[aisde] I was just having a discussion with a colleague about the size of a standard house brick. (215 x 65 x 102.5mm). We don’t know when or where it’s specific size came about, but it was obviously well designed to fit modularly in any combination of build, and also to fit easily in the hand of a bricklayer. [/aside]
The question then arose…who picks the size for newly designed, mass market items? When CD’s first hit the market, were there varying sizes from different manufacturers? Did one manufacturer ‘win’ over all the others to thus produce the industry ‘standard’? Or does some body decide beforehand – this is how its gonna be? With new products (DVD’s) following on, they seem entrenched into the same dimensions as CD’s due to the technology needed to view / play them. What if the original design was flawed…would companies still continue in the same vein or try to create a totally new world market?
I guess what I am trying to ask is, who sets the standards for product norms, especially when the product has the potential to become a generic item?
Perhaps it’s not necessarily the size which dictates the success or failure of a product, but its success in performing its function.
If subsequently it proves possible to reduce the size, then that’s probably a good thing.
But if it meant half the population of the world having to upgrade their players, would this be considered feasible?
Marketing companies dream, or perhaps a nightmare? When something is so widely used would ‘they’ (the big companies)attempt to change it? Is it considered a new market, or an unnecessary expense to change?
The size of the compact disk (12cm) came from a series of meetings in 1978-9 between Phillips and Sony. This is one of those nice cases where the big companies hash out the technical specifications before releasing the product. Sadly, Sony didn’t learn the lesson and their Betamax was thoroughly crushed just a few years later, but I digress.
It’s unclear to me if the design of the nascent personal computer had an effect, but if it was pure coincidence, making the CD just the perfect size to fit in in a 5.25" drive bay was a damn lucky decision. Nowadays, 5.25" floppy disks and hard drives have faded, leaving the 5.25" bay to the CD and DVD drves.
Anyhoo, considering the millions (if not billions) of dollars involved, the manufacturers know its in their interest to get it right the first time, so they research the bejeezus out of everything, if they’re smart.
Often there are other constraints, such as ‘fitting nicelly on a shelf’, ‘being enough for one serving’, but the most common size constraint is to make things fit nicelly in the distribution chain. Supposedly a ‘standard’ sugar cube has dimensions choosen so that the full packet fits nicelly on a europallet (800x1200mm) without wasting any precious space.
I believe that europallets in turn are choosen to fit nicely both on train and in trailers. (So maybe it’s the fault of those whacky roman horses [sub]y(es, I know that’s not quite true, thank you very much)[/sub])
But if it meant half the population of the world having to upgrade their Microsoft operating system, would this be considered feasible?
Marketing companies dream, or perhaps a nightmare? When something is so widely used would ‘they’ (the big companies)attempt to change it? Is it considered a new market, or an unnecessary expense to change?
Hmm. Economics. Ergonomics. Technological advance. Technology change. Habit. Madison Avenue.
Economics cause some things to get steadily larger: ships and planes. Other things to get steadily smaller: standard sizes of lumber, wiring, light bulbs.
Ergonomics play a trial-and-error role. Create a foot-long spoon, and see whether anybody likes using it. If not, make it shorter.
Technology advance plays a big role where smaller is better, faster, cheaper. Computers, phones.
Technology change plays a role in how something is used. For example, wasn’t one of the reason red bricks were hand-size was so they could be thrown by someone on the ground up to where the bricks were being set? Once that practice changed to forklifts and the like, huge cinder blocks became more popular? (Just guessing.)
Habit plays a part. I love big, thick heavy books. But most like books that fit on their bookshelves, that they can carry on a plane, that they can pick up easily. So… very few big books, and even fewer huge books.
Madison Avenue’s approach. If it’s small, make it big; if it’s big make it small. Anything to make something seem new and different. Affects detergent boxes, cars, TV sets.
Market testing is also a part of it: Companies hire people to gather up a group of representative buyers to complete polls and surveys and brainstorming sessions and such. Those people who participate in such things have influence over basic design decisions.
Of course, don’t underestimate lock-in: If there is already a sizeable installed base, new products have to take that into account and interoperate with it. This is a siginficant reason why FORTRAN is still in use today. By any rational measure, FORTRAN 77 is an obsolete language: It has fascist formatting rules and no structure to speak of (its only loop structure is the DO-loop, and you have to use GOTOs to emulate things like switches). But FORTRAN was the only choice for real mathematics programming for decades, so there is a huge amount of really good prewritten FORTRAN 77 code to do things like advanced statistics and matrix algebra. So FORTRAN is a good choice for mathematics programming despite better alternatives (APL). Therefore, mathematical programs are still being written in FORTRAN 77, perpetuating the lock-in.
a little off topic but in the building industry history and local zoning boards determine size. this is a nightmare and a perfect example are steps.
the human foot has gotten much larger over time but step sizes are regulated by regulations which are damn near impossible to change. this is one reason there are so many step related accidents. the size of steps have not changed with the size of our feet.
there are hundred of other examples. windows were always in the middle of walls because there was no electric lighting and you needed to make the most out of the sun.
when outhouses were replaced by indoor plumbing the bathroom was always put in a corner of the house, closest to where the outhouse was. now we put them in the middle of the house where they are much more convenient.
many zoning boards however go by the old, “but that’s the way we have always done it,” and are very resistant to change.