Every second Thursday in November, World Usability Day (WUD for short) forges a worldwide bond between research, industry and education. For the first time, it was organised by the two study programmes Design & Product Management and MultiMedia Technology. About 70 guests from industry and science came to the Urstein Campus to listen to the exciting lectures and learn about the latest developments in the field of Usability & User Experience (UX). One lecture was given by Andreas Bunsen from the HUTSCHN team, which we summarise here:
Do you really need a swing for 433 euros, are cows purple and is stinginess really so cool?
An obvious question within the presentation by Andreas Bunsen on the HUTSCHN® was also: "Do you really need" a swing for a proud 433.- Euro? When we built our first HUTSCHN® out of sheer fun for ourselves, we quickly realised how much time and effort it actually takes to do everything purely by hand, e.g. splicing the ropes by hand, or only working the seat board made of regional wood by hand and deliberately doing without automation. In the end, it's the same with all products: you can have your lederhosen made by a regional lederhosen maker, enjoy them for the rest of your life and even pass them on to the next generation, or you can decide to buy cheap industrial goods from the Far East. Everything is always easier and cheaper. A simple swing "Made in China" can be found in a DIY store or on the internet for much less money. And this brings us to a topic that is always on our minds. The apparent bargain, the "cheap" product has consequences. As a rule, it breaks more quickly. It has ecological consequences. And it destroys jobs.
We are increasingly seeing companies go bankrupt that blindly bet on the cheap trend. It is becoming the norm that people are paid less and less. Working at the limit is a permanent state of affairs. Across all sectors. Part-time work and wage dumping are the old-age poverty of tomorrow. This concerns us all. Look at medicine: midwives, geriatric nurses, nurses and young doctors are suffering from increasingly bad working conditions.
Wage and social dumping have become acceptable. Air Berlin has just had to give up in this price war. There was Schlecker, there are scandals in the food sector. There is the poison Fipronil in our eggs. There are antibiotics in our meat. The list seems endless. And why? Because everything has to become cheaper and cheaper? In times when you can fly to Majorca for € 20, when you can buy a T-shirt in the bargain market for a single euro and at the same time the textile factories in Bangladesh are collapsing on the workers, you should think outside the box. Because this deadly price spiral - this "stinginess is cool" is coming back like a boomerang. If we devalue work, products and their production more and more, then inevitably our own jobs will be affected at some point. And we have a good deal of control over that with our consumption. We can decide what we buy - and what we may not really need.
When we invited children to the workshop for the "Sendung mit der Maus" door-opening day, one child asked us in amazement where the robots were and the machines "from which the swings fall out". It's a bit like the "purple cows" from the chocolate advertisements that children are looking for who have never seen a real cow before. The distorted images of advertising and the "stinginess is cool" have shaped us. Too much so, we think. But despite all the criticism - there is hope. Look at the cooperative dairy Berchtesgadener Land, for example. For a long time now, farmers have been paid the highest milk price nationwide. Increasingly, people are beginning to rethink within their economic means. Maybe I'd rather buy a packet of organic butter and do without elsewhere? There's no question about it - a month can go by pretty quickly, the bank account is empty and, depending on your living situation and income, there can be no alternative to the "choice". But within the scope of our respective possibilities, there can be alternatives. And even small steps can have a big impact in the long run!
Many products today are unfortunately produced in such a way that they barely make it past the warranty period. This so-called planned obsolescence increasingly annoys many of us. You buy a brand-name dishwasher and, as if by magic - shortly after the warranty period has expired - it happens to break. The service hotline you call advises you to buy a new one, as repairing it would probably be too expensive anyway. This may be good for the manufacturer's cash register or the shareholders, but it is so frustrating for us consumers and a huge mess for the environment. There are countless examples of this. And that brings us to the question posed at the beginning. No, you don't "need" a swing for €433, just as, on second thought, you don't really need to have everything that the advertising makes you believe. Less is sometimes more. But if you decide to buy something, then maybe the next time you buy it you can ask yourself if it is worth its price. Aspects such as quality, longevity, its origin, the ecological balance and simply also the story behind it can then become a sustainable experience that you can enjoy for a long time and again. Further information is also available at: https://www.germanupa.de/berufsverband-german-upa/aktuelles/rueckblick-world-usability-day-wud-fachhochschule-salzburg
