I read a lot, and re-read a lot. It drives my wife nuts. I was re-reading a classic, The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman. I came across a part of Chapter 4, Knowing What to Do entitled ‘Making the Visible Invisible.’ This tied in with an incident recently that is probably causing a vacuum manufacturer unnecessary grief and customers unneeded confusion.

Picked up a vacuum cleaner a few weeks ago. The old one was a Riccar and lasted 14 years. We should have replaced it with another Riccar. I digress. The interesting point of this story is that I purchased the same new vacuum twice.

Cub Scout den meeting was at our house and somehow glitter was involved. It was everywhere. My neanderthal perception is that a Cub Scout den meeting should involve pointy dangerous objects and fire. I digress. When all the carnage was complete and everyone went home, I dutifully pulled out the vacuum cleaner. Turned it on and the brush roller wouldn’t turn.

There are only two switches, Power and Brush. I know the brush roller has worked, I’ve seen it. The vacuum motor worked fine and the front lamp came on. However, switching the Brush switch on and off had no effect. Odd. I checked the electrical contacts, removed and reseated all the filters. I flipped it upside and removed the roller and drive belt to clear any hair. Still nothing. Must be a blown fuse in the roller assembly.

Took it back to Costco who cheerfully refunded my purchase and I bought another one. When I got it home and assembled it, I went through the instructions to see if I missed anything. There it was… the brush only turns if the Brush switch is on AND the vacuum is reclined.

Why is it like that? In all my years on this earth, I know that if the vacuum is upright when I turn it on and the brush is turning, I should turn the brush off or I may burn out the motor. Some clever engineer decided to make that fail-safe by not allowing the brush to turn, despite the presence of a clearly labelled Brush switch. Thus the reference to the DoET book and ‘Making the visible invisible.’

I’m not sure if the flaw is due to the ‘hidden’ recline switch that works serially with the visible Brush switch, or if the flaw is that there is no feedback mechanism to tell me what’s wrong. The design forces me to learn something unnecessary to accommodate the vacuum cleaner.

The impact of this design is that I probably returned a perfectly good vacuum cleaner. How much does that cost the manufacturer? I can tell you how much aggravation it caused at least one consumer.