7 ms·
The pleasures of poor product design
- layer8 7mo agoThese would fit well in the Codex Seraphinianus.
- keithnz 7mo agogiven the title, so may software developers must be living in bliss! /s
- bcherry 7mo agothis really reminds me of the "worst volume control" from reddit https://uxdesign.cc/the-worst-volume-control-ui-in-the-world-60713dc86950 https://uxdesign.cc/the-worst-volume-control-ui-in-the-world...
- ancillary 7mo agoThe "cannon" one is maybe the funniest thing I've seen on the internet in months. It almost makes me want to add autoplaying music to my own website, just to add that too.
- jrmg 7mo agoNow I’m wondering how you could create ‘uncomfortable’ versions of simple command line tools (ls, cat, more etc.) or perhaps shells. Emacs and/or vi, depending on your inclination, have text editors covered already, of course ;-)
- II2II 7mo agoWell, bash offers vi and Emacs as editing modes. We're already covered on that front. Many of the parameters for ls are cryptic, making it awkward to use for anything other than routine tasks without referencing the man page. more is so limited that many people choose to use a program used to concatenation files (cat) as a file viewer. Those who don't want to reach for their mouse to use their terminal's scrollbar buffer will use less, since it does more than more. Don't bother parsing that last sentence with bison, unless you have a yacc to shave.
- anonymous344 7mo agojus used new ubuntu instead of ifconfig (weird name) it had ip couldnt figure from the help how to get actually show the ip so linux is already there
- lelanthran 7mo agoYeah, Linux has been trending to incomprehensible commands. In terms of usability, moving to FreeBSD from Linux is quite a positive experience. Pity that hardware and software support is limited on the BSDs.
- al_borland 7mo agoFeed all command output through AI to summarize the results instead of actually giving the results. Results from ls would be a few sentences explaining the types of files in the directory. Add a -l on there and it will give you a general overview of the permissions and size of the files. Ex. “These are rather large files that are primarily, but not exclusively, limited to root.” Results from cat would give a summary of the file. You’d get the same results, with some degree of randomness from more and less as well. Using any command with sudo would provide the same type of results, but in all caps. Trying to pipe commands together would be a slop multiplier.
- bsjshshsb 7mo agoUse an agent for all CLI work.
- TimByte 7mo agoThis is a fun idea
- simonask 7mo agoThe lowest-key example of this is tools that enforce a particular order of arguments, or where the order of arguments carries semantic meaning. It's the worst. Please don't make me put the file name last, or first. You don't know which part of the command I'm tweaking.
- xtiansimon 7mo agoEasier to find uncomfortable websites. Back in the 90s with all the Flash, lots of peeps said these sites made them uncomfortable because they couldn’t figure out how to do anything. Couldn’t figure out the navigation. I instantly recalled a site from this era and amazeballs it’s still there! Superbad.com All hail!
- cmehdy 7mo agoRequire interactivity (ask for confirmation on cat). Output success error codes in unexpected range (see: robocopy). Use special characters to try TUI things but leave the buffer in weird states. Have many input params, and default to the most useless ones when nothing is passed. Make some params unnecessarily required. Go on very long tangents for no reason in the manpage, but keep your -h message as just the list of badly named params. Use stderr as your stdout. ---- I present to you worse-cat: wcat notes.txt error: --encoding is required. Exiting. wcat --encoding=utf-8 notes.txt ┌─────────────────────────────────┐ │ About to display: notes.txt │ │ Are you sure? [y/N/maybe]: │ └─────────────────────────────────┘ y stdout: ≈3 paragraphs stderr: [file content] echo $? 212 (I'll save you the manpage and worse-ls)
- jrmg 7mo agoThis is great [terrible].
- thenthenthen 7mo agoAh yeah thats a cool (coding) exercise! Friction is always an interesting parameter (like Brian Eno Oblique Strategies). Maybe… using a different input device than a keyboard to interact with the CLI? Like move your mouse around to choose or even draw letter?
- ChrisMarshallNY 7mo agoI’ve always enjoyed the “useless teapot” that Don Norman has on the cover of DOET: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61KtiLw7BtL._AC_UL600_SR600,600_.jpg https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61KtiLw7BtL...
- drfloyd51 7mo agoI believe it is actually called: The masochist’s teapot. I recommend this book to anyone remotely interested in design. Even today it is fantastic.
- ChrisMarshallNY 7mo agoReading it was a watershed in my life. I never look at doors, without evaluating their usability, anymore.
- al_borland 7mo agoI bought a new door for my house recently. When the salesman asked what type handle/knob I wanted, I had a bit of an internal crisis. The one he said post people got seemed like it would create a Norman door, which I desperately wanted to avoid. I ended up getting a standard knob to avoid being the absolute lunatic who spent 6 hours debating the merits of various door handles, but had I been alone, I would have absolutely done that. I still feel like I made a mistake every time I look at my door. The book was a gift and a curse.
- bluGill 7mo agoyeah, the book is something that people hate me having read. I know it wasn't my mistake and I tell them that. as for door handles, most manufactures use interchangaple knobs so you can buy two and swap. You end up with a useless mechinism (i find you rarely can find a different door that needs the reverse handle)
- PaulHoule 7mo agohttps://uxdesign.cc/intro-to-ux-the-norman-door-61f8120b6086 https://uxdesign.cc/intro-to-ux-the-norman-door-61f8120b6086
- Gigachad 7mo agoI love that these are all fairly beautiful, stuff you'd really love to have if it wasn't fundamentally unusable.
- TimByte 7mo agoIt really highlights how much we associate "good design" with aesthetics first, even though function is doing most of the heavy lifting
- eszed 7mo agoWhat's wrong about the glasses? I've been staring at them and trying to figure out why they're unworkable, as opposed to just a quirky pair of specs.
- parallel 7mo agoPointy bit on the bridge of the nose.
- starmole 7mo agothe sharp point on the bridge is going to hurt your snout.
- jaden 7mo agoThe sharp angle of the bridge would dig into your nose.
- eszed 7mo agoOoo. Yup! Thank you. :-)
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- anonymous344 7mo agoyou don't have glasses ever, i guess?
- userbinator 7mo agoIC: With AI getting bigger and more controversial and so on, have you used AI to create any of these designs? That is an interesting point to bring up, because this type of "almost but not quite right" is exactly what AI seems to naturally create.
- Gigachad 7mo agoI think the difference is AI images tend to create mush or impossible geometry. The ideas here where a minimal change to the design renders the item entirely unusable takes a fair bit of creativity.
- anonymous344 7mo agoas a designer and innovator, i appriciete this. this gives me ideas really out of box, just to see these. amazing! i also do this for ui and app logic: go to some Microslop service, they are all like these...sad but true
- whiteboardr 7mo agoIt's missing the Magic Mouse.
- ProllyInfamous 7mo agoOr the M4 Mini power button... on the bottom (both) WHY?
- fwip 7mo agoTo let the user know that you shouldn't [use it while plugged in]/[bother turning it off]. I don't like the choice, but that's why.
- metalliqaz 7mo agoThat would still be bad design if it should not be used and charged at the same time. I often charge my Logitec wireless mouse while using it.
- ProllyInfamous 7mo agoI know 3rd-parties have created work-arounds to the MacMini's switch, but for mine I just stand on its side (against a shelf's wall). Like your mouse, I just want to be able to use it.
- lelanthran 7mo agoThis is a link to the interview. here is a link to the products website: https://www.theuncomfortable.com/# https://www.theuncomfortable.com/#
- AriedK 7mo agoThis gets quite close to chindogu, the Japanese art of designing objects that kind of serve a very niche purpose, but then without being useful. https://www.tofugu.com/japan/chindogu-japanese-inventions/ https://www.tofugu.com/japan/chindogu-japanese-inventions/
- Nevermark 7mo agoi need a roller desk EV.
- ChrisMarshallNY 7mo agoI like the iPhone Control Center screenshot in there…
- TeMPOraL 7mo agoFunny how some of those ideas are obviously useful, some I even see in stores... and then turns out the selfie stick is an example too, which makes one question the whole categorization.
- cucumber3732842 7mo agoI would spend an extra $0.20/lb if my butter came in a stick (though I think the form factor should emulate deodorant and not chapstick) and would shamelessly rock the umbrella tie.
- bombela 7mo agoButter already comes in a stick. It's called a butter stick! Peel the wrapping from one end; and just like that; you got a big butter stick-stick! Is it time to model and 3D print a butter-stick stick-pusher? With a little battery and heating coil at the sticking out end. Getting a slightly soft and sticky enough butter out of the butter-stick-stick without it sticking to the stick? What a buttery sticky thought.
- thenthenthen 7mo agoEvery few years something like this surfaces, i think mostly completely isolated from Chindogu and about 50% are renders. I honestly think there is something humbling, or “un-uselessness” in making a physical object thoughto both the intended audience and creator.
- Noe2097 7mo ago"what if objects were actually designed for a bad user experience, instead of a good one? she recalled in a 2018 TED talk. That was my ‘eureka’ moment." Or, she stumbled upon some article or the very Wikipedia page about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chind%C5%8Dgu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chind%C5%8Dgu
- mkehrt 7mo agoOr you could believe what she said instead of implying that she's lying??
- mort96 7mo agoHm? That seems like a different thing? > Chindōgu (珍道具) is the practice of inventing ingenious everyday gadgets that seem to be ideal solutions to particular problems, but which may cause more problems than they solve. Nobody would look at a fork with a chain separating the end and the handle, or a toothbrush with a 90 degree bend before the head, or a watering can where the spout bends back over to face the opening, and think it seems like an "ideal solution to a practical problem". What she's doing is something else entirely: making humorous designs which are obviously, viscerally terribly suited for their purpose. The point is that you look at the item and immediately go, "oh that's horrible". Regardless, even if Chindōgu actually did describe what she was doing, I don't think "design humorously bad products" is such a unique concept. It seems plausible that two people in history could independently come up with it.
- imp0cat 7mo agoThe funny thing is that the toothbrush would actually come in handy for cleaning stuff other than teeth. For example, the inner water tank of a robotic vacuum.
- abstractspoon 7mo agoAll seems very contrived. Not what I would call creative
- thenthenthen 7mo agoAgree. Been seeing this popping everywhere up over the years. Not sure what the attraction is? Almost zero humor, zero critique, zero cultural-historical context, zero insight, zero charm and…renders. This is just a Jugaad Shanzhai of Chindogu in the worst possible way.
- Incipient 7mo agoI feel like I've seen some of these designs a VERY long time ago? Is this something old that the person was just interviewed on recently?
- Cthulhu_ 7mo agoIt does do the rounds on the various social medias on the regular. The website looks interesting enough at least.
- benrutter 7mo agoYes! (The article says the project started a while back but the writer/interviewer only just discovered it)
- Incipient 7mo ago"Kamprani began the project back in 2011" Ohh I missed that! I did actually read (view haha?) the article...
- wvbdmp 7mo agoIt’s been on HM a couple of times, first in 2017: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=theuncomfortable.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=theuncomfortable.com
- camillomiller 7mo agoThe glasses would be great for pool playing, as they would sit higher on your line of sight :)
- roryirvine 7mo ago"Snooker glasses" (with the lenses mostly above the bridge rather than mostly below) are actually a thing: https://snookerchat.com/snooker-great-dennis-taylor-tells-why-he-wore-upside-down-glasses/ https://snookerchat.com/snooker-great-dennis-taylor-tells-wh...
- rajesh_me291091 7mo ago[dead]
- TimByte 7mo agoThis is such a great reminder that "good design" is mostly invisible until it breaks
- jeisc 7mo agofor the record, I am a furniture designer class 1985 Primrose Center and I made a table without a top to demonstrate this point: https://www.jeisch.com/img/furniture/tab_no_top_1988.jpg https://www.jeisch.com/img/furniture/tab_no_top_1988.jpg and another one which is a table which is a holder for a painting: https://www.jeisch.com/img/furniture/tab_pointy_1987.jpg https://www.jeisch.com/img/furniture/tab_pointy_1987.jpg the painting which is being held in the pointy table is this: https://www.jeisch.com/img/paintings/oil_martyr_1988.jpg https://www.jeisch.com/img/paintings/oil_martyr_1988.jpg but it slides in and out basically it is a horizontal holder a painting.
- el_pollo_diablo 7mo agoThis reminds me of Jacques Carelman's Catalogue d'objets introuvables. Highly recommended. It has already been mentioned on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9789216 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9789216
- qy-mj 7mo ago[flagged]
- adrian_b 7mo agoSuch badly designed products are easy to spot by visual inspection. Unfortunately, if you go shopping in a supermarket or online, you can find a huge amount of bad products that look like they were well designed, but in reality some of their parts are made from wrong materials, and you discover this only at home, after using them for a few months, or for a few days, or even after a few minutes. For instance, I have seen devices where pressure-regulating springs were not made of spring steel, but of ordinary steel and they lost their elasticity after a very short time, making the device unusable, water buckets supposedly made of stainless steel that were actually made of chromated steel, which rusted at joints after a few months and a lot of diverse devices where parts that suffer cyclical stresses are not make of a fatigue-resistant material, so they break after a short time of use. There are countless examples of this kind and all have this problem that you cannot detect visually if the correct materials are used, or not, like you can recognize an inappropriate shape.
- GuB-42 7mo agoIt reminds me of "bazaar" shops I lived next to at some point. They had all sorts of cheap objects shaped like simple household items. Obviously, you don't expect premium quality when you buy these things, but you expect it to at least have some function, but they manage to fail at the most simple things. Examples: - Sewing needles with the eye too small to fit a thread into, they also bend as easily as a piece of wire - Tubes of "super glue" that are mostly empty, also when you press on it, it all goes on your finger instead of out of the nozzle - Screwdriver bits with tolerances so loose they don't even fit the screw, some even had bubbles inside, like swiss cheese - Packing tape that doesn't stick to carboard, at all - Steak knives that break at the handle as soon as you start cutting steak with them - "squares" that are off by more than 1 degree
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- ancillary 7mo agoI found this bit interesting: > Basically, one reason I’ve lost a lot of will to do anything is because of AI’s existence, and I don’t want to use it. Because I have zero personal time, zero time whatsoever to do anything, so sometimes I’m thinking, “Oh, I could do this task or that task so much faster if I used AI,” but I don’t want to use AI, so then I don’t want to do the task at all. So I don’t have the time to sit down and model something because I know there is a faster way, but I don’t want to use the faster way, so the thing doesn’t get done. I'm not completely sure, but I think her reasoning is that AI made it a lot easier for random people to just have the idea and translate it into an image in a minute or two, and this cheapens the whole experience for her, to the point that it no longer seems worth doing. It's sort of a funny point. I think most painters are happy that they don't have to go out and grind up snails to make their own purple pigment, but are perhaps less happy if somebody can produce a painting indistinguishable from their own effort with no manual handwork skill at all. It's like there's a minimum threshold of human skill and investment for an object to be interesting beyond its pure functionality, and functionality has little to do with art (but a lot to do with, say, software).
- PaulHoule 7mo agoThere's a certain kind of bad taste that goes with AI art like there was with NFTs. Oddly a few months ago somebody who was a few years too late DMed me on Tumblr to say he wanted to make NFTs of my photos. I played it cool and eventually asked him "which ones do you want?" which got him to pick the last 5 I posted which proves he isn't even looking. Nextdoor for a nearby city lately has been spammed my somebody who makes AI slop videos with senseless motion like a bad Instagram Reel about our police department (he's black but seems to love the blue) -- at least he has some sense of praising vs dissing people but to people like that there is not difference between beautiful and ugly, good and bad, just ceaseless motion that never stops.
- cindyllm 7mo ago[dead]
- heliumtera 7mo ago
- sehugg 7mo agoYou can see some of these objects at Musée des Arts et Métiers: https://www.arts-et-metiers.net/musee/les-objets-inconfortables-de-katerina-kamprani https://www.arts-et-metiers.net/musee/les-objets-inconfortab...
- indersonlms51 7mo ago[flagged]
- nayroclade 7mo agoI’m pretty sure I’ve used cutlery pretty close to this in some hipster restaurants.
- ndsipa_pomu 7mo agoReminds me of "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin" series where the main character (played by the brilliant Leonard Rossiter) opens up a shop called "Grot" that deliberately sells useless items. Unfortunately, he was hoping for it to be an interesting failure, but it succeeds even after he deliberately hires the worst possible staff to run it.
- metalliqaz 7mo agoApple's famous wireless mouse with the charging port on the bottom would fit into that gallery without anyone batting an eye.
- Heer_J 7mo ago[dead]
- somekindaguy 7mo agoSometimes the world changes such that two parts of a process that used to be tied together are unraveled into separate practices. Technology always plays a part in this, but AI is driving this process in many fields now in a way that is outside the bounds of what we were prepared for mentally. Usually this happens slowly enough over time that we can adapt to it sociologically or generationally such that we don't see or feel the pain so distinctly. There likely were people that were upset when commodity paints were introduced because, for them, part of painting was creating your own palate of paints. Of course, you can still do that even today, but it is no longer necessarily tied to the process of painting. This is happening in areas that we didn't anticipate it happening and happening to a bunch of them at the same time. Ignoring point-in-time AI model quality meaning that a given output is 50, 80, 95, or 99, 100, of 120% as good as a human, we have the ability to use AI now to achieve outcomes in many fields that required some sort of craftsmanship to achieve prior. People who enjoy the craftsmanship are understandably shaken up because their craftsmanship has been drastically devalued. Some people simply want to achieve the outcome and were previously frustrated by being gatekept by not having the skill or experience that craftsmanship demanded and they are now thrilled to be able to do something they couldn't before. Both of these are understandable experiences and exist/live together without contradiction.
- tech_hutch 7mo agoThe double glass (not in the article, but on her website) would actually be kind of romantic. Still impractical, but romantic.
- Reed10119012 7mo ago[dead]