The Hindu Business Line : For want of a nail

There’s no point touting amorphous marketing promises on branding and identity if the final product doesn’t reflect these in the actual customer experience.
A design-centric attitude looks at the entirety of the product-customer experience from the micro-details to the overarching macro picture.

Product design has to be user-friendly with attention to detail.

It began at breakfast time – planning a quick snack before rushing to the airport, I used my new Teflon pan. It looks good, twinkling bright copper bottom with an appealing cook-and-serve design: at last, I thought, an Indian saucepan that combines form and function. As I lifted it off the stove, with a pleasurable slurp of anticipation my fingers let go off their own volition with a not-so-pleasurable Ouch! My breakfast slopped all over and with a muffled curse I examined what went wrong. Ah – the nice new pan has a nifty handle – instead of recessing the rivet holding the pan to the handle, the designers have helpfully stuck it at a spot ideally positioned to inflict third-degree burns on unsuspecting cooks. My mood had not improved when I tried to fix myself another meal. This time it was my nice new stove (yes, I do see that my recent purchases are proving singularly unlucky). When I bought it the smart young salesman had extolled the virtues of this recent entrant into the cooktop business. The design was very contemporary, with a sleek silhouette (Italian, the salesman said) and smooth operational controls (made with foreign collaboration, the salesman said). Of course, being a suspicious sort, I did not rely only on the salesman’s spiel but did some more research. The Web site assured me that “the approach of designing and developing products is primarily consumer-led and is backed by the unflinching support of continuous research and development” and that my new cooktop was “guaranteed for long and trouble-free usage” – indeed, it promised to be “household’s delight”. I must admit it got a lot of admiring looks from visitors into my kitchen, and I was delighted – for all of … umm … five months. Now I find that the sleek new knobs don’t shut very smoothly – because the screws behind it have rusted. I can’t quite figure out how to fix this. Spray WD-40, I am told by experienced rust-removal experts. I know that the can won’t go waste because there are any number of creaky hinges around the house where the “brass” hinges have revealed their true nature. And as an added bonus, WD-40 is apparently an excellent way to get rid off the sticker-glue that clings so tenaciously to every single steel vessel sold in India.

But my sad saga is not over – this riveting (pun very much intended) tale goes on to the next source of aggravation – my suitcase. We have this family habit of naming our luggage, in the fond hope that it makes for easier identification and communication. (“you take Small Black and I’ll take Big Brown”, or “Oh no, Medium Red has got misplaced by the airline”… see?). My trip was a longish one and Big Brown has this advantage of being, well, big. Even after I had piled in all my clothes, there was a lot of room to spare in its capacious interior. As the manufacturer assured me, here, at last, was “Sturdy and tough luggage that combines elegance and endurance”. At security check, however, as the attendant hefted Big Brown onto the belt, there was an ominous click and the handle came off. The attendant looked bored – he’s probably seen this many times before. He placed the handle gently in my bandaged fingers with a helpful bit of advice – “see, these big bags, they say you can fill it up with clothes, and there is enough space, but the handle and the zip are not strong enough. Next time, get a foreign suitcase.”

The badly placed rivet, the rusty screw, the under-engineered handle may appear a rather obvious analogy for the weakest link in the system – but these are not mere implementation flaws or execution glitches. These are symptomatic of the Indian malaise of a “chalta hai” attitude towards product design. Why is it that in this exultant era of India Shining we are yet to find Indian products that revel in design excellence? There are so many similar examples where attention to design details has fallen through the “not-knowing and therefore not-doing gap”.

Good product design should reflect an obsessive attention to detail. There’s no point touting amorphous marketing promises on branding and identity if the final product doesn’t reflect these in the actual customer experience. Sometimes, there can be such a focus on the exciting big picture that all the itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny items that add up to ensuring success are ignored. Sometimes, you can miss the trees for the forest.

Of course, the recommendation is not to over-engineer the micro-architecture of every product – if the concept is to be a financial success, design has to balance issues of cost and profitability – but to avoid the very real danger of getting caught up in the seductive appeal of the Grand Idea at the cost of ignoring the myriad micro details that add up to a value-creating whole. Yes, innovation is about the big picture, the amazing new insight, the grand concept, but if the soul of the idea is not mirrored in the body of the product, then what you have is a promise that lacks integrity.

Organisations such as Apple which have an enviable record in design and innovation demonstrate an untiring attention to detail. Nothing is too small to be looked at during the design stage – and then, brutal testing is employed to validate these assumptions. A design-centric attitude that looks at the entirety of the product-customer experience from the micro-details to the overarching macro picture. Sustainable success in innovation means you just have to sweat the small stuff.

(Radhika Chadha is a consultant in strategy and innovation. Karategy is the proprietary name of the strategic exercises conducted by Paradigm Management Knowhow Ltd.)

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