Good Design in Everyday Life

In My Humble Opinion
21

I got my wife a Garmin recently. Great design for a “first generation” electronic. There is literally NO learning curve. ‘Design’ in this case primarily referring to it’s operating system, but it does have an easy to use cradle, too.

I think that OXO/Good Grips stuff is mainly well-designed. It seems to be their driving force, because it’s all ugly as hell. I think they start with questions like “what’s wrong with the current ones?” and go from there. Peelers, smashers, garlic mashers, can openers, etc.

Although, it’s hard to improve on the “swing-a-way” can opener. We’ve had ours for over 10 years.

22

I nominate those clamp things that you can buy in various sizes, for keeping bags shut. I tried Googling one up, but couldn’t.

23

An ex-navy friend of mine used to call them ‘court-martial clips’ - apparently referring to their habit of inadvertently picking up and attaching additional sheets (presumably those not intended for circulation) when papers were filed. So that would be not so good design.

24

The new garbage bags with the lattice type design to allow stretching work very well.

25

Not only that they are upside-down, but I love how the new Miracle Whip bottles have a slotted opening that dispenses ribbons of Whip onto my bread. Now I don’t have to get out a butter knife to spread it around. I actually find myself using it more because of the convenience.

I don’t like mine - it’s too labor intensive. Our last house had an under-cabinet mounted automatic can opener, but those make me fear dropping a whole can of tomato sauce from 2’ up. My mother has an automatic can opener that rests in a charging cradle and is egg shaped. I find lining it up with the can lid annoying.
Can anyone suggest a favorite automatic can opener?

26

Exactly. You grip it in your hand, thumb up, and saw back and forth. Knuckles are spared, the bread isn’t torn, and your wrist isn’t bent awkwardly.

27

I nominate the humble telephone. It is reverse compatible until before time. You can reach nearly anyone in the world by just picking up the receiver and dialing the correct string of numbers even with 50 year old equipment. Other variations on that theme could have gone horribly astray but the basic idea was superb. The internal wiring of the line is also ingenious and as simplistic as it comes. Incremental improvements have added to the telephone but the basic technology is still with us and incredible marvel when you consider it brought us smoothly from the days of the rotary dial to high speed internet connections.

28

Funny you should mention IKEA. Their cheese grater is sheer genius.

OXO is responsible for some brilliant designs, particularly their measuring cups.

Some other nominations:
[ul]
[li]the jigger[/li][li]Legos[/li][li]Backpack [/li][li]Helvetica[/li]
[/ul]

29

In general, yes. I swear by their can opener. Not everything they make is the best, though. For example, there is no better garlic press on Earth than this one.

Also, I’m having a helluva time coming up with a picture, but I was very impressed by the design of the console air vent controls in my friend’s PT Cruiser. They’re very simple in concept, but sort of hard to explain in words without an image: it’s like a perforated hockey puck that spins and rotates in the vent opening. Flush with the console, the flat side of the puck closes the vent; flip the puck perpendicular to the console for wide open; and rotate the puck in the hole to aim the air flow. Very clever and effective. (Especially because the rest of the car is sort of overrated.)

30

Until recently, intersections had signals that told you if you should ‘walk’ or ‘don’t walk’. When it was safe to walk, the signal would turn white and tell you to start walking. Shortly thereafter, it would start to flash red ‘don’t walk’. The problem was that if you came upon an intersection that was flashing ‘don’t walk’, you didn’t know if you had enough time to make it accross before the signals changed. Most of the time you could make it across the street and back ten times before cross traffic started moving if you are spry enough. But then there were times when you took one step out into traffic and the lights started to change causing you to either block traffic and risk getting hit, sprint to the other side, or scurry back to the curb you were on making you look like an idiot.

Someone came up with the idea to simply add numbers to the sign that count down the number of seconds left until the traffic signals change. That way, you can decide to run across if you athletic enough and only have 4 seconds until the light changes, or if you are elderly, more feeble, or handicaped you might decide to wait until the next cycle when there is still 20 seconds left.

This is a simple and (I assume) fairly cheap invention that fixed a real problem.

31

I’ll see your IKEA knife, and raise you a bow knife. I haven’t bought a loaf of sliced bread in years, and I love this knife:

Also, the sky chair. There are many imitators, but the sky chair is comfortable like you wouldn’t believe. I have one hanging in my living room, and one on the back porch.

32

Looks really cool…but I’m left-handed. :frowning:

33

No problem! Available for lefties as well:
http://www.bassworks.com.au/store/category25_1.htm

34

BMWs.

35

My AlphaSmart Pro notebook computer is designed strictly for capturing text. For someone like me who wants/needs a portable device for capturing text it is perfect. All it is basically is a keyboard that displays text ona small lcd matrix screen and saves it to memory chips. Four lines of about 90 characters each are all it will display. Other than the keys on the keyboard, it has no, repeat no, moving parts. NO hard drive, no disk drive, no nothing like that. To get the text out of your computer, you just put a word processor up on your Mac or PC, and then unplug the wire from your keyboard into your AlphaSmart Pro, which can then upload the text.

The computer comes with eight banks of memory, each capable of holding eight pages of text, for a total of sixty four pages. Plenty of room there between uploads. But what about battery life? That’s where the AlphaSmart Pro really shines – it gets 300 hours on 2 AA batteries. Now you know why there are no moving parts and an lcd viewscreen.

The other majorly cool feature – the AlphaSmart is a dedicated word processor and it’s instant-on. Turn on the machine and within 3 seconds you are writing, baby! (Editing features like search and replace and even cut and paste are missing – this machine is designed for taking notes and writing rough drafts, period.)

The reason I think AlphaSmart is such a brilliant design is that it is completely purpose-oriented. It’s maximised for long battery life, ease of use (full-size keyboard, instant-on), durability (I’ve dropped mine from varying heights several times, all that’s happened is the shift key popped off – it popped right back on) and low price (originally it cost a couple of hundred bucks, I got my current one on Ebay for $2.99 and the link I provided goes to an Ebay sale for $9.99 (not a sale I have anything to do with, just a sale with a pic of the machine).

Because the creators of the AlphaSmart were able to resist the urge to add new features and such that would detract from the ability of the device to handle its basic function, they came up with a device that perfoms its basic function better than anything that has come before or since. (Yes, the company that makes AlphaSmart Pro’s has come up with new-improved AlphaSmarts. No, I’m not interested in them, fine laptops though they are – their extra features are not, in my mind, improvements, but defects.)

I hope someone will come up with a similarly simple portable Internet device someday.

36

Speaking of can openers… The P-38 military can opener is often mentioned in books on great industrial design. Extremely simple, lasts a lifetime, it will never break or rust, doesn’t need to be sharpened, can be put in a pocket or attached to a can, and works every time.

The Army’s Greatest Invention Ever

37

I recently bought a new Coleman camp stove. (We’ve started taking family camping trips and my old backpacking stove was inadequate for four people.)

The fuel tank on the new stove has a couple of really nice design features. The fuel fill hole isn’t on the top of the tank – it’s set at a bit of an angle. So when you attach the tank to the stove, the fuel cap snugs up against the stove body, making it impossible to open. It’s a really subtle safety feature. Even if you **wanted ** to try to refill the tank while the stove is lit (which would be really effing stupid) there’s no way to do it.

And the tank is slightly flattened on the side directly opposite the fill hole. So when the tank is detached from the stove it rests nicely with the fill hole straight up.

The simple solution would have been to put the fill hole on top and make the tank a perfect cylinder. That would have be acceptable and functional. But someone clearly spent a lot of time thinking not just about how this stove could be used, but also about how it could be misused. That’s good design.

38

In SE Asia they have small bike locks that are permanently fastened to the fork. If you turn the key a metal pin sticks out in the spokes, simple yet brilliant.

39

My friend’s Alfa had a complicated system of speed sensors, switches and interlocks to prevent you from opening the gas cap door on the highway. Of course, it malfunctioned.

Our 1989 Chrysler minivan simply put the gas door opening lever on the side of the seat, where you can’t reach it unless the door’s open. Sheer genius.

40

So that means I can simply pick up your bike and replace the front wheel later, or saw off the pin? I don’t get how this is so great.