Hi Jonathan!

This is Nikki from the Creative Morning last Friday. I read your post and enjoyed it. It’s very thorough, and you brought up points I wouldn’t have considered. I always think it’s fun to question and critique an object that we normally take for granted.

Here are my thoughts.

1. You’re right, clothes hangers are badly designed for traveling. :)

I had never thought about the importance of transporting clothes hangers. Your definition of the ideal object as “sturdy, compact, and easy to transport” made me realize that traveling was the unspoken “user story” running through your analysis.

2. My first thought about clothes hangers is that they are ugly.

The original designers clearly valued function over form. You mentioned that different constructions, such as plastic, metal, and wood, are good for different clothes. This leads to a hodgepodge of designs that makes me want to keep my closet door closed.

3. What about clothing slipping off the hanger?

Hangers fail entirely if a shirt collar is too wide, or for an unstructured button down shirt. I especially resent the latter, where buttoning it to stay on the hanger means unbuttoning it to remove and then buttoning it again when dressing.

4. I like how you divided your analysis into qualities like look, cost, and shape.

By dividing the object into its qualities and devoting time to consider why the quality existed and how it affected the usability, you expanded the pool of potential solutions. I wonder how you could apply such a methodology to mobile application and website design. For example, the “look” quality would no longer be about physical materials, but rather colors, composition, typography, and maybe the “material design” considerations put forth by Google.

5. On the other hand, what if we considered user stories instead of qualities?

I bring this up because the user story of travel lay at the base of all your observations. The story highlights the relevant qualities, like cost, shape, etc. For example, this user loves to travel while keeping his clothes wrinkle-free, so consider size, shape, and durability. Another user dislikes the look of clothes hangers, so consider material, texture and shape. Basically, I’m wondering if it might be more fruitful to focus on user needs before analyzing object qualities.

I’d love to hear your response to anything I brought up. You hit on so many good points. I think your approach would be a great way to start redesigning something.

Talk soon!

Nikki