Object that I love: Dretec Stainless Kettle (~$52 on Amazon)
I had recently purchased this kettle as I thought I would need some sort of water boiler in Japan. Since I love brewing coffee, I searched for a coffee kettle on Amazon and saw that this was the most reasonably priced. I love this kettle as it controls the amount of water I’d like to pour out and the boiling time is very fast. The kettle also turns off automatically if the water has reached boiling point. This seemingly ordinary object has several design principles including feedback, affordances, and logical constraints.
After filling the kettle with water and plugging it into the outlet, I attempted to activate/start the kettle by pushing down on the black handle on the bottom right of the picture. As soon as I pushed this handle down, the orange-red light turned on as a feedback to my actions. Sizzling sounds emerged as I turned on the kettle so even if I did not see the light, the feedback of the sound indicates that the water is starting to boil.
Several affordances can be observed such as the handle to hold the kettle as well as the handle to open the lid of the kettle. The handle with a large opening allows holding where a hand can fully grasp it. The lid handle affords pulling as it looks like a knob. The curvature of the knob makes it easier to pinch or grasp the lid handle.
The kettle also displays logical constraints by separating the metal from the black matte material. Logically metal will be hot when heated and it doesn’t make sense for the handles of the kettle to be hot when water must be poured hot. It would be unfortunate if we had to burn our hands every time for hot coffee. Showing the different materials allows its constraints to be shown to make sure only the black areas are to be touched and the metal area to be untouched.
Object that I hate: Kate Spade Handbag (~$170 or $400 for people who are willing to buy retail price)
While seemingly a harmless bag, there are several reasons why I hate this artifact. The leather look and neutral color of it symbolizes some sort of corporate professionalism, an aspect that is jarring from my casual work environment. As I prefer comfortable backpack straps, I find carrying this sort of handbag cumbersome. The handles do indeed afford holding or putting on a hook and although the spaces on the handles are large enough to fit an arm, the straps do put a strain on my shoulders after using it for a while.
Another thing that frustrates me with this bag is that I must first open the handles widely to make sure I can open the zipper to take something out or put something in.The zipper strap affords pulling in a horizontal direction but not until the handles are out of the way! Reaching for something is really difficult with this bag. Even though this bag can easily fit a 13″ MacBook Pro, the inner zipper that “closes” the bag makes it difficult to fit a laptop. I compare it to one of those model ships in bottles where one cannot fit the whole object in one piece unless it is broken down.
Thanks for your post, Rona. You’ve unpacked the design vocab for the kettle so well!
Reading your post about the bag makes me want to ask a question in general (anyone in the class is welcome to chime in if you’re engaging still on this topic or if you come back to read these assignments later on): How might you, as designers respond when you have to grapple with the tensions between user agency (or, the freedom to use a product) and designing to reduce or eliminate frustrating user experiences for that product? (Let me know if this question didn’t make sense, I could try rephrasing)
Let’s take Rona’s example – the designer bag. It won’t hurt someone if they decide to abandon it if they don’t like it. Can you think of a product which users cannot avoid in daily life – which then amplifies problems if the product/object is poorly designed?