Ministry of cr4p design...... my submissions
Discussion
So, many years ago I remember a topical comedian (possibly Ben Elton) talking about everyday items that are very poor design.
He used the term "Ministry of cr4p design" and it got me thinking, what everyday items do you use that are very poorly designed?
I'll get the ball rolling with 3 items I think fit the bill:
1. Those stainless steel teapots used in cafes and motorway services etc, why can't they pour straight, how hard can it be to design a better spout?
2. This Lakeland microwave warming pot:
The ridiculous design of the lid which makes it difficult to get off and on
3. My Land Rover key fob. Why can't it just have a conventional blade instead of the silly "servo assisted" slot into which it goes, and will no doubt fail one day?
I know they are all 1st world problems, but really, why are some designs so poorly thought out?
He used the term "Ministry of cr4p design" and it got me thinking, what everyday items do you use that are very poorly designed?
I'll get the ball rolling with 3 items I think fit the bill:
1. Those stainless steel teapots used in cafes and motorway services etc, why can't they pour straight, how hard can it be to design a better spout?
2. This Lakeland microwave warming pot:
The ridiculous design of the lid which makes it difficult to get off and on
3. My Land Rover key fob. Why can't it just have a conventional blade instead of the silly "servo assisted" slot into which it goes, and will no doubt fail one day?
I know they are all 1st world problems, but really, why are some designs so poorly thought out?
Filton-flyer said:
1. Those stainless steel teapots used in cafes and motorway services etc, why can't they pour straight, how hard can it be to design a better spout?
I had an interview years ago with a company that made those tea pots. When they said Do you have any questions I should have asked why they couldn't make them pour properly!Pushbutton taps, usually in service station or public toilets, that only work while you hold the button down. How the hell are you supposed to wash you hands properly if you can only do them one at a time?
Garmin 610 watch, the touchscreen is activated by swiping right to left, meaning if you move your sleeve back to see the watch and accidentally brush the face with your hand you have to wait for it to start up and revert back to the time display. As most people wear their watch on the left surely a left to right swipe, or even user configurable, would be better.
Most car headlight mounts, some manage to make it really easy to change a bulb, others need you to dismantle half the car or train an army of spiders to access the bulb through a half inch gap.
Garmin 610 watch, the touchscreen is activated by swiping right to left, meaning if you move your sleeve back to see the watch and accidentally brush the face with your hand you have to wait for it to start up and revert back to the time display. As most people wear their watch on the left surely a left to right swipe, or even user configurable, would be better.
Most car headlight mounts, some manage to make it really easy to change a bulb, others need you to dismantle half the car or train an army of spiders to access the bulb through a half inch gap.
High beam stalks on modern cars.
In the past I had several cars whereby you pulled back on the stalk to flash highbeams - and pushed it forward to leave them on.
More recently car designers appear to have adopted stalk designs that make you pull back and release to flash, leave on and disengage.
This IMO has several disadvantages over the former design.
1. It’s too easy to overdo a flash and end up putting the beams on full. With the former design this was impossible to do as the flash and full on funtions required a very different action.
2. It takes longer to disengage the high beam in the face of oncoming traffic. With the former design all you had to do to disengage high beam was to apply slight backwards pressure to the stalk and it would automatically pop back into non-highbeam position. With the later design, you have to pull the stalk all the way back - then release it again to disengage high beam.
It might only be a little thing - but it really annoys me.
In the past I had several cars whereby you pulled back on the stalk to flash highbeams - and pushed it forward to leave them on.
More recently car designers appear to have adopted stalk designs that make you pull back and release to flash, leave on and disengage.
This IMO has several disadvantages over the former design.
1. It’s too easy to overdo a flash and end up putting the beams on full. With the former design this was impossible to do as the flash and full on funtions required a very different action.
2. It takes longer to disengage the high beam in the face of oncoming traffic. With the former design all you had to do to disengage high beam was to apply slight backwards pressure to the stalk and it would automatically pop back into non-highbeam position. With the later design, you have to pull the stalk all the way back - then release it again to disengage high beam.
It might only be a little thing - but it really annoys me.
A pair of secateurs that had a plastic sliding clip for keeping the blades closed when not in use. Except that every time I cut something with it, your fingers moved the clip into the closed position. I ripped the damn thing off in the end. Bonus annoyance - there's no provision for hanging it from a hook in the shed.
I can't quite believe nowadays that car manufacturers, even the prestige ones, still think that it's OK to seal the gap between the manual gearlever and the housing with a piece of pleather; to me it just looks cheap, and amateurish.
Then after a few years when it wears it just looks worse - surely they can come up with a more professional design?
Then after a few years when it wears it just looks worse - surely they can come up with a more professional design?
Bathrooms.
Or at least everything inside them is just so messed up when it shouldn't be.
Baths that leak.
Showers that piss water all over the floor.
Cold showers, lukewarm showers, showers which have to be turned to a trickle in order to get warm water.
Toilet paper.
Toilets with holes too small or fekking shelves in them. Wtf is there a shelf in a toilet bowl? I don't want to inspect it FFS, I want to get rid of it, quickly and odourlessley.
Pop up wastes that you can't get hold of the tiny operating knob, when activated they leak anyhow.
Trendy basin taps which just defy any kind of initial normal use. It used to be simple; cold was a blue spotted tap on the left, on the right was a tap with a red spot. I walked into a bathroom last week to be greeted with a chrome stick. It took five minutes to work out wtf I was supposed to do with it, I only wanted to wash my hands in warm water!
Or at least everything inside them is just so messed up when it shouldn't be.
Baths that leak.
Showers that piss water all over the floor.
Cold showers, lukewarm showers, showers which have to be turned to a trickle in order to get warm water.
Toilet paper.
Toilets with holes too small or fekking shelves in them. Wtf is there a shelf in a toilet bowl? I don't want to inspect it FFS, I want to get rid of it, quickly and odourlessley.
Pop up wastes that you can't get hold of the tiny operating knob, when activated they leak anyhow.
Trendy basin taps which just defy any kind of initial normal use. It used to be simple; cold was a blue spotted tap on the left, on the right was a tap with a red spot. I walked into a bathroom last week to be greeted with a chrome stick. It took five minutes to work out wtf I was supposed to do with it, I only wanted to wash my hands in warm water!
Halmyre said:
A pair of secateurs that had a plastic sliding clip for keeping the blades closed when not in use. Except that every time I cut something with it, your fingers moved the clip into the closed position. I ripped the damn thing off in the end. Bonus annoyance - there's no provision for hanging it from a hook in the shed.
Exactly my kind of gripe! If you look at it in terms of design, how much extra would it have cost (both monetary and time) to design in a hanging hook......precisely f
k all!I swear most designers never actually use the products they design!
My Clarke power drill, which has the rotation direction switch (which moves really easily) right alongside the power trigger. So every few times I use it, I wonder why the thing isn't actually cutting, and it's because I've caught the direction and the drill is turning backwards again.
You can just see the flimsy black tag above the yellow power switch. How often does anyone need to switch the rotation direction on an electric drill that it needs to be so easy to get to, and so easy to move? Is there an operation that I can't think of that includes frequently switching direction?
ETA - that might not be my actual model of drill, but it looks quite like that, and if that's a different model, it shows they've got two with the same poor design.
You can just see the flimsy black tag above the yellow power switch. How often does anyone need to switch the rotation direction on an electric drill that it needs to be so easy to get to, and so easy to move? Is there an operation that I can't think of that includes frequently switching direction?
ETA - that might not be my actual model of drill, but it looks quite like that, and if that's a different model, it shows they've got two with the same poor design.
Edited by droopsnoot on Tuesday 30th January 13:11
jhonn said:
I can't quite believe nowadays that car manufacturers, even the prestige ones, still think that it's OK to seal the gap between the manual gearlever and the housing with a piece of pleather; to me it just looks cheap, and amateurish.
Then after a few years when it wears it just looks worse - surely they can come up with a more professional design?
8th gen Civic. Then after a few years when it wears it just looks worse - surely they can come up with a more professional design?
jhonn said:
I can't quite believe nowadays that car manufacturers, even the prestige ones, still think that it's OK to seal the gap between the manual gearlever and the housing with a piece of pleather; to me it just looks cheap, and amateurish.
Then after a few years when it wears it just looks worse - surely they can come up with a more professional design?
I guess they all have to keep the gate covered, in case they get accused of trying to imitate Ferrari.Then after a few years when it wears it just looks worse - surely they can come up with a more professional design?
Indicators in modern cars. It used to be easy to cancel an indicator; nowadays it seems that unless one uses exactly the right number of ounces of pressure on the right part of the stalk, one ends up indicating for the opposite direction, possibly leading other road users to conclude one is some kind of slack-jawed, drooling incompetent.
droopsnoot said:
My Clarke power drill, which has the rotation direction switch (which moves really easily) right alongside the power trigger. So every few times I use it, I wonder why the thing isn't actually cutting, and it's because I've caught the direction and the drill is turning backwards again.
You can just see the flimsy black tag above the yellow power switch. How often does anyone need to switch the rotation direction on an electric drill that it needs to be so easy to get to, and so easy to move? Is there an operation that I can't think of that includes frequently switching direction?
ETA - that might not be my actual model of drill, but it looks quite like that, and if that's a different model, it shows they've got two with the same poor design.
When using an auger you need to find F & R pretty easily, but I do know what you mean, that design is 10 - 20 years old too.You can just see the flimsy black tag above the yellow power switch. How often does anyone need to switch the rotation direction on an electric drill that it needs to be so easy to get to, and so easy to move? Is there an operation that I can't think of that includes frequently switching direction?
ETA - that might not be my actual model of drill, but it looks quite like that, and if that's a different model, it shows they've got two with the same poor design.
Edited by droopsnoot on Tuesday 30th January 13:11
Europa1 said:
Indicators in modern cars. It used to be easy to cancel an indicator; nowadays it seems that unless one uses exactly the right number of ounces of pressure on the right part of the stalk, one ends up indicating for the opposite direction, possibly leading other road users to conclude one is some kind of slack-jawed, drooling incompetent.
I'd add to that - the stupid funky designs that car manufacturers think they need to apply to rear lights now means that half the time you can't see the damn things are indicating anyway!227bhp said:
Toilets with holes too small or fekking shelves in them. Wtf is there a shelf in a toilet bowl? I don't want to inspect it FFS, I want to get rid of it, quickly and odourlessley.
Its to inspect for worms. They are really common here in Germany where they traditionally eat a lot of meat. Our house has 2 "inspection" toilets. They do come in useful if you like photographing your master pieces..Filton-flyer said:
3. My Land Rover key fob. Why can't it just have a conventional blade instead of the silly "servo assisted" slot into which it goes, and will no doubt fail one day?
I'd like to extend this to all modern key fobs. They're all far too massive, unnecessarily so. This is a 2 series FOB:
And they're mostly empty plastic. The PCB is half the width and length of the FOB, including the battery it would be less than half the depth too. The length is determined by a physical key (the top of the FOB with the electronics slides out) but I'm sure that can be shrunk a little too so why are they made so large and hard to pocket?
And the 2 series isn't that bad, a Jag XE is twice the size (although an XE is designed for octogenarians, so that is the smallest object they're capable of seeing).
If they insist on making key fobs so stupidly large... can they at least put something useful in the empty space like a torch?
jhonn said:
I can't quite believe nowadays that car manufacturers, even the prestige ones, still think that it's OK to seal the gap between the manual gearlever and the housing with a piece of pleather; to me it just looks cheap, and amateurish.
Then after a few years when it wears it just looks worse - surely they can come up with a more professional design?
What, you mean like real leather?Then after a few years when it wears it just looks worse - surely they can come up with a more professional design?
Gassing Station | The Lounge | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff