Designing In Errors
Posted on October 12, 2006 Comments (1)
TiVo’s “self-destruct button” destructs
It’s like those movies where an accident or a bad guy triggers the “self-destruct button” on a spaceship. Often the self-destruct button is locked away behind plexiglas and padlocks for safety, but wouldn’t it be safer not to include a single command that blows up the whole space-ship?
You know that is a pretty good explanation of the reasoning behind mistake proofing: eliminate as many possibilities for errors as possible. When you design products that create more possibilities for more errors you create products that will in fact fail more often.
Related: Usability Failures – Dell, Reddit and Customer Focus – Complicating Simplicity – Management Improvement Dictionary
One Response to “Designing In Errors”
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October 31st, 2006 @ 7:48 pm
[...] I don’t think these features are only desired in poor countries, but I am not basing that on any market research just my opinion. Complex devices with many points of failure (both technical failure and user inability to figure it out) should not be the only option. Simple, easy to use, reliable device would have a big market. Creativity is not just about more complex devices. [...]