IH01-MichaelLovejoy

From IEOR 170 Spring 2007

Good Designs and Bad Designs in our Everyday Lives

Bad Design: VCR Remote Control

This is a toggle control for a Panasonic VCR. While watching a tape, turning it less than halfway to the right will put the video in slow motion. Turning it halfway to all the way right fast-forwards the video. When the toggle automatically reverts to the neutral position, it pauses the picture. If you turn the toggle any amount to the left, it rewinds the video at normal speed. The problem with this design is that it presents absolutely no new options to the user. It takes just as long to switch between the slow-motion, fast-forward, and pause buttons as it takes to turn the toggle (there is a significant delay because it is mechanically moving the videotape). The fact that it reverts to pause when the toggle goes to neutral is very annoying because if I fast-forward or rewind through something, I’m probably watching the video and not interested in a snapshot of the video. Also, it creates an unnecessary obtrusion at the base of the remote and presents a nice little toy to play with that can stop your video. It is probably something children would want to play with also, but remote controls should not be toys.

Since this was designed before DVDs became popular, I assume it was created to make changing speeds around a certain scene easier, but in my mind, simply pressing the ‘fast-forward’ or ‘slow’ or ‘pause’ button is easy enough and easier to grasp on the remote. The toggle is at the bottom, so it requires one hand to hold the weight of the remote and one to control the toggle. If there is a new feature that provides almost nothing in new options, it should at least be more convenient to use than the original way of doing the same tasks.

Good Design: Dental Floss Container

This is an excellent design of “Crest Glide Deep Clean” dental floss. The top part opens up to reveal where to pull the floss out. This is better than the designs that don’t protect the floss, because you want it to stay clean, since it is going in your mouth. It is also better than the older designs where there is a flap on the very top of the box that opens up, which are sometimes hard to open. This Crest design protects the floss and is easy to open. There is also a convenient viewing window to see how much floss is remaining. Also, the floss is made so that when you pull it out, the action of it scraping against the plastic box straightens the floss completely. It doesn’t retain the curled shape that some floss does. Plus, this floss is not slippery, so it remains easy to grip. In addition, this floss does not shred in between the teeth. Overall, everything about this dental floss and the container is very good. The one particular aspect of this design that stands out is the larger flap to open the box. It is a new design that Crest has used on its new floss containers, and is better than the old designs.