Millions of units doesn't make it a good design

It would be an easy defence of a product to say that millions of units have been sold but that simply is not true in many cases. Is it supplier domination of a market? Is it customer apathy? Is it the absence of criticism from those that should be making comment? I can't really speculate on this.

Anyway one product that has annoyed me pretty much from the time it first appeared has at last got some worthy competition. I dislike it because from an engineering perspective it is very weak. Of course it should look good but it's function is quite simple and presents no great technical hurdles to be cleared. By now I hope you have the product that disappoints you in mind. For me the object of my disappointment is the classic CD case.

I can only guess at how many millions of these cases have been made and how many million have cracked and broken. The cost of modifying this design would be very modest. The implications of improving it would not have any retro-fit-ability issues as an improved design could be the same external dimensions and still hold the standard CD. So the common reasons to not make changes don't exist here.

So what is the big deal?

Obviously there are limited variations for such a simple product and I'm not saying that everything is bad with this design. It's just that there are a couple of weak points that really should never have made it into the final product.

Look at how this hinge is constructed. Look at how slender that arm is that is part of the cover that fits around case. If you have ever had to remove a cover or more likely try to replace one if it has popped off you will know it is quite likely this arm will snap off.

I think a picture paints a thousand words here. Does that look like being robust to you? Does it require 'rocket science' to mitigate this obvious weakness? Lets look at the recent alternative beside the classic.

Here the hinge has been made stronger by its section. The second moment of area here would be many orders higher than the original. Simply by making it wider. The fact that is the corner to a box that holds a circular disc means that there is heaps of room in the corner so doing this is not particularly difficult. This corner is going so much stronger. Yet running along to edge the cover does not have a full depth edge which makes the front panel more flexible and less likely to crack if you step or sit on it!

So they have put strength where it is needed and removed it where it is causes the product to be too brittle. This is really good engineering design.

Now if you hadn't noticed this hinge problem and had just accepted it I'm sure everyone will have encounter the problem of the central 'grabber' breaking. Here is a non broken one from a classic CD case.

I recently sorted out my CD cases and threw away all the ones with these central finger broken where the CD was not held correctly and then got scratched. I find it hard to believe that such a significant design was not suitably tested to prove the longevity of this feature. If that had been done surely this would have been reworked. The Super Jewel Box has this retainer.

It also provides a feature I hadn't previously identified as a major issue. The stress you put on a classic lid when opening.

Is overcome by a catch system that is part of the case body and allows the cover to pop open with one press and click shut - nice!

There is more to these design improvements that is superficially evident and all are underpinned by sound engineering principles. None detract from the look or function of the original. None require new manufacturing techniques. None are more complex in the tooling. It is simple the opportunity of forming plastic in an injection mould to do a job has been more rigorously pursued and a much better design has resulted. I'm just flabergated as to why it has taken so long to happen with the two critically weak design issues of the hinge and the retainer.

Oh well at least it's fixed now.