Over-engineering

By: Qwaider

On:Saturday, November 10, 2007 10:20:36 PM
In:Science & Technology
Viewed: (3903) times

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Yes, there is such a thing... It's all around us. We need a stick .. we engineer a bulletproof, water proof piece of wood that can cook, scarecrows, work as a flashlight it even has a GPS to track the swing motion as it lands on someone's head. (It also provides digital images of the incident sent through the metropolitan wifi network to the local law enforcements along with the user's biometric information.

Yeah, it's a wonderful piece of engineering but with all those bells and whistles, it still is A STICK! If it fails in this function then it is worthless!

The buzzword of this century is Integration. As more devices get more integrated and technologies converge. Just about every device out there is multidisciplinary. From your phone that can take Pictures, and send messages, emails, faxes. Browse the Internet and stream, download and play music and videos. It works also as your alarm, organizer, calendar, stop watch, calculator ..etc ..etc ..etc

But there are times where you wish your phone would do just one task perfectly. Work as a phone!

Similar to the stick mentioned earlier. You want it to swing and do it's job right.

What puzzles me is this new trend to inflate products with so much crap that you really can't use them for what they were originally intended to do

Standards are becoming increasingly like that. "I define a pen as something that would leave a mark on paper". THAT'S IT! We don't really need to exhaustively describe the pen where we end up influencing the way it is made, the way it looks and the way it functions!

Yes, there are things that need to be spelled out, but there are things that should be up to the designer/user's interpretation. If they like it one way or the other.

Lets not kill creativity with over-engineering. Lets not bloat gadget with over integration!

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Memories....

#1
Hani Obaid
Said
On: 11/11/2007 3:11:47 AM

I tend to love those kinds of gadgets.

To take your example, a pen isn't just a pen. Most pens run out of ink too quickly fial to write on all surfaces, and at certain angles. Hence the NASA pressurised pens.

I prefer more choice than simplicity.

#2
Qwaider
Said
On: 11/11/2007 4:02:09 AM

Right but NASA didn't push to make that a standard! And Russians used pencils :)

#3
tinkerbella
Said
On: 11/11/2007 7:07:04 AM

maybe u do have a point bt i disagree on the phone thing.
i carry around one device that does the job of at least 6 other gadgets. If it didnt do all this, I'd be wieghed down by 6 other gadgets I'd need to carry every single day.. so sometimes, extras are good :)

#4
Qwaider
Said
On: 11/11/2007 8:09:18 AM

But, if that device with 6 things doesn't do it's basic function as a PHONE! what good is it?

Besides this is not about phones, it's about forcing a specific standard down designers and developers throats

#5
Rasha
Said
On: 11/11/2007 1:21:51 PM

Yes Q..that's exactly what i thought when i got the HTC 7500 ...it can do anything..momken kaman y2ool baba oo mama...but it's not a nice PHONE!!!
At all!

#6
Khaled
Said
On: 11/11/2007 10:20:36 PM

But when you have a camera in your phone, and its quite good quality, you don't need to take your digital camera with you. A N95 or Iphone has wireless capabilities, so you don't need to bring a laptop to check your emails. Therefore, you save space and time!