Small Things Considered: Why There Is No Perfect Design (Hardcover)

by Henry Petroski (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
"Design can be easy and difficult at the same time, but in the end, it is mostly difficult." So writes engineering professor Petroski (The Evolution of Useful Things, etc.) in his latest effort, a wide-ranging exploration of the history and design of the everyday technologies like supermarket aisles and telephone keypads that are practically invisible in their ubiquity. Petroski emphasizes that these "small things" aren't in fact the results of a smooth and simple design process, but are rather the products of a constellation of oft-conflicting constraints, frequently with unintended consequences (consider the recently redesigned, fat-handled toothbrushes that, while more ergonomic, have rendered millions of traditional toothbrush holders useless). The book meanders through this world of design, less concerned with making a direct argument than with reveling in the complexities of the ever-changing design of everyday things, such as Brita water pitchers and freeway tollbooths. The writing is engaging and approachable, and reading the book feels like sitting down for a long chat with that favorite uncle who seems to know a bit about everything and never hesitates to throw in his own take on matters. Petroski's histories of, among others, paper cups and duct tape are fascinating, and this book leaves us a little more conscious of the never-ending design process of our modern world. 22 photos.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Scientific American
Early-19th-century American steam engines were less fuel-efficient and more dangerous than their late-18th-century British counterparts. These details don't surprise most first-year engineering students. After all, didn't American technology lag Britain's for many years? They are often taken aback, however, to discover that these faults derived partly from explicit choices of American steam engineers. Historian George Basalla suggested in his 1988 book The Evolution of Technology (Cambridge University Press) that such choices can be understood as adaptations to the resource-rich and skills-poor American environment, in which heavy fuel consumption mattered less than the ease of design, construction and maintenance afforded by high-pressure operation. (These higher-pressure engines could also run at greater speeds, an important feature on a larger landmass.) More generally, like the Y2K problem, what later generations saw as a design flaw can be most richly seen as the result of a designer's attempt to work within the technological boundary conditions of a given time and place. In Small Things Considered, Henry Petroski's approach to the question of "why there is no perfect design" is less evolutionary than Basalla's and reflects his own experience as a practicing engineer and a keen observer of the made world and of how people live in it. But like Basalla, Petroski continually emphasizes that all made things, both physical and social, are designed, whether consciously or unconsciously, and that anyone designing anything must work within a set of physical and social constraints. As he writes, in considering the design of chairs, "All designs must involve trade-offs, if not in materials, then in function; if not in cost, then in fashion; if not in quality, then in proportion; if not in size, then in shape; if not in this, then in that." The design process is thus often labyrinthine, and successive compromises in response to specific constraints close off and open up different choice points later in the process. Indeed, even as designers "perfect" their creations, they usually both improve (in some ways) and impair (in others) what came before. Petroski, a professor of civil engineering and of history at Duke University, illustrates his argument in a series of delightful chapters, many derived from his "Engineering" column in American Scientist magazine. He starts each with observations (some stimulated by reports in the New York Times "Patents" feature) about one or another made thing--staircases, paper cups and paper bags and the machinery to make them, duct tape and WD-40, automobile cup holders, and ink-jet printers. Many trace the origins and development of a particular device or way of doing things, and they all continually reassert Petroski's primary theme. These reflections lead him (often apparently by free association) to other examples--from the invention of single-lever faucets to the redesign of vegetable peelers, from the placement of doorknobs to that of light switches--that further demonstrate just how designers made their choices within constraints to achieve workable compromises. Although the regular echo of Petroski's thesis (not unexpected in articles that first appeared months apart) at times seems repetitious, the pleasure and excitement of seeing his playful mind at work more than make up for any annoyance. One design constraint that often emerges is the need for designers to think within the box and to consider the "compatibility with the existing world," the oversight of which "can jeopardize years of development work and result in an ultimate design and financial disaster." This statement of principle comes as Petroski traces the design of easier-to-manipulate toothbrushes too thick for traditional bathroom racks and leads into discussions of the Great Eastern (a mid-19th-century steamship too large for most contemporaneous harbors) and of the Concorde. Petroski also raises this point in considering the two different keypad arrangements found on telephones, on one hand, and on electronic calculators, on the other. In doing so, he reviews late-1950s Bell Labs studies of other designs that concluded that one alternative would be faster and that another was most preferred by those who tried it. He notes (more or less approvingly) that, despite these results, telephone manufacturers chose to keep the now conventional arrangement "'since it uses the available space efficiently and permits a simplified design in the initial application.'" Contrarily, however, he points out that few people have trouble shifting between telephone keypads and calculator keypads and that "we all seem to adapt easily to the machine before us." One wonders, however, how Petroski would view attempts of standard QWERTY keyboard users to type on Dvorak keyboards, and vice versa. Petroski's Web site describes one of his primary interests as "the use of case histories to understand the role of human error and failure in engineering design." Yet, as his book well illustrates, most (or at least many) design failures are not caused by human errors but derive, perhaps inevitably, from the necessity of compromise and the impossibility of making choices that satisfy all constraints. Whatever their cause, such failures do occur, and these often have major consequences. One such failure that Petroski does not discuss is the design of the butterfly ballot, used in south Florida in the year 2000. Some argue that the use of this ballot determined the results of that year's presidential election and, in some ways, the fate of the nation. One need not accept this argument in full to realize just how significant and complicated the process of design can be, and Small Things Considered provides all sorts of penetrating and broadly interesting insights into the nature of this process.

Michael M. Sokal has taught history of technology to engineering undergraduates at Worcester Polytechnic Institute since 1970. He will serve as president of the History of Science Society in 2004 and 2005.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Knopf (September 16, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400040507
• ISBN-13: 978-1400040506
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #791,793 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars This should have been a 5-star book, January 25, 2004

By	Marcy L. Thompson (Sammamish, WA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is written by someone who has written other wonderful books about what it means to be an engineer. The topic of this book -- the design of everyday items -- should offer sufficient scope for another interesting book. And indeed, the book has lots of interesting information in it. The main thesis (that design is always imperfect, and the reasons why this is so) seems as if it ought to be sufficiently engaging to hold my attention through a book-length engagement with it.

Alas, the book is so poorly written that it fails on all levels. I gave it three stars because it was quite educational. On the other hand, given the author's track record and the inherent interest of the topic, three stars is an enormous disappointment. Finishing the book was hard, and I would not blame anyone who just gave up. Perhaps the author had a half-book worth of content and was forced to bulk it up to make the required word count? I don't know what happened, but I can't really recommend the book unless you are desperate to know how the paper cup came to be invented.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Let's learn to accept "less than perfect", October 4, 2003

By	Theodore A. Rushton (PHOENIX, Arizona United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Advertising is based on the idea of convincing consumers that a perfect product will bring perfect happiness; Petroski offers the cold reality that since every product and service is created by humans, there is no perfect design.

Petroski is an engineer.

The first thing engineers learn, based on my ancient ordeal as an engineering student, is that nothing is perfect. Everything involves choices and compromises. Even when an engineer built "the one hoss shay" with such perfection that no single part would fail first, one flaw remained -- when it wore out, the whole thing collapsed instantly and completely.

At first, this book annoyed me. His first example of the epitome of design is the little plastic tripod that keeps the lid of a pizza box from being crushed onto the gooey surface of the hot pizza inside. There isn't even a name for that little tripod; failing anything else, you'd think someone would name it "Sam" in honor of holding up the roof. Samson, after all, was strong, useful and not quite perfect.

Yet, such is the genius of this book. He could have written about the design flaws that have caused two Space Shuttle disasters; instead, he takes everyday items we are completely familiar with and explains why these designs are less than perfect.

When an author can devote half-a-chapter to the design challenges of cup holders in a 1996 Volvo and make it interesting, you know he's onto something. Understanding why a cup holder in a car falls short of a perfect design, and why chairs, lightbulbs, door knobs, potato peelers, toothbrushes, paper bags and duct tape are still works in progress, gives you an appreciation for the design flaws in a Space Shuttle and in the human organization which launches Shuttles or even those which run the "intelligence" agencies. Only TV sitcoms and dramas offer "perfect" solutions -- which, in itself, is the major flaw of television.

Newspapers are sometimes called "a journal to expose the faults of the world and the typogarphical errors of its staff." The humour is barbed, but true. Petroski takes that idea a major leap forward, showing us in everyday terms why everything human's design is less than perfect. On that basis, he asks for an acceptance of the inevitable flaws of technology.

On the same basis, this book will give any thoughtful reader an appreciation of why everything is somewhat less than perfect, and thus all people should be ready to accept the inevitable flaws of others.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars a big disappointment, October 31, 2004

By	K. Gullicksen (Menlo Park, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The first impression is of an engaging and clever look at design focusing on everyday things. Unfortunately this book doesn't come anywhere near living up to expectation. It is repetitive, boring and severely lacking in insight. I read the whole thing hoping to get to the meat of it that never came. Skip this one and don't waste your time.