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<h1 id="my-coffee-maker-just-makes-coffee">My Coffee Maker Just Makes Coffee</h1>
<p>2023-01-09</p>
<p><img src="/public/images/coffee-couple.svg" alt="Couple drinking cups of coffee" /></p>
<p>I had to replace my dual Keurig coffee maker <em>twice</em> over a period of five months. This occurred a year ago and these are my findings.</p>
<h2 id="built-to-fail">Built to Fail?</h2>
<p>I followed the manufactor&#8217;s suggested cleaning schedule and took care of the appliances. My initial conclusion was that the product&#8217;s design wasn&#8217;t thought-out well. &#8220;It&#8217;s built to fail!&#8221;  I said to my wife the morning of the <em>second</em> machine&#8217;s failure. Another product replaced under warranty, while the broken one&#8217;s tossed aside. More e-waste because why not?</p>
<p>But after some further reflection, I came to realize the &#8220;poor design&#8221; was a symptom of a greater cause:</p>
<p><strong>The product tries to do too much</strong>.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m beating a dead horse by referencing <a href="https://suckless.org">suckless</a> software again, but that core philosophy applies here too. Both digital and industrial design suffer from bloat. Far too often I witness fellow designers over-engineer customer requests. Or they add excessive bloat to new product features. It&#8217;s almost a rarity these days to find designers who tackle work as <em>single items</em>. Everything expands. Everything needs to do one little extra &#8220;cool&#8221; thing. Nothing is ever <em>taken away</em>.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m sure the designers meant well with the creation of this dual coffee maker. It&#8217;s interesting to combine both a standard 12-cup percolator and &#8220;pod-based&#8221; serving options. In theory it sounds quite handy. One appliance that tackles two use-cases. Think of the counter space you&#8217;ll save! </p>
<p>Unfortunately, in practice, it fails.</p>
<h2 id="product-decline">Product Decline</h2>
<p>I&#8217;ve felt product quality decline in both household appliances and software. Companies no longer seem content with doing <em>one thing well</em>. Everyone needs to reach out into many verticals. Everyone copies their competitors.The need to &#8220;grow&#8221; their existing features. Adding things that no one asked for. Products are getting <em>slower</em> and losing focus.</p>
<p>People tend to place all that blame on top-level management or developers. They do deserve some blame - but not all. Designers cause a lot of these issues on their own and it&#8217;s easy to understand why.</p>
<p>The design field drops new designers into a <em>world of bloat</em>. They don&#8217;t stand a chance. The initial programs introduced to them are behemoth, proprietary pieces of garbage. No other options are available. No one is making strides in this field of &#8220;design tool software&#8221; because it&#8217;s a massive uphill battle. Those that <em>try</em>, get <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/15/23354532/adobe-figma-acquisition-20-billion-official">snatched up by existing platforms</a>. Designers don&#8217;t have the luxury of &#8220;choice&#8221; as much as developers do (within reason). It&#8217;s a very locked-down industry.</p>
<p>So of course designers will carry this mentality into their own work. It&#8217;s all they have known. &#8220;X and Y companies designed their <code>insert-feature-here</code> with all these <em>extras</em>, so we&#8217;ll do the same&#8221;. Everything is <a href="https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=dC1yHLp9bWA">a copy of a copy of a copy</a>.</p>
<p>The only advice I can give to designers is this: try not to add to the problem. I&#8217;m not asking you to move mountains. But consider working somewhere else if your career only adds more bloat to the world. (Easier said than done, I know). Or keep doing what you&#8217;re doing. What do I know - I&#8217;m only some guy who rambles on the web.</p>
<h2 id="back-to-the-coffee-maker">Back to the Coffee Maker</h2>
<p>So the Keurig is gone. Trashed. The company doesn&#8217;t want the product back, they tell you to scrap it. &#8220;We&#8217;ll send you a new one for free&#8221;. Such a waste.</p>
<p>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&#8217;t even level numbers on the water reservoir tank. </p>
<p>You 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.</p>
<p>And it&#8217;s been running <em>perfect</em> for over 8 months now. I clean it every so often by brewing with a small mixture of vinegar and water. That&#8217;s it. No need for &#8220;specialty cleaners&#8221; that cost almost as much as the machine itself. The points of failure get reduced as well, since the machine is bare-bones. Nothing can break when there is nothing to break&#8230;</p>
<h2 id="brewing-software">&#8220;Brewing&#8221; Software</h2>
<p>At least, for me, I plan to only design what <em>needs to be</em>. If someone asks for a &#8220;coffee&#8221;, they&#8217;ll get a cup of hot, black coffee and nothing else.</p>
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