Box Ergonomics

Box Ergonomics is a design philosophy with the aim of reducing clutter and saving people's time. It has three tenets:

1. Everything should be boxy: all items should fit into a box-like structure –all cords and other protrusions should be retractable.
2. Everything should have its own, special place.
3. Everything should happen fast: cords should wind automatically - antennas should extend and retract easily - parts should fit into their places quickly.

The concept of Box Ergonomics was born in England during the summer of 2000. I was vacationing in Cornwall with my friend Bryce Allen, when we realized that many products are fundamentally annoying to use. We are always tidying away cords and juggling families of products that should fit together (electric razors and their accessories, for example.) Box Ergonomics addresses the importance of unity – everything should be immediately available when it is needed.

Fast, integrated, easy to handle products are incredibly desirable. People spend untold hours dealing with modem and power cords for laptops, external microphones for cell phones, and headphone cords for portable audio gear. Why can’t all the cords and accessories be integrated into a single unit? Aside from cost, I can think of no good reason.

People hate clutter, yet it persists – even grows – as we accumulate more and more gear. The solution is not better laptop cases or desk layout, it is the application of Box Ergonomics at the design level. Cords should be minimized and inter-attachability maximized. The only way to truly reduce clutter is to make Box Ergonomic principles a priority. Products should be user-friendly: they should save users from dealing with bags full of cords and accessories.

Box Ergonomics is especially applicable to audio gear. Everyone can relate to the nuisance of tangled headphone cords and power adapters. Why can’t the cords be retractable and the headphones attach directly to the WalkMan? My brother’s headphone cord is always wrapped around the headphones – he and millions of others have a basic desire for the unity and solidarity of Box Ergonomics – they unknowingly express it by wrapping cords around every corded product they have: thus making the product more box-like.

Example -- how Box Ergonomics could be used --

My old Nintendo Entertainment System was always a mess– whenever my mom put it away, she (and probably every other parent in the world) meticulously wound the cords around the controllers and stored them beside the unit. This took almost a minute, and was repeated as often as I played Nintendo.

Box Ergonomics would make this ritual unnecessary. To illustrate, I will show how Box Ergonomics could be applied to a game console.

• Tenet 1 – Everything should be boxy – tells us that the controller cords should have been retractable (or the controllers should have been wireless.) This would have made wrapping the cords around the controller unnecessary.
• Tenet 2 – Everything should fit -- the controllers should have fit directly onto the Nintendo Box. (If they were wireless, they could have been charged while on the Nintendo unit like a cordless phone.) This would have reduced clutter around the Nintendo.
• Tenet 3 – Everything should happen fast – the cords should have wound and unwound quickly (or better yet, there shouldn’t have been cords.) This would have saved a lot of time.

Now that I’m aware of Box Ergonomics, I recognize it wherever I look.

--My Gilette Mach 3 razor -- The blade fits onto the razor, the razor snaps into a case. On the bottom of the case are slots for extra blades. The entire design is very nice because it eliminates clutter and puts everything in a tidy little unit that’s great for traveling. (As an aside, maybe the strong sales of this razor have something to do with its Box Ergonomic properties.)

--The Apple iMac and G4 Cube – the designers partly fulfilled tenets 1 and 3, but ignored 2. The iMac certainly minimized cords, and was fast and easy to setup. A Box Ergonomic iMac, however, would have had a special drive bay or rack to integrate the inevitable USB peripherals (tenet 2 - everything should fit.) The keyboard and mouse should also have attached to (or fit into) the case. Still, it was a good attempt.

--My mom’s iron has a cord that automatically winds into the unit. With her old iron, she used to wind the cord around the iron whenever she put it away!

Another great feature of Box Ergonomics stems from people’s desire for unity. If you build a place for something, people naturally want to fill it. If manufacturers build places for extra peripherals into their products, people will be tempted to fill the spaces just because they're there.

In conclusion, Box Ergonomics calls for space efficiency and reduced clutter - it will make things faster and easier to use.

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