The original note, as written at the time
NEW UMBRELLA DESIGN. Most current umbrella designs have a handle that is exactly in the centre of the object. When you hold your umbrella more of your front is covered than your back. Granted, normally you are projecting yourself into the path of the drops, but in a case where you have a little one following you, or a backpack, the defect is clearly visible. The new design would have a handle that is angled slightly or shifted a bit to the front.
Ongoing development
Most umbrellas have the handle exactly in the centre of the canopy, which means that when you hold one, more of your front is covered than your back.
Usually this is fine, because you are walking into the rain and projecting yourself through the drops. The defect appears when there is somebody behind you — a child, a companion — or a bag on your back, and then the umbrella is demonstrably on the wrong axis.
The fix is tiny: shift the handle slightly forward, or angle the shaft, so the canopy sits behind the holder rather than around them. The centre of an umbrella is a manufacturing convenience and nothing else; nobody chose it for the human body.
What makes this a good design note is that it is about the person you are with rather than the person holding the thing. Nearly every object we own is designed for a single user alone, and the ones that fail visibly are the ones used in company.
The reason it has not been done is that umbrellas are bought in a shop, held for ten seconds, and never tested in the rain with a child. The failure only appears in the use case the buyer is imagining, and the buyer cannot try it before buying.
A one-centimetre offset would fix it. That is the whole design.
Design the object for the scene it appears in, not for the hand that holds it.