The Axe: an object lesson in design
By: T. Robert Roeth
Tags: Design, UX, Tools, Human Centered Design, UI

The axe as design specimen

An axe does not work because it is beautiful. It is beautiful because it works.

In product design today, practitioners have developed a shared language and philosophies to communicate and achieve consensus on the characteristics, considerations, and merits of our craft.

For this essay, I’ll outline here the axe’s merit when considered against Don Norman’s six principles of interaction design. As product design has extended from physical to digital, much of our shared language has evolved accordingly. Professor Norman’s teachings have been applied to both.

A Dayton pattern felling axe, restored and rehung by the author.

Visibility —

The more visible functions are, the more likely users will be able to know what to do next.

When my daughter was 3 years old. I observed her walk up to my axe. It was lying flat on the ground. She picked it up, by the correct end, with the bit facing down, and “swung it” to the earth. (Parents: I was observing from very nearby.)

The material, shape, and ergonomics of an axe inherently tells the user how to handle it. The weight and balance instructs the user how to operate it. Even a 3-year-old knows not to grab it by the hard, cold, sharp, metal head, but rather the smooth, soft, warm(er), wooden end. The curve of a well-shaped haft, complete with a fawnsfoot knob communicates it’s orientation and action. The weight shows the handler the motion intended.

Feedback —

Feedback is about sending back information about what action has been done and what has been accomplished, allowing the person to continue with the activity.

Task completion with an axe is as visceral of an activity as it is objective. If felling a tree, most will know when it is no longer standing upright: sight, sound, and if the tree is big enough, the shake of the earth underfoot will provide sufficient feedback. If the axe is employed to split logs, one will also know when one piece of large wood becomes two smaller ones.

Conversely, error detection is clear and immediate. A mis-swing of an axe can be dangerous, but more often, it is an uncomfortable and unsatisfying experience. Missing the mark with axe often means in indirect strike, sending the axe off of the trajectory it was designed to travel. The tree will still be standing. The log still in one piece. This results in discomfort to the users hands, wrists and ego.

Constraints —

The design concept of constraining refers to determining ways of restricting the kind of user interaction that can take place at a given moment.

The axe doesn’t do much. But what it does, it does well when maintained. Once put into motion, it is a tool built to increase inertia to concentrate impact on a narrow and defined point and plane. Past the apex of a swing, be it overhead or side-armed, an axe cannot be stopped.

The axe is the antithesis of a swiss army knife. An axe is purpose-built for a very narrow set of tasks. This constraint allows for high efficacy. In product design terms, it has a very short list of user stories, and equally short UAT criteria. In contrast, a swiss army knife attempts to be a little bit of everything for everybody — a study in unwinnable compromise. Try splitting firewood with a swiss army knife, and you are in for a cold night. Moreover, try using any tool offered by a swiss army knife to complete any task, and you will experience the sad consequence of not enough design constraints.

Mapping —

This refers to the relationship between controls and their effects in the world.

An axe, as most striking tools, is a primitive but effective example of control and effect: one end a user holds and swings (control) the other end strikes (effect). It is not hard for a user to understand which is which. (See Visibility.) The swing and the strike happen as close together as the user can muster.

Digital product design rarely offers such apparent mapping. But there is always a control and an effect. The closer and more evident in time and space that each can be experienced by a user will improve their understanding and command of the product being used.

Consistency —

This refers to designing interfaces to have similar operations and use similar elements for achieving similar tasks.

This is aspect of design is important. Depending on your disposition, you might think that ‘Creativity’ is the same as ‘Design’, and that both are demonstrated by original, “out of the box”, even contrarian thinking. It is not for me to try to prove those notions right or wrong – and this isn’t the essay to try. What I can say is that designers need to acknowledge and understand conventions within the cultural context their users operate in. ‘New’ and ‘different’ does not often equate to ‘intuitive’ and ‘easy’. Axes are easy to understand because they look and work a lot like hammers, which look and work a lot like a hoe, which is very similar to a shovel.

Affordance —

Affordance is a term used to refer to an attribute of an object that allows people to know how to use it.

The shape, balance, weight, and materials of an axe are precisely what, where, and how they need to be to do the job it was designed for. Pick up a well hung axe and it will show you how it works, almost swinging itself. Visually, an axe affords the user a handle. Once gripped, the weight of the head on the far end (See Mapping) will pull the striking end downward thanks to gravity. Form follows function.