IH01-RakeshVij
From IEOR 170 Spring 2007
Bad Design Example: My Bicycle
Recently I decided to buy myself a used bike from a local Berkeley bicycle shop. With the intent of using it to get me to class faster I went out and picked up whatever was economical. Little did I know that the bike I was getting had a very poorly designed gear shifting system. The image below is a photograph of the bike, which shows that there are two levers located upon the frame’s crossbar that increase and decrease the tension upon the gear mechanism.
The bike fulfills its main purpose of getting me to class very well, but when it comes time to change gears I need to take extra precaution. The issue that arises is that in order to shift the gears I must take one hand off of the handle bars. Also it should be noticed that this bike is a 10-speed so the manufacturers definitely knew that it would be driven in all types of uphill and downhill conditions that we have here in Berkeley. When I am riding home and am flying down Hearst Avenue I usually have to shift into a higher gear to avoid wasting my energy, but at such high speeds it becomes very unsafe for the driver to divert his/her attention from the road. Another issue that arises with this bad design is that if I am changing a gear and I suddenly need to stop only one of my hands will be able to apply the brake. Additionally the lower gears control (which is most frequently visited) is located on the right side so it would be easy for me to have to slam my left brake, which would result in my front tire to lock and me to flip over my handlebars. Another reason this design is poor is because it lacks any labeling what so ever, and took me quite a bit of trial and error to figure out. The reason I think this bike was designed this way was probably due to ease of manufacturing. This function of the bike is kind of an accessory, which seems to not have been given too much thought. The way it is made gets the job done. The best way to improve this design is to incorporate a clearly labeled shifting mechanism onto the handlebars as I have drawn below to avoid the driver from having to take his/her hands off of the handlebars which shifting. I will most likely modify my bike to incorporate my design.
Good Design: Papermate PhD
An example of a good design hat I recently came about is the Papermate PhD. This writing utensil is a ballpoint pen, mechanical pencil, and PDA stylus all in one. The reason I was impressed by the design of this tool is because it accomplishes the job so well. It is very easy to figure out how to use this device since there are three distinct twist settings that are labeled with picture representations. As a writing tool the PhD effectively provides me with everything I would need and also conveniently has an eraser underneath the top cap. The sketch below shows how the device displays what tool is being utilized. As it can be seen in the image the round black circle shows that the black pen is being utilized at the time. Other than the simple twist options the rest of the pen and pencil operate as a normal pencil with click operation, and includes an ergonomic design with comfortable grips. The design of this writing utensil is superb according to my standards when I compare it to some of the other pens and pencils I have used. Additionally when looking at some other multi use pens, they always try to incorporate the maximum number of different colors or styles, but overlook the design. The PhD has definitely not overlooked that aspect.
