by Dyson itself by their inclusion of a diagram on top of the device. I don't know who said it first, but they said it best: "Labels/Instructions are indications of design failure. "
  

Suggestions

• Make the user interface with the device through the front as opposed to the top. This would mean that shorter people do not need to reach over anything.
  
• When you lift your hands from your sides, your palms naturally face each other, not the floor. The design should reflect this, NOT require the user to adapt to the device.
  

Overall, I was disappointed. What was a great opportunity to redesign something that has been ugly and inefficient for years was squandered by designing something that was pretty and inefficient.

Baby Monitor Volume Control

For once this is me actually lauding a design. There is nothing obviously outstanding about this monitor. In fact, the best thing about it is a simple decision that requires no technological innovation whatsoever. It is the volume control. At first glance, it may just appear to be a regular scroll wheel… because it is! The only difference is that it is set up in reverse, so that when it scrolls down, the volume increases. The reasoning for this is that parents like me hear the baby crying and reach over to look at the monitor. This is an arduous movement considering that its 3:30AM and we're averaging 4 hours sleep over the past week. Often times we won't grab the monitor cleanly, and the hand will accidentally slide down over the volume scroll wheel. Now, if this were a standard volume scroll wheel (which it would be were it not for the designer who came up with this idea), I very well might mute my sons screams and go back to bed. This would be nice initially, but at best I would wake up feeling like crap, and at worst I could be ignoring the screams of a child who is in genuine distress.

Just goes to show that designing around the user's real-world activity can result in the little changes that will make a world of difference.

The Problem With Malls

I thought I was alone, but it appears that I am not. I really don't like going to malls.

It is not that I don't enjoy the utility of having so many stores in one place, it is definitely convenient. It's just that it is not an enjoyable experience for me. I don't like all of these advertisements telling me what I need to buy, I don't like the people in the booths trying to sell me something, I just don't like it. I would much prefer to buy things online. The only exception being a big-ticket item such as a thousand dollar TV, in which case I need to see it in person.

On the other hand, there are people who would live in the mall if they could. These are the people who have been hanging out in malls since they were 13. They love buying things, and when they run out of money, they look at things they want to buy.

I believe that these two groups of people make up the majority of a mall's customers. The latter will go to the mall no matter what happens. Thus, malls should focus on making the whole mall experience more enjoyable for the customer who doesn't like what's going on. I'm thinking adding a few cafes or some open sitting areas (instead of the uncomfortable benches).

I am sure there are many things that malls could do to make the experience more enjoyable. Whatever changes are made, the result must be to make the mall a desitnation for people other than the dedicated mall rats. If malls dont make these changes, then one day, after it has become unfashionable for 13 year old girls to spend all day at the mall, they will cease to exist.

Bottom line malls, get better


-Christopher Paul

Ineffecient ATM

So I'm at the bank today waiting in line, and I hear an ATM beeping. I look over and someone had left their card in the ATM, after a few seconds, the ATM ate the card. No the poor guy has to go and get a replacement card, which takes about 2 weeks.

I think they should redesign the ATMs so the money comes out last. Someone might forget a receipt or their card because they do not go to the ATM for the explicit reason of getting a receipt or getting back their card. Whatever the percentage of people who leave their card in the machine is, I would bet that the percentage of people who would walk away without the money (the sole item that they went to the ATM for) would be orders of magnitude less

-Christopher Loughnane

Observation - Laundromats

	So I am at the laundromat today doing copious amounts of laundry (my own fault because I put it off as long as possible). The laundromat that I go to is pretty typical. It has the standard machines stacked on top of each other, a few tables to fold clothes on, and not enough chairs. The place tends to be pretty busy, so sometimes you are forced to use the dryers on the bottom. This is a painful experience. The rollong carriages for your wet (heavy) clothes are yall enough that you need to move this cumbersome pile of wet clothes up out of the carriage, over the carriage wall, down. To the low level of the dryer, and in. It is an awkward, almost painful excercise. I have a few ideas on how it could be fixed, but my clothes are about to be dry, so I must go. How would you solve it? -Christopher Paul

Portable Cupholder

I take the commuter rail every day into Boston. It is about 45 minute or so ride. One of the things I noticed today is that about 40% of all the riders have some type of beverage with them. Some of them are in some sort of reusable Thermos, but most are Styrofoam/paper cups from Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks. The Thermos owners can just close their cups, and then it doesn't matter if it tips over, but what of the coffee-house patrons? It is interesting to watch them try to unfold the Globe or Wall Street Journal while they balance their cup between their legs, between a leg and an armrest/wall, or on top of a bag (it seems almost everyone on commuter rail trains carries a bag of some sort). This is definitely a problem that people have become accustomed to dealing with, but I believe that it can be solved by design.

I imagine a mechanism, something small enough to be able to fit in your pocket, or the smallest pouch on your backpack/satchel/laptop bag. This mechanism would somehow adhere (suction cups?) to a surface. A pulling motion away from the adhered surface could then secure the adhesive seal while opening up a cupholder.

My mechanism might be (probably is) flawed, but I do believe that there is a need for this problem to be solved. Thoughts…?

EasyRead Watch

I was flipping through a Human Factors book today. Work was a little slow, so I figure I'd brush up on my wrist-mechanics seeing as handheld products are a big part of our business. The part that caught my attention was the section that went into details about what angles are appropriate for repetitive tasks. This got me thinking about what repetitive tasks do we aside from the much talked about typing, mouse clicking etc.? I am sure you can think of a million, but the one that hits home with me is looking at my watch.

I love my watch. A few times a year I will leave the house in a rush and forget my watch. These days are when I notice my obsessive time-checking habits the most. When I'm wearing a watch, every time I look at it my mind works something like this…

I wonder what time it is, I guess I'll look at my watch. (Rotates wrist)

Ah, 1:34. (Turns wrist away)

This is a pretty mundane, forgettable experience. Now compare to the days when I forget my watch.

I wonder what time it is, I guess I'll look at my watch. (Rotates wrist)

AHHHHHHHHHH! WHERE IS MY WATCH?!

Oh yeah, it's at home.

As you can see that is a much more memorable experience. One of the days that I left my watch at home I counted my mini-freak outs. Over the 12 hours I was away from home, I checked my watch 60ish (tough to keep count all day) times.

Now, I am not sure if 60 times a day is enough to put the "R" in RSI (Repetitive Stress Injury), but for the sake of my idea, I am going to assume it is …

I am not sure how this would be built, but I imagine a watch that displays the time to the user regardless of the position of the user's wrist. I have thought about filling it 90% with fluid, and using the resultant air pocket (which would always stay on top of the water, regardless of orientation) to contain some sort of e-ink display, but that doesn't seem too robust. Anyway, I'll kick the thought around a little bit, and if I come up with anything, it will be up here.

-Christopher Paul

Ergonomic Water bubbler

Ah the ubiquitous water cooler. Its presence has permeated, literally, trillions of offices worldwide. I had used them before, but never really on a regular basis until recently. I began drinking caffeinated tea to kick my energy drink addiction. This resulted in 4-5 trips to the cooler a day, minimum.

I came to realize, I despise the water cooler. You have to stay bent over for (depending on your container) 15-45 seconds. This can cause a little bit of stiffness in the back, especially if you have been spending most of the day sitting in a chair.
I knew there must be a reason that every water cooler in the world had been designed with such a blatant disregard for human physiology.

Luckily , my boss had worked on developing a water cooler for pur. He enlightened me as to the nature of my dilemma. The reason you cant move the dispensers up while keeping the water container stationary is that the dispensers must stay below the bottom of the container as the flow always goes from top to bottom. The reason you cant raise both the container and dispensers is that the higher the container, the more difficult the container is to replace, the more likely spills are to occur.

My solution is fairly simple. Springs. Have the container rest on springs so that as water drains, the container becomes lighter, and the springs displace the container higher (F=kx baby). This way, you can ensure that the water level stays above the higher placed dispensers.

Stupid idea? Please tell me. These things just come and go


-Christopher Paul

Traffic cruise control

I live in Boston. I also commute via automobile. Thus I frequently find myself stuck in traffic. Bad traffic. The kind of traffic that will be stop and go for 45 minutes. I know that there are millions that share my predicament because, well, if there weren't then there wouldn't be any traffic.

There are several perils of the stop-and-go traffic situation. You can zone out and tap the car in front of you, you can just tweak out from stress (have seen it happen myself), or your leg can cramp up from repetitive stress.

My solution is a sort of slow-speed cruise control. You can have a laser distance sensor that can interpret how fast you are closing the gap between yourself and the car in front of you. This data can be transmitted to a regenerative braking system (always incorporate energy efficiency where possible), which will slow you down at the appropriate rate. The data will then be used conversely to smoothly accelerate you to an appropriate speed. The cycle continues all while your legs are resting stationary on the floor

-Christopher Paul

Tupperware is a mess

I can never find a lid that goes with my Tupperware. This is strange because my wife and I make a concerted effort to put the lids on the Tupperware when we store them so that when they are needed, we can just grab one out. I feel that if a usable, cleanable design was employed, millions would have a more organized, effective Tupperware cabinet.

This just came to me today, so I have not put a whole lot of thought into the mechanics or aesthetic of what it should look like. However, a quick web search gave me a picture of what it should NOT look like.

Anyway, just wanted to get that thought out there. Also, the "stackable" Tupperware is no good. I tend to stack Tupperware in my fridge, and they tend to collapse slightly when stacked. There are other complaints on different review boards, but I don't much feel like getting into them. Back to the Pats-Ravens game.


-Christopher Paul

Cold weather workout

So as I was riding my bike to the train yesterday something dawned on me that I am sure every person who has ever worked out in cold weather has experienced as well. You get out of the house and it is freezing, so you have a coat on. Of course, once you get going, you are all hot and sweaty. The sweat the makes you cold once you have stopped performing at a high level.

It led me to think, why dont they make a heating/cooling patch (much like they put on newborns to regulate their body temperatures) marketed at these outdoor excercisers. This way, they could go from a warm house, to a cold environment to a warm house, all without (literally) breaking a sweat.

-Christopher Paul