IH01-SumeetPatel

From IEOR 170 Spring 2007

[edit] Good and Bad Design in Everyday Life

Good Design: Auto-adjusting car seat, steering wheel and side mirrors

Volvo and other car manufacturers are now putting in automatic car seat adjustment devices in their car. These devices are able to match the drivers eye sight and distance to the gas and break pedal to adjust seat height, steering wheel height, and mirror positions. This is a great design because when driving a family car, all of the family members are different sizes and will adjust to anyone. This is one less burden to need to worry about and the driver always has the ability to adjust the standard positions. Many cars have the seat and mirror memory which can store three or four positions and by pressing those buttons the correct settings are implemented.

Here is an example of what most cars, specifically the system Volkswagen uses to adjust it’s seats.

As you can see, the turning knobs are labor intensive and can be a pain to do if the car is driven constantly by different people. A better design is in the Volvo car. We can see from this picture that seat position is adjusted by body length and eye level. There is no needed knowledge of how to use buttons or knobs in the Volvo and is one less inconvenience of driving.

Bad Design: Standard Microwave

The standard microwave is badly designed because its main objective is not always guaranteed. Oftentimes I find heating food in the microwave and after biting into the food, I discover it had not been heated correctly. Other times I will heat food up and know right away that it had not been heated correctly. The microwave forces the user to guess how much time is needed to properly heat up cold food and frequently extra time is needed to heat it correctly.

Here is a picture of a current microwave control panel. Notice how there are some preset buttons that will heat up generic foods in certain situations. These preset buttons as well as the defrost buttons do not always work according to plan.

My alternative is to create a microwave that will be able to sense the temperature of the food and shut off when food is at the correct temperature. Most food is cooked at a certain temperature and for frozen and refrigerated items, an automatic heat up button on a microwave would be ideal. From my sketches, I have explained a rough layout of the microwave. The food temperature would be sensed from infrared rays, which would relay to a computer to give an average temperature. Once a certain temperature is reached, the microwave will shut off. This will create a one-button system that is much easier to use and less tedious.

This microwave would make microwave directions on boxes irrelevant and give the user a perfectly cooked meal every time.