Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
I’m calling this episode ‘When Bad Design Solves a Big Problem / When is Bad Design Acceptable?’
I was recently watching a podcast called The Stuff of Genius. It’s another of the How Stuff Works series of podcasts. I listened to the episode about the QWERTY keyboard. Christopher L Shoals, and another inventor patented the typewriter in 1868. There was a problem, though. The keys on the keyboard were in alphabetical order. That would seem pretty strange to us, since the keys on the keyboards were use now are almost in no conceivable order at all.
The thing was, the most common letters used were too close together on Shoals’ alphabetical keyboard, and the arms that held the letter ‘hammers’ were getting stuck when they hit each other. Shoals ‘fixed’ this problem by making the keyboard harder to use. It slowed down the typist and spaced out the arms inside the typewriter so it wouldn’t get jammed anymore.
Why am I talking about the typewriter and Shoals’ solution to the jamming problem? Design. It all comes down to design.
The way I understand good design is that it is supposed to do a few things:
- Solve a problem
- Make something more efficient
- Please the senses (look and feel in furniture)
Part of this design, I think, should be the manufacturing process. The means to create the object being designed should also be efficient, but also the time required to create the new object should justify the object itself. In other words, don’t put 100 hours into the building phases of a small table that you don’t expect to last for very long, or that you could have bought at a discount store for $20.
I’m getting a little off topic. Just a little though. Am I the best person in the world to be preaching about design? Absolutely not! Just take a look at the long list of people I’ve talked with over at The Sawdust Chronicles, and it should give you an idea of all of the great craftsman that could probably tell you better than I can.
But, am I the last person that should be preaching about design? I don’t think so. Every once in a while, I think a fresh perspective should be seen from experienced, yet possibly callused eyes.
So, let’s take a look at what Shoals did. He took a current design and made it harder to use, made the operator less efficient, and made it utterly incomprehensible to anyone unfamiliar with a keyboard. He solved his problem and got the typewriter to work. But he introduced a new problem. He forced typists to memorize a new ordering of the English alphabet.
When I think about my own design problems I always go back to my X-Leg table. Why? Because even though I love how the table looks, I’m always upset at the way it was designed to be built. I’ve always known that there was a better way to build it.
As you may recall, I plan on rebuilding the table as my Winter project. To get some help with the construction plan of the table, I called on the Twitter crowd. I asked whoever wanted to get involved to please get a Google Wave account (I invited something like 8 or 9 people), and join me for a collaboration.
What followed was a little frustrating. I wanted help developing a new way to build the table. I didn’t want a newly designed table. After a few days of chatting, or Waving, with the folks online, I realized that the table’s construction design may have actually been OK. We tweaked the joinery solutions a tiny bit, but that was all.
What I ended up gleaning from this collaboration was a new design for the table. A design whose construction should be slightly easier. This new design can be attributed in large part to Jeremy Kriedwaldt. I’ve mentioned him before, but for those of you who don’t recognize the name, he’s been on the online woodworking scene for quite a while, and is now contributing to Mack McKinney’s The Way of the Galoot podcast.
Anyway, the new design for the table still captures the original essence on the table concept, but actually enhances my own design to the point that I think this may end up being the design I opt to continue with.
Jeremy's Design of the XLeg Table
In an anti-Shoals move, Jeremy has taken something that wasn’t entirely broken, made it better, made the construction of it possibly more efficient, and also made it look more elegant, in my opinion.
So, thanks Jeremy!
Tags: bad design, christopher shoals, construction, Design, jeremy kreidwaldt, keyboard, qwerty, Rick Waters, splinteredboard, twitter, typewriter, wave, x-leg table
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
I’m calling this episode ‘When Bad Design Solves a Big Problem / When is Bad Design Acceptable?’
I was recently watching a podcast called The Stuff of Genius. It’s another of the How Stuff Works series of podcasts. I listened to the episode about the QWERTY keyboard. Christopher L Shoals, and another inventor patented the typewriter in 1868. There was a problem, though. The keys on the keyboard were in alphabetical order. That would seem pretty strange to us, since the keys on the keyboards were use now are almost in no conceivable order at all.
The thing was, the most common letters used were too close together on Shoals’ alphabetical keyboard, and the arms that held the letter ‘hammers’ were getting stuck when they hit each other. Shoals ‘fixed’ this problem by making the keyboard harder to use. It slowed down the typist and spaced out the arms inside the typewriter so it wouldn’t get jammed anymore.
Why am I talking about the typewriter and Shoals’ solution to the jamming problem? Design. It all comes down to design.
The way I understand good design is that it is supposed to do a few things:
- Solve a problem
- Make something more efficient
- Please the senses (look and feel in furniture)
Part of this design, I think, should be the manufacturing process. The means to create the object being designed should also be efficient, but also the time required to create the new object should justify the object itself. In other words, don’t put 100 hours into the building phases of a small table that you don’t expect to last for very long, or that you could have bought at a discount store for $20.
I’m getting a little off topic. Just a little though. Am I the best person in the world to be preaching about design? Absolutely not! Just take a look at the long list of people I’ve talked with over at The Sawdust Chronicles, and it should give you an idea of all of the great craftsman that could probably tell you better than I can.
But, am I the last person that should be preaching about design? I don’t think so. Every once in a while, I think a fresh perspective should be seen from experienced, yet possibly callused eyes.
So, let’s take a look at what Shoals did. He took a current design and made it harder to use, made the operator less efficient, and made it utterly incomprehensible to anyone unfamiliar with a keyboard. He solved his problem and got the typewriter to work. But he introduced a new problem. He forced typists to memorize a new ordering of the English alphabet.
When I think about my own design problems I always go back to my X-Leg table. Why? Because even though I love how the table looks, I’m always upset at the way it was designed to be built. I’ve always known that there was a better way to build it.
As you may recall, I plan on rebuilding the table as my Winter project. To get some help with the construction plan of the table, I called on the Twitter crowd. I asked whoever wanted to get involved to please get a Google Wave account (I invited something like 8 or 9 people), and join me for a collaboration.
What followed was a little frustrating. I wanted help developing a new way to build the table. I didn’t want a newly designed table. After a few days of chatting, or Waving, with the folks online, I realized that the table’s construction design may have actually been OK. We tweaked the joinery solutions a tiny bit, but that was all.
What I ended up gleaning from this collaboration was a new design for the table. A design whose construction should be slightly easier. This new design can be attributed in large part to Jeremy Kriedwaldt. I’ve mentioned him before, but for those of you who don’t recognize the name, he’s been on the online woodworking scene for quite a while, and is now contributing to Mack McKinney’s The Way of the Galoot podcast.
Anyway, the new design for the table still captures the original essence on the table concept, but actually enhances my own design to the point that I think this may end up being the design I opt to continue with.
In an anti-Shoals move, Jeremy has taken something that wasn’t entirely broken, made it better, made the construction of it possibly more efficient, and also made it look more elegant, in my opinion.
So, thanks Jeremy!
Tags: bad design, christopher shoals, construction, Design, jeremy kreidwaldt, keyboard, qwerty, Rick Waters, splinteredboard, twitter, typewriter, wave, x-leg table
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »