Hi, I’m Angela Wang, a first-year who plans to major in Media Arts and Sciences! I’m really excited to take this product creation seminar because I am especially interested in product design at the intersection of design and engineering. I aspire to design products that not only simplify the lives of consumers but that also tackle wide-scale issues such as poverty, lack of water and disaster situations.
One everyday product that I use extensively is the mechanical pencil. Overall, the mechanical pencil has good design features, with a few bad designs. Because of its remarkably thin lead, the mechanical pencil has a finer, precise mark than a wooden pencil and does not smudge as easily. Because of this, mechanical pencils are more versatile than wooden pencils, as they can be used for everyday writing as well as sketching. Another pro is that the mechanical pencil erasers can be taken out and replaced while the wooden pencils stay with only one eraser. However, both mechanical and wooden pencils can use removable eraser covers over the provided erasers, so this is not really a big issue. Durability is another issue that can be debated on both sides. Firstly, wooden pencils can be used until the pencil becomes a small stub, and tend to last longer than easily jammed mechanical pencils. On the other hand, mechanical pencils are more durable if the pencil is dropped. For instance, if a wooden pencil is dropped, its lead will break easily deeming the entire pencil useless. However, if a mechanical pencil is dropped, it can be repaired, and the broken lead can be replaced. Lastly, mechanical pencils do not need to be sharpened, which negates the need of a pencil sharpener. However, this pro also has a con. Even though mechanical pencils do not require pencil sharpeners, they need a specific size of lead instead.
The biggest con of the mechanical pencil in my opinion is that it is very easy for the lead to get jammed, so consumers must repair their pencils themselves. With the wooden pencil, this would not be an issue. Also, for the average consumer who is inept at repairing mechanical pencils (aka myself), this insurmountable task may deem too much, so the weary consumer must toss out the “broken” mechanical pencils and get new ones. Therefore, for the average consumer, mechanical pencils may have a shorter lifespan than wooden pencils, and this is the turning point which made me get wooden pencils two days ago instead of mechanical ones. Overall, mechanical pencils are better suited for the more adept consumer who can fix their own pencil jams, and might need a finer point to sketch or do stringent technical work such as architectural sketches. On the other hand, wooden pencils are useful for the average consumer who just needs an erasable writing utensil that is low-maintenance. From the feather pen, to the ballpoint pen, mechanical pencils, and even erasable pens, writing utensils have continually been improved, so there is not much that I can think of to add and create the perfect pencil. I wonder: Is there a way to make mechanical pencils more user-friendly? And will there ever be a balance between usability and function?