Now here's a question - why do they want to prevent wastage?
As a responsible citizen, you want to "reduce, re-use & recycle". But as a coffe company, they want to sell coffee. The faster you use it - wether your usage is in a cup or by sprinkling liberally over the floor - the more money they make when you buy more coffee.
The watch is another good example. As far as Casio are concerned, they're not really averse to you scratching the face of the watch. Or shattering it, if it's a flat face. They'd prefer, of course, that it not happen for a year or so - so that you blame yourself, not your new watch, and think to buy a replacement rather than an alternative. But they almost certainly view the watch as something replaceable, rather than something so reliable and serviceable that you'll pass it on to great-grandchildren. Old mechanical pocket watches that came in clamshell arrangements and were so durable because they were so expensive - people would be annoyed if they had to spend a month's wages on a new watch every other year...
(Ironically, it seems that these days "good design" still commands a price premium - but more for the design than any inherent durability. You could spend a month's wages on a watch today, and the only concession to durability would be a titanium alloy. The face would probably scratch as easily as any cheap watch, and I'm not convinced that any better accuracy in timekeeping would be worth the amount you're paying - a cheap watch rarely loses a second per month at most these days... Anyway. I'm rambling.. Back to the point!)
The rest of your rants are good examples of crap design, though. The alarm clock one I can especially sympathise with - it smacks of a lack of using the product before selling it...
As with regards to the list for designers, I think that's a great idea. However, I feel it would be unwieldy - and prone to political compromise within the organisation.
An alternative presents itself, though - set up a wiki (or something similar) and put your own notes into it. The wiki can help categorise and organise them. That way, next time you want to buy a timepiece you can approach the market as an informed customer, armed with a litany of pros and cons to evaluate any design. By making it public, maybe a significant enough chunk of the public will become informed, thus driving bad design out across all companies.
Let me know when you've set the wiki up. I have a few things to put in there myself... :-)
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As a responsible citizen, you want to "reduce, re-use & recycle". But as a coffe company, they want to sell coffee. The faster you use it - wether your usage is in a cup or by sprinkling liberally over the floor - the more money they make when you buy more coffee.
The watch is another good example. As far as Casio are concerned, they're not really averse to you scratching the face of the watch. Or shattering it, if it's a flat face. They'd prefer, of course, that it not happen for a year or so - so that you blame yourself, not your new watch, and think to buy a replacement rather than an alternative. But they almost certainly view the watch as something replaceable, rather than something so reliable and serviceable that you'll pass it on to great-grandchildren. Old mechanical pocket watches that came in clamshell arrangements and were so durable because they were so expensive - people would be annoyed if they had to spend a month's wages on a new watch every other year...
(Ironically, it seems that these days "good design" still commands a price premium - but more for the design than any inherent durability. You could spend a month's wages on a watch today, and the only concession to durability would be a titanium alloy. The face would probably scratch as easily as any cheap watch, and I'm not convinced that any better accuracy in timekeeping would be worth the amount you're paying - a cheap watch rarely loses a second per month at most these days... Anyway. I'm rambling.. Back to the point!)
The rest of your rants are good examples of crap design, though. The alarm clock one I can especially sympathise with - it smacks of a lack of using the product before selling it...
As with regards to the list for designers, I think that's a great idea. However, I feel it would be unwieldy - and prone to political compromise within the organisation.
An alternative presents itself, though - set up a wiki (or something similar) and put your own notes into it. The wiki can help categorise and organise them. That way, next time you want to buy a timepiece you can approach the market as an informed customer, armed with a litany of pros and cons to evaluate any design.
By making it public, maybe a significant enough chunk of the public will become informed, thus driving bad design out across all companies.
Let me know when you've set the wiki up. I have a few things to put in there myself... :-)