Are general tools more useful than specific tools? Is it better to have one thing that tries to do everything or many things that only attempt a single function?

In a world awash with multifunctional tools and devices, in this week’s podcast, we discuss multifunctionality. How should we design tools to perform multiple tasks and does multifunctionality lie in the object or in the user? We discuss cobblers cutting keys, stores that sell both darts and televisions, and Swiss army knives. Finally, we share some of our favourite tools and implements.

A few things we mentioned in this podcast:

• Borlands Darts and Television
• The Craziest Multi-Tool Ever Made Kills in 100 Different Ways
• 25 Multi-functional Products
• Runcible Spoon

For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email [email protected]

Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast produced by me, Fraser McGruer for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts, we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Chris Wragg and Nick Hare of Aleph Insights, and this week we're discussing multifunctionality. Chris, multifunctionality, what are we talking about? Lead us in.

Well, the reason this came up is because what I've realised is when I use a computer now, or any kind of applications in a business context, I'm paranoid about using the return key.

Okay.

Because in most cases, historically, it just moved you on to the next line. But on lots of things that I'm using now, particularly things like Slack and other tools like that, it actually publishes what you've been writing. So instead of just moving on to the next line, it's suddenly publicly visible to a bunch of people. And so what I realised is that I didn't like the fact that the return button is now being used for more than... It's been hijacked. It's been hijacked for another purpose. So I sort of accept that you can't have one key for absolutely every potential thing you might want to do in every single application. But we kind of do in the return key. Is that what you're saying? Well, yes. I'm saying that by and large, its function is sufficiently important and critical that it warrants its own button, right? But anyway, the point is, what I started thinking about was when is it a good idea to have a single-use functional tool? And when is it a good idea to have a multifunctional thing like a Swiss army knife? When do you want a specialist knife and when do you want a Swiss army knife? What are the contexts and rationales for deciding that?

So just to drill into this keyboard problem, is it the case that you would like a publish key, like a commit key? Do we want like an execute key? We've got a carriage return key, which literally will move your cursor on to the next line. What we're saying is that we want to have a separate key, which is a sort of commit. It's like a serious return. This is an actual, I'm going to now commit this to print. If I had to nominate a key that could make way for that, it would be scroll lock.

What the hell does that do?

Is there a scroll lock on my keypad?

Yeah. Is there? Let's have a look. Hold on.

But I think what you've just said there has made me think of something that I hadn't previously considered, which is that the reason this is problematic is because the differences, even though the function seems not dissimilar, moving down the line or putting a bit of text out to print, the consequences of it are actually quite different because the scenario I'm worried about is I'm writing something, it's incomplete and potentially libelous in some way. And I just think I'm pressing return to move down to the next line and start writing. And actually, you know, bugger me, I've sent it to everybody. And so it's not necessarily that I want a separate button for this and a separate button for that. It's that, you know, if your button for sort of scratch your nose and your button for the ejector seat are the same button, right? Then that's a problem. Yeah, yeah.

Well, look, a couple of things just leap to mind. First of all, it's interesting because we can all see how it ended up like this. And it's just it's actually not really by design, is it? All that's happened is it's just iterations of technology. And suddenly that key that you move to the next line when it was 100 years ago on your type writer is now, as we've said, it sort of tends to be like execute loads of stuff button, although not always. So it can be confusing. That kind of stuff is really hard to change. So if you wanted to have a bright red execute button, that would be quite difficult to institute. And that's the first thing. Second, I don't know if we want to stay on this that much, right?

I suspect that people are more plastic about that than we think, actually. What do you mean, plastic? Well, I suspect that we can probably remap our mental keyboard much more easily than we think we can. But it's just that the short term costs are quite high. But, you know, we can do that with vision, like you can turn people's vision upside down and within a day or two, they're operating as normal. So I feel like it probably would be more straightforward.

But before you go on, have you ever, at the end of a really serious email, typed out loads of rude words? I haven't got the balls to do that. I've done it. I've done it. And then just hover my cursor near the end.

You crazy man. I live on the edge. Maverick. That's like that feeling you get when you're standing near a cliff and you're worried you'll throw yourself in. You're voluntarily putting yourself in that position. Nick, broaden us out. Take us in another sort of... Well, yeah. So Chris has picked on an example of something which is, you know, incredibly multifunctional. The keyboard, the mouse, if you could say, is probably even more so as far as control devices go. What with there being only two keys, which is pretty amazing. All the things we could do with a mouse, you know, and I think if you think about the way that our concept of what the mouse buttons do has changed over time, this didn't used to be the case. But now I think it's fairly clear that left click is to grab something on screen. It grabs it. Right click is to do something to it. Yeah. That's broadly it, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. But I think let's get away from mouse and keyboard for a minute. And also, I don't want to talk about mobile phones either, because these things are really ultra kind of multifunctional. Just thinking about multifunctionality in general, what is the theory that we should use to think about whether you should put two things together? Yeah. So I was trying to think of examples of things that are together, but clearly not multifunctional or which are together for weird reasons. And the obvious one I came up with was cobblers cutting keys. That's something everyone remarks on. They're like, why do you go to a cobbler to get your keys cut? And I thought the answer was obviously, well, they use the same machinery. But? Well, apparently, that's totally not true. Apparently, cobblers cutting keys was the thing that cobblers invented when shoes got better. So demand dropped. Yeah. But that's actually quite an unusual, rare example of two things that all want to go together, that are put together. The only other example which I draw from my own personal experience is Borland's darts and television shop in Edinburgh.

Darts and television?

Darts and television. If you've got any need for darts and dart supplies or televisions and television supplies, Borland is your man. Home entertainment. Well, it is really, yeah. But any other type of thing, no good. Don't go there. But darts and television. You're sorted. Yeah. Which don't mix, by the way. Well, the thing is that so this probably brings us on to what we're going to talk about is actually they do really, because they're both things that you get in a shop. And it seems to me that if you can have a shop, you've already got 90% of the way there. So you can put ice cream and nails in it. So why don't we have more sort of multifunctional shops? You can have a small general shop, can't you? A hardware store. Hardware store. But that's generally hardware related. But, you know, yeah, supermarket sells all types of food. And obviously, the trend over the last sort of 100 years has been for shops to become less and less specialised. You no longer go to the butcher and the baker and all these things, which, you know. Candlestick maker. Yeah. Yeah. Those guys. Yeah. So actually, it's even though that's an odd example of darts and television. Actually, it does make sense when you think about it, because it's a shop. And if you've already got a shop selling televisions, you only need half.

Well, if people who buy televisions are also the same people who buy darts, then you're on to a winner, aren't you? The things don't need to be thematically linked if the customers are the same.

But I don't even know if the customers need to be the same, because I mean, if I want to get something darts related or television related, I don't need to need both at the same time.

It'd be great from a business point of view if you were someone, your customer was someone who needed both darts and TV. People who hang their dartboard just above their television.

Yeah. Yeah. Buy a TV, get a dartboard for free.

Yeah. So the equivalent, I think, if you think about a Swiss Army knife as being the ultimate example. Okay. Yeah.

Well, I mean, everyone loves, it just occurred to me, I'm still just trying to ease my head into this conversation, into this episode, frankly. But it strikes me, everyone loves Swiss Army knives. I think they're brilliant. Okay. And they're so famous and so on. Swiss Army knives are pretty crap, actually.

I think. Well, here's the thing. So if you take a pair of nail scissors, right? What's better? A pair of nail scissors or the little scissors you get. Attach some big, weird, clunky thing. Or a can opener, you know, a specific can opener or that thing. So my kind of working theory that I've kind of started developing for multifunctionality is that you've got three axes, right? And the sort of aggregate score on those axes gives you broadly kind of utility of the tool, right? The three axes that I think about are versatility. Can it do lots of things like a Swiss Army knife can? Is it any good at the things that it does, right? And are those things that it does important, right? So if you've got something that's versatile, really good at all the things it does, and all those things are important, you've got the most useful tool.

Yeah.

But there are occasions like, you know, if you take something like where you get two of those, but you've still got a really good tool. So like the plough, OK, it's not terribly useful beyond ploughing a field, but it turns out ploughing was a really, you know, agriculture was a really important function. So it's highly specialised, but it's important. So I think you kind of need two on those three. You know, Swiss Army knife is good at a bunch of important or rather. In theory, it can do a whole bunch of stuff. It can do a whole bunch of things which are all quite important. Yeah, but it's not terribly good at any of them.

But that's only what those things are. I found a list of things you can get. There's obvious things like scissors. We all know about that.

That you can get on a Swiss Army knife.

Yeah. OK, brilliant. Fish scaler, hook disgorger, ruler. Oh, yeah, I remember. Wire scraper, pruning blade, pharmaceutical spatula, otherwise known as a cuticle pusher.

OK.

A cyber tool, which is apparently the same as a bit driver.

OK.

LED light, USB flash drive. Good lord, Swiss Army. They have come into the 21st century. Obviously, magnifying lens and various types of screwdriver. Hoof cleaner, going right back to the 19th century again. A shackle opener. A shackle opener, OK. You know, which I think may be similar to a Marlin spike. Yeah. A reamer. No. OK. When was the last time you used a reamer? Oh, just this morning, actually. Yeah. Toothpick. That was one. The toothpick is terrible. Yeah, I remember the toothpick. Yeah, it was because it comes out, but it comes out. So you lose it. Then you've got the ballpoint pen, the stainless pin. And finally, if you can believe it, you can also get digital clock, alarm, timer, altimeter, thermometer, barometer. You've got all these kinds of instruments you can now get on a Swiss Army knife. Now, I was thinking about this in terms of not in terms of demand, as I think Chris is talking about sort of when the needs, are these things important?

It does feel like a tool that's been created by a state for its army and the state is neutral. But anyway, sorry, go on.

I was thinking of it more from the supply point of view, like the economics of scale, really. And I think this is where it comes down to, you know, to what extent is there an overlap between actually the delivery mechanism of these things? So if you think about if you wanted a folding knife and you also wanted a folding pair of scissors, actually, there's quite a lot of that which is shared. So they can share a pin, they can share a handle. So there's a logic to a Swiss Army knife. Actually, all of these things, you only need one handle at a time. And so you get one handle, one pin, and then you can just shove as many things on it.

So there's a base element that is in common to all the different tools that use it.

Yeah. And I think that's true of if you think of other multifunctional devices like a sofa bed, there's quite a lot on a like the surface of a sofa becomes at least part of the surface of the bed. And they both need to be soft. And they both need to be soft. And they're the same size. Yeah. So again, sport could be more or less human sized. Yeah. Let me talk about the spork. Spork. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Perfect sense. Right. Yeah. Same handle. Almost the same thing at the end, really. Washer, dryer, slightly more tenuous. But, you know, you've got a big mechanical spinny thing.

But they're both thematically related as well.

Well, that doesn't bother me quite so much, actually. It's more the it's more the because you could imagine having you. Well, I'll tell you some thematically related stuff that doesn't work. And it's salt and pepper. Yeah, I used to have a salt and pepper thing that was like one object. And the salt went in the top and you could turn it upside down and shake it on your food. Yeah. And the pepper went in the bottom. You turn the salty bit to get the ground pepper out. But you end up with bits of bits. It's a mess. And neither of those things do their job at all. Because there's actually very little overlap between what you need from a pepper grinder and what you need from a salt shaker. So so I think it's to do with the. OK, if we think about the functions of an object or at least the, you know, the kind of parts of an object is a kind of tree. It's a question of how far down the objects branch off from one another. Yeah. So with a Swiss army knife, approximately 50 percent of the object is shared. And then the other 50 percent is like a tree. Whereas if if salt and pepper, I'd say diverges very, very quickly. So there's very little space for integration and it's not likely to work. So basically, the higher up in that tree of production, your branching occurs, the more value there is in putting them together, I think.

But also there's a there's a kind of. There's a convenience thing going on here as well. There's a balance somewhere, which is the convenience against efficacy, isn't it? I suppose. Is that the right way to put it? Where like the spork, for example, which I can't bring to my mind what it looks like. Imagine a spoon, but with tunnings. Yeah, that's it. So like a run supple spoon.

When did when did a spork take over from a run supple spoon? What's a run supple spoon?

I don't think a run supple spoon is the same thing as a spork. It's not dissimilar, though, is it? I don't know, because I probably if a run supple spoon came up and introduced itself. Right. I wouldn't recognize it. I would think it was a spork. Maybe I would.

What's a run supple spoon? Well, it's like a spork. I thought. Well, is it? So is it? It's made up.

Is it just a no, no, it's not. It's not. It's not a Lear. It's not a Lear, you know, surrealism thing. It's a real thing.

OK, but I'm trying to think so, you know, when is it better? In what circumstances do you go? You definitely need a spoon and a fork. OK.

Well, again, convenient. It's the most obvious thing is like space saving space. That's that's the most that's the most important thing, I think. Apart from obviously the cost saving, because you're reusing the parts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There is a small cost saving for the spork in that that you only need to make one handle, you know. So but there's the cost element. But there's definitely, I think, from a demand point of view. Yeah, there's definitely that convenient the convenience of only having to pack one thing. If you're going camping, hence why actually a lot of camping supplies have this kind of multifunctional multifunctionality built in. So definitely occasions when you want multifunctionality. Yeah, but I think as Chris was saying, there's no getting around the fact that it's going to be worse at everything.

There is. Well, that brings me on, actually, even though, yes, I feel like we need to address mobile phones and computers. I feel like we're lacking direction of it. Well, I was. But I'm going to make one other point, which is actually related to this, which is about another consideration you need to make is failure modes, because it's possible that not necessarily the case, but it's possible that you're by concatenating things together, you end up introducing worse failures. So, yeah, in other words, when a sport breaks, you've just lost a spoon and a fork. Whereas if you if just your spoon breaks, well, you can probably make do with a fork. And if you have a collection of 15 Nintendo game and watch handheld games and one of them breaks, you've still got the other 14. But when your PC goes down, you're in big trouble. And so I think, you know, the ultimate kind of the ultimate multifunctional device really is our phones. Yeah, I feel like they do possibly even more.

It's almost an injustice now, or it's a weird thing to call it a phone, right? In a way.

And have you ever used a phone, by the way, for a phone conversation in a long phone conversation?

Do you mean a mobile phone?

A mobile phone?

Yeah. Why are they bad? No, not really. Are they bad at it?

I get if I have a phone conversation for, let's say, a 20 minute phone conversation and I come off it and I've got a sort of RSI type, you know, they're really bad.

They're very flat.

They're not ergonomic at all, are they?

No, they're worse at everything than the things that they're replacing. So I mean, that's as an example. I think it's a perfect example of what we're talking about. Watches. They're nowhere near as good as a watch. They take ages. It takes ages to pull out your mobile phone, press the button, see what time it is. You know, they're not as good. People paying for things with mobile phones drives me mad. All that palaver with typing in their PIN number and all of that. Really annoying. Calculators. Very annoying as calculators. But, you know, the point is they do all that. They're not as good at being a map. Maps are bigger. You can see where you're going. Then it's definitely not as good as being a book. But we use them for all these things. So I feel like, you know, multifunctionality appears to be this great, like, benefit. But actually, if you think about it.

We're just introducing a series of compromises and suboptimal outcomes into our lives.

Yeah, but for the price of doing more, we get less out of each of those experiences. And I and I, yeah, I mean, you know, I don't buy newspapers or maps or, you know, I don't need a phone book to write phone numbers in. I don't need train timetables anymore or even a radio or a dictionary. But my experience is worse interacting with all of those things because a mobile phone isn't designed to be any of them.

I was just going to say, I think sort of bringing it bringing it round to, you know, kind of what you might actually do or decisions you might make in relation to multifunctionality. OK, yeah. One of the things that that I that I was sort of thinking about, I always remember a David Attenborough documentary where they were following chimps and this chimp picked up a stick and it was using the stick to get ants out of a hole. And they held this up and they were like, this is, you know, amazingly sort of ingenious activity. And I thought, well, that's true. You know, they're using this stick for this this function. And then I thought, how many things do we use a stick for? Right. OK, same object. OK, for a chimp one one function for a human, you know, sticks. Certainly, you know, a few hundred years ago, sticks were basically everywhere. Right. You know, used as weapons, as fences, as, you know, all kinds of different different tools.

Minecraft is one of the one of the most fundamental objects you can build.

Quite.

I think one piece of wood makes you four sticks. Right. And you can't go back there once you've got sticks. So you shouldn't you shouldn't make more sticks than you need, because then you have too many sticks.

Yeah, fair enough. But the point is, the multifunctionality resides not in necessarily the object, but in the user. So multi like one of the reasons we are amazing is because we can like like a knife, OK, is kind of quite single function. But you can cut all sorts of things with it and do all kinds of things. A paintbrush only does one thing. But look at what, you know, an artist can do. And so so I think that sort of brings us round to this idea that that developing multifunctionality in a tool, whether that's a computer button, which only has one function, you know, is a binary kind of interaction. But it all boils down to getting the interaction with the user right or getting the user to understand how to use it correctly. And that's where this whole sort of industry of human centred design comes in and ergonomics. And, you know, and and so if we come right back to the original question of, you know, the return button, what should it be used for? That idea when people say, oh, this thing is really intuitively designed, right, as if somehow we evolved with a computer or a tablet in our hand, you know, and we knew what it was and what it did. In fact, we had a discussion about buttons the other day and whether a button is inherently like intuitively a thing you or instinctively a thing you press. The most fascinating conversation. Yeah, it was. But the point is that good design and good multifunctional design is not necessarily about the object, but in the use. And if you develop things to be used on the basis of a well understood set of conventions, then you can you can get that. So like computer game handheld consoles now, you know, they've got four buttons and a little a little thing, but you can do all sorts of things in a game with them. But what they've also started to do is rather than, OK, the bottom button is is kick on this game and it's jump on that game and it's turn around on another game. Those conventions have been built up and the combinations of those conventions have been built up so that you can pick up a game controller, play any game and more or less understand what what to do in it by using this combination of different buttons accordingly.

OK, we need to draw to a conclusion soon. I've got a question that I want to ask. But so I think we've we've covered it reasonably well. We've talked a lot about the multifunctional side of things and you've talked a little bit about that. Really, the multifunctionality comes from us as humans. And I like that.

Although we've not really talked about I see.

Hold on, Chris, hold on, Nick. So definitely I want to hear from you. But also, do we want to talk a little bit about singular things?

Well, that's what I was going to.

Right. Well, we're on the same. Nick, you and I. It's incredible.

Well, let's say the opposite, which is specialization. Right. There you go. Because what Chris was talking about, I think there was making me think of, well, actually, in a way, before you can have multifunctionality, you have to have the mono functionality. And that is something that evolves. So it's almost like things start out as a stick. And then we realize that we need one type of stick for hunting a bird and a different type of stick for painting on the walls of the cave. And eventually those two types of stick split apart. And you have paintbrushes and arrows, for example. And then it's only then I think you can start to go, hang on a minute. Maybe there's aspects of these that we can put together. Perhaps we can somehow unify a paintbrush and an arrow because you never know when you might need one or the other. But, you know, it's almost like objects have to split apart and sort of proliferate and speciate before we can start thinking about.

And then some guy or girl comes along, goes, hold on, the thing that we use for fishing and the thing that we use for shooting birds, throwing at birds. What about if we brought those together, even though 20,000 years previously, someone said, no, no, no, we need to split these up. So sorry, I interrupted you. So the mobile phone is a stick?

Well, I feel like it's almost like, but the thing is, the things you do on a mobile phone still are still largely things that evolved before mobile phones were a thing.

Yeah, definitely.

Yeah. And I don't know because I haven't thought about it.

All a mobile phone is, I've just realised, it's the only thing, because everything about it existed except for one thing. Are you going to mention Waze? No. No, everything about it. You're quite right. I've had an epiphany. So have our listeners have as well. The only thing that didn't exist about it is in the name. It's mobile. That's the only thing.

You're quite right. But we did, I mean, the concept of an object you can pick up and move around, that existed.

Well, but as a phone, so that was the first thing. So when a mobile phone first became a mobile phone, probably all it was, was one that you could take it places and two, you could call, maybe you could text, I don't know.

Yeah.

But that was the new introduction. And yeah, yeah. So every single thing it does already existed.

But it is interesting that that process of, you know, the first thing we wanted to do was simply liberate our phones from the wall. And the concept of a mobile phone, if you remember that far back, was hugely exciting. Merely because you could pick it up and carry it around. It was something that as a kid, I always wanted a walkie talkie. And also it was yours. Yeah. But a walkie talkie, so you could get up with some kind of mischief that you hadn't thought of yet. But you were convinced that if you own some walkie talkies, you could get up to some mischief. Yeah. And a mobile phone is basically that. And then I suppose they said, well, how do we make the best mobile phone? We'll just use a general computer and we'll put a program that is a phone. And as soon as you've got that, well, why not load millions of other things onto it as well?

I remember in the mid to early 90s, the first time I called a mate of mine and he said, hello, Fraser. And I said, oh, how did you know it was me? And he said, ah, because I was calling a mobile. It was one of my first calls to a mobile phone. But yeah, really simple question. What's your favorite tool? What's your favorite implement? What's your favorite thing? OK, because I've definitely got one. And yeah, that's it. Happy with that? Yeah. You ready? Yeah. Nick?

There's nothing quite as primal as a good claw hammer. I've got a really good claw hammer. Was it inherited? No, it's not. But the hammer that I did inherit in the sense of I found it in my cupboard when we moved in, it's this massive like it's just got a huge iron. It looks like some kind of war hammer from the olden days. And that ought to be my favorite thing because it's so big and heavy. But actually, because it's so big and heavy, it's very difficult to use properly. So my claw hammer, you know, just bashing a nail in with it makes you it takes you back sort of 20,000 years and suddenly you're clubbing an antelope to death. And also because of the scary looking claw on the other on the other end kind of adds to the adds to the feeling of, you know. So, yeah, I absolutely love hammering a nail when you get it right in the middle of that. Yeah, it's a nice feeling, isn't it? Yeah. So, yeah, I think that's the one that I get most satisfaction out of.

OK.

Do you use it often? Well, we've got wooden floorboards and the nails are always wiggling their way up. So, yeah, there's often an excuse to get in and bash a few. Nice.

OK, very good. Chris? Well, mine I use, well, at least twice, twice a day, which is my electric toothbrush. Yeah, I swear by an electric toothbrush, as does my dental hygienist. So it definitely, definitely because we went on holiday recently and had to take, you know, manual toothbrushes and it's just it's so much more difficult to clean your teeth when you actually have to put in the mechanical action yourself. And they're really, really abrasive in a way that a nice little electric toothbrush head isn't. So, yeah.

Yeah, no, I agree. Nice. Yeah, for me, it's a knife. It's a cooking knife. Well, I don't use it to cook with, but I use it to cut with. But it's and I didn't realise someone is apparently it's a sabatier knife. I didn't, which is apparently is a thing I didn't know. But when I got it, it was what's nice about it's quite a general purpose knife in the kitchen. It's good for all sorts.

Oh, there's always that good knife which comes in handy for all sorts.

Yeah, and it's fairly sizeable.

Yeah.

But I remember when I bought it, it was so sharp and I let it go a bit. But now I'm just I'm just really all about sharpening it all the time. Yeah. And it's now got a little cousin that's really long. We call it the throat slitting knife because that's what I usually slit throats with. But this is quite a long one. I think I use it for raw meat. Is it long and thin? Yeah, it is. Like a boning knife. Is that what is that what that is?

If it's that one which is sort of thin all the way down and then widens a bit towards the handle. Yeah.

It's about say that long. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. A boning knife then. And that's really handy. I use it. I get that out of any excuse, like just trimming a tiny bit of fat off of a bit of chicken. Oh, no, I definitely need this knife, you know. But yeah, my knife.

Well, yes, I mean, nobody's your favourite knife is never going to be a Swiss Army knife. No. No, it can't be. That would just be insane. Yeah.

Okay. All right. We'll stop there. Thank you, as always, for listening to the Cognitive Engineering podcast. I'm Fraser McGruer. I've been here with Chris Wragg and Nick here at Aleph Insights. Until next time. Goodbye.