The Homer and why are Mini SUVs so damn popular?

So on my way home from class the other day, I was walking down Simpson and came across this ridiculous sight. Five "mini SUVs," parked in a row, all in either white or silver and all with only two doors and four seats.

The sight itself was funny enough for me to take a picture, but then I decided to write about the complete stupidity in not only mini SUVs but also the lack of style and creativity in the current car market.

I really don't understand why anyone would want to purchase such a vehicle. The four seaters hold no more people than a regular sedan, and additional storage space is minimal at best. The performance is totally overshadowed compared to any sedan of similar cost, and I won't even talk about fuel economy. None of these vehicles were anything special to look at, and all featured similar generic styling. The only foreseeable advantage to owning one of these is the ability to sit higher than other drivers on the road, granting you some sort of superiority complex? To bastardize Roosevelt's classic saying, "be an idiot, and drive a big stick."

Which brings me to my next point, the lack of originality in car styling. As I was walking, I thought I was experiencing deja vu, but when the fifth car came, I realized that each car was a different brand, however, they looked almost identical. Why can't someone ever break the mold? Car's have looked the same for ages, but there has to be a better form factor that could increase something? Even the new Smart Car is different, but fits the same mold as the Mini Cooper.

I am reminded of the classic Simpsons episode when Homer is given full reign to design a car that the everyman would want. While ruining his brother's car company, and creating a monstrosity, Homer's failure highlights the stupidity of the auto industry and provides some new insights in automotive design that people might not have thought of. The Simpsons also highlights the importance and yet sometimes failure of involving the user in the design process. As Don Norman highlights so often, users are stupid, and it takes a designer to actually understand and interpret what a user really needs.

"Onboard something-or-other and rack-and-peanut steering."

I took this image from http://www.cooper.com/journal/2008/09/the_homer.html and I would suggest reading the article. Its short and illustrates the perils of designing for the "elastic user"

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Mutant Birds love Slices of Bread

I was at the Davis St El stop the other day and found took a picture of a really interesting sign. It gets the designer's point across, "don't feed the birds," but what struck me were the proportions of everything. I'm no graphic designer and I'm not saying I could do any better, I just wanted to comment on the human sized bird, trying to eat full slices of bread the size of his head. It made me chuckle

Enabling Alcoholism

This lever action bottle opener has some of the greatest usability innovations in bottle opening technologies in the past century:

The levering and screw design moves the interaction from twisting with the wrist to a much more joint friendly and satisfying lever motion that requires now turning. The two handles are curved on the outside affording grasping and easily squeeze towards the center to clasp around the neck of the bottle. The unenclosed mechanisms allows the user to identify the physics of the process providing a reflective component to the emtional design of the device. When one grabs the handle shaped lever and starts pulling down, the screw mechanism turns the corkscrew skewering the cork. To remove the cork, all one needs to do is lift up on the lever and it comes out with a satisfying plunk. The difficulty in use still lies in removing the cork from the screw which must be done manually, but all of the turning and leveraging of the old corkscrew is improved with one swift up and down motion of the user's hand.

Not only is this product useful, it looks cool and serves as a great conversation piece at dinner parties and socials.

Checkout Lane Dividing Bar: Dividing Groceries or Dividing People?

As I stand in line at the checkout lane, shopping cart filled with groceries, I wait for the shopper in front of me to place down the distinct yellow bar behind her groceries as a definitive, nonverbal, mark that she is indeed finished unloading her groceries. It represents and ending and yet a beginning; it is now my turn to transfer all of my groceries to the conveyor. I consider it a race of consideration for my fellow shopper. I must keep up with the movement of the belt and I try to unload everything and stamp down my victory bar behind the Dr Skipper to trade off the never ending relay race of grocery shopping.

The checkout lane divider bars are possibly the simplest interaction one performs at the grocery store but perhaps the most important. The plain plastic bar segments off different buyers' goods, it interacts with the belt movement to halt motion while the previous person pays, and ensures that I don't have to pay for my neighbor's grapes. The bar continues in a seamless circular set of interactions:

1) I pickup my bar from its resting place

2) It rides along with my groceries until its position stops the belt

3) The cashier moves the bar back to its narrow track conveniently pushing its bar brothers further down the line

A perfect yellow bar that can even serve as advertising space, the checkout lane divider bar proves to be a simple yet effective design.