Take a look at this microwave.

Now, take a look at this iron.

What glaring difference do you see–other than one cooks, and one irons? What were they thinking?

I’d venture that the microwave people thought about how to make their own lives simpler. Letters take up less space than numbers around that dial. A nice clean interface, right? Nope. We don’t think like that about cooking times: “Hmm, I’m going to cook my soup for F, stir, and cook for an additional U.” So they had to add the legend next to the actual cook time. Now it’s  cluttered and confusing.

I bet the iron people thought about how to make their customer’s lives simpler. By orienting the opening for the water reservoir so it flips up when the iron is flat, it was much easier to fill using the sink instead of a cup or a funnel… or making a huge mess.

So, when you’re designing your next product/service/experience/ad/press release/story/joke/dinner, whatever you do, don’t imagine a mini devil-me on your shoulder asking: “what are you thinking?!”

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Posted by Seth on June 17th, 2009 :: Filed under business, design, marketing, stupidity
Tags :: design, design thinking, iron, marketing, microwave, mini-devil-seth, product, things that make me happy

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Like coffee? Don’t like spending exactly $1,539 a day on a single cup of the good stuff? Then brew your own!

Step 1: buy coffee and keep it in your desk.

Step 2: buy a single cup coffee filter cone and some tiny little coffee filters***.

Step 3: Profit! Oh, wait. This isn’t the Digg.com comments section.

Step 4: Place your Step 2 over a mug of your choice

Step 5: Put two big scoops of your Step 1 into your Step 2. Add really really hot water.

Step 6: enjoy.

***If you’re really cheap (or really broke): use a pen to poke a hole in the bottom of a styrofoam cup instead of buying the shiny Melitta thing, and substitute a folded-up paper towel for the coffee filters.

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Posted by Seth on June 11th, 2009 :: Filed under stupidity
Tags :: coffee, DIY, macguyver, recession

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