Just a day after I wrote a post about not finding much information on handles, handle design, or handle shape, my inbox received one of AAW’s regular emails. This was a showcase all about handles and AAW articles and videos about handles.
So, my gripe has been answered by God and cosmos, with a bit of a chuckle at my expense.
If I can get some good information about the how’s and why’s of handle design, I’ll be fine with the ironic timing.
I originally started thinking about this while contemplating handles. Handles are something we ignore when they fit our hands well, and hate when they don’t. Yet, I cannot find much information on study of handle design. There are specialty handles, like various grips for fencing weapons. There are ergonomic handles for specialty carpenter’s hammers.
But when it comes to the simple round handle on many hand tools, I don’t find much information on the design of those handles.
Then I realized this sort of makes sense. Yes, at one time it might have been possible to go to a local woodturner, explain what a person wanted in weight, balance, size, and so on, and get a good fit for their own preferences.
Now, most handles are mass produced. There’s the occasional shovel, broom, landscaping tool, or gardening tool with wooden handles. But I think they are becoming rarer.
Once a station is set up to mold handles out of resin or plastic, handles can be produced far faster than any woodturner could produce them.
Once that station is set up.
Getting to that point is a long process of decades of scientific and chemical research to create the resins and plastics. And decades of scientific, chemical, thermodynamic, and mechanical research to know how to create the molds, heat the plast or resin up to the correct temperature, inject it, take it out of the mold, and so on .
This is an example of overspecialization. It does what it does, very well. But it can’t be easily changed to anything else without a new mold being made. And there is a long supply chain between the natural precursors of resin or plastic being gathered, and the resin or plastic coming into existence.
On the far end of under specialization, there is a hunk of wood and a knife. Yes, a person probably could make a handle for an implement out of that. It would take quite a while, and probably be fairly crude.
Another example is writing programs. Microsoft Word tries to be all things to all people. And it is amazingly annoying and bloated because of that. Scrivener is so specialized, I have tried to use it and like it several times. But it is just a bit too specialized for the more general purpose use I want to use it for. And LaTex is definitely too specialized.
This is an interesting concept, and I hope they do well.
There are several small independent companies making and selling sewing patterns. But a sewing pattern takes more than just templates to use when cutting fabric. There are sewing instructions, sewing diagrams or photos, lists of recommended fabrics, recommended notions, instructions on assembly order, instructions on seam allowances and whether seam allowances are included on the pattern pieces, needle and thread recommendations, stitch setting recommendations, and more.
Stitch Kitty is a (new? relatively new?) program from Wild Ginger software, which helps with all of that. It’s called a “professional guide sheet generator.” I have not heard this term before, not in sewing, and not in any other craft where patterns are sold.
I haven’t bought Stitch Kitty myself and I haven’t tried it. I’ve used sewing patterns in the past, but I’ve never tried to create one myself. I think their sample sheets look nice. I read through the software description. It sounds like Wind Ginger worked very hard to think of every variation a customer creating a sewing pattern might want, but I don’t have enough experience to judge.
I’m back where I started: this is a really interesting concept. I hope they do well.
I was looking at some purchased patterns today. None of them really fit the purpose I want to use them for.
I realized I’d look differently at the patterns depending on what I was trying to achieve:
The first two points apply if it’s just a hobby project. But I ever want to look at that craft as a way to make money, I’ll need to think about the second two points too.
The site is BanjoBenClark.com.
No, he doesn’t teach anything about technology or programming or web design. He teaches guitar, banjo, and mandolin.
The site itself is one of the nicest to look at and best organized with respect to menus, that I’ve seen in a long time. Almost every time I look at it, I find something else learn from looking at how it’s organized. I also learn a lot from how he’s leading people to it from his YouTube videos.
It’s just as important to figure out how things move together, as it is to figure out how they fit together.
It’s also a lot more difficult. When things aren’t moving correctly, it’s easy to see. My computer doesn’t boot up, my kitchen appliances don’t work, my sewing machine doesn’t sew. These are all things that happen when things don’t move together correctly.
Intended movement isn’t usually shown in user manuals or service manuals either. I suppose in some cases it might be a trade secret. In other cases it might be something difficult to document. Seeming odd or arbitrary troubleshooting in user and service manuals often seems to be focused at getting parts aligned to move the way they’re intended.
Timing in software is an entire other black art.
Yes, I know I just wrote a post on not buying things I don’t need.
In case I ever need this, I’m going to write it about it here.
The original article I found is “ReMarkable emits Type Folio keyboard cover for e-paper tablet”, by Liam Proven in The Register, dated March 16 2023.
I’ve seen articles about tinkerers buying or repurposing e-paper displays (I think I’ve also seen them called e-ink displays) for their projects. This article describes some of the first commercially produced items I’ve seen with e-paper displays. There are several mentioned. If I ever get one I’ll probably go with reMarkable, but I’d have to be writing a lot more than I currently do before I could justify the cost.
Digging around I found another article on The Register by that same author on writing tools. I agree that the biggest obstacle to writing on most tablets is the lack of a keyboard. The articles are “Where are all the decent handheld scribbling tools?” Part 1 and Part 2, dated November 10 2011.
Humans do not think like machines. Machines do not process information like humans.
Which is obvious, yet the results are often not considered.
Making a machine interface that is intuitive to humans is really difficult. Presenting complex information in way that is easy for humans to read is really difficult. Here are some of the things which have to be considered:
Those issues are things I came up with just thinking about it as I’m writing this. There were and still are whole entire disciplines and professions devoted to this.
When I find something which is intuitive to use, whether it’s gas pump prices, a website, or the dashboard of a car, I try to stop and admire what was achieved. I also try to see what I might learn. If there’s a lot of information shown in an intuitive and easy-to-understand manner, someone put a lot of work into that.
I have been in many conversations where a lot of ideas and concepts were thrown around, but discussion of whether it would actually work was limited. If I pointed out times something had already been tried, and failed, and it sounded a lot like the ideas being discussed, people got uncomfortable. Sometimes the discomfort was sadness or anger that I was raining on their parade, or being too nitpicky. I preferred that to the times when the answer was “You don’t understand, I’m taking the thirty thousand foot view, so I’m not really getting into details right now.
Because of that, I created the category “Technician Tuesday” when I started this blog. Ideas are great, but how are they being implemented? How am I using technology around me? How do someone else’s ideas interact with the rest of the world.
Today, I listened to a recording of a discussion between Dr. Temple Grandin and Dr. Jordan Peterson. It was all about the importance of practical hands-on knowledge and experimentation. Applications of ideas are the true test of those ideas. A lot of that knowledge and experimentation is being lost.
The discussion was very interesting and very troubling. I’ll be buying a copy of Dr. Grandin’s most recent book.
This is a follow-up of last week’s post.
Here are some of the places I’ve seen recommendations to intentionally copy other people’s work to better my own practice:
In each case, the recommendation is to get better by copying particularly skillful examples of what came before.
I’ve even read comments that art has to be grounded in what came before, or it runs the risk of having no reference or meaning to the viewer today.
If I’m buying something I want to use, and I want it to make my life easier, ease of use and ease of learning how to use it matter. And for that, the designer probably needs to have spent some time analyzing and copying already existing works.