Over at Organization and Markets (link to post), Steven Postrel wrote a post about design puzzles. E.G.: Why do round tables outside cafe’s, etc, have four legs instead of three (in the case where four legs are difficult to maintain a level plane, and three legs would aleviate the imbalance).
What got me about the post was not the authors statements (which were great nonetheless), but instead the comment made by a person going by the handle ‘carl.’ Here’s a design puzzle-solution that he came up with:
When we call an 1-800 number, instead of saying, “Please wait for the next available representative,� they should say, “Caller ID detects your number is ### ### ####. We’ll call you back either when the next representative becomes free or 10 minutes, whichever comes first. *click*�
In addition to preventing a lot of cases of cauliflower ear, this would *save* the companies money, because they have to pay the long distance fees for the time period you’re connected.
It baffles me as to why this solution isn’t in place, but I think the original objective of the post was not only to outline some common design puzzles (why are mustard packets harder to open than ketchup?), but to also outline the reasons why this may be the situation (there are numerous reasons, all well documented; check the site out).
Categories