Managing a soft touch

 My reading is often eclectic.  I recently found an unusual book called: "Boring Car Trivia volime 2" by Sniff Petrol --- a pseudonym!  This entry struck me:

In the early 2000s a Mercedes-Benz engineer spent a year scouring the world for the best button action.  The conclusion of his research was that the ideal button "throw" was 1.4mm and future Mercedes switches were designed accordingly.  All Benz button suppliers were issued with a finger pressure graph and soft-feel paint spec so that every single button felt the same no matter where it came from.

Let us assume that there is a bit of truth behind this.  And then, let us perform a cost-benefit analysis of this year-long project.  Cost: an employee's salary and travel expenses, then the engineering costs of producing the spec.  Benefit: any button in the customer's car feels the same, irrespective of whether it is on the dashboard, in-car entertainment, steering wheel, door.

The benefit is in the reputation of the company.  But why did it need a year's research?  If the engineers can produce a sample, then they must know how to control a button under pressure.  So why didn't they simply produce a variety of samples and make comparisons, possibly with a consumer panel?  In the process the company could have investigated what the consumer wanted, not what that travelling engineer thought was best.

We will never know; but it seems to have been an experiment which would be quite hard to justify.