While cleaning the tub yesterday — an American Standard whirlpool tub — it looked like it was time to clean the whirlpool intake cover. After cleaning it I went to put it back on & discovered an ingenious little detail designed into the cover.
The cover attaches with two screws, but underneath there are six holes on bosses that stand out from the intake into which the screws could fit.
The outside diameter of the cover is larger than outside ring of the intake port, and the center of the cover mates together with the center of the port. At first I thought that it might be difficult to get the screw holes to line up, but then I noticed the tiny tabs on the inside of the two screw holes…
All it takes is to place the cover over the the intake port, rotate it a few degrees clockwise until those tabs bump up against the bosses for the screw holes. The holes in the cover are then aligned perfectly with the holes in the intake port. Perfectly. It’s totally ingenious.
I remember one of my marketing professors saying that good design doesn’t cost any more than bad design; so very true. It would’ve been so easy for the person/team responsible for designing these two pieces to have made them to fit together differently — many lesser outfits would’ve done things differently, but they thought of the assembly process and what would eventually go into cleaning the tub, and put a little bit of thought into making the parts fit together easily and well. Attention to detail like this always impresses me. That something as seemingly obscure as aligning the screw holes when replacing a cover that might come off once in a year (if that) for cleaning would be like this tells me that there are probably lots of other little things deeper inside the workings of this tub that are just as well designed. Put American Standard on my list of products I will buy again.
Tags: design