Bruce Charlton asks:
What is the worst designed everyday object?
Bruce Charlton answers:
My vote would go to the standard, hard plastic, hinged CD case.
Its functionality is terrible at best, and it breaks way too easily;
especially the hinge – upon which functionality depends. And I have
hundreds of them!
That was my answer too. I am also frustrated by the prevalence of non-sharp knives, although perhaps this is best for the children. Do you all have other answers?
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The standard headphones that come with IPods. Terrible sound quality and absolutely no sound proofing, so everyone on the train/bus/tram has their quiet reading time invaded.
My vote goes for doors with ambiguous hinges and handles that necessitate “push” or “pull” instructions. Doors can and should be designed so as to not require conscious thought to operate them.
Oh, http://www.jewelboxing.com/ is a better designed CD case. Too bad they’re not more common.
Oh, I was going to submit the obviously correct answer, but then Aaron had already posted that.
Doors that need written instructions are so head and shoulders above (below?) everything else in this world, it’s not even funny.
While I certainly don’t wear them myself, men’s suits are poorly designed. The pants wear much more quickly than the jacket, so you’re left with orphaned jackets, in good shape but unwearable because the pants are worn out.
I am *so* happy to work in a “business casual” environment!
DC power adapters. These would be trivial to standardize, but nobody bothers. Half of them don’t fit correctly onto power strips, and the more unusual designs (Z-series Samsung phones, eg) are usually flimsy and breakable under normal use.
My pet peeve isn’t the worst-designed object, but an egregious example of modern design making something worse.
I don’t get the recent cameras that use LCD displays rather than traditional viewfinders. I really don’t get why people seem to love them so much. They force you to hold your hand and wrist in an unnatural position. Try this experiment: first, hold your hand near your face, as you would for a traditional camera. Now extend your hand outwards. You’ll see that the natural position of your hand and wrist is not the same as what modern cameras force upon you. The result is that it’s almost impossible to use one-handed: the user must extent BOTH hands to grip the camera with thumb and forefinger from both hands.
It’s certainly useful to be able to see the camera’s view from a distance, so that you can get shots while holding it high above a crowd, for example. But the correct way to accomplish this would be through a pistol-type grip. THAT is the position that your hand and wrist wants to be in when extended.
BTW, to theCoach: what’s the objection to American rulers? I thought that all rulers are pretty much the same.
My vote is for unsmoothed edges on objects, specifically the paper towel dispenser at my workplace. I’m always getting cut by it. The tiny pull handle doesn’t have any clearance between it and the channel cut in the face of the dispenser, which would be fine, except that Fort James left the edges of the channel jagged.
The pull-down towel dispenser used by huge amounts of companies in their bathrooms. The metal one that you have to reach up into and grab a fistful of towels to avoid getting none.
I’m an amateur landscape photographer, and I am in the distinct minority, but I find using the live LCD infinitely preferable for composition than being forced to stick the camera on my face. This is very true when I am composing a landscape image with the camera 1 foot above the ground, and also makes taking pictures of my kids and dogs at eye level a snap, since I am not forced into a painful crouch. Most SLR owners tend to take wonderful pictures of the tops of their children’s heads instead. . .
The issue with motion blur is minor with a big camera, especially one that does not have a flapping mirror to induce shake, and it is usually easy enough to brace your elbow against a table, wall etc. for added stability.
For this reason I use the Sony R1 camera in preference to any of the dSLRs.
I can’t wait until live LCD composition becomes available on more interchangable lens cameras. . .
How about sinks with the faucets so short your hands bump the front of the sink while you wash them. Maybe for people who wash their clothes in the sink this is handy.
Also, any automatic faucet where the sensor is placed at a particularly bad location, so that it’s impossible to keep the water running while washing one’s hands.
Of course, automatic toilets that flush when you lean forward and don’t flush when you stand up are awful too.
Furniture with sharp corners at knee height.
Perhaps the biggest improvement in design I’ve seen in recent years, ironically mandated by the government, is the LATCH system for installing carseats. This took installing a carseat properly from being almost impossible (many carseat/car combinations just couldn’t be made to work, and the ones that could usually required a big man struggling with the stupid thing for ten minutes or so to get it in) to being pretty easy.
> I find using the live LCD infinitely preferable
There’s no question that this is useful. My objection is that the “handle’s” form is incorrect for this usage. It should be a pistol grip.
> paper towel/napkin dispensers shouldn’t count as poor design.
> They are deliberately designed to minimize dispensation
I think they’re a dismal failure at this. It’s fairly difficult to get just, say, 2 of them, so I wind up grabbing a handful and wasting a bunch.
Another design problem occurs as a result of catering to speakers of other languages. For example, I hate product manuals that have pages divided in half, with one side being English and the other Spanish. I don’t object to providing the Spanish documentation, I just wish it had its own section. The value of the documentation is diminished when I can’t see as much of it on a single page.
Similarly, back in the days of OS/2, booting your PC with a floppy in the drive yielded a message that looked something like
SYS!00077
SYS!02044
This was supposed to indicate that there was a non-bootable floppy in the drive. But in their zeal to avoid offending the 2% of their customers that wouldn’t understand English, they alienated 100% of the users. I saw an internal communication asking about this, and the engineer challenged the questioner to provide a universal message in the tiny space available. The reply was:
Which I think was a great compromise, but it was ignored.
The actual CD case isn’t half as bad as the wrapping it comes in.
I don’t use text messaging, but mashing multiple buttons per letter with your thumb seems pretty bad.
A lot of students’ desks are really terrible.
“Blister” packaging, with the product between two rigid plastic pieces, are impossible to open without scissors and easy to cut your hand with.
Most showers I’ve seen have controls that have little effect except over 1 mm that turns them from hot to cold.
I always wondered why umbrellas have sharp metal points right at eye-level.
Any bus, theatre, or airplane seat that is too close to the one in front. I’m only moderately tall (6’3″) and can fit in very few comfortably. I pity those with even longer limbs, which I think is a pretty good chunk of space under the bell curve.
Related to this is clothing with too-short sleeves or inseams. You can always alter something to make it shorter, but never longer…
When I was in college, they put in a new curb outside of my fraternity house that formed an acute angle. This was on a one lane driveway that was the entrance and exit shared by about 100 people in two fraternity houses. On the first day after construction, there were four slashed tires just in my frat. That was easily the worst design job I’ve ever seen.
Microsoft Windows.
In the bathroom, soap dishes that collect water and ruin the soap. And the proliferation of various toilet-flushing mechanisms is an indication that a clear winner of a design has yet to emerge.
In the kitchen, condiments, pickles, etc. that are packaged in tall, narrow-mouthed jars. Most American rod-type kabob skewers – my wife’s Iranian sword-type ones are clearly superior. Can openers could use some work, too.
The problem with CD cases isn’t their design. The problem is that you need to have a case at all. The CD data surface should not be exposed when not in use. The CD and case should be integrated into a cartridge that protects the CD surface until it’s inside the reader/player. The 3.5″ floppy disk format did this right.
Sugar and flour are put into cheap and easy to stack packages with the understanding that the consumer will always (if he is wise) transfer the contents to another more durable storage device at home. This also cuts down on unnecessary landfill. It’s nice to have good packaging, but sometimes minimalism is best in the long run. I think that would apply with sugar and flour. And it keeps the price down.
I completely agree with Windypundit. I’ve maintained for years that CDs are stupidly designed in light of floppy disks.
Windypundit, if CD’s were in cartridges my toddler wouldn’t have as much fun distributing my shiny CD’s all over the house. (It’s a good thing they’ve all been burned to iTunes.)
Bad design for me is now anything with parts than break off; plugs near ground level; and all sharp edges.
Books with rough-cut (uneven) page edges. They make the book impossible to flip through smoothly. They drive me nuts.
First off: Donald Norman is a GOD!
The first book I read of his is still very timely:
http://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Donald-Norman/dp/0465067107/sr=1-2/qid=1164847183/ref=sr_1_2/002-6134403-8917655?ie=UTF8&s=books
Regarding cameras with LCD displays on the back, rather than viewfinders. These are superior for taking photos of people. Rather than hide your face behind this strange electro-mechanical monster, you can frame the shot and then move the camera up or down and expose your face. Your subjects will then see you and you can smile, talk, cajole, whatever. Thus, you engage the subject(s) as a human, not a machine. Try it, you’ll get much better expressions from your human subjects. This issue goes way back, but it was much discussed back in the days of TLR’s and SLR’s.
I will agree with the rant on the doors. Norman noted that some people got trapped inside buildings, because they could not figure out how to get out, even when the doors were transparent glass and seemed to lead outside!
How about those English urinals that look like second cousins to porcelain teapots, and which require great restraint lest your own stream be turned against you?
“No turn on red”
Most hotel showers seem to have this weird control where turning the knob changes both the flow and the temperature. Whoever designed that ought to be legally banned from designing anything ever again.
Peter: most men’s stores will sell you the suit jacket with more than one identical pair of pants, so that you can avoid the aging asymmetry.
I don’t mind blister packs that much, because I carry a well designed lefthanded pocket knife, with a sharp serrated blade, from Spyderco.
In the course of my work, I navigate, by GPS on a laptop, and give directions to a driver. Yesterday we went thru the same traffic circle five times, and I managed to get us out on the correct street twice.
As for motion sensor bathrooms, the concept is good – no touching. The implementation is bad. At the office I work out of, the soap dispenser squirts into the sink as you wet your hands but won’t put soap on them. I saw one faucet where the gain was turned up to where it motion-sensed the running water and wouldn’t turn off.
probably too late for a response, but American rulers have two different sides – one for inches and another for centimeters – actually, the design isn’t bad, it is the requirement to have different and incompatible measuring schemes.
Re: Anderson — is this a case of market failure then?
Kitchens, bathrooms and pretty much all water and energy plumbing. Everything about them. Refrigerators are worst, especially side by side ones. Just opening the door makes them spill expensive cold air on the floor, and the internal capacity is never large enough for anything larger than an Otter Pop. A baking sheet with, for example, slices of peach to be frozen, will never fit. Heck, even the smallest of frozen pizzas have to be wedged in at an angle. And generally, the fridge, which uses waste heat to make it cold, stands right next to a device that gives off waste heat (the stove) and yet they’re not linked.
Thermocouples are very cheap and yet we still waste a ton of water and energy in manually adjusting temperatures on faucets. The water heater itself is a waste of energy; the tank keeps more water hot than is generally possible to use in a single application, but at a huge cost. (Tankless water heaters are just coming on the American market, though they’ve been available in other parts of the world for decades.) Further, there’s a lot of wastage in warming up the pipes to get water from the heater to the application, when a small tankless under each sink would be far more efficient. There’s no standard way to divert the waste water from the sink to my yard, or to my toilet, where it could at least be reused once before going down the drain. And why cannot my bath water be tanked and stored to wash my clothing? I’m rarely so dirty that my clothes would be harmed by my soapy waste water.
I don’t have many complaints about towel bars, but even those could be improved….
Handset phones. Was in an office today where I had to use the landline and I don’t get all creaped out about germs on everything, but the handset looked dirty and I felt like I should Lysol my ear and face after the conversation.
The no touch paper towel despensers are OK and sanitary.
But ANY of those giant toilet paper roll despensers – junk.
The large roll paper is crap to (no pun intended too. They mount them ridiculously low (even for handicaped people – I have a disability).
LOW FLOW TOILETS. In an effort to conserve water, engineers have created the worst toilets on Earth. You end up flushing multiple times and defeat the purpose. Instead of 1.8 they should have made it 2.8 and we would have saved more water.
Re: Clamshell/blister packaging – it seems to me that, as obnoxious as they are to open, the real harm from this sort of thing is the ridiculous amount of waste material it creates. Anyone who takes the time to recycle must be aware that consumer packaging is completely out of hand. Six months last year working on a receiving dock at a big corporate campus showed me a side of this that I’d never considered: the modern pallet-based shipping infrastructure (trucks, forklifts, warehouses, pallet jacks, plastic wrap) is something of a design/engineering marvel, but it’s also hideously wasteful. Pallets, boxes, crates, plastic wrap, foam, etc. all wind up in the waste stream.
Re: USB, Firewire, s-video, et al. – Why does this stuff still go on the back of most machines? Granted this has started to change, but I still find myself bracing myself in some hideously awkward position with one hand while reaching behind a desk and fumbling around in the dust bunnies at least once a week.
Clocks that tick too loudly. WTF. Trying to get to sleep and all you hear is tick tick tick tick!!!!!!!!!
Traffic lights that don’t have a sensor to change when you’re waiting. I drive to work at OMG am, and find myself waiting for the left turn arrow when there is NO traffic at all. Very wasteful.
And showers should have the ability to turn off the water flow while soaping up or shaving, without having to go through adjusting the hot/cold all over again. Maybe a valve of some sort at the shower head? It would save a lot of wasted water.
I’m going to say it’s difficult to nail down a “worst” design. Too many designers design as if their end users were the Jetsons. There are complexities in shapes and styling that seem to be put there because they can put them there with the miricle of computer aided doodads.
The Mac Keyboard and Mouse. An absolute failure from someone I expect to get it right.
What a turd.
I find most mobile phones have clunky user-interfaces.
Another vote for CD packaging, more specifically:
The cellophane outer wrap which sometimes comes with a handy peel-to-open strip (like on a pack of cigarettes) which never works.
The peel-off plastic tape label that seals shut the top (and sometimes the bottom) of the case, which despite the extended “PULL” tab tends to come off in strips, leaving glue splotches.
The jewel case spindle, which, if the plastic is made in any color but black, has a tendency to break apart leaving your CD floating loose in the case with a bunch of jagged plastic points.
The paper booklet that (if it consists of more than a couple of pages) can’t be squeezed into the jewel case “door” without damaging it.
The human vulva. I’m serious. What genius designed this thing? What the hell is the clitoris doing way up there? It’s all tucked away in a non-intuitive spot and you have to do awkward supplementary maneuvers to stimulate it during intercourse if you want her to be able to get hers while you get yours. Why wouldn’t it be right there on the edge of the hole where it could get rubbed proper during coitus? Hey, put it IN the hole why don’t you. Just make it part of the lining already. Women would come every time too and guys would all feel like champs. None of this faking nonsense. Hell, guys don’t even know what it is until college, much less where or what to do with it. All those poor girls… Thanks a lot, God!
Oh, also, the buttons on pants and shirts. Our grandkids will look back at those things one day and say, “Jeez, you could put people on the moon but you couldn’t come up with better clothes fasteners than THOSE awkward things? Ahahahahaa! (I don’t know why velcro shoes didn’t stick around either. Laces: WTF?)
…err…
https://www.microsoft.com/emea/msdn/thepanel/featured/universs.aspx
You might say that this is not an everyday object.
But you can’t say is well designed.
Cheers,
Peter
It’s a bit dated, but I think the cassette tape case is worse than the CD jewel box.
Both crack, but the cassette tape box is more likely to split into two pieces, break a “hinge” when it does, and spill the contents out.
The flat winder on the back of a cheap wall clock. Pull rings that seem to be welded to the top of the can. Short-vamped shoes – toe cleavage is not cute. Panties without elastic. Curling irons without a safety tip at the top. Bathroom stall doors that you have to pull towards yourself to get out. Packing tape dispensers.
Not only is the vulva poorly designed, as Eric mentioned, but it’s placement next to exit of the excretory system is a terrible idea. Simply wiping the wrong way can lead to urinary tract infections!
On the structur of the Vulva and the placement of the clitoris:
CAUTION: May offend homophobes. Do not continue to read past this sentence if your sensitivities are, well… sensitive.
One of the (satiric) biologic, Darwin-ic explanations for the placement of both the clitoris and the prostate is that we are programmed to be heterosexual for procreation, but homosexual for sexual satisfaction. Why else would the clitoris be OUTSIDE the birth canal if it wasn’t meant to be manipulated by say, a hand or a tongue. It is an organ dedicated solely for orgasm, and is unique to the female anatomy. So why was it designed to be stimulated OUTSIDE an orifice that is shafted? Similarly, the prostate is a nerve-rich organ specific ONLY to the male anatomy, that, when probed, elicits orgasm. Why is this organ INSIDE the human body, designed to be placed conveniently WITHIN an orifice. Hmmm…
*evil grin*
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æ州空调移机|æ州空调拆装|æ州空调安装
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