IH01-RabiaSiddiqi
From IEOR 170 Spring 2007
Bad Design
I repeatedly make the same mistake, and somehow I just cannot stop myself. Every time I swing my backpack around to get my water bottle, it’s never where I expect it to be. The bottle holder is on one side of my backpack, but I always look for it on the wrong side. Being a left hander, it is much more comfortable for me to hang the backpack on my left shoulder. I have much less control on the right side. I continue to try to change my habit, but I have also come to realize that my inability to do so is not my fault. The backpack design is just not compatible with my natural tendencies, and it could have been better designed.
Throughout my life I have encountered objects that were designed for right-handers. I have had trouble using them, but I never complained too much. I could understand that the designers had to choose either a right-handed or left-handed design and logically it makes sense to stick to the majority. However, the case with my backpack is different. It could have easily had two bottle holders, one on each side. This way both right- and left-handers would be able to carry TWO bottles with them, and neither would have any trouble getting to one. What bothers me so much is that the left side of the backpack has unused space that is being wasted. If not another bottle holder, there certainly should have been a pocket or a cell phone holder there. Instead, the designer chose to unnecessarily inconvenience left-handers like myself.
If I were to design a backpack, I would make sure to consider all my users and try to make it convenient and easy to use for everyone. Bottle holders would be placed on both sides, as shown in the sketch above. I do not think I am ready to design my own backpack yet, but next time I buy one, I will make sure to avoid a bad design.
Good Design
When I visited India back in 1996, I was very impressed with the design of the paper money there. As shown in the picture above, the bills are all different colors depending on the denomination and even their sizes are different. I found this to be very different from the bills I am used to seeing in the U.S. which are all the same size and color and almost cannot be distinguished unless someone looks at the numbers in the corners or the face in the center.
In my opinion, the Indian rupee has a much better design than the US dollar. There are several cues that make it easy for a user to quickly detect what the value of the bill is. It is very unlikely for someone to mistake a hundred rupee bill with a ten rupee bill because not only is the hundred blue while the ten is orange, but the ten is also much smaller than the hundred. Even without looking at them, these bills can be distinguished which means they are designed so that even the blind can use them.
I have more than once made the mistake of given the wrong bill to a cashier or a friend only to realize or be informed of my mistake later. These mistakes would be much less likely to occur if U.S. bills were different sizes and colors.
