On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 03:02:39 -0700, robobass wrote:


The question still stands. When do companies design stuff to be overly

complex. What's the real end goal?

It's often not intentional, just a mindset. I used to design motorized
displays for a toy company. The bases would show the kinetic aspects of
the toys. I would get a proposed design from their engineers, and come
in the next day with revisions that would sometimes halve the cost with
no loss of performance or reliability. I had no real motive to save them
money, I just like simplicity and abhor waste. Most of my suggestions
would be shot down just because they were perceived as cutting corners.

It's not just a mindset. I would love to be able to reliably design
simple solutions to simple problems. I can't, easily. I can COPY
someone's simple solution to a problem, I can, eventually, figure out
simplifications to some complex solution that I (or someone else) has come
up with, but a dirt-simple solution that actually works often evades me.

Fortunately, there are plenty of Really Complex problems out there just
crying out to be solved, and that I can do.

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com