What Is The Right Balance Point For A Pen?

[silverlifter]

No, I'm saying that something such as the centre of gravity of a pen's design is not part of any sane product specification sheet to publish and share with prospective buyers/users, but belongs more in advertising.

It may end up in advertising copy, but it originates with the designers and engineers and the craft of pen design. Even if it never makes it to a product sheet, these people surely considered this when making these instrumemts.

Just as carpenters consider the comfort of chairs and cutlers the balance of swords.

Edited July 28, 2019 by silverlifter

[A Smug Dill]

It may end up in advertising copy, but it originates with the designers and engineers and the craft of pen design. Even if it never makes it to a product sheet, these people surely considered this when making these instrumemts.

 

 

I agree. The 'question" to which I was responding is whether it has a place in product specifications to be published and made available to the prospective buyers/customers; and, secondarily, whether the information is crucial to a product's marketing/advertising (and whether it is "risible" not to include it) for the purposes of generating consumer appetite and sales.

 

Once upon a time, I was a software engineer programmer and part of a team that wrote and sold commercial software applications for a living. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of design considerations of which it simply isn't the prospective customers' prerogative to be informed. We put specifications into documents, against which we can be held legally and/or commercially accountable for delivering without fail, as we saw fit, and not a minority of prospective customers may find it interesting or important. Why the Marketing team decided to demonstrate at trade shows or in advertising video clips, etc. were a different story.

[praxim]

@asmugdill, I think I see the confusion. When I used the word "specification" back here, I did not refer to a product specification sheet or anything resembling it. You are the only person here to do that, hence my reference to a rabbit-hole.

 

I referred to an implication in the second paragraph of this post, which itself referred to a presumptive (but not declarative) claim I have read in another thread, wherein the writers tried to support the notion that a pen must be posted to be balanced, by reference to the fact that many advertising materials showed posted pens (!). "Specification" thus meant in English "You must do exactly that" rather than talking about engineering as such, to contrast with advertising (aka tendentious waffle).

 

To clarify some of my earlier text in the same post, if a pen has a [carefully designed] user-relevant feature which differentiates it from the competition, one might think it quite possible (though not necessary) for it to be advertised, e.g. "superior balance to all other pens" with asterisked caveat in the fine print that you must post the pen to achieve that. I merely pointed out that it did not occur at all, and satirised the notion that advertising materials might be specifically instructive on usage. I am sure you can find other examples of that, in any product area.

[Honeybadgers]

Another thread killed by nitpickey semantics.

 

 

RIP.