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Smart, Simple, and Easy To Use!

8/23/2012

5 Comments

 
Picture
On the  opening night of the Olympics, we decided to make popcorn to enhance our viewing experience. As we’ve done many times before, we placed a colored paper bag in the microwave with kernels, hit the start button and lo and behold-- the bag caught fire. As a person who plans ahead, I had a fire extinguisher in the kitchen. I attempted to use it when everything went haywire; I pulled the stopper off and pressed on the lever, and nothing happened. I kept pressing and pressing to no avail until my better half calmly grabbed a wet towel, placed it over the bag and quelled the flames.
Not understanding what went wrong and why I couldn’t get the extinguisher to work, my husband looked closely at it, and showed me  there were two levers you had to push at once, proceeding to dirty my counter with the fine white powder.

What are the lessons learned?

1. Don’t use paper bags that have ink or color on them when you make popcorn in the microwave. Usually we use regular brown bags, but in the absence of one, we thought a colored bag would work as well. Clearly, it didn’t, due to the dyes and chemicals.
2. Keep a fire extinguisher on hand and know how to use it. Review the instructions in a non-emergency situation so you are sure you know how to operate it

But, the product manager in me is upset with the fire extinguisher manufacturer. When it comes to products, my mantra is: Smart, Simple, and Easy to use.  As an emergency device, it should have been trivial for anyone to use under any circumstance (the kitchen was relatively dark when this happened). How come it didn’t?

Probably because no one ever thought about simplicity and ease of use. Sure, with no fire and plenty of light and time to review instructions, everything works as planned. However, one should plan for situations where everything goes wrong. That’s when your product should still be smart, simple, and easy to use. 

5 Comments
Allen
8/24/2012 04:09:33 am

From a product perspective, however, the real question, in this case, is: when you bought the fire extinguisher, if you could choose the one you bought or one with all that intelligence built in--and pay a premium for it--which would you have chosen? Especially when all you had to do to avoid the cost would be to look at the instructions once before using it. How much was the premium really worth?

When I was in the Navy, we did fire drills. You wore a breathing mask and for the drill, they covered it with a hair net to simulate thick smoke, so you could barely see. When I was a new officer, during a drill, it was my job to get the fire extinguisher. Now, I had trained to know where every extinguisher was and how to find one blindfolded anywhere on the ship, but I never trained on how to get the extinguisher off the hook it was on--and I couldn't do it.

It was a straight hook slightly angled inward, but in that instant, I had to know ahead of time. After the drill, it was embarrassing how I couldn't figure it out, which in the light of day was such a simple task.

Sometimes you just have to be prepared or pay the price....

Reply
Sarela Bliman-Cohen
8/30/2012 12:32:49 am

Allen,
Thank you. I don't recall why I picked this fire extinguisher. I probably went into home depot and picked whatever they had on the shelf.
Indeed, one should be prepared. I still wish they had made the two handles more distinct...

Reply
Bruce McCarthy link
8/29/2012 11:01:28 pm

I'll be the manufacturer was reacting to complaints of the devices going off accidentally when people brushed the trigger. They wanted essentially a safety feature to make it (ironically) harder to use.

This strikes me as a good example of when NOT to listen to customer requests. If it makes your product's core mission harder, just say no.

Reply
Sarela Bliman-Cohen
8/30/2012 12:26:37 am

Bruce,
Good point. The other option might have been to make the two handles in two distinct colors so they would stand out.

Reply
leo
2/22/2015 10:33:08 am

Now if you had a real Firefighter there he would have put out the conflagration!

Reply



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    Sarela Bliman-Cohen is a product management executive with over 20 years experience in Technology. 

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