Comments on Our Way: The Ingenuity of Unintended Uses

Jim Hoekema — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 14:45:40 GMT

Jamie,
Show us a picure of that bird-bath-breakfast table!
– Jim

Russ Unger — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:37:23 GMT

Christina—way to hit one of my pet peeves about wait staff on the head. It actually pains me to not leave a good tip, but it pains me even more to have a great meal go to rot because I’m left feeling as if I’m held captive when all I really want to do is leave and move on with my life.

Jamie Owen — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:37:00 GMT

Fun article! I love this kind of stuff.
As an inveterate (though currently lapsed) curbside trash-picker, I managed to find some amazing things easily repurposed to fill a college graduate’s first apartment. One thing my wife and I still have 20 years later is a highly ornate stone birdbath bowl and base. The bowl had a hole in the middle and was worthless for holding water…but with an inexpensive round glass top, it became our small breakfast cafe table! It’s just the right height and the designs around the rim are visible through the glass. It’s still in daily use in a corner of our kitchen.
Another “curbside inspiration” was using an old foot-powered cast iron sewing machine base I found and building a potting bench on top of it. It looks interesting and is never likely to tip over.

Mads Buch Stage — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:36:37 GMT

Really nice article!

We once made an application where users could upload a photo and put cartoon elements on it, like different animals, funny hats, speech bubbles with text and similar items.
However, one use that emerged, which we hadn’t thought of, was the users starting to combine speech and thought bubbles, which where intended to be filled with text, but instead combined them with the other objects.
I.e. a thought bubble with a pig in it was of course somebody thinking of a pig.

So obvious in hindsight, but we didn’t see it coming.

Chris Merkel — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:36:22 GMT

Good one, Guy! I like the tennis ball ear protection. Similar story…
At firing ranges when a cadet had forgotten to bring ear protection, we would stick spent 9mm cartridges into their ears to dampen the sound of prolonged gunfire. The nice black rings their ears had for a day or two were a good visual reminder to them to bring their issued hearing protection the next day.

Zephyr 7 — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 16:22:17 GMT

Great read!

My computer measures room temperature. I didn’t hook up the little element that measures cpu temperature, so now it just measures and displays room temperature. Unintended but much more useful (I live in an old apartment without thermostats).

Fiora van den Bosch — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 13:21:43 GMT

In the Netherlands anybody can report information -tollfree- to the police anonymous (M as in dial M for murder).

To my surprise this method was used to ‘launder information’. Investigators from the police who obtained information in an llegal manner used M. They called in the information anonymous and by doing so made the information legal!

Guy Sangwine — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 16:22:22 GMT

Nice article – the ideo book on “intuitive design” is great and can be read in 15 minutes.

I am a sucker for examples of people using everyday items in unusual ways – here is a good list of them (the summer bicycle pedals are my favourite).

http://funny-town.blogspot.com/2006/10/absolute-crazy-inn…

Chris Baum — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:31:40 GMT

Funny thing. I was just reading a Forbes article by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (author of “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable.”)

“Things, it turns out, are all too often discovered by accident—but we don’t see that when we look at history in our rear-view mirrors. The technologies that run the world today (like the Internet, the computer and the laser) are not used in the way intended by those who invented them.”
“You Can’t Predict Who Will Change The World”: by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Forbes.com, 10/15/2007

Maybe this is how we should do our product development!

Article:
http://www.forbes.com/2007/10/13/nicholas-taleb-predictio…
Book: http://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Impact-Highly-Improbable…

Kel Smith — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:22:05 GMT

One of the more inspiring pieces I’ve read on B&A. What a great series of thumbnail lessons in establishing empathy with our users. Thanks for providing this!

Isao Kato — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:31:28 GMT

All stories click, and for me the last post is the best:
“Give perfect service and then bring the check slowly, and the tip goes down the drain.”
I agree 120%, and I haven’t realized this myself as a customer until now.
Thank you for posting this issue, reminding me that real-life experience can never be trivial.

Chris Baum — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 07:00:08 GMT

We weren’t kidding! If you have some stories about how you misuse things in a beautiful way, put them here!

If you need some inspiration, check out this: http://www.thoughtlessacts.com/