InvisibleBed has been an interesting product company.
As a recent owner of a wall mounted sit/ stand desk, I recently shared some product design inputs with the CEO. They were well received.
The Product:
The Challenge: 1.Pre-attached table-top – makes installation a challenge even for a 2-person team, as the table-top weight causes the swing-arms to open What I would do instead:
Keep the table-top separate. Maybe include a clamp on the swing-arms, onto which the table-top can subsequently be clamped onto. This might prevent the swing-arms from constantly opening.
2.Desk design – causes the unit in fully–collapsed position to swing outward and downward when unlocked. And the locking mechanism deforms if the desk is inadvertently lifted without unlocking – either way, risks injury to users or children who unlock it and are in the path when it swings outward What I would do instead:
Offset the design so that the center of gravity falls within the unit itself, preventing it from swinging outward. It would then need to be manually lifted into position by the user, also automatically reducing the possibility of small children getting hurt as the unit would not swing open even if unlocked.
Or alternatively (simpler but boring option), a stronger locking mechanism.
This idea was part of an initiative called RattL ’em. and was shared with the CEO of the company, who was thrilled with the inputs, and plans to incorporate it in the future design.
What is RattL ’em?: We are constantly fascinated by companies, products and services.
So whenever a company catches our curiosity, we offer them an idea (a new product, service, or feature/ improvement idea), or highlight a concern area. Someday, we hope we can send an idea out into the world everyday.
We do this for free, and for fun. And the company receiving the idea is free to use it, with no financial or other obligation toward us. It is our way of trying to be the best in the field of people innovation.
In my last post, I recommended reading the book, To-do List Formula. I also shared my own key takeaways from the book.
The book highly recommended the Todoist app to create and track tasks. I started using it ever since, and compared to all the apps I have used so far, I have found it to be somehow designed to allow for more efficient days.
I did feel the computer and mobile apps could use a small feature improvement that could further improve the efficiency its users derive from it. And I wrote to them about it. A RattL ’em idea if you will.
Here’s what it is.
While any to-do app allows you to set deadlines for tasks, you can create them without specifying a deadline as well.
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Now say you wanted to try and rearrange entries 7-15 so that they would be according to your measure of importance and urgency, after which you could enter achievable deadlines for each. This can become a challenge when it is many more than just 9 entries that you need to put into sequence.
Now if you are diligent in the easy bit of at least adding tasks to an app, you would notice that the number of entries could easily go up to a few dozens if not more. Now Todoist (and other apps like Trello) allow you to drag and drop to change the order of entries. But even then, since your view is only limited to about 6-7 entries (on the laptop or mobile app), that can require a lot more mental processing or note taking to sequence the entries so that it becomes easier to then assign due dates for them.
A solution to this, would be a simple ‘pop-up view’ option (grey below) that could be offered. This would accommodate all the entries on the list, on the pop-up view screen, in a grid (as opposed to a scrolling list).
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Here, the user could drag entries around into a better priority sequence, and then switch back to the scrolling list view and start assigning due dates for them (below).
Thoughts?
What is RattL ’em?: We are constantly fascinated by companies, products and services.
So whenever a company catches our curiosity, we offer them an idea (a new product, service, or feature/ improvement idea), or highlight a concern area. Someday, we hope we can send an idea out into the world everyday.
We do this for free, and for fun. And the company receiving the idea is free to use it, with no financial or other obligation toward us. It is our way of trying to be the best in the field of people innovation.
Say you create a post on social media, and friends or acquaintances comment on it over the next few days or weeks.
Now, sometimes it gets tricky if the comments function is basic.
If there are a few new comments before the next time you check that account, finding them could be a little tricky. Especially if someone comments in reply to your or someone else’s reply. Or if the platform takes you broadly to that section but not specifically to the new comment.
Facebook does a decent job of highlighting the region around a new comment, making it easier to spot.
And LinkedIn gives you the option of sorting comments by Most Relevant and Most Recent.
However, this still leaves a lot to desire.
What if social media platforms could include a search function as a feature on comments?
For instance, LinkedIn has a fairly good search function on messages. It allows a user to sort messages by Archived, from Connections, Unread, InMail, and Spam. However, commenting on posts can get messy really fast if you have a conversation in comments with multiple people, and each one replying to their respective sub-threads.
Facebook gets a bit tricky on birthdays, especially if you are someone who tries to respond to everyone who wished you, and then there are a few small interactions happening in those sub-threads.
Would be nice if the search feature in comments across social media platforms would let us sort by recency, maybe even filter by commenter, etc.
Social media platforms also collapse the comments section for appearance and probably speed, and show only a few comments at a time. With each ‘next’ click, Facebook (and probably LinkedIn) show the next 10 comments, Instagram shows the next 3 only!
Would be great for social media platforms to have a ‘See All Comments’ feature.
From a development perspective, I would imagine it would be similar to adding the Filter function to a spreadsheet.
Do you feel the need for a more effective comments section on social media?
While looking up an old blogging account of mine, I stumbled upon a RattL ’em idea from many years ago.
I had made a suggestion to Google, sometime in Feb., 2013 regarding composing of emails.
People sometimes want to, or even unintentionally tend to write lengthy mails.
And people’s attention spans have become shorter [or unchanged, as per some reports, while number of distractions have increased]. Which means, most of us have lesser and lesser time and patience to read through any written matter. And since most of what we read is online, I felt there is scope for improvement.
My suggestion was that emails could have the option to group sections [remember the ‘Group’ option available in Microsoft Excel]. These sections would become collapsible. That way, the recipient of the email can quickly get a gist of the content, and could then expand any or all section if they want more details, and toggle back to birds-eye view whenever needed.
This would be better than overloading the reader with an endless sea of paragraphs that stand the risk of going partly unread.
Main points or key news headlines could be listed out, with details kept hidden by a [+] sign, so that recipients could expand and read more.
Let me know what you think, and if you have any better suggestions.
What is RattL ’em?: We are constantly fascinated by companies, products and services.
So whenever a company catches our curiosity, we offer them an idea (a new product, service, or feature/ improvement idea), or highlight a concern area. Someday, we hope we can send an idea out into the world everyday.
We do this for free, and for fun. And the company receiving the idea is free to use it, with no financial or other obligation toward us. It is our way of trying to be the best in the field of people innovation.
A recent ‘RattL ’em‘ idea was for Will Cathcart and Matthew Idema at WhatsApp.
Through the lockdown, a lot of people began spending considerable time on WhatsApp. And some, let’s call them ‘serial forwarders’, dump forwards literally like there is no tomorrow.
While it is possible to block or mute individuals and entire groups, currently one cannot mute an individual on a group. Which means either the Admin has to tell them, or remove them. Something that can be difficult and delicate in some groups.
What if WhatsApp had a feature that allows a user to mute specific person(s) in groups? The user who mutes another user on a group is simply not shown messages from that user.
And, both sides win. The serial forwarder gets whatever pleasure they get, and no one has to suffer for it.
What is RattL ’em?: We are constantly fascinated by companies, products and services.
So whenever a company catches our curiosity, we offer them an idea (a new product, service, or feature/ improvement idea), or highlight a concern area. Someday, we hope we can send an idea out into the world everyday.
We do this for free, and for fun. And the company receiving the idea is free to use it, with no financial or other obligation toward us. It is our way of trying to be the best in the field of people innovation.
What is RattL ’em?: We are constantly fascinated by companies, products and services.
So whenever a company catches our curiosity, we offer them an idea (a new product, service, or feature/ improvement idea), or highlight a concern area. Someday, we hope we can send an idea out into the world everyday.
We do this for free, and for fun. And the company receiving the idea is free to use it, with no financial or other obligation toward us. It is our way of trying to be the best in the field of people innovation.
Nosocomial infections are infections that patients contract inside of a hospital, due to contamination or germs present there. A patient undergoing treatment at a hospital is almost always has a weak immune system, which is more susceptible to infection. And the odds of contracting an infection are higher in operation theatres and ICUs. Most likely because those needing to be in the ICU or get operated are in a far more immunocompromised state.
Now ordinarily hospitals are brilliant at spotting and solving hospital related risks and challenges. Having been an examiner for a prestigious award that company, hospital and educational institute teams compete for in areas of innovation and improvement, I have seen the top projects being showcased, and they are impressive. The meticulous tracking and calculating of various data points, identifying causes, finding and implementing solutions, and tracking effectiveness, and then setting up a cycle for continuous improvement.
So it is concerning when nosocomial infections account for 5-10% of all patients in an acute care hospital in the US [+]. And the numbers are even more concerning in India, where our hospitals are far more crowded, with little concern or respect for regulation. Here in India, nosocomial infections are as high as 11-60% in ICUs [+].
While this one is quite obvious, assuming ICU cleanliness follows the highest of standards and procedure, I think a bulk of these infections occur in elevators. Elevators are known to be extremely contaminated, the buttons in particular.
While I unfortunately don’t have a broad solution idea to offer for this challenge, I do have some almost obvious suggestions:
If a new private hospital is being constructed, try and create an isolated elevator between ICUs and operation theatres. Often, patients are carried for surgery in common elevators, exposing them to every visitor who might have visited someone with another infection, which they are likely to catch
Again, for new hospitals yet to be constructed, ideally have the wards frequently visited by visitors on the lower floors, and have sloped ramps for people to walk up and down to those floors (say up to second floor). That way, a bulk of the visitors who would ordinarily use the elevators could be saved, thus perhaps making it economical to dedicate at least one elevator purely for shuttling only patients between ICU and/or operation theatres.
A shield-type enclosure (might look like the mosquito nets for beds) over the patient’s trolley while being moved might help contain their infections and reduce spread while in the elevator
Limited options for public hospitals or those with limited budgets, seem to include:
stricter laws for visitors,
encouraging the use of staircases by visitors,
installing affordable disinfection tunnels, and making masks compulsory for visitors
***
This concern was part of an initiative called RattL ’em. What is RattL ’em? We are constantly fascinated by companies, products and services.
So whenever a company catches our curiosity, we offer them an idea (a new product, service, or feature/ improvement idea), or highlight a concern area. Someday, we hope we can send an idea out into the world everyday.
We do this for free, and for fun. And the company receiving the idea is free to use it, with no financial or other obligation toward us. It is our way of trying to be the best in the field of people innovation.
How most food ordering/ delivery service apps work is, you make your selection, pay (or CoD), and confirm the order.
However, there are occasions (or lack of them) where you might want to order something, but without any time constraint.
These instances might include, remembering to order a birthday cake for tomorrow, or have some starters or dessert sent anytime this evening. In such cases, at present, you’d have to remember or set an alarm to place the order in a broad time bracket.
But what if instead, like with Scheduling a ride with Uber, you could simply place the order in advance, and either pick the day, or a broad time within the day, for when the order could be dropped.
It would be convenient to customers who might risk forgetting or risk ordering too late.
Companies could insist on prepaid orders only.
Companies benefit by being able to bunch orders only when a rider is headed in a particular direction, rather than sending them with a lone minimum order in a direction.
Might help marginally with easing traffic, and make rider trips a little more efficient, while being convenient for customers.
***
This Idea for Food Delivery Services was part of an initiative called RattL ’em. What is RattL ’em?: We are constantly fascinated by companies, products and services.
So, every few days, we send out an email to, or share an idea online about a random company anywhere in the world that caught our fancy. The email either contains an idea for a new product or service, a concern area to focus on, or a new feature or improvement to their portfolio.
We do it for free. And for fun. And the company that receives it is free to use the idea, with no financial or other obligation toward us. We think of it as our way to be the best at what we do in the field of innovation and design strategy consulting.
In 2019, the US FAA approved the company Molon Labe Seating‘s (MLS) landmark seat design for commercial airplanes.
What MLS did, is take the problem of discomfort of middle-seat passengers, and attempted to solve it by:
(i) widening the middle seat (from 18″ to 21″), and
(ii) placing the seat slightly lower, and slightly behind the other two seats.
Like this: https://youtu.be/LbWyXPYAXU0
Unless I’m wrong about this, the FAA’s blessings might make the middle seat passenger more uncomfortable than she already is, if airlines buy into the new design. Here are my limited views about this. I did enjoy studying this. Hopefully MLS finds these inputs helpful in making flying a bit more comfortable.
For clarity, let’s break the challenge MLS was dealing with, into its components:
Seat width
Seat position
Position (backward)
Height
Wing passenger movement
For simplicity, let’s consider an obese person who gets the middle seat.
Looking at the above components:
Seat width – going by the video, actual seat width has not increased, but only the seat (stretching under the armrest) and backrest are wider. This would undoubtedly be more comfortable than the present seats. However, the armrests would still press into the stomach region of an obese passenger. Fixing this would need a seat redesign, as it would be tough to widen the gap between armrests without narrowing the passage area
Seat position
Position (backward) – Purely from a position perspective, the MLS design is an improvement. Ordinarily, middle-seat passengers perhaps have even less privacy than others (ever been in the middle seat looking into your phone, and realized your co-passengers were too? :P). With the centre seat slightly behind, its passenger would at least get some privacy for suffering the seat. My bigger concern: The back of any person, is not a flat plane. It curves slightly at the shoulders, more if the person hunches. In the current design, an obese person’s shoulders might extend into the backrests of seats on either side, whether they are all in upright or reclined position. With the new offset layout, it would be very restrictive (and for some, claustrophobic even) as it obstructs at arguably a person’s widest cross-section.
Height – If the obese passenger is short (maybe under 5’3″, the lower new seat position works fine. But for an average to tall passenger, it is a transition from uncomfortable, narrow seats; to uncomfortable, narrow and low seats – which means not only might their back hurt afterwards, but also their thighs and calves
Wing passenger movement – currently, the wing seat passenger moves straight in and out. With the MLS redesign, they would have to zigzag their way in and out (and for loo visits) – a partial inconvenience
Using the above 2018 seat comparison by SeatGuru of popular US airlines, I took a simple average to arrive at:
Seat width: 17.885″, and Seat Pitch of: 33.35″.
Now, here’s an alternate layout that I’m suggesting. It takes MLS’s new (wider) seats, but at normal height.
I rounded down Seat Width to 17″, and Seat Pitch up to 34″ for ease of scale and representation.
In the above image, the section on the left depicts a sample 9 rows of economy seats on the left section of an aircraft with the existing seat layout. The aisle would be on the right of this section. Similarly, the right side of the image is my suggested new seat layout pattern. For a sample 9 rows (total 27 economy seats in the existing layout) on the left section of an aircraft, my suggested design (right) offers hopefully a better layout with the trade-off of 1 seat (total 26 seats).
Possible advantages of my suggested design:
Seat width – the new MLS wide seat design, which seems marginally more comfortable. However, only a complete redesign allowing for wider gaps between armrests would actually make it better for the passenger
Seat position
Position (backward) – 3 seats slightly offset from the other, forming an “A” layout (if you consider all 6 seats, three on either side of the aisle in a given row, they would form an A pattern, with the aisle seats forward, and the wing seats further behind for the same row). Seemingly more uniform level of privacy irrespective of seat. And each passenger has zero obstruction of adjoining seat backrest or passenger on one side
Height – all seats of same height to prevent added leg/thigh and lower back fatigue for middle-seat passengers
Wing passenger movement – currently, passengers need to turn 90° into or out of their row. In the suggested layout, while visits too the loo would involve a bigger angle of turn, but only boarding and disembarking would be at only a slight angle from the aisle.
Thoughts?
@MLS, like you, I am simply looking at it from trying to improve passenger experience. Hope you find this useful.
On the topic of airline seats, here’s an old thought I had.
The Middle Seat analysis was part of an initiative called RattL ’em. What is RattL ’em?: We are constantly fascinated by companies, products and services.
So, every few days, we send out an email to, or share an idea online about a random company anywhere in the world that caught our fancy. The email either contains an idea for a new product or service, a concern area to focus on, or a new feature or improvement to their portfolio.
We do it for free. And for fun. And the company that receives it is free to use the idea, with no financial or other obligation toward us. We think of it as our way to be the best at what we do in the field of innovation and design strategy consulting.
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Image [2018]: 