German product safety law allows a product to be made available on the market only if it does not endanger people bei bestimmungsgemäßer oder vorhersehbarer Verwendung, in its intended or foreseeable use. The rule is in section 3 of the Product Safety Act.
The maker must think beyond the use it intended. It must also think of the use that people can be expected to make.
When Stiftung Warentest tests washing machines, Handhabung, handling, counts for 15 percent of the grade. The criteria listed with it include the controls, loading and unloading, filling in the detergent, the display of the remaining time, cleaning and the user manual. The testers even judge how loose the laundry is when it is taken out of the drum.
A German window usually opens in two ways with one handle. In one position the window tilts open at the top. In the other it swings open like a door. A gear turns the movement of the handle into the straight movement of rods.
A lock prevents a wrong move, the Fehlbedienungssperre. It stops the handle from going straight from the tilt position to the turn position. Tilt-and-turn fittings are still the most common choice in German housing and commercial building.
In 1990 Junghans brought the Mega 1 onto the market, the world’s first radio-controlled wristwatch. It receives the time from the DCF77 transmitter in Mainflingen, which is tied to the caesium clock of the national metrology institute in Braunschweig.
A Junghans brochure of 1990 promised for its MEGA radio-controlled clocks: Kein Nach- oder Umstellen der Uhr erforderlich. No resetting of the clock is needed. They even change to summer time and back by themselves.
In 1937 the Müller engineering firm in Schwelm developed a fuel can to a design by its chief engineer, Vinzenz Grünvogel. Its three handles let one person or two people carry it easily. When it was filled correctly, a pocket of air let it float if it fell into water.
The name comes from Jerry, Allied slang for the Germans.
Miele’s TwinDos system doses the detergent by itself, according to the hardness of the water, the size of the load and the type of soiling. A sensor shows on the display when the detergent container is empty.
Miele cites a study by the Öko-Institut, completed in 2013, on the savings from automatic dosing. The institute’s project dealt with dosing errors that come from consumer behavior.
durchdacht — thought through. Ein durchdachtes Produkt is high praise, and bis ins Detail durchdacht is higher praise still.
ausgeklügelt — cleverly worked out. Ein ausgeklügeltes System.
selbsterklärend — self-explanatory. Die Bedienung ist selbsterklärend, the controls explain themselves.
intuitiv bedienbar — intuitive to operate.
idiotensicher, narrensicher — idiot-proof, fool-proof.
Guido Storz invented a coupling for fire hoses in 1882. It has no male end and no female end. Any two couplings of the same size fit together, and a short turn locks them. A firefighter never has to look for the right end of a hose.
Some German fire brigades adopted it as early as 1887. It was patented in 1890. Sources disagree on whether that patent was Swiss or German. The Storz-Kupplung is still the standard of German fire brigades.
In 1952 Hannes Marker, a ski instructor from Garmisch, founded his binding company. His Duplex toe held the boot with clips on springs. In a fall, the clips were forced outward, and the boot was released.
Marker calls the Duplex the world’s first binding with a releasing toe. The French firm Look had introduced its Nevada release binding in 1950. The year of the Duplex is also uncertain. Marker gives 1952, other sources give 1953.
The Lamy safari has been made since 1980. Its grip section is not round. It is shaped for the three-finger grip used in writing. Bernt Spiegel of the Entwicklungsgruppe Mannheim, one of its designers, also designed the Lamy abc for children who are learning to write. Lamy says its grip promotes a healthy pen posture.
STABILO sells its EASYoriginal pens with grip zones and shapes matched to the child’s age, developed together with scientists. There are versions for left-handers and for right-handers.