Sporks, Toy Story 4, and Product Design

An Exploration on Design Intent vs Realized Purpose.

The biggest doubled edged sword of being a designer (of any kind) is that you can never turn off your critical eye. Sometimes it’s horrible, and you can only see the flawed design choices. Other times, it’s amazing and you weep in a theater full of children, who haven’t even lived long enough to appreciate all the history that lead up to this bittersweet finale¹.

So, I watched Toy Story 4 and it was incredible; but… it did take the spork in a direction I was not quite expecting. I thought I was going to see a movie dealing with duality. What does it mean to be a construct of trash and a toy?! And/or what does it mean to be both a fork and a spoon? In actuality, TS4 was a movie about purpose and what it means to realize your purpose. I must say that really sent me down a spork spiral.

From a UX standpoint, the spork’s purpose seems very clear; be a spoon and be a fork. Let me scoop liquids and stab solids. But that’s the interesting thing about the spork, it kinda sucks at doing both, like laughably so.

From a design vs business standpoint, it is easy to see how the spork came to be. I’m sure the conversation went something like this:

Business: Eaters² need a fork sometimes and spoon other times, but packaging both is too expensive. Especially since we know they often only use one. Can we design a way to cut down on the costs?
Design: Uhhh, we could ship forks separately and spoons separately, and let the eater pick which ever tool fits their needs at the time.
Business: No, then we’re still making two things and that costs more. How can make two things into one… What if we make a spoon more like a fork?
Design: What, like cut fork prongs into spoon?
Business: Yes! Get me a prototype by the end of the day!
Design: But that will make a terrible spoon and a terrible fork.
Business: Look, this is all made out of cheap plastic, they’re already terrible spoons and forks.
Design: Fair.

Idonno, something like that.

But the idea is clear: the spork is compromise. Not the compromise between a spoon and a fork (it is both). It’s the compromise between a single use utensil and the Swiss army knife of eating (but, not a knife)…