Design Awards

I have a wireless doorbell to. I live in a flat in an area where every flat in the block seems to have a similar unit - there must be dozens of 'em!. Despite having a choice of 15 or so operating frequencies (or codes), my bell goes off about once a day when there's no-one at my door. I've set it to freq (or code) 9, as this seems to give the fewest false alarms. When I moved in, it was set to 1, and went off about 15 times a day!

I like the idea of this blogg.

Hey CR-4 administrators, maybe we can set up a section for specifically reporting bad engineering and design bloopers. We could even give a prize for the worst design each year. We could call it something like

DA-FUBAR Award.

DA = Design Application

What do you think?

MAn, do you have any idea how cluttered that file would get? I would start with the Mercedes Benz V12 engine that uses no fewer than 10 different sizes and shapes of fasteners to get to the (get this) AIR CLEANER!

Howabout any (delete explitive) who uses a proprietary connector for any goddam thing. Yes, I mean you, you battery charger designers, connector makers, and lightbulb designers who make us go the the OEM for a perfectly simple, off-the-shelf, piece of gear and then charge 20x reasonable price because of a non-compatible tab on the housing.

You will be first up againdt the wall when the revolution comes - not for being running dogs of the imperialist opressors, but because you violated the first law of engineering. You re-invented the wheel. (hangings too good for 'em, he mutters, sauntering into the Texas sunset)

"How about any (delete expletive) who uses a proprietary connector for any goddam thing. Yes, I mean you, you battery charger designers, connector makers, and lightbulb designers who make us go the the OEM for a perfectly simple, off-the-shelf, piece of gear and then charge 20x reasonable price because of a non-compatible tab on the housing."

Working in medical electronics, I can tell you that safety issues often force us to use something unique to absolutely preclude improper hook-ups: imagine what would happen if the patient's electrocardiograph or electroencephalograph cable could be plugged into the wall! Aviation, nuclear, and other industries have similar reasons. Granted, that doesn't excuse the abuses of this principle that we see every day, but even simple items like battery chargers have such issues due [in part] to the tremendous variety of battery types on the market. When there are three or four different chemistries available in the identical package, and they each require specific voltages and charging conditions, a designer has to keep the user from causing damage to the equipment, or even fire or explosions, by mechanically preventing mixing. A label warning against trying to recharge a different type is a weak alternative; worse, the number of "wrong" types keeps growing, so that the label will soon be outdated.

The medical and aerospace fields I can grant you but don't even get me started on batteries. I was a strictly Dewault user until one glaringly large design omission sent me looking elsewhere. I bought the flashlight for $25.00 which was a good price and I loved the simple construction and good operation it gave me until I left it on one night while doing some plumbing in my house. They neglected to put a failsafe circuit in the light to protect the batteries (then $65.00 each) from going so dead some cells become reversed and the battery will never recharge again.

This is a large company with no doubt quite a few highly paid engineers and they can't even design a flashlight properly. How much extra would a circuit cost that shuts off the power when the charge reaches a certain minimum safe level? I would gladly have paid extra for the feature. What it cost them from me was the total brand loyalty I was giving them. Now I still evaluate them with the competition when I buy a new tool, but before that they had no competition.

I still think it is one of the best tool companies out there but even though I really love most of the Dewault tools I own, The one I use most often is an ergonomic nightmare. I have a ½" drive 14.4 volt hammer drill and the reverse switch is directly above the pistol grip which you might think would be a great place to make a one hand switch over convenient. Except it is so close to the back of your grip and recessed under the rear of the motor housing as to make a one hand switch very hard to do hence I usually end up switching with my other hand, you know the one that isn't free because I am probably holding something in it (sometimes a ladder rung). It is however very easy to knock it into neutral by just losing and re-gripping during use. Like the flashlight it is an otherwise great tool. What it does well it does extremely well.

Do these designers ever pick up any of these tools and use them. Even if they are not avid DIYers they should be required to be very involved in the testing of their designs. It would not be outrageous to expect them to spend one entire day of their week getting some hands on work done, if for no other reason than to develop proper respect for keen ergonomics. It may give their designs some extra flavor that is missing.

A simple inline diode or two could have prevented that failure. ... Your right! Very poor design. I worked on a 10KVA UPS once that used the main transformed as the default path for one the faults. Apparently, the designer's missed that one, or just inept.

Don't you think that bad engineering should anyway be discouraged ?

This special mention for bad eng. is a very good idea !

Too many times student Mickey Mouse wick are inventing to be engineers

If the prize is to be given to great Mercedes do you fear ?

It's typically German to put 10 different screws in a single lock:

every screw at the right place, every place has its right screw !

But think about German houses with 10 different locks in a single door ! ? !

Dude read my name and then stop picking on the Germans (Tedesco). I love the Italian people (especially the women) and the food but don't get me started on Italiano Design. Every country has their share of idiots.

Every country has their share of idiots.

Well told

Excuse if it seemed to be rude: I never meant to be racist on Germans.

Just I was joking on a simple fact: sometimes precision is complicating use, a little oversize can simplify life to the end user.

I was young engineer when a colleague taught me:

To reach your functionality goal, it's easy to make an expensive complicated device, much more difficult to make it cost effective simple and to be used by everybody.

That is why Henry Ford and prof. eng. Taylor are genius in the industrial and democracy history.

Sometimes I have the feeling that efficiency is no more considered by common sense.

Is it efficient to use 10 screws in a lock ?

All other considerations on quality and design capacity are commercial statements, the quality of the design is related to the investment made on the project.

Thanks to Ron for the suggestion on the site http://www.baddesigns.com/

Giuseppe - well done for de-fusing that one. We all have our jokey ideas & misconceptions about other nationalities. Let's face it, everyone's got a brain, and don't matter where we come from, we've all gone plenty to contribute...

... but don't get me started on People From Reading, UK!

I love alot of Italian designed things and own a few but they always have some unnecessary very inconvenient quirks. The genius of Italian design is that somehow those things get attributed to 'character'. Example; My Moto Guzzi Jackal Motorcycle uses a typical disposable spin on oil filter cartridge. The whole purpose of which is to make changing them quick and easy using no tools. So how is it done on my bike? Remove seat in order to remove saddlebags in order to remove both mufflers in order to remove exhaust crossover in order to remove exhaust header pipes in order to remove center stand which is holding the bike up, then 14 bolts in the oilpan in order to munch the $28 gasket while removing the oilpan in order to get at the $1.99 filter screwed to the INSIDE bottom of the oilpan. Since this is done at every oilchange 2-3 times a year there is a good chance of trashing the many socket head cap screws of very long thread engagement made of very soft metal and thin flakey plating. Their heads are all recessed with almost no side clearance so no hope of replacing the strip prone allen heads with regular hex bolts. But thats ok cause you would never find them in the 7mm and 9mm sizes used throughout the bike anyway. But they will sell them to you 2 for $65 if you can find an Italian speaking friend to place the order. Allow 8-10 weeks for shipping. The saddlebags alone require 8. When my 5th gear started leaving its teeth in the bottom of my gearbox after 2000 miles due to an incorrectly machined shaft it took 8 months for the replacement(not covered by warranty) to arrive. When the new one failed 350 miles later 220 miles from home it only took 6 1/2 months. Turns out, besides the bad 5th gear shafts the tooling that makes the gear cases was worn out. The difference in spacing couldn't be made up using the thickest shims the factory used so they left it as is. It still sounds like dropping a wrench in a steel trash can when you shift gears. But thats what happens when you buy a motorcycle with an engine originally designed for a tractor but also flown in UAVs. You get character. FYI the company has changed hands a couple times since I bought my bike. Each time with massive investments in tooling. By all accounts current models are much better and the older ones were known for reliability. I just bought a bad vintage I guess. Since this is already fairly long I wont go into detail about the Ducati or Fiat. In short Fiat = Fix it again tony.

Respectable,

i work in a Research and Development department, i should invent new machineries but i'm often spending time in routine activities with the colleagues of the Design Department, because there is a dimensioning to be made or a check that was missing or a "creative" change to correct. I have to help my younger colleagues, sometimes I'm obliged to send them and myself back to school to learn what was misunderstood for ignorance, hurry or presumption. We all are trying to keep learning as much as possible, may be these conferences are a way to compare ideas and approaches.

Every day we all have our share of stupidity and bad design to fight.

Had you ever to explain to the Purchasing Department that their cost reduction will become the customer nightmare or the end product lifecycle ?

Sometimes you have to repeat the same explanation 2 or 3 times :

to the author of the "great innovation",

to his boss

and sometimes to your own boss too.

Try to work in an environment where there are some bad ignorant, but at the same time everybody is a "creative genius", smarter than the intelligent and everything can be criticized: at the end none is deciding anything and innovations are robust but very slow, sometimes too late to meet the market. Not real innovations but copies from competitors' model.

I'm not the italian design defense or the Indian engineers criticizer: there are very good, competent and honest people in all countries at the same every country has its share of idiots.

I know italian design defects, every day i have to fight against the most evident and evil tricks.

Further than joking on other people troubles, we should correct our own attitudes and take the chance to realize what are our mistakes

May be more profitable than a nationalistic engineering contest, this forum on Design Defects could try to investigate:

1. What are design priorities ?

if a designer is paid to give only the quickest answer as possible and the biggest as possible quantity of drawings, after a certain training period he will change into a special kind of "partial mirroring plotter" that is translating into a drawing or a computer model exactly and only the indications of the last person who spoke to make a request. No care on defects or mistakes.

if a designer is taught that electric protections are a cost for the company, circuit faults are a cost for the customer maintenance, than after a short time your drill will miss function. Some of the design defects should be called with a most appropriate name: negligent cheats.

if timing of the design is inadequate, or a motor bike which was designed in 1948 is still sold, probably you are buying better a piece of history than a working machine. A very nice, aesthetics bike.

Has anyone asked why Japanese bikes defeated their competitors ? . . . may be, that they are better ?

if the designing has been so lean, that we are confusing the drafts with the complete design, than probably some passages will result missing and final product defective: some companies are testing their machines being paid by customer maintenance. Were is the balance between the cost of design and the function of the machine ?

2. What are design investment and what is design perception ?

is design just a cost to minimize ?

is it a chance to gain value, or a passage to reduce costs ?

is it involved only for innovation or is it part in current production ?

3. design attitudes and procedures

Certainly some designers are narcissist. Often intelligent people are a bit self-centered, they do not realize why the other do not understand and follow the evidence of their activities, or they pretend that everything they do should not be shared with anyone but just faithfully repeated by other people; the same do designers: always at the edge to make a tricky complicated, may be functioning but useless device or to make it simple and frail, or cheap and poor.

Where is balance ?

Should our projects be referred to

Efficiency ( results / energy ) ?

Efficacy ( results / desires ) ?

Economy ( results / costs ) ?

Probably the big emphasis on safety is cutting efficiency very low, but on a global scale the efficiency of a machine is part of the safety for future.

The hysteric market, producing more than what can what be sold, is also very inefficient and compelling to a very poor design. None cares for the defects of a mobile telephone that is going to be trashed and replaced in less than a year.

Some companies are just being created to sell a mixer on Tv for 2 months and than they just disappear, generally they sell it at 10 times its value.

How do we expect it to be designed ? the buyer is lucky if it runs.

But these companies are often getting the best margins in the market ! ! !

Does this affect in any way the design activity of more honest companies ? what about pressure on our own job ?

Here we start to touch companies procedures . . . any colleague is available to share its experience ?

Best regards giuseppe

See http://www.baddesigns.com/ for a site already dedicated to bad designs (mostly from the human factors standpoint). No, it is NOT encouraging bad design or bad engineering! Showing why one design is good and another bad should be of value to anyone who needs to make design choices, especially in user interfaces, regarding what is discussed on this site. And I will support the notion that the application of terms "good" and "bad" can be more than mere opinion when objective viewing joins with "what could go wrong" analysis.

I remember working on a computer control system that needed to interface with a lift and keep track of the floor a particular lift was on. The output from the lift was a contact closure that would short a signal to ground, one for each floor the lift was on. Now the computer needed a Binary Coded Decimal with 20mA current sensing logic input. So there you have it a contact closure needs to be interpreted as BCD.

The engineer designed a very impressive box constructed with CMOS logic that could interface the raw closures with the current detectors of the computer interface. Now with a lift you can get all sorts of induced voltages and the box provided by the engineer lasted approximately 30 seconds before it expired.

The solution was mind blowingly simple. You see the lift could only stop on the 1^st, 2^nd, 4^th and 8^th floors so I ended up replacing the box with 4 pieces of wire.

The moral of the storey is always look at what is actually possible not what you think is possible, or for logic people make sure you have simplified your Boolean equations properly before you build the circuitry.