Design and maintenance

I watched a technician troubleshooting a furnace.

To do it, he donned a headlamp, removed a metal panel, and lay on the floor. On his side — expertly but awkwardly — he used various tools to test circuits and connections.

It made me think about designers and technicians. About the people who build things and the people who have to service them.

Generous design considers form, function, use, maintenance, and repair. It considers the user — and the person who has to debug, fix, or clean the thing later.

Countless times, while disassembling something for cleaning or pulling parts apart to change a bulb, I’ve thought: “The person who designed this never imagined having to service it.”

When we’re in the design phase, it’s worth asking: Who will encounter this next — and what will that experience be like?