Defenestrating Thoughts from the Bivouac

The water dispenser at work has two functions:

1. Dispense cold water
2. Dispense hot water

Yet it has three buttons!

So now I have to first select the water temperature (cold is default) and then press another button to dispense the water. Notice, there’s also a light for an indicator of your current selection (green is cold, red is hot).

I thought this was always silly; it’s just unnecessarily complicated. There’s a very simple precedent for this: one blue button (for cold) and one red button (for hot).

And then I saw this next design, which by comparison makes the previous design seem downright brilliant.

This is a combined water and ice dispenser. Look at those buttons in the top right. In the picture they look ok, but when faced with this machine in real life, no one sees those buttons; they just too far away from what the user is looking at.

Now, by using those on and off switches at the top right, you can pick whether it will dispense (1) water, (2) ice, (3) both, or (4) neither.

The buttons at the top right give you the ability to have 4 states, but 2 of them are useless. First, why would a user ever have it in “neither” mode (with both buttons off)? And second, while the “both” mode seems reasonble (“yes, I’d like ice water”), in practice it’s useless. When you try to dispense both, the ice drops into the water, which splashes everywhere and makes a mess.

Again, there’s a simple precedent for this: most refrigerators can dispense 3 things (ice, crushed ice, or water) with just one selection button or slider.

ABC recently ran a fascinating story about the TSA. It’s a great lesson on how not to solve problems:

… undercover TSA agents testing security at a Newark airport terminal on one day in 2006 found that TSA screeners failed to detect concealed bombs and guns 20 out of 22 times. A 2007 government audit leaked to USA Today revealed that undercover agents were successful slipping simulated explosives and bomb parts through Los Angeles’s LAX airport in 50 out of 70 attempts, and at Chicago’s O’Hare airport agents made 75 attempts and succeeded in getting through undetected 45 times.

So in the government’s own tests, the TSA failed to detect a bomb or a gun nearly 70% of the time!

[Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Clark Kent] Ervin said a combination of factors is likely to blame for the persistent failures on the part of screeners. Low pay, poor training, and the monotony involved in watching bags pass through x-ray machines are a recipe for trouble, Ervin said.

Apparently it’s hard to find folks that are good at screening the bags as they go through the x-ray machine. So then, how does the TSA solve it?

TSA Chief John Pistole told ABC News that the poor performance during undercover tests helped convince him that airport screening needed to get that much tougher — and a desire to do better helped give rise to the controversial new regimen that includes enhanced pat-downs and back-scatter machines that can see beneath a traveler’s clothing.

So, if I’m reading correctly… the TSA is unable to screen bags properly, so they started pat-downs on people!

It’s amazing how literally the words “security theater” apply here.