Failure

IDEO has many a helpful design mantra- a personal favorite of mine is "Fail fast and often." As someone with a genuine fear of failure this is something I have tried my best to take to heart. I had two design failures recently and I will own them by sharing them with you, and how I got over them.

Tuesday night after my excitement from the Berkeley Mills trip and finishing the working, proof of concept prototype, I found that I had made a big mistake. I was making the CAD version of the futon, and the error hit me- my prototype made with a 1/4" plywood seat significantly altered the way the futon would work from that with a 3 1/2" thick seat, as the final version would have. Simply put, the difference was one that would make the thing TIP OVER when put in the bed format.



This was a crushing blow. I worried, I punched the desk, I cursed. I tend to over dramatize setbacks. For about an hour I could not work. The project came to a halt, and all alternatives I could think of were either not feasible, or ruined the whole point of the design, to lift the bed above the height of the armrests.

I cooled down. I focused. Fail fast- check. Fail often- check. I'm doing things right, so I can't sweat it. I need to start with what I know and move on.



I had to rebuild the prototype with a 3.5" frame, and learn what it had to tell me. Using the CAD design I was able to discover that a new design for the runners would work, and so I printed the patterns out, and cut them out of a new piece of plywood. I was relaxed and confident that I had found a solution that was satisfactory, and most important- would not injure any potential house guests.



I then assembled a whole new prototype- with free, lousy wood, but the proportions were right, made a crappy hinge out of cardboard and staples, and tested it.



See if you can spot the new runners...



It did not work. Folding it up completely ripped out the hinge.

Good news was, this time, I was expecting it not to work. I knew the likelihood of immediate success was small, and in careful study of the problems, I knew it was just a matter of decreasing the distance between the front and back runners. An easy fix.

I didn't make a post yesterday because of all this. I had made no progress, at the end of the day I was behind where I was the day before, right? Tuesday I had a working prototype, Wednesday I had a semi-functional prototype. No. The project may not look any more advanced but what I know about it has changed, and so is closer to completion.

I've also learned I've expected too much of myself in terms of speed. It is one thing to build a table- they are simple and the form is already prescribed. My futon is new, is unproven and has nothing to go on. One week just isn't enough time.