https://bt.ht/one-thing/

Home | Projects | Uses | Wiki | Resume | Colophon | Donate | RSS

My Coffee Maker Just Makes Coffee

2023-01-09

Couple drinking cups of coffee

I had to replace my dual Keurig coffee maker twice over a period of
just five months. This occurred nearly a year ago and these are my
findings.

Built to Fail?

I followed the cleaning schedule suggested by the manufacture's
manual and took good care of the appliances overall. My initial
conclusion was that the product was just poorly designed. "It must be
built to fail!" I said to my wife the morning of the second machine's
failure. Yet another product that is replaced under warranty with a
new version, while the broken one is simply tossed aside. More
e-waste because why not?

But after some further reflection, I came to realize the "poor
design" was simply a symptom of a greater cause:

The product tries to do too much.

I'm probably beating a dead horse by now when I reference suckless
software, but the core philosophy can be applied to both digital and
industrial design. Far too often I witness fellow designers
over-engineer customer requests or add excessive bloat to new product
features. It's almost a rarity these days to find designers who
tackle work as single items. Everything expands. Everything needs to
do one little extra "cool" thing. Nothing is ever taken away.

The designers probably meant well with the creation of this dual
coffee maker. What an interesting idea to combine both a standard
12-cup percolator with the "pod-based" single serve option. In theory
it sounds quite handy. One appliance that tackles two use-cases.
Think of the counter space you'll save!

Unfortunately, in practice, it fails.

Product Decline

I've felt this decline of product quality not only in household
appliances, but across software as a whole. Companies no longer seem
content with doing one thing really well. Everyone needs to reach out
into multiple verticals. Everyone blindly copies their competitors or
"grow out" their existing features with additions no one asked for.
Things are getting slower. Products are losing focus.

People tend to place all of that blame on top-level management or
developers within a company. They do deserve the blame - but not all
of it. Designers cause a lot of these issues all on their own and
it's easy to understand why.

The design field drops new designers into a world of bloat. They
don't stand a chance. The initial programs they are introduced to are
behemoth, proprietary pieces of garbage. No other options are given.
No one is making strides in this field of "design tool software"
because it's a massive uphill battle. Those that do try get snatched
up by existing platforms. Designers don't have the luxury of "choice"
as much as developers do (within reason). It's a very locked-down
industry.

So of course designers will carry this mentality into their own work.
It's all they have known. "X and Y companies designed their
insert-feature-here with all of these extra things, so we'll just do
the same". Everything is a just a copy of a copy of a copy.

The only advice I can give to designers is this: try not to add to
the problem. I'm not asking you to move mountains, but maybe consider
working somewhere else if your career exists solely to add more bloat
to the world. (Easier said than done, I know). Or keep doing what
you're doing. What do I know - I'm just some guy who rambles on the
web.

Back to the Coffee Maker

So the Keurig is gone. Trashed. The company doesn't want the product
back, they simply tell you to scrap it. "We'll send you a new one for
free". Such a waste.

Instead, I snagged the cheapest and most basic coffee maker I could
find. It cost me $12. It has no clock, no programming options, no
base settings or cleaning functions. Hell, there aren't even level
numbers on the water reservoir tank.

You simply add your scoops of coffee grounds along with desired
amount of water. Then you switch on the (only) button at the side of
the machine. After a handful of minutes, you have coffee.

And it's been running perfectly for over 8 months now. I clean it
every so often by brewing with a small mixture of vinegar and water.
That's it. No need for "specialty cleaners" that cost almost as much
as the machine itself. The points of failure are greatly reduced as
well, since the machine is barebones. Nothing can break when there is
nothing to break...

"Brewing" Software

At least, for me, I plan to only design what needs to be designed. If
someone asks for a "coffee", they'll get a cup of hot, black coffee
and nothing else.

| Back to Top

Built with barf.
Maintained with  for the web.
The content for this site is CC-BY-SA.
The code for this site is MIT.