Who Is Making Sure Things Work?

Hamilton Beach HDC100B Pourover Pod Brewer

Sorry for the blog downtime the past few days. I had a great weekend back in my old hometown, Phoenix. My wife and I stayed at a hotel in Scottsdale that had some room features that just didn't work well (although it was a nice hotel and an enjoyable stay overall). The little design glitches made me wonder, "Who, in management, doesn't recognize this stuff is a problem? Who approved it initially and who doesn't fix it today?"

The coffee maker was one of those things. It was a "pod" single-cup maker, as linked to above. The glaring flaw in the design is the challenge of actually getting water into the coffee maker. For a coffee maker with a carafe, even a small 4-cup one, there's a spout for easy spill-free pouring. Not on this one -- you're supposed to brew right into the mug.

See the photo at the left? The center part with the white disc is where the coffee pod goes. The photo is a bit deceptive, but there's an outer semi-circular ring where you're supposed to pour the water. This opening is about 1/2" wide. Try an experiment at home... how easily can you pour water out of a ceramic mug into a small area? You can't. Water ends up all over the counter.... the water that landed on the coffee pod fell straight through where the mug was supposed to be sitting. A big mess.

A) Who, at the manufacturer, designs this crap and never discovers the flaw?

B) Who, in hotel management, buys this crap without ever trying to use it?

C) Who, after discovering the flaw, wouldn't send these back, ordering coffee makers that actually work?

I'm placing more of the responsibility on hotel management.... let me give just another example of their poor design. They put a lot of effort into turning this former Hampton Inn into a cool, "hip" hotel. There was some lighting built into the top of the headboard. Problem was I had to call the front desk to figure out how to turn the lights off.

"Oh, we get calls about that all the time," said the front desk person as they explained that the switch was hidden in the nightstand that extended behind the nightstand... move the alarm clock and I'd find it. The switch was cleverly the SAME color as the nightstand....

A) Who approves that design?

B) Who doesn't fix that after getting calls every day?

I wouldn't necessarily expect a root cause fix... but at least post a little sign telling us how to turn off the light (but, then that wouldn't look very hip).

Think about our workplaces for a minute.... is there stuff in our workplace that just doesn't work? Is there enterprise software that's just hard to use? Equipment that's glitchy and causes problems for people day in and day out?

Who approved those things? Who rushed them into place? Who didn't input from those who would use the equipment or software? Who didn't discover that it doesn't work well? You find the same types of problems in factories and hospitals. Why do technologies get chosen that don't support the way people work?

Can't we do better? Do leaders need to pay more attention to these details? Or do the leaders need to care more?

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Smart or Dumb Machines?

Why Nobody Likes a Smart Machine - New York Times

Good article here about Donald Norman and his views on some of the poorly designed products and gadgets out there. One of the most influential books I've read is his classic, The Design of Everyday Things. If you're looking to understand human psychology about how we interact with machines, it's a great read.

It's also very applicable in a Lean context, related to the design of equipment, interfaces, and visual controls. I ran into someone last week, at a hospital, who was a huge fan of the book and often related concepts in the book to things they were trying to do to improve patient safety. Any other fans of the book, or Norman's other books here on the blog?

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Boneheaded Design from Verizon

Verizon’s new phones set off alarm when you dial 911

This sort of smells like a "urban legend" or a tall tale, but this was also reported in the "mainstream media", not just in the blogs (no offense to blogs!)

What's the tie in to Lean? Think of how Toyota constantly puts itself in the shoes (or the seat) of the customer. Before designing a new minivan, designers and engineers drove across North America in other vans to see the customer experience first hand. I guess that's one component of Lean Design, if you will.

If the linked story is true... that Verizon's new phones sound a loud alarm when you dial 911, I agree that's a very thoughtless feature, especially if they don't warn you about it.

Let's say someone has broken into your home and you are hiding somewhere.... do you want a loud alarm blaring when you dial 911? Is that supposed to scare off an intruder?

The blogs are abuzz about this new "feature."

Recently, a woman in Texas was forced to hang up after dialing 911, thanks to the unexpectedly shrill alarm. She had dialed after noticing her security chain was removed from her property, and was afraid that possible miscreants were still lurking about. Obviously, in this sort of situation, a loud noise pinpointing a 911 caller's location is not exactly ideal.

I guess Verizon didn't think this through completely, did they? Did they walk in the customer's shoes? Did they even think about it?

The source of the "feature" is from a Verizon misinterpretation of an FCC rule, as you can read about in the linked sites. Doubly bone-headed. They didn't think to confirm their assumption with the FCC first?

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When is Complex worse than Simple?

Complexity Creep: BMW's Electronic "Dipstick" Causes Oil Grief - Jalopnik

Thanks to blog reader Marc for sending this along. Technology for the sake of technology doesn't just happen in the factory floor, it also happens in product design. How many overdesigned products do we struggle with because they are too hard to use or because they could have been designed in a simpler, cheaper manner?

Along the lines of the infamous overly-complex BMW "i-drive", described on this site as:

BMW's 2001 introduction of iDrive, its pioneering driver information/entertainment system, was arguably the biggest corporate disaster since Coca-Cola Co. decided to tinker with the formula for its eponymous beverage.

Lesson? Sometimes simple and straightforward can be best. Separate, single-function buttons can be better than a multi-function controller (I complain about this still with my Toyota Prius and it's non-tactile touchscreen).

Simple and low-tech and also be better than the high-tech approach. That brings us to the oil sensor system on the BMW 328i, which did away with the time-tested dipstick approach for checking your oil level.

The Jalopnik blog quotes a Car & Driver letter writer:

I was told the proper way to check the oil is to return the car to your BMW dealership and it will put the vehicle on a rack, drain the oil, measure it, and then reinstall the oil in the car.

There are reports of drivers over-filling their oil, risking engine damage, because of problems with the electronic oil sensor.

Maybe the sensor problem has been resolved, according to some discussion on this Edmunds message board:

I just read that the latest 3series LACKS an oil dipstick. A little graphic (of questionable accuracy) warns you if the oil is low. To truly check the oil, BMW recommends that you have the dealer drain the oil and measure it cup by cup. !!!!

Is this for real?? can someone confirm? It's the silliest thing I ever heard.

And response:

Replying to: walterquint (Jun 02, 2007 4:47 pm)

It is true to a point. There was a period when there were either faulty sensors and/or condensation collecting in said sensor, and that incorrect readings were the result. FWIW, I haven't heard of an incident of incorrect reading in several months and so it would seem that the problems have been ironed out.

For my part, I have a problem with the lack of a dip-stick for a different reason. As I am inclined to perform most of my own maintenance, I prefer to remove used oil via the dip-stick tube as opposed to crawling underneath the vehicle. Eliminating the dip-stick has also brought about the elimination of the tube that it is slid through. Grrr.

Why not have a sensor AND a dipstick as a backup?

Dumb Design

Intelligent Design: Cellphones Are Kryptonite To Nissan's I-Key - Consumerist

I previously had trouble with my Prius key flying out at me (which I've gotten better with, it hasn't flown out at me since I wrote that post).

What I've linked to above is a problem with Nissan/Infiniti and their key fob.

The blog "The Consumerist" wrote:

Our pocket holds two things: our keys and our cellphone, so it's a good thing we don't own a 2007 Nissan Altima or Infinity G35. The intelligent I-Key used to start those models can be turned into a paperweight if placed within an inch of an active cellphone.

The solution: keep the two at least an inch apart.

Not really a "Root Cause" solution, is it, telling the customers to keep the key and phone apart?

Toyota is known for putting themselves in customers' shoes, including the case where their lead engineer drove a minivan all across the U.S. and Canada to understand what a minivan customers' needs were, including the need for cupholders -- lots and lots of cup holders!

How Nissan could not understand that people might put both their cell phone and key fob in their pocket everyday is mind boggling. I keep my Prius key and my RAZR phone (both are pretty tiny) in my pocket together all the time, with no problems thankfully!

The concept of "Genchi Genbutsu" (or "go and see") doesn't apply just to the factory floor, in extends to your customers. Telling customers to not do things isn't smart design.

Nissan could have very easily foreseen this problem if they had used very basic "Failure Mode Effects Analysis." FMEA is a pretty commonly used design tool -- did they use it and ignore the keyfob problem for some reason?