Kim Wolfinbarger guest-posted on the Human Factors Blog about an incident involving her grandfather tipping over one of those electric scooters at the supermarket. He did not survive his injuries.

From this tragedy, she makes a good point that warnings are not a substitute for good design. The warning labels clearly indicate that the scooters are not meant to be used in the parking lot. But, how are users expected to get their groceries to their cars? As a perfectly mobile individual, I usually walk my cart to the car so I don’t have to carry all of my groceries by hand. So, it’s reasonable to expect that users will take a scooter to their car.

I’d guess that the instability of the scooter is a result of keeping it narrow so it can easily travel around the aisles and pass other carts. The user’s own weight is enough to raise the center of gravity, making the scooter top-heavy and less stable. However, building a safe means of shopping for food doesn’t strike me as an impossible problem. Stores should be watching out for their customers by not settling for partial solutions, and product designers should not be pasting warning labels on their products to make up for poor design.

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