On bad product design

When I use anything these days, I ask myself: why?

At first glance, the above water filtration system looks somewhat elegant — curvy, smooth buttons, etc.

This is a bit of a departure from the classic blue and red tabs for both hot and cold water.

But, the product designers did not think things through: to get hot water, I need to hold the button for a couple of seconds and vice verse for cold water. What about the elderly? What about non-English speakers? What about those with carpal tunnel?

Why did they do this?

I would assume it was cheapest way to manufacture the unit. And, I’m sure there are other more engineering focused reasons, but, in all likelihood the company, Crystal Water, look at themselves as a brand and not a product company.

If you are a brand company, you can be shortsighted and only measure brand recognition, focus groups, revenues, etc.

If you are a product company, you think about everything a user or customer touches. From the support manual to the buttons. The entire experience is fair game for dissection and improvement.

Here is what I would do differently..:.

Build for the Elderly

The buttons should be blue and red, bigger and have braille.

Fewer Buttons

Three buttons wild suffice — one for cold, one for hot and one for room temperature.

Beauty

Water is a beautiful, use its natural properties to show it off.

That’s enough about water filters for the day.

Krishan Patel

July 2016