Product design lessons from ‘Mrs. Armitage on Wheels’
One of best things about being a parent is bedtime stories, it gives you a chance to reconnect with the stories you heard as a child, pass them onto your children and to also discover great new stories with your little ones. (I’d heartily recommend Nadia Shireen , fabulous stories and wonderful illustrations).
One story that’s new to me, despite being published in 1987 (yes, I’m old), is Mrs. Armitage on Wheels by Quentin Blake. It’s one of my daughters and my favourite books and tells the tale of the titular Mrs. Armitage and a day out on her bike with her faithful dog, Breakspear.
Mrs. Armitage and her bike
Our story starts on what looks like a beautiful early autumnal day with Mrs. Armitage riding happily along on her blue bike, red scarf flowing behind her and Breakspear running happily alongside. Unfortunately, this is about as good as it gets for Mrs. Armitage.
First, she encounters a hedgehog crossing her path, luckily her bike is equipped with a bell, with a ‘tring tring’ disaster is avoided, the hedgehog is alerted and still very much alive. This, however, is not enough for Mrs. Armitage, finding a problem where one doesn’t exist, she decides what the bike needs ‘is a really loud horn’. In a great feat of over engineering, she doesn’t get just one horn, she gets the three biggest and loudest horns she can find. Once the horns are fixed to the bike she is off, parping as she goes.
Mrs. Armitage’s day then takes a downward turn when the chain comes off her bike. As we all know this is an annoying and messy job to fix and poor Mrs. Armitage is left greasy and mucky. What this bike needs Mrs. Armitage decides, is some way to clean up after a job like that. So, she installs a bucket, soap rack and towel and on top of that, in case the chain comes off again or the bike develops another problem she adds a toolbox with all the required tools to fix any problem. At least with these new modifications to the bike, Mrs. Armitage sets about fixing very defined problems, bike maintenance and the mess that creates.
All this fixing and cleaning has made Mrs. Armitage rather hungry, but she has nowhere on the bike to carry snacks and drinks. I think (or hope) you can guess what comes next. Yep, a snack and drink holder added to the bike. By now, Breakspear is getting pretty tired, so yeah, she builds him a seat, he even gets a cushion! During lunch it rains, so obviously the bike needs umbrellas. The rain gets Mrs. Armitage a bit down hearted, so the bike gets a sound system and a mouth organ (!?!, yep me neither) to cheer them up.
With all these modifications, getting the bike moving is becoming harder and harder. This bike needs a bit of extra ‘oomph’. At this point, hopefully like me, you are thinking that perhaps a modified bike is not the best solution but not our heroine. In her greatest feat of over engineering, she rigs a mast and sail to her bike. As a cherry on top she includes some bunting (why?) and most baffling of all an anchor (WHY!?!).
Now, to be fair to Mrs. Armitage, the first 10 seconds of the maiden voyage on her newly modified bike look tremendous fun until the inevitable CRASH! CRUNCH! CLANG! CLATTER! THUD!
“What this bike needs Breakspear, is taking to the dump” says Mrs. Armitage.
“And what I need is… Whoopeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” Roller skates!
What can we learn from Mrs. Armitage?
There are some very stark and obvious lessons we, as Product Designers, can take from Mrs. Armitage and her tribulations. She blindly adds more and more over engineered solutions to problems that are either non-existent or disproportionate to the solution, which ultimately leads to her bike collapsing.
At Auto Trader our years of heritage and brand recognition is a significant factor in our market leading position. This history also comes with a legacy, that at times has led to adding new product on top of existing product which has in turn led to a confusing experience for our users. Our navigation had become an example of how the consumer experience team had organised themselves (Conway’s Law), with every team needing their place and constant repositioning over what is most important to the business this quarter. Similarly, our advert / product pages have a million (well, 15) exit paths / journeys for a user to take, resulting in different parts of the business trying to optimise for their own product.
At the end of the story Mrs. re-evaluates her situation (mainly due to the disastrous crash) and comes up with the solution to most of her problems; roller skates have the extra oomph, enjoyment and minimal maintenance she was looking for, combined with a backpack to house snacks and Breakspear. She has got to a final solution that makes her journey much simpler but also more enjoyable because of its simplicity.
In an increasingly competitive automotive marketplace, new entrants to the market have the ability to be roller skates and a backpack from day one. It is up to us as product people to make sure the Auto Trader bike does not gain snack holders, bunting, sails, especially not any anchors and avoid a disastrous crash. More than that how can we become the roller skates and backpack?
Here are some of guidelines to help make sure that Auto Trader doesn’t suffer the same fate as Mrs. Armitage’s bike;
Define both the problem and the scope and effect of the problem.
Is there actually a problem in the first place (no hedgehogs were harmed) and is the problem significant enough?
Don’t make the solution bigger than the problem.
Is the proposed solution proportionate to the size of the problem? Don’t fall into the over engineering trap.
Find the right place.
Always question if this is the right place for your solution. Are you adding to the complexity?
Step back and think big picture.
How does the cumulation of smaller problems and solutions effect the overall experience.
