How to build a bulletproof product
By: Moshe Etlis
Tags: Design Process, Product Design, Product, Product Management, User Research

Usually when I buy a new electrical appliance I expect it to work in more than one specific setting.

What do I mean?

A mixer will work in any kitchen, right? Same thing about TVs and living rooms and electric toothbrushes and bathrooms. Note that I’m not talking about home décor related electrical appliances.

This is called robustness.

So my wife and I bought two nice bedside lamps which we’ve really enjoyed from, until we moved into a new apartment.

One of our two bedside lamps

In our new bedroom, the electricity socket was located behind my wife’s side of the bed, while in the previous apartment it was located right behind the center of the bed.

Now it turns out that my lamp’s power cord is too short!

And if that’s not enough, the switch is located in the center of the cord, which means it is located behind the bed!

If I don’t want to use an extension cord due to safety, it sounds like the only solution is to buy a new lamp and make sure the cord is long enough, huh?

Not for me!

So first of all, I needed to get a new power cord. I recalled that in the past week I saw an old vacuum cleaner near the trash can of our building.

I quickly went downstairs — and it was still there!

Assuming that it’s non-functional if no one took it after seven rainy days — I cut its power cord and took it back home (my dad holds the credit for this idea — I saw him doing that too many times in my childhood).

Next, all I needed to do was to replace the lamp’s power cord with the new one and move the switch to a more convenient and logical place — right next to the lamp base (and not in the center of the cord where I can’t reach it).

I opened the switch and to my surprise it was a soldered switch. Meaning that without a solder, which I don’t have, I can’t modify it.

The existing switch

So I bought a new switch, with screws, for 1.5$.

After making all the modifications I needed, I got a working AND convenient bedside lamp.

It took just about an hour, 1.5$, a little bit of creativity and a lot of willingness to solve this problem and get the job done.

BTW, if the lamp would cost 1.5$ more and had a better design — we’d still buy it! That only shows the power of a proper, user-centered design.

The new switch in its new location, almost done

Why am I telling you this story?

As a Product Manager, I think that this specific product (bedside lamp) had 3 big design flaws:

Power cord length — affects users with distant electrical sockets. Switch location — affects users with hidden/non-reachable electrical sockets. Switch type (soldered, without screws) — affects users that want to modify the cable.

These could be easily avoided if a good user research was performed. This is what happens when developers design a product that is only built to WORK and not to SERVE A NEED.

So if you don’t want unsatisfied users that will ditch your product and look up for alternatives in the first opportunity in which the product won’t work for them, I suggest you to follow the following takeaways:

Perform a THOROUGH user research. Test the hell out of your product. Ask your friends to review it. Giveaway free samples. Do what it takes to get as much feedback as possible. Then implement your insights. Plan for robustness. If the product is intended to be used in different settings and conditions (exotic cases excluded) — make it bulletproof. Plan some space for modifications for the technical user.