Assignment 0: A Bad (Design) Start

Forget all the superstitions on commencing anything and everything with something good. We shall start this blog with a bang by, as the title has suggested, posting a maiden post on something bad! *clap* This kind of reminds me how people will ask the actors to “break a leg” before they get out on stage because saying “good luck” is considered bad luck. But I digressed.

So the bad design I found is something that is very close to the hearts of most students and maybe the lecturers too. And it is…

The Daglo TH1001 Swing Tablet (Source: http://www.tionghin.com.sg/school02.html)

Users’ Reactions
1. My personal experience with the Swing Tablet was in the lecture hall of a junior college. I had placed my files, pencil case, and some textbooks on the table when I got tired and wanted to rest awhile. I rested my head on the textbooks and unknowingly nudged the table forward. Expectedly, it swung down and all the stuffs fell onto the ground with loud thuds, disrupting the lecture. Hence, the word embarrassment aptly summarized my user experience with this product.

Interestingly though, the lecturer went on to joke that the table design forbids us from sleeping during lecture.



2. A friend of mine had a worse experience with this bad design. She was working on her laptop, which was on the table (duh -_-?), when she needed to get up to ask her tutor something. Her getting up movement however pushed the table forward, and swing it down together with her laptop. Her laptop crashed both physically and literally, and she lost whatever she was working on. While she forgivingly says that she should have held up the laptop, she does feel that the design can be improved or changed to function better.

What is the (design) problem?

The main problem of its design lies in the swing table. The design works in such a way that the knob holds the table and allows the user to swing it up or down in a single circular motion. However, as the knob is usually very loose, a slight nudge will result in the table slamming down; such nudges usually occurs when a user leans forward, or try to get out of the seat.

While the knob supposedly also affords the tightening of the table into position, such tightening seldom works (only 6 out of the 30 chairs that I tested are able to hold the table tightly) perhaps due to wear and tear, or the design fault of the knob.

Impression on Brand
None of the 6 friend I spoke to are aware of the brand of the chair. Personally, I did not know the brand too until I saw the name “Daglo” printed on the hind-legs of the chair upon close scrutiny.



A quick search on the Net shows that the product is manufactured by Tiong Hin Engineering (Pte) Ltd, a local furniture manufacturer. Their furniture is mainly for schools, public spaces, and offices.

The knowledge that these chairs are manufactured by a local company drew mixed feelings with 3 different camps of views; the first camp expressed support for local product, the second camp said that chairs of better quality from Japan etc. should be imported, and the last camp remained nonchalant with the gained knowledge.

My reflection
Retrospective of my experience with the swing tablet, it suddenly dawns upon me that for one product, there are different users and they might even be using the product in different manners. In the case of the chair, the school uses it as an educational facility, the lecturer uses it (in a way) to conduct her lecture, the students uses it to sit and write comfortably during lessons, etc.

And these different users may have entirely different experience with the same product. Using the chair as an example, my personal experience is not so pleasant while my lecturer's experience may be argued to be rather positive. It is interesting to note that the same event is the cause of such divisive reactions.

Likewise, a local brand can mean entirely different things to different users; the patriotic users may support the brand more while the quality-seeking users may desire foreign brands with implied, albeit possibly stereotyped, quality.

With this new 'insight', designing user experience seems to be even harder than ever, almost impossible. If I am the manufacturer of the swing tablet, how do I ensure that all the users of my product will have a positive user experience? From the functionality, to the aesthetics, to the hedonic quality; do we come out with a really generic product that is able to satisfy the needs of all users? Or do we customize the product for every single user? While the latter can be argued to be able to better create the most suitable user experience, the cost involved will definitely increase exponentially as well. How do we strike a balance then between the two extremes? I do not have an answer now, but I hope I will be able to answer this question at the end of this module.

Meanwhile, I shall ponder on the issues of Designing Content for New Media.