While waiting for or talking to somebody next to a door, people often keep a feet so that the door does not close. It usually happens when both hands are unavailable, the door is somewhat heavy and/or not easily maneuvrable and/or automatically locks.

It is sometimes not advisable to design around this for security purposes, as we do want the door to shut completely by default. Sometimes, we do not really care about the security aspect at all and we simply use a hold maid of a triangular piece of wood instead for example.

These photos document a messy situation in my 102A Lab (Where Erich is my GSI). In our labs we use various resistors when building circuits. However, when students are done with their lab and begin to disassemble their circuits, very few take the time to read the value on their resistor and place it in it's designated place. Instead the choose to toss the resistor in a jumbled pile of other resistors and pieces of wire for someone (probably Erich) to sort out at a later date.

Thoughtless Acts :

 Thoughtless Act 1 - Using Bus windows as headrests

It's very common to doze off on long bus rides with your head on the window. This eventually leads to bad headaches and more commonly, neck pains. The sunlight doesn't help either.

Thoughtless Acts

The goal of this project was to capture thoughtless acts out in the wild.  Thoughtless acts are things people do without thinking about it.  I think of it as an unconscious accommodation for the way things were designed.

The Flyer Board

In this thoughtless act, a bicycle is locked up to a tree. This thoughtless act occurred on Market, near the Powell Street Bart. Looking around, there was no bike parking in sight, especially near the Bart entrance. Usually, when bikes are locked up, there is a designated place to park a bike, or at least some type of metal pole (e.g parking meter, street sign) that a bike can be locked to. Here, there was nothing.

Bikes locked to signs:

On my way to school I pass numerous bikes locked on street signs or on railings. Often several bikes are locked to one sign. I often have trouble getting my biked locked correctly on bike rakes that are designed for this purpose, so I can only imagine that it's more difficult to lock multiple bikes to a street sign. A great design solution for this problem would be to create a bisected base for these signed that would allow people to lock multiple bikes to them more easily. 

Thoughtless Acts

iPad Stylus

In order to keep my iPad's stylus with the iPad at all times I attach it to the folded edge of the case. A possible design solution is to have a designated holder on the case itself. However, that would likely add extra bulk to an already bulky case that would have no benefit to those without a stylus and not fit all styluses comfortably.

Around the mechanical engineering labs, we have lots of things we need to keep track of and only limited desk space. Here are some occurrences of engineers making due: