Throwing Horns and Wrapping Cords by Mark
November 11, 2008 in Sparks with 2 Comments
Just the other day, I had to untangle my iPhone headphones because I can't wrap the cord to save my life. Later that night I was browsing Daring Fireball and found a link to Ten Reasons Why. The answer to all my problems was just to start throwing horns.
Turns out, the infamous symbol transcends heavy metal and rock-n-roll and is a great way to wrap your iPhone headphones without ever tangling them. A stunning discovery by any means. Check out the videos below and give it a go for yourself. Throw some horns and wrap some cords!
This little tidbit illustrates a unique ability that nearly all of us have: we get used to bad design. In the absense of good design, we have bad design, and when we have bad design, we improvise. iPhone and iPod headphones are a great example of how consumers are able to solve their own problems to work around bad design.
The problem with the headphones is that they easily tangle when wrapping them. Store a losely wrapped pair in your pocket for a day and you've got a serious problem on your hands. I've run into more times than I can count, so it's great to see that someone else has found solution.
The ability to solve problems, no matter the size or overall importance, is a skill every designer must have, especially in interaction design. Pulling inspiration from real world sitautions—even rock-n-roll—to solve problem is a common tactic that designers use.
Design isn't just how it looks, but how it works. Lest we beat around the bush, the iPhone headphones are just poorly designed. With a little inspiration, consumer ingenuity, and some heavy metal, anything is possible.
2 Comments
Jonathan (ZURB) says:
Interestingly, the newer headphones Apple sells have a very different feel to them - thicker and a little more rubbery. Turns out it's deliberate - thicker, more rubbery cables tangle far less easily. There's an actual academic paper on the subject: http://www.pnas.org/content/104/42/16432.abstract
Jeremy (ZURB) says:
Isn't it that headphones in general suffer from the same problem? They're very well designed for the purpose of lightly connecting our ears to our audio devices with amazing fidelity. Many of them effectively incorporate microphones to enable us to talk through them. The white surface of the iPod headphones has turned into one of its most effective marketing tools--you can't miss them on anybody wearing them. Those are some pretty impressive, miniaturized design solutions.
The difficult headphone storage problem is something designers and consumers put up with because the headphones solve other problems we care about even more. That said, this is a cool example of customers beating a product's creators to the punch by identifying, solving, and marketing a solution first.
It's a damn clever technique because "throwing horns" is not only how you do it, but how you remember it and teach it to other people. That's marketing and design as one seamless thing. Cool.
The real testament to this technique will be whether people can remember it better than the cool t-shirt folding technique that had some buzz a couple of years ago. It's cool and works great, but I can never remember how to start.
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