Bad Design in Everyday Life

In My Humble Opinion
181

[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
My parkade at work installed a new automated ticket system, so that they could eliminate the job of the person who sits in a booth at the exit of the parkade, collecting cash from people who are leaving.

The new system requires that you take a ticket when you drive in. Then you are supposed to take the ticket with you, and when you are ready to leave you have to find a vending machine that allows you to pay for your time and validate your ticket. Then you get in your car, drive out, and put your now-validated ticket in another machine, which verifies that you’ve paid and raises the gate to let you out.

The ticket machines are only on two floors out of 9. So if you’re going from, say the main floor to your car on floor 9, you first have to get off on 2 or 4 to pay for your ticket. So the elevators are now much more heavily utilized, and slower.

There are always lineups at the ticket validation machines, because they are extremely difficult to operate.

But here’s the kicker: This behaviour in general (having to take your ticket with you and validate it at a separate machine) is so non-standard that many people don’t validate it. Instead, they drive in, take their ticket, throw it on the dash, park, and then drive out later, expecting to find a toll booth to pay for the ticket. So what happens when they get to the exit gate? They block traffic. They get confused. Then they had to read the fine print on the exit machine, realize they have to pay at a vending machine, and get out of the car and go hunt for one while everyone waits behind them.

The problem is so bad that the parkade has had to hire an attendant as a ‘runner’. He stands at the exit gate, and if someone forgot to pay he takes their money and ticket and bolts for the ticket machine, pays it for them, and brings it back.

So in the end, they saved nothing, inconvenienced everyone, and bought a whole bunch of very new, expensive ticket machines and vending machines for validating them. And the attendant no longer has a booth to sit in.
[/QUOTE]

I work at a parking lot in which the EXACT same system was installed but more finely tuned. After a person parks, the HAVE to walk past the ticket payment machine to get to where they are going. But NO ONE reads the ticket/the machine, so the exact same thing happens. In our case I mostly blame the parkers and not the system… Two times this summer some one has simply driven through the gate in the lane rather than hitting the blinking green button that says “Push Blinking greeen Button, Take Ticket and pay for parking at Adjacent Window”.

182

[QUOTE=Unauthorized Cinnamon]
Finally, my anxiety levels are greatly increased by DVD cases that require you to pry the disc out of the case, having faith that the case’s grip is ever so slightly weaker than the breaking strain of the the disc itself. Just put that nifty release button in the middle, please!
[/QUOTE]

Ooh! Ooh! My turn!

I like the cases where there are little finger depressions around the outside of the disc so you’ll be able to get hold of the disc after it pops out. But there’s a little fucking wall of plastic that stops you from grabbing the disc!

Bonus points if the case has both finger walls and no little release button.

183

11,000 views?! Did this thread get Dugg?

184

Late to the thread, as always, but this is a pet peeve of mine.

I’ve never seen a well-designed kiosk system at airline counters. The first time I encountered one in the US was at the North West counter in Las Vegas. Counters with people are easy. You line up in a single line, and then when there is an opening you go and talk to the person there. There’s a place for luggage, right next to where you stand.

Airlines have discovered that they can replace workers with kiosks. Fair enough, but they don’t design the system intuitively. At the Vegas airport, there were these kiosks, but no obvious way of dealing with luggage. No signs explaining who could or couldn’t use the machines vs. who had to use a manned counter. One huge line with people waiting to deal with an overworked attendant, and several machines empty. Finally, I used the kiosk, and it wasn’t that bad of an interface, and it did explain how to handle luggage.

I told a worker there that the system, which I was going to explain as the layout of the kiosks, etc., was confusing, he interrupted me to say that he hadn’t heard of any complaints. Sure, don’t listen to people complaining and you won’t have any complaints.

In the Salt Lake airport, there was again one long, long line for a single manned counter while several kiosks stood empty. Being experienced now, I was able to quickly use the kiosk. Why not have signs, though, and let people know who can, and how to use them?

On a United Airlines flight from Narita to the States, I noticed they had replaced all humans with kiosks. OK, I’ve used ones before, so this shouldn’t be too bad. One thinks.

The elderly Japanese in front of us freak out. They don’t know how to use this. Fortunately, United has hired a bunch of college kids to help out. Now our turn.

The first screen asks which airline in the Star Alliance. Oh, guys, we’ve been waiting in line in the United section. Can’t we get a pass on that? Second screen asks us to choose a language. Here, again, the interface is clunky. I’d say 90% of the people in line are Japanese. Maybe 9% are English speakers, with a few others thrown in. Give us one big Japanese flag and a big a US/UK flag (sorry Canadians) and then little others for the 1%ers. But nope, this is probably one interface to be used everywhere in the world.

The scanner for the passport gives no indication if you are supposed to move the passport yourself or place it on the scanner window and the scanner will move. I guess wrong the first time and it didn’t let me retry. So I get to input all of the information by hand.

Then you have to type in the address of where you are staying, such as the hotel, including the zip code. Who the hell keeps this information with them?

It goes on and on. This is just a badly written program.

Not difficult to improve this.

  1. Inform you when you buy tickets that the US now requires you to supply the address of where you are staying. Collect this info first.

  2. If you’re going to have only kiosks, give an instruction sheet to people when they join the queue. People have 15 minutes to kill, and they can be reading how to deal with it.

  3. Hi Opel.

185

My full name is equivalent to María del Pilar Pérez de Ayala Santesteban (actually mine has an 8th word), currently shown in my passport as María Pilar Pérez de Ayala Santesteban since the Spanish government decided to drop the “obvious” connecting words in multi-word firstnames.

When I lived in the US, my tickets would often be credited to Ms De, since my full name was listed as Maria Perez de Ayala… the third word is the lastname, right? :smack: I still dare anybody to get one of those self-check-in machines to accept my tickets. Last time I traveled (SwissAir), I went up to the counter and when I said “hand baggage only,” the lady said “oh, you should have used the machine!” “Take a look at my name” she looks “Ooo-k, I see… doesn’t really work for you, eh, the machine?”

I’d like to nominate the toilets at London Waterloo Station for the title of Most Single-Traveler-Unfriendly Loos In Any First-World Country. They may not win it, but they come close, it was a good thing I was traveling with a laptop carrier and a lightly loaded backpack.

The waiting area is in the second floor (first for us europeans); the loos are in the lower level but you enter from the waiting area - thus, you have these not very wide but quite high stairs to go down. With no handholds anywhere. Then you get down and you have to pay the way too narrow turnstile. Of course the stalls are tiny, but hell, if I’d had my big suitcase I would have needed to pay someone upstairs to watch it for me anyway!

186

[QUOTE=Diceman]
Another alarm clock question. Why do most clocks have a setting that lets you combine the radio and the buzzer? I can understand having two different options; some people need that obnoxious buzzing to wake them up, while other people (like me) would decide to test the radio’s resistance to shotgun blasts if they had to wake up to EEEE-EEEE-EEEE-EEEE!!! every morning. But why have an option that combines the two? Does anyone actually use this?
[/QUOTE]

Diceman, have you recently bought a clock like this?? Because I have been looking for one for years and can’t find one. I used to have a clock that allowed me to combine the two… it would start off with the radio and then after five minutes, if the radio wasn’t enough to wake you up, the alarm would go off. It was wonderful. Most mornings I didn’t have to wake up to the scary alarm noises, but I also didn’t have to fear sleeping through the radio because there was that backup.

In my opinion, this is an example of excellent design. :slight_smile:

Since that wonderful clock of mine met with an unfortunate melting accident (metal lamps can get scary hot - I no longer allow them in the house) I’ve been forced to suffer without that feature. If you know where I can get a clock like that, I would be oh, so forever grateful!

187

Another example of bad design: Those terrible automatic shoulder belts cars used to have. The ones hooked to the door frame and when you shut the door they would slide from the front of the door into place at your shoulder. Thankfully those only lasted a few years.

188

[QUOTE=Evil Captor]
I own a VCR that has a feature I have seen on no other VCR. When you’re cueing up a tape you hit “Display” so you can see when you’ve arrived at its start. But on this particular VCR, the display disappears after about five minutes of tape has rolled.
[/QUOTE]
I had one that was worse: If you pressed “fast forward” or “rewind,” the display changed (very helpfully) to “F FWD” or “RWD.” Period. The only way you could tell where you were on the tape was to press “Stop” or “Play,” and wait for the counter to reappear. There was absolutely no way to get either the LED or the onscreen display to show the tape count while you were fast forwarding or rewinding. Infuriating.

189

About a decade ago we were looking at buying a new wall oven. One oven we looked at, for some reason, had a default starting temperature of 100 degrees (F). WTF? Who cooks anything at 100 degrees?

What was worse, there was no numeric keypad for inputting the correct temperature - only ‘up’ and ‘down’ arrows that would increase/decrease the temperature setting by 25 degrees at a time. And of course, these were touchpad keys, which meant you had to press and release, press and release, over and over again to adjust the temperature.

Needless to say, we didn’t buy that particular oven…

190

[QUOTE=Runestar]
About a decade ago we were looking at buying a new wall oven. One oven we looked at, for some reason, had a default starting temperature of 100 degrees (F). WTF? Who cooks anything at 100 degrees?

What was worse, there was no numeric keypad for inputting the correct temperature - only ‘up’ and ‘down’ arrows that would increase/decrease the temperature setting by 25 degrees at a time. And of course, these were touchpad keys, which meant you had to press and release, press and release, over and over again to adjust the temperature.

Needless to say, we didn’t buy that particular oven…
[/QUOTE]

Yeah that’s a prevalent problem with many modern electronics, such as TVs, car stereos, etc. Somewhere along the line manufacturers started using push buttons instead of knobs, and instead of a quick twist of a knob to get what you want, you have to BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP keep pressing a button. Bad design, especially when you can’t hold the button down.

191

[QUOTE=Wisp00]
Diceman, have you recently bought a clock like this?? Because I have been looking for one for years and can’t find one. I used to have a clock that allowed me to combine the two… it would start off with the radio and then after five minutes, if the radio wasn’t enough to wake you up, the alarm would go off. It was wonderful. Most mornings I didn’t have to wake up to the scary alarm noises, but I also didn’t have to fear sleeping through the radio because there was that backup.

In my opinion, this is an example of excellent design. :slight_smile:

[/QUOTE]

I agree, this is a good thing. One time a co-worker was late for work because, even though his radio alarm went off, the station he had it set to was either off the air or was broadcasting dead silence, so he was not awakened as a result. A beeping alarm that kicks in after five minutes would have remedied this problem.

192

[QUOTE=Wisp00]
Diceman, have you recently bought a clock like this?? Because I have been looking for one for years and can’t find one. I used to have a clock that allowed me to combine the two… it would start off with the radio and then after five minutes, if the radio wasn’t enough to wake you up, the alarm would go off… If you know where I can get a clock like that, I would be oh, so forever grateful!
[/QUOTE]

I have one with exactly this feature - it has separate alarm-time settings for the radio and the buzzer, so you can have the radio coming on at, say, 7.30, then the alarm at 7.45. And you can adjust both entirely separately, so you’re not stuck with any given period between the two. Perfect! As an added bonus, it is radio-controlled, so the time is set automatically and it’s always accurate to the second.

It’s a Sony Dream Machine ICF-C50L, and I’m not sure whether they still make them, but Googling shows that there’s one on eBay at the moment here!

193

[QUOTE=Runestar]
had a default starting temperature of 100 degrees (F). WTF? Who cooks anything at 100 degrees?
[/QUOTE]
My mother does. When she is making bread from scratch every week, she puts the dough into the oven to rise – 100-150º would be perfect for that. (On her current oven, the lowest it can be set is 200º, so she sets it at that and leaves the door halfway open.

194

Thirds on the Charter Remote. Horrible. Almost made me move back out of state.

You’re watching something you hit Info. To scroll down the info, you have to readjust the whole remote in your hand. IT TAKES TWO HANDS TO OPERATE THE REMOTE !!!

My wife gets bored and asks, “Would you like me to turn the lights on for you?”

“yes please”

“i’m thorry”

[QUOTE=Solfy]
Seconded! And the commonly used buttons like mute and previous channel are tiny and hard to find. But the ON DEMAND button is huge, shiny, and prominently displayed at the top of the remote. I keep mixing up the specific device “on” buttons with the “all on” buttons and turning the cable on but the tv off.
The whole thing seems like a big advertising device that I’m forced to use to control my tv now. (unless I succeed in convincing my husband that this whole digital thing is overkill and go back to conventional basic basic - fat chance)
[/QUOTE]

195

[QUOTE=sinjin]
Ooh! Ooh! My turn!

I like the cases where there are little finger depressions around the outside of the disc so you’ll be able to get hold of the disc after it pops out. But there’s a little fucking wall of plastic that stops you from grabbing the disc!

Bonus points if the case has both finger walls and no little release button.
[/QUOTE]

I’m convinced that this is actually a CAD error. In other words, they didn’t actually mean to make the case like this, but the mold was made before anyone caught the problem, and they just lived with it.
The only other possible explanation is that the designer was a complete and utter moron, which I suppose, is possible,

196

It shows up all the time, with different designs. The Muppets season 1 has this problem, and the design isn’t the standard one. In addition to it’s other flaws (For instance, the discs are stacked two deep, so to get the second disc out you need to take out the first disc.) it has finger walls.

I vote for malice. Somebody out there hates us.

197

[QUOTE=sinjin]
It shows up all the time, with different designs. The Muppets season 1 has this problem, and the design isn’t the standard one. In addition to it’s other flaws (For instance, the discs are stacked two deep, so to get the second disc out you need to take out the first disc.) it has finger walls.

[/QUOTE]

I thought the Muppets Season 1 DVD case was sorta neat at first, but it seems designed so that you have to scratch up the DVDs getting them out.

198

OK, how about the LG “Chocolate” phone?
I’m an Electronics engineer, and I design and work with User Interfaces on embedded systems. The Chocolate has the most FUBAR’d UI I’ve ever run across. I don’t own one, but I have a friend who does, and I can’t believe how bad it is. She tries to get me to make some change to the phone (ring tone, etc.), and it’s like trying to use an alien device. I just don’t get it, and I pride myself on being able to figure out anything electronic.

199

[QUOTE=VCO3]
I recently bought a new iron (this one ) that falls over if you look at it funny. I can’t quite figure out what went so horribly wrong with the design process that led to this, but it will barely stand up. If I slightly bump it in any way or even set it down without using both hands to gently steady it, it flies through the air and smashes into the ground. It has two little nubs on the back that are meant to act as a sort of tripod in conjunction with the tip of the handle to prop it upright.

The other day I opened a window in a different room and the iron flew off of the board and smashed into the ground.
[/QUOTE]

The problem is in the handle. If the handle were a little more square just under the cord there, then it would make a more serviceable foot when stood up.

my WAG.

200

I bought a Dirt Devil upright vacuum a few years ago that didn’t suck. It would barely pick up dirt off a kitchen floor. But the worst part was the air exhaust vent was at the front right of the vacuum, so while you tried to vacuum it blew the dirt out of the way!