Confusing Features in Consumer Products Bill Bryson's

¶ … Confusing Features in Consumer Products Bill Bryson's Design Flaws is a well-thought out essay that expresses exactly how consumers feel when they are confronted with products that give them features that are more than necessary for their use. Although initially, readers may perceive the author as technologically-challenged, that is, not able to adapt to changes in new technologies, his arguments against the 'unnecessary excesses' of product designs nowadays is justified.

Indeed, in an age where everything, through technology, should be made manageable, Bryson's discussion of technology's inconveniences illustrate how manufacturers have become preoccupied with design and style that they completely forgot that space and size of a product determines its functionality. In effect, the 'style over substance' problem that Bryson talks about in the essay illustrates how the fast-paced life full of technology also results to a fast-paced decision-making, especially in the conception of a product's design.

Indeed, his assertion that, "an awful lot of things out there have been designed by people who cannot possibly have stopped to think they will be used." In effect, technology, with all its advantages and amazing innovations, seemed to have forgotten to include the most important factor that determines the usability of a product -- the consumer. Brent Staples' Black Men and Public Space is the author's account on his life as a young adult man who has experienced to be judged inappropriately by his fellowmen, particularly white American women.

In his essay, Staples narrates how he became the 'subject of fear' of most people in the dark streets of America's cities, mainly because he is male and black American.

Staples states, "It was in the echo of that terrified woman's footfalls that I first began to know the unwieldy inheritance I'd come into -- the ability to alter public space in ugly ways." This statement may appear loaded, but his assertion is true, as illustrated in his experience where he has been suspected, particularly by women, of being "a mugger, a rapist, or worse." Interestingly, Staples' focus on how certain individuals affect the sociology of public space portray the prevalence of prejudice and stratification within the society, and this is manifested on how people try to react on stratified people or illustrate their prejudice through the 'occupation' or use of public space.

As in Staples' case, the stratified people in this case are black American males, who, because of certain prejudices people hold against them, result to different attitudes and behavior, physically manifested when taken into the social environment of America's dark city streets.

Staples provides an insightful essay where he tells his audience how, in the face of hostility of these people with prejudices against black American males, he has learned to cope by explicitly making it clear that he is harmless and far from what they think he is -- that is, by whistling while walking on dark streets and becoming congenial to police officers and people who mistake him for a burglar or an offender. Neat People vs.

Sloppy People by Suzanne Britt provides a comparative analysis that imaginatively looks into the explicit and implicit meanings behind people who are neat or sloppy. Through effective descriptions and persuasive assertions, Britt goes further into the surface of neat and sloppy people, illustrating.