Kathrin Tomson
The environment:
The small back yard garden of the building where Kathrin lives
The time:
Late morning, around 11:00 am, on the first Saturday of April
The task:
Kathrin has been selected as one of the individuals to test the EasyTrim tool. Kathrin decided to use it to prune the rose plants in the small garden.
The need:
Bush type roses should be pruned in the early spring when the leaf buds begin to swell, but before growth starts. All wood killed or injured during the winter must be cut back to solid tissue, as well as all weak and twiggy growth branches. The plants must be shaped by cutting strong canes back to a uniform height, removing as little healthy wood as possible and very old canes must be removed totally.
The story:
Kathrin has been postponing the trimming for too long because lately it was a hard task for her, but now that she has a new tool she feels more confident and enthusiastic about pruning the old rose plants. However, this is the first time she is using a power tool of this kind, so she feels a bit reluctant in using a tool that has a self-powered spinning saw. She is wondering whether this tool is safe enough to be used as a gardening tool, and she is very cautious while handling it.
After finding the first plant to prune, and deciding which branches to cut off, Kathrin removes the plastic cover case of EasyTrim. What firstly made an impression to her, it was the fact that this tool was quite lightweight, far lighter than what she had in mind when she was thinking about power tools for trimming. Holding the tool in her hands she sees that is fully closed and kept in that position with the safety catch that binds the two handles together. She removes the safety catch and EasyTrim comes to a fully open position, due to the spring that the tool has between the handles. She holds it in one hand and she sees that it is easy to open and close it.
Still the saw is not operating so she looks for a way to get it started. There are two buttons at the top handle, one being exactly next to her thump, and one at the side of the handle. Kathrin is not quite familiar with this kind of tools, so she randomly presses one of them. She is surprised to see that the button next to her thump cannot be pressed and for a moment she thinks that the tool might have a problem. There is still the button at the side of the top handle, so she presses that one to find that it pops out. The saw still does not work but she thinks that guns have a similar safety button, as far as she knows. So, she once again tries to press the first button. Now the saw starts to spin, in a surprisingly not loud high frequency sound. She removes her thump from the button only to find that the saw stops to spin. Kathrin notices that the saw is spinning faster as she presses the button harder with her thump. While the saw is still spinning, Kathrin places the branch that she wants to cut between the lower safety cap and the circular saw. She presses the handles to close and unexpectedly easy the saw is sinking into the 1 cm diameter branch, as the lower handle pushes it against it.
The branch is easily detached from the plant. She is still pressing the button that made the saw spin, but once she releases it, the saw stops to operate. Kathrin follows the same procedure to cut the remaining branches from the rose plants, with ease. At the end she remembers to push the safety switch back to the locking position. She closes the secateurs with the safety catch and she puts it back to the plastic cover case.
The outcome:
Kathrin found the use of EasyTrim very easy, but she had some difficulties in recognizing the buttons that operated it. She did not immediately notice the two buttons, and she failed to see the difference between them and to recognize their operation in advance. Thus, it is obvious that some sort of modification is in need, in order to make these two buttons recognizable.
