At this time, the students in the Stanford Good Products Course have read the first five chapters of my book of the same name, are working on a field research paper, and have turned in their first assignment from the book, which asked them to select a product that they consider to be of high quality and one of low quality as far as both human fit and craftsmanship are concerned, and to write a short essay justifying their choices and perhaps suggesting how to improve the products of low quality.
If
you would like an insight into their thinking, there is a blog here which will
give you that. You should find it both thought provoking and entertaining. I
cannot include all of their essays, because of space limitations, but you will
get the idea. The topics of the first product
assignment are human fit and craftsmanship, the content of Chapters 4 and 5 of
my book.
The first two chapters in the book have to do with the nature of quality and reasons why product quality could and should be improved. The third chapter is an argument for thinking more deeply about cost, price, and performance, a relationship that is often overly simplified by both producers and consumers. The problems in the book for the first three chapters are not assigned to the class this year, because of time constraints.
Human fit, the topic of Chapter 4, is one of the more obvious and important aspects of product quality, and one that is often overlooked, partly because of the perceived higher priority of short term factors such as cost and schedule in the development of products, and partly because of the tendency of designers to design for people like themselves with respect to such things as age, size, sensory and physical ability, and the tendency of consumers not to give adequate attention to the fit between product and user at purchase. This latter phenomenon can be seen from customers briefly (with embarrassment) lying on a mattress in a store, when at least a full night’s sleep is probably necessary to determine whether their back will be angry with them in the morning.
Since one goal of my book is to break the non-quantitative aspects of quality into more approachable topics, I subdivided human fit into physical fit, sensory fit, cognitive fit, complexity, and safety and health. Much is known about the first three, but often not applied. Cognitive misfit is especially noticeable in the internet. Digital electronics and increasingly sophisticated software are resulting in rapidly increasing access to information and communication modes, but Moore’s law does not apply to the brain. We need a better match, and it is not going to come from doubling the number of neurons in our brain every two years. Finally, both the complexity of modern life and health are becoming increasingly important problems.
Craftsmanship is also critical. But unfortunately we tend to use the term more on products involving a large amount of hand labor (the “crafts”). For a number of reasons, craftsmanship in industrial products, which over time require less and less hand labor, is increasingly important. Not only does improved craftsmanship often result in improvements in performance, reliability, and durability, but it is aesthetically pleasing and we closely associate it with quality (well-made objects). Chapter 5 goes into the topic in detail. The subdivisions of the chapter are (1) Why Do We Care About craftsmanship,(2) The Pleasure and Pride of Craft, (3) The Industry and Culture Problem, (4) The Nature of Craftsmanship, and (5), Some Suggestions of How to Improve Craftsmanship in Industry.
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