Designers

For some time now I have been irritated by the handles which stick out of the side of the steering columns of cars. Handles which are intended to control all kinds of functions and which I can very rarely instruct to do what I want with the windscreen wipers. I always seen to end up with the back windscreen being sprayed with soapy water. A problem which arises from trying to compress too much function into the wrong sort of control device.

I find the same sort of problem with other peoples' bath taps. At one time a bath had two large taps and a plug. When you wanted water in the bath you turned one or both of the taps and when you had finished you pulled out the plug. So far so good. Then the first well intentioned change was to have taps with the sort of handles that you find in hospitals, things that a surgeon can turn on and off with his elbows while scrubbing up, with the point here being that you can turn them on and off with you feet without needing to heave yourself up into within reach. Maybe they did not catch on because a tap which can be turned on or off by a 90 degree turn requires a much fancier washer than one which requires a 720 degree turn or more. But this was not the end of the world. Much more serious was the second change which modified the central control unit of the bath tap assembly to control the shower, the bath, the water temperature, the water pressure & style and the plug hole, a change which can often result in one getting a cold shower when the plan was to have a hot bath. And then you can't get the water out of the bath once you have extricated yourself. Once again, too much function in the wrong sort of control device.

And now I have stumbled across other peoples' front door locks. This particular one having a handle and a key hole on one side and a handle and a knob on the other. The lock assembly is controlled by cunning manipulation of all three and among the functions offered is dead lock which should mean that from the outside you can effect entry neither by unlocking the door nor by means of a piece of flexible plastic; the sort of thing you want when retiring inside for the night. I have retired from this particular fray, leaving the manipulations to BH. Quite enough manipulation for one family.

Another offender is the little box with buttons on it which control the central heating.

Which leads to the question, who designs these dreadful contraptions? Are they the work of otherwise respectable engineers whose love of ingenuity outstrips their common sense? Are they the work of graduates of the University of Creation (Epsom campus) (http://www.ucreative.ac.uk/) who know nothing about anything except the vagaries of fashion?

Which reminds me of a related beef about the design of kitchen implements, for example potato peelers and tin openers. Once again, the design has lost touch with the function and me, the customer, is left with a contraption which is either impossible to use, impossible to clean or both. Perhaps there is a hierarchy. The three star graduates of creation get to design the ridiculous clothes which appear in fashion shows. The two star graduates get to design kitchen implements. Any other kind of graduates and the failures get to stack shelves or flip burgers.