I recently installed Windows 7 for work-related purposes, and I think this screenshot is a pretty good represenation of my experience with the operating system so far.
Come on.
All posts in “Bad Design”
Bad Design: Paper Napkin Dispenser
I’m finding it kind of funny to write about examples of bad design, so here we are again. This is another example I stumbled upon at school.
A paper napkin dispenser, looks fine and easy to use, right? Well, this dispenser is kind of a dummy, and if you pull the napkins, the dispenser doesn’t always pull new napkins down for the next person, and this suddenly reveals a new control:
A button saying “PUSH”. So, the engineers and designers at “Tork” were faced with the problem of their dispenser not dispensing new napkins, but instead of fixing the dispenser, they just added another control. Basically, the “PUSH” button just pushes a new napkin down. Dumb.
Bad Design: Door Lock
A neat example of focusing too much on aesthetics instead of usability.
Bad Design:
Sony’s PlayStation 3 Remote
I got my PlayStation 3 which is great and all, and I also ordered the Bluetooth remote. Already when I ordered it I winced at the horrible, horrible design choices and they’re even more apparent now that I’ve used it a little. Not only is it filled with a lot of useless buttons, it even has buttons that do the exact same thing! I recently bought a WD TV Live media player, and its remote looks like this:
It’s brilliant! It does everything it needs to with a minimum of buttons (17 to be precise). Now let’s take a look at the PlayStation 3 remote:
I mean, come on, this thing has 51 buttons. Who uses numbers for their DVD/Blu-ray player? I don’t even know what the “CLEAR” and “TIME” buttons do and I’ve never in my life used those colored buttons. Under those we have the four standard menu buttons, but the triangle, square, cross and circle buttons do the same thing! It’s the same with the L1-R3 buttons, which do the same as the arrow buttons underneath. It’s ridiculous, so in the WD TV Live spirit I decided to photoshop it into this:
Honestly, do you need more?
Other than the design flaws the remote seems to work fine, it’s weird not having to point it anywhere though.