Many Good Design Choices Can Add Up to a Bad Design
The title of this article already gives away the lesson I want to share. But the example will hopefully be useful to you whenever a team you’re on is implementing many good design choices without considering the big picture.
My example is the design of airports and air transportation, which have unfortunately devolved over time, all with admittedly good design choices, into anxiety-ridden places to avoid as much as possible.
A trip to another city by air usually starts with a drive to the airport. If you aren’t lucky enough to have someone drop you off, you might park your car in one of the various car parking options. I usually choose the economy parking lot. But there is premium parking, covered parking, valet parking, and a host of other options near airports throughout the world. Different people have different types (and values) of cars, different incomes, different needs. A design choice of different airport parking options makes a lot of sense. But making the choice is an annoyance, and that choice leads to navigational challenges, which makes the experience worse. I choose economy parking.
We then walk or ride in a shuttle to the airport terminal and see some automated check-in computers for our use (if we haven’t already used our phones to check-in). Sometimes we have to talk to an airline representative to check our luggage, or show our passports, change some plans, or most commonly to fix a problem with the automated check-in computers. The automated stations are generally a good design choice.
To help define the lines, control crowds, and establish the queue, common retractable belt stanchions are used. This is a good design choice too. Who doesn’t want a little organization, especially when there are separate lines for the Premier 1K, Executive Platinum, or Medallion Diamond status members, and they are allowed to queue up in the much shorter line. Sure, I guess they deserve some special treatment. After all, they spend too much time of their lives at 35000 feet, so I can’t disagree with this good design choice either. They’re also paying for it with either their money or their health while racking up all those miles.
The next stage is security. Here the segregation seems to come in three levels: TSA PreCheck/Global Entry, Clear, or basic security check. If you have PreCheck, you are directed to a line where the passengers don’t have to take off their shoes and keep certain things in their carry-on bag (among other benefits). Upgrade to Clear and you likely stand in a shorter line and receive even more preferential treatment in many airports. For everyone else, the basic security process is the third option. Again, not surprising, there is a cost for these products: TSA PreCheck costs $85 for five years and Clear is almost $200. Who is buying these products? Either the sufficiently affluent or people who travel very frequently to save time. In terms of operations research, shortening a step that is repeated often in a process is a good design choice. I agree. But what are the people thinking in that hour-long line in basic security? Aren’t there hidden social costs in that line too? All said, checking potential threats at a security checkpoint is a good design decision, albeit incredibly annoying.
Once we’ve put our belts and shoes and jackets and glasses and backpacks back on and finished telling our story as to why there are metal pins in our ankles, we walk down to the gate and sit in chairs that look identical. Ah, the chairs of equality. Those armrests are a bit annoying, especially if no one is around and you’d love to lie down for a bit. But this good design choice keeps us from hogging too much space. However, those stanchions and queuing belts for the boarding process are visible again and this time they surround a slightly raised red carpet from being stood on prematurely. In a few minutes, this carpet will be where the first-class passengers will wait to board the aircraft first. It takes more than a half-inch of material to make me feel important, but if it works for others and the focus groups, market research and social scientists told me that it’s a good investment to use up that square footage for the highest paying customers, than I’m obliged to say “that’s a good design choice.” In reality, those highest paying members are sitting on much softer chairs a few gates away in some exclusive club (another good design choice) and are predicted to be happier when they stand on that carpet at boarding time.
Speaking of boarding, there are many categories that establish an order to hopefully board the airplane in the quickest and most efficient way possible. There are individuals with disabilities that need extra time, families with small children, veterans and other military personnel who deserve to be honored, and others with special needs like the elderly. They should go first. All that makes sense. Good design choice. We then get to the first class, business class, premium class, economy plus class, and economy class (my personal favorite). Although we’re all paying different amounts for the same destination, this is also still a good design choice. Why shouldn’t the people who pay more get a slightly better experience, not just with their nicer seats but in boarding earlier? The classes are further separated into groups. We didn’t have enough tiers before, so we add a few more. Again, the design choice is very defensible: minimize the loading time through creative innovations of classes, groups, and numbers (one wonders if having every person be in their own class is the inevitable conclusion and optimal solution…)
Once we make it onto the airplane, we start to wonder if there will be space for our carry-on bag. We were in “group 23 in economy minus” but surely the flight attendants will tell us if we should gate-check and have real humans move our bags and do the task that robots and conveyor belts did in the previous century. On the plane, there is space in the overhead bins for my luggage but unfortunately that space is reserved for the passengers at the front. Again, this design choice makes sense. It’s good. These people paid a premium to exit the plane (after arrival), sit in the quieter part of the aircraft in front of the engines, and have dedicated overhead bin space. From the airliners perspective, this is not a bad design choice to provide a good experience. But unfortunately, my luggage problem can delay the flight after the attendant spends a lot of time searching for a spot, playing Tetris with luggage, and then ultimately checks my bag.
During the flight, the bathroom up at the front is also reserved. Same argument as above – good design choice. But I am left wondering if I could still use it if no one in the first or business class is using it? It seems that I could, but be prepared to give up my spot if anyone who paid for access to that bathroom needed it before me. If they did, I suppose I’d have to let them go in front of me. Maybe I’m willing to take that risk for the chance to use their bathroom? On second thought, I guess I’m not entirely sure I agree with having different toilets for different classes… maybe we can avoid fighting that battle again.
All right, I can go on but I hope you can visualize the picture I’m trying to paint. There are isolated design choices that come together that really emphasize the stratified nature of air travel and our society. Furthermore, I support capitalism and so all the above design choices are technically “good.” I’m also educated in aerospace engineering so I’m quite confident I know why we share armrests and I have no space for my knees. (In fact, the lack of knee space is the reason I can afford to fly. If you’re interested, search for “revenue passenger mile” for a little aerospace education). All of that is good for me. If it weren’t for the person paying on the first row of the airplane, I wouldn’t be able to afford a seat on the last row of the airplane. But I can’t say that the summation of all of these good design choices ended up with something amazing for the average citizen. Many people love to travel, but sadly, I hear them say the worst part of traveling is the flight experience. The combination of these individually good things interestingly became a negative (or a neutral at best). A local optimum isn’t necessarily the global optimum. Two plus two can sometimes equals less than four. The whole is less than the parts.
There are other design examples out there. Every button does something good but when all 80 distinct buttons are found on a remote control, the entire user experience is chaotic, slow, and confusing. Personal electronic devices and cell phones were also going this way before touch screens simplified the design and experience. Dashboards in cars, photocopiers, computers, and even airplanes have gone through a similar evolution. Adding one more feature (or even a bunch of little ones) can possibly take away from the integrated experience.
As a current or future designer, you will need to watch out for this in your own designs or within your design team. A great idea by itself might be a terrible one when combined with everything else. The integration of a collective set of good design choices into something bad is difficult to detect, surprising when noticed, but important to consider.
