Really Dumb Ergonomic Design

Really dumb design.

I don’t know whether to call this crazy or stupid design.  Is it ergonomics?  It certainly isn’t electrical.  Maybe it’s cosmetic design.  Maybe it’s architectural design. But whatever it is, it certainly is frustrating.

I have an SBooster BOTW P&P ECO MKII 18V DC Power Supply that I use to power my Pro-Ject Tube Box DS-2 phono stage.  The Pro-Ject comes with a SMPS wallwart.  I really like the Tube Box because it has a tube-buffered output, and because it has a continuously adjustable input impedance loading knob variable 10-1000 Ohms for MC cartridges. 

The SBooster’s physical layout of plug, cord, button, and light is most frustrating.  Here’s why.

The IEC inlet for a power cable is on the back.  This makes sense, because most power cables arrive from the rear.  Okay.

The LED On light is on the front.  This makes sense, because we need to see if a unit is On by looking at the front of a component.  Good. 

But the Off/On switch is on the back at the far right rear, where it is very hard to reach.  Frustrating. 

And here’s the real kicker:  the hardwired electrical output cord that runs to whatever the SBooster is going to supply power to exits from the SBooster’s case from the front—right in the middle.  And it is hard-wired there.  Then, in order to get to where it is going, it has bend around 180 degrees and travel back to the rear of whatever it is going to supply power to—because almost every component in the world has its power inlet on its rear (as does the Pro-ject Tube Box).  So with all this bending, the hard-wired power cord loses about 12 inches on its 39-inch length.  Stupid. 

In my case, I have a CD player in between the SBooster and the Tube Box.  I have to do it this way on my rack to make the Off/On switch on the SBooster at all accessible.  If I put it on the other side of the CD player next to the Tube Box in the middle of the rack shelf, the Off/On switch would be absolutely unreachable. 

I actually tried reversing the orientation of the SBooster with the IEC  power inlet and Off/On switch in the front.  But this made no sense because then I could not see the LED On light. And now I was looking at a big power cable that had to bend 180 degrees to arrive from the rear of my rack. 

It would have made so much more sense to put the Off/On switch on the front where it would be easily accessible.  It would have made so much sense to put the hard-wired power output cord on the back out of the way, where it would not have to bend around or be visible—oh what a lovely little cord it is.  (I just love looking at it coming out of the front of the unit—right in the middle.)  And, if you put it in the rear, it does not lose 12 inches bending around to the rear to travel to where it has to go.  Duh! 

Sometimes I think electrical designers design components to make them work and maybe work well.  But they don’t give any thought whatsoever to how they are actually going to be used by humans with fingers and hands.