Oh the many uses of marsh mellows !

This is great. I bake quite frequently and there is nothing more annoying than trying to re-soften brown sugar that's been exposed to too much air. However! here is your solution. Just put a few marsh mellows in an air sealed container with your brown sugar and it will help keep it nice and soft.

Bag handle

I've noticed that when a grocery bag that I'm carrying or a school bag gets a little too heavy for my shoulder I grab the bag from underneath to take some of the pressure off. However, sometimes this is really uncomfortable and the bag is difficult to grip. Jonathon Livingston Seagulls bag takes care of this design dilemma by implementing a handle at the base of the bag!

Beauty and Value

As I was strolling through CARGO on 13th with a couple girlfriends we came across a butterfly box. Dead butterflies were pinned in foam and mounted in a box.

"How sad," remarked one of my friends. "They kill them and them put them on display"

This statement started me thinking about the value that we attach to all the things around us.

In particular things we deem as beautiful or visually appealing. I know that I've thoughtlessly almost automatically killed countless unwelcome moths and flies that escape into the house. But never pondered why. If a butterfly were to find it's way into my kitchen, I'd probable catch it and put it back outside. Why is it that things of beauty we treat differently? What is it about something that is visually beautiful that we attach so much value to?

Someone recently pointed out that moths as opposed to butterflies are parasitic and will also destroy clothes and that's why we don't put the same value on them as we do butterflies. Yet still the question that keeps tugging at me is that do we need to see the absence of a threat in order to see value in a life form?

Don't Stand So Close To Me

Everyone has a bubble.

There is an area of space around us that invaded by another person can lead to a high level of discomfort.

For some people this bubble is rather small but its there. There is a threshold, a tipping point from which a person can move from being comfortable to being uncomfortable.

As an experiment I tested the distance of this comfort bubble. I noticed that when I got within a foot and a half of another person they moved just enough away to recover the distance. If I continued to invade the space again, they would almost immediately recover again. It was fascinating! This is not a behavior we think about, especially when wandering around a store. But it worked with EVERY person I came into contact with. I'd move in closer than a foot and a half, they moved about two feet away at least, at times even abandoning the book or magazine that they were shopping for. It seemed that Powell's doesn't sell anything interesting enough to get someone to put up with the invasion of their space bubble.

Although this only happens when there is enough space to recover the distance. When in a crowded elevator people are much closer to one another than a foot and a half. However, people still distribute themselves as evenly as possible, allowing for as much individual room as they can get.

The Pen

The pen becomes more convenient and easier to use when we are able to hang them on our clothing. (That's probably why those little clips were designed) Now clipping a pen on your clothes has become a very common and thoughtless act. We want to store the pen quickly but be able to also recall it quickly.

I've seen them in shirt pockets, pant pockets, belts, collars, on point of a v-neck etc. But I can't tell you how many times when I was growing up my father forgot to take a pen out of his pocket and his entire load of laundry was splattered in ink. Here lies an opportunity for design. Washable pen? A way to carry a pen with out hooking it on your clothes? The problem definitely provokes some thought.

Cigarette Holder

We've seen it done for decades and it still continues to be a mindless habit of smokers...

Keeping the cigarette behind the ear was a major trend but began as a convenient and quick way to grab the next smoke.

Popularized by celebrities throughout history, the act exhibits an image of being "cool". The actual function becomes secondary.

Its an ongoing behavior that makes me wonder what else we could keep behind our ears?

Tea Towel

To prevent water from spilling down the front of the kettle spout, I often use a towel to catch the hot water.

This technique also provides a buffer between your hand and the hot pot while you to handle the kettle. Holding on to the body of the kettle helps control the flow of water from the spout more easily than by merely grasping the handle.

I find this observation a great opportunity for design. Maybe some sort of tea cozy/water catcher could be created.

Cleaning Day Short Cuts

When cleaning day arrives, I look for short cuts in order to increase efficiency and speed.

One such short cut, is draping a plastic bag around the kitchen cabinet. This way I don't have to open the door every time I throw something away nor do I have to reach down and struggle to find and open the mouth of the plastic bag while its on the floor.

I never really noticed or thought about this simple act before. I suppose I learned it from watching my mother clean when I was a child. In any case, it has provoked thought on what other small changes could be made to make cleaning day easier and more efficient.

Rubber band money clip

Recently a friend of mine, dropped and broke his money clip. His quick solution was to use a rubber band. He noted how much better he liked it, because it was so light! And money clips which are usually made in sterling silver are very heavy. However, one problem that came up was that the rubber bands would break easily. I suggested using one of my hair ties, but with hair ties you can't wrap them around more than twice and the money falls out.

I then looked online and there were only a couple solutions: One, an elastic money clip, but they are rare and rather boring looking. Two, a titanium money clip, which looks like a silver one, except its extremely light weight.

This is one design problem where I think there are numerous solutions to be discovered!

The Queue

What's going on?

What are they doing?

What's happening?

We are naturally and thoughtless attracted to large groups of people. I suppose that the mentality behind this that there must be something worthwhile to look at, or participate in, if there are so many people involved. We are curious creatures...

Move to the Right please...

... That is unless you are British, Australian, Japanese etc.

When walking down the street, hallway, or corridor we, as Americans, tend to move to the right to let others pass. Something that maybe we don't consciously think about as we do it. But if we take a moment to reflect then it becomes clear that we are behaving based on space and visual cue in our environment that we have grown used to, and now have become habit. We drive on the right side of the road, escalators if you are upstairs are going down on your right and if your downstairs are going up on your right. The entrance and exits to most stores and shops are on your right hand side. And so, when walking down a sidewalk or squeezing between the grocery store aisle, we behave as though those visual cues extend beyond where they are physically apparent.

Mirror Mirror

A thoughtless act is performed in reaction to some stimulus in our environment.

Sometimes we are problem solving, or acting out of habit or routine.

The motivation behind some of the most seemingly simple behaviors are not simple at all, but very complex.

Mirroring, or copying the mannerisms of others is a type of thoughtless act which, is occuring constantly, and mostly without our awareness.

Couples who have been together a long time, families and close friends will often adopt each other's style of speech or way of moving.

Even strangers, who demonstrate an interest in one another, will begin to mimic and copy the other's movements.

As someone who delights in the study of human behavior, I find this particular mirroring of movements fascinating.

There are many explanations for this....

We learn how to behave and ultimately how to survive through "modeling". We see someone do something and then we copy it, in most cases, without our awareness. This is how we not only learn simple tasks, but also how we learn to behave in social situations and how we learn to adapt and survive in our environment. By merely observing simple patterns of movement, or particular ways a person handles an object, or uses a space, we can actually discover where they are from, where they grew up, or what kind of cultural influences they may have experienced.

But what interests me about this type of behavior, beyond merely observing it, is the study of the mirror neuron, and what might be happening on the neurological level when we engage in mimicking each others movements.

I've attached a video that I think is more interesting than subjecting you to my own explanation of the discovery and function of mirror neurons.

If you're still interested there is a great book called "Mirroring People" by Marco Iacoboni which delves deeper into this exciting new discovery.

VS Ramachandran: The neurons that shaped civilization Video on TED.com

here are some other interesting links:

http://mirrorneuronsresearch.com/

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=therapeutic-reflection

Thoughtless Acts

Thoughtlessly turning on the bathroom faucet while brushing one's teeth.

Growing up we used to let the water run for five to ten minutes while we brushed away, rarely even using it. Even though there are timed faucets in most public facilities these days, in the home, they are rarely seen. Why is this so? Do we really need to be able to have the water run for long periods of time particularly in the bathroom sink? Probably not.

Automatic sensors on faucets which allow short flushes of water to wash ones hands, face as well as to brush ones teeth would work just as effectively. Maybe a device could be designed for the home bathroom faucet which allows prolonged water as well as short flushes of water.

Reducing water consumption and protecting water quality are key objectives of sustainable design. The value and especially the legitimization of design is measured more in terms of how it can enable us to survive. Sustainability and water conservation are important current concerns.