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Commonsense design blog
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of everyday product design
I was trying to find a parking spot in the parking garage under the Ramat Aviv shopping mall in Tel Aviv; this is a difficult task much of the time. But it was made very much easier because I discovered they have a truly wonderful system. What you see here is that over each space … Read more
And now, a tip of the hat to a nifty solution to the oldest design problem of them all: how do you spread your genes? I was taking a shortcut through an overgrown field and ended up with a load of seeds stuck to my socks and shoelaces. When I sat down to pluck them … Read more
People who design forms never cease to amaze. This was very obvious in the era of paper forms. You’d get forms with fields that are patently too small for their content; like this snippet from one I recently filled: Name ______________________________ E-mail ___________ Cellular: _____________________________________________ What were they thinking?? Many email addresses won’t fit on … Read more
We all know the usual “Private Parking” no-parking signs: stark red and white, with wording in fat letters forming threats of the sorry fate – towing, usually – awaiting violators. They’re designed to jar and scare the thoughtless driver. Nothing pretty about these signs, and usually that’s exactly the intent of their owners. But here … Read more
I was visiting an office where they had one of these delightful Espresso machines, an Espresso Point by Lavazza, and tried to make me a cup. I put in a paper cup and a coffee cartridge, pushed the button at the right of the panel next to the size I wanted, and instead of that … Read more
In a world of rapidly advancing technology it is the fate of any given product to go down from the latest and greatest to a commodity in a few years. The fancy box my first electronic calculator came in probably cost more to make than an entire calculator costs today – and today’s unit, though … Read more
I’ve discussed before the silliness that results when overcautious lawyers and thoughtless designers cooperate to create silly “serving suggestions”… and here is a lovely new example. In itself this salad may be a good serving suggestion for a package of cucumbers (or of parsley, perhaps)… but this is not what this image is displayed on. … Read more
The Herman Miller Aeron chair is a well known design icon with its unconventional appearance, its ventilated mesh fabric and its level of comfort (only rivalled, naturally, by its price tag). And of course, there are countless clones that emulate its mesh and looks at a lower cost. How far this copycat trend has gone … Read more
We got this new Samsung flat panel TV, and when I first turned it on it went straight into a “first time setup” sequence. The first question that appeared on the OSD (On-Screen Display) was which language I wanted for the OSD; I started scrolling among the options, and my finger slipped and hit the … Read more
Egypt today has its problems, but a few millennia ago the land along the Nile was a center of power, technology and culture. We all know of its monumental achievements in architecture; what is less widely known is that the Egyptians had a very advanced medical knowledge. So what do you do, if a worker … Read more