Design faults behind the Samsung Galaxy Fold

Perfect last is better than being imperfect first. In the smartphone manufacturing industry, there is no doubt that, Samsung is one of the main giant for their smartphone. But why this GIANT is facing so many of criticism regarding their latest innovation. The Samsung Galaxy Folds.

As everyone know that, Samsung has released their latest phone which can me folded, like a notebook. This innovatiove idea would give Samsung an advantage of pioneering before Apple in this category. But Samsung has made a trivial mistake in this phone and facing so many criticisms.

According to the Youtube reviewers and onther NBC news and other news sources, atleast 8 out of 10 reviewers claimed that, Samsung Galaxy Fold’s display has been broken in hand of them during reviewing session as the reviewers had tried to remove the plastic films attached on the OLED display.

Some of examples below:

The story could be stopped here the problem happened, when the reviewer informed Samsung about the matter, it got back all of the phones and returned same phone with a ‘caution’ written film on screen which says “The main screen includes a special protective layer. Peeling off the protective layer or using any adhesive on the main screen, such as screen protectors or stickers, may cause damage.”

And which cause the next failure. Because the caution on the package, user continued to break the screens.

Now, the user claiming Samsung for faulty product and Samsung claiming user for improper use.

So, what made the situation so bad for Samsung? Whether it’s happened due to fault of users or manufacturers?

It’s time to dig deeper into the matter.

So, why users tried to peel off the “special protective layer”?What induced them to do so?

Yeh! There is a fog into mud!

There are design mistakes that made Samsung so criticised.

So, lets discuss about the design principle.

Similarity > Affordance > Signifier

There is a chain reaction with a design principle and two Interaction principle.

Similarity (Design) is a design principle that trigger people to do or think some thing as they have experience it similarly before. For example, a glass is used to drink water and a wine glass is used to drink wine. If you want to make a new glass or wine glass with the intent that, people will drink water or wine with it, you should design it in similarity with the respective glasses people already used to.

So, if you make a wine glass in intend that people will drink water with it. It will be a bad idea.

Affordance (Interaction), according to Don Norman,

An affordance is a relationship between the properties of an object and the cababilities of the agent that determine just how the object could possibly be used. A chair effords (“is for”) support and, therefore, affords sitting.

For example, all of the chairs above affords sitting, because they are all similar for performing specific task, sitting.

But, There are differences in affordance among them. No.1 does not afford holding it by a single person. №2 Affords pushing or pulling or revolving and number 3 affords holding by one person but does not afford revolving.

Whether an affordance exists depends upon the properties of both the object and the agent.

Signifiers(Interaction), as to Don Norman,

Affordance determine what actions are possible. Signifiers communicate where the action should take place.

let’s see the example below:

This switch affords a connection set in either On or Off state. Everyone can guess it. But the circle at the bottom of the switch seems like finger tap. It seems like to tap here is set the line ON. It is a signifier for switching ON the connection.

From theory to reality

Now, we probably have everything to jump into and catch the disguised frog. So, why people peeling off the protective film for display which is warned no to remove. Simple.

The “Special protective layer” looks similar to the removable protective films that every smartphone has at their intact state.

Looks familiar?

Yes, It’s the only cause that trigger first chain reaction. Users are used to remove the layer from their phones screen as soon as they open their new phone’s box. As they remain excited, they have a very little time to read the instruction embedded above the layer.

As a reviewer tweeted:

We can think about it as the habit loop of the human nuroscience. according to Charles Duhigg’s. There are 3 steps of habit loop, namely

Cue > Routine > Reward

As soon as they found the similarity with other removable screen films, they got cue and affordance to remove it by the virtue of similarity. The visible edge of the film complete the circuit. Which is signifire.

And the habit loop complete all of it steps, the routine, removing the film from display.

Suggestion:

If it is mandatory to have a irremovable protective layer in the display, set it the way so that the edge is not visible and there is no visible cue or signifier for the unintended actions.

So, here I tried to look into this Samsung matter from the eye of a designer. If you have any further suggestion or correction, please add it or comment it. It is my best appreciation.

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Have a nice day??

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