Thursday, September 23, 2004
Sadie and Advice for Consumer Product Manufacturers
For those who haven’t been paying attention or looking at the baby blog, Sadie ought to arrive any day now. We’ve been figuring she’ll time it so we miss the season premier of Joan of Arcadia, the best show on TV, which sadly airs on CBS. Speaking of which, I noticed last night that the time on the VCR was inexplicably several hours off, which hardly bodes well for the taping of Joan all programmed and ready.
I anticipate posting a birth announcement from the hospital. No liveblogging the birth though. That would be obsessive or something. I’m almost never obsessive like that.
In preparation, I recently had the pleasure to assemble a Graco Triad Disney Pooh 3 In 1 Bedside Bassinet. It can be configured as a bassinet, complete with canopy, bedside sleeper that secures to the bed, or changing table, which looks remarkably identicle to bedside sleeper apart from location and attachment with respect to the bed. It also switches between rocking and wheeled, with brakes (not breaks, people) on the wheels on one end.
We’re using it as a bassinet. Assembly required…
Hello the manufacturers of things to be assembled! Your attention please!
First, have someone write the instructions who has, you know, actually assembled one of the product in question.
Second, have some tester people put the item together uncoached.
Third, have someone who can, you know, write create the instructions, or at least edit them for readability.
Fourth, some people don’t have magnification vision as a standard bodily feature. Pretend people have to, you know, be able to see the words when designing and printing your instructions.
Fifth, and really, should I have to list so many items? You know how you cater to folks who don’t ne hable pas no dang English? Well, don’t forget your customers who sprechen English and want to be able to see their directions. See also item four, in which smooshing in multiple languages in 6 point font to save paper is no excuse for a lousy customer experience.
I like being able to start in English and end in English, then turn a page and say “ah, the rest of this is en Francais” or whatever. You know how it’s annoying when people haven’t grasped the concept of paragraphs? It’s annoying when the same basic thing happens but the switch is from one language to another.
Large enough type. Language sections separate. If not separate, at least distinct. Paper is cheap. Pulp is a renewable resource. It’s all about the total customer experience. Same as technical products requiring support that doesn’t suck rather than support as an obligatory afterthought.
Sixth, yes, I am still going! The parts should fit as intended.
In this case, the unit comes with “music, vibration and light.” This takes the form of a vibration motor thingie on the underside of the plastic bed support thingie that goes IN the cloth enclosure, not under it as the directions unclearly implied despite the graphic. A cord dangles from that and goes through a couple of grommets described infuriatingly by the directions. A control unit with a light and music hooks to it and brackets onto the foot of the bassinet.
Except it doesn’t. It is physically impossible to mount the bracket as described and pictured. I tried far harder than the feature was worth. What they did is sized the bracket to fit over the bar around the top if bare, but designed everything else such that it is intended to go over cloth and padding. We left that off. She doesn’t need vibrating until she’s much older, and the music is kind of annoying and hair trigger.
It still irks me that the maker was so careless, and that on top of lousy, hard to read, cramped directions. I can see why people would buy something already assembled. $60 seems so reasonable. If you take a theoretical $200 of my time assembling it - assuming I could actually substitute the work for the assembly in a direct way - plus the $60, it’s a different story. No doubt there’s an article in there somewhere; how products have moved so much from fully made or full service to self-assembly or self-service, and the implications thereof.