# Stupidest product design you’ve experienced **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 25, 2023, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621 "2023-03-25T02:57:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 19
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2023, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/361 "2023-04-22T20:03:23Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > My Honda GPS once somehow got set to “Never use freeways.” In my parent’s case it wasn’t set to “avoid freeways”, because it did route them down a freeway for part of the way, then had them exit the freeway and take like 14 miles of surface streets the rest of the way. I’m sure it was going for shortest distance in their case. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2023, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/362 "2023-04-22T20:18:08Z")
Yeah, mine was definitely due to a wrong setting. Didn’t mean to imply anything else. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2023, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/363 "2023-04-22T20:29:04Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > I always thought that “Red = Hot” was universal, but it’s not. I’m not sure what exactly you are saying is stupid design here. There was a deliberate change from red=live (when green=earth) for a good and obvious reason. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2023, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/364 "2023-04-22T20:43:41Z")
My reply was to the post by Bump. Read that. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2023, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/365 "2023-04-22T20:56:57Z")
The wiring color convention that I know is that bare wire or green is ground, white is neutral (which is not the same thing as ground), and any other color, most often red or black, is live (multiple live-wire colors can be useful for things like three-way switches, or circuits that pass very close by each other). ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2023, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/366 "2023-04-22T21:06:35Z")
White wiring tagged with black electrical tape that’s dried out and fallen off is also allowed to be hot. ---
**Author:** ![Mops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mops/32/16494_2.png) [@Mops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mops)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2023, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/367 "2023-04-22T21:08:42Z")
> [@minor7flat5](#): > > The talk about dishwashers reminded me of mine: a nice sleek stainless steel under-the-counter machine that has all of its controls on the top edge of the door, hidden under the lip of the countertop. > You have to open it in order to press buttons, but worse still, you cannot read the display to see how many minutes are left. I find myself peeking in the thin crack under the countertop trying to read the flattened digits. Doesn’t your dishwasher project time until finished on the floor in front of the machine? I was under the impression that all modern dishwashers with to edge controls do that. ---
**Author:** ![abcdefghij](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/43a26b/32.png) [@abcdefghij](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/abcdefghij)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2023, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/368 "2023-04-22T21:20:19Z")
If that’s what that red blob says, it’s out of focus. ---
**Author:** ![cincinnatus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cincinnatus/32/7990_2.png) [@cincinnatus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cincinnatus)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2023, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/369 "2023-04-22T21:25:10Z")
> [@Limmin](#): > > OTOH, most modern cars have daytime running lights on at all times, which don’t affect the dimming of the interior lights. Do these count, in areas where lights on/off are governed by laws (as a few posters have mentioned)? @Limmin I understand that the running lights do not count for driving in rain in Pennsylvania because while the running lights are on, the tail lights are not, and tail lights are required then. I can’t count the times I’ve seen dark-color cars in rain or dusk that don’t have any lights on. Why don’t the dimwit manufacturers, who care deeply for our safety, or the transportation department require full headlights and tail lights full time? [unrelated: I nearly pulled from a stop sign one dusk into the path of a big Dodge Power Wagon. It was nearly invisible coming down the road. He looked at me from what seemed like only a couple feet away and gave me the finger on the way by. Incidentally, his truck was painted in full camo. ---
**Author:** ![Limmin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f04885/32.png) [@Limmin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Limmin)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2023, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/370 "2023-04-23T12:01:59Z")
> [@cincinnatus](#): > > I nearly pulled from a stop sign one dusk into the path of a big Dodge Power Wagon. It was nearly invisible coming down the road. He looked at me from what seemed like only a couple feet away and gave me the finger on the way by. Incidentally, his truck was painted in full camo Definitely a good one for a ‘stupidest drivers’ thread. ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2023, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/371 "2023-04-23T17:16:54Z")
> [@Mops](#): > > Doesn’t your dishwasher project time until finished on the floor in front of the machine? I was under the impression that all modern dishwashers with to edge controls do that. Maybe the newer ones do, but I bought this one (an LG) in 2014. There is a small LED on the front that flashes while it is washing, so there’s that. And there is about a quarter inch gap under the countertop where we can catch a sideways glance of the time, so it’s pretty easy to tell how many digits are lit–that’s close enough for me. Other than this quibble, the machine has exceeded our expectations. It was a tossup between Bosch and LG, and the reason I went with LG was because the other appliances were going to be LG. Maybe one more quibble: the manufacturers go out of their way to add many different features, all accessible via the buttons, but _nobody_ is going to carefully hand-select each option as they prepare the machine to wash dishes night after night. Please, oh please, add a couple of user-defined preset buttons that I can program to the standard wash cycle I like (e.g. Full wash, Hot rinse, Extended dry, 4 hour delay). ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2023, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/372 "2023-04-24T23:18:13Z")
Last fall I was driving a Mazda CX-5 rental car. Like most modern cars, the gauges were actually screens rather than physical gauges. That’s not a bad thing in and of itself. One thing that allows is for you to switch the speedometer between mph and kph. Neat idea. Except the speedometer on my rental car had somehow gotten set to kph, which I did not notice until I got on the freeway. Not seeing any obvious way to change it, I just set the cruise control to more or less the same speed everyone else was going. After I got to my exit and left the freeway I pulled into a gas station and started searching through the menus in the infotainment screen looking for how to change it. I couldn’t find any setting in the infotainment system, so finally I pulled out my phone and Googled it. There I found the answer – it’s controlled by an unlabeled button in the middle of the dash that looks like it should be the trip odometer reset. I guess I kind of see the reasoning – if you drive to Canada or Mexico you can just hit a button and switch to metric when you cross the border. But come one, at least label what that button does. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2023, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/373 "2023-04-24T23:52:31Z")
Which is also unneeded because most American cars with physical speedometers in the past 20 years will have the numbers in MPH in big numbers and KPH alongside in smaller numbers. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2023, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/374 "2023-04-25T00:08:48Z")
I don’t know, I think it is an improvement over having to try to read the tiny KPH numbers on a typical American speedometer when driving in a metric country. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2023, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/375 "2023-04-25T01:24:49Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > Which is also unneeded because most American cars with physical speedometers in the past 20 years will have the numbers in MPH in big numbers and KPH alongside in smaller numbers. The dual mph/kph speedos for US-spec cars date from the late 1970s. Truly modern last 5-ish year US-spec cars almost all have the speedo as a display on a screen, not a physical dial. And so display one or the other, not both. My attitude to speedometers is simple. When all the other cars are falling behind me, but not by too high a percentage of my speed, I’m doing it right. The numbers and units of measure don’t matter; not at all. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2023, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/376 "2023-04-25T01:32:21Z")
It must have been mentioned already. Anything on a car dashboard screen that you _have_ to touch while driving is an example of bad design. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2023, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/377 "2023-04-25T01:35:52Z")
Most but not all. We moved a Volvo to Canada, and had to physically replace the mph-only speedometer dial with Volvo’s kph-only one. I think it’s a 2013 car, but certainly less that 20 years old. I’m still not sure whether the odometer is now in miles or in kilometers or what (it’s a relative’s car, so I don’t have to care directly). ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2023, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/378 "2023-04-25T02:26:50Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > I don’t know, I think it is an improvement over having to try to read the tiny KPH numbers on a typical American speedometer when driving in a metric country. What I don’t like are speedometers that have absurdly high top ends. My Accord’s for example, has a max speed of 160mph. Not only am I never going to drive at that speed, I’m not even sure it’ll truly reach it. It’s an Accord, not a Lotus. As a result, any city driving speeds are squished down into the first 1/8 of the sweep on the needle. The Suburban has a much more sensible 80 at the top end and 45mph is right at the top of the dial. ---
**Author:** ![InternetLegend](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/internetlegend/32/13154_2.png) [@InternetLegend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InternetLegend)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2023, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/379 "2023-04-25T05:12:03Z")
Our Chevy Volt won’t go over 98 mph (I’m not the driver in the family who found that out). Chevrolet apparently throttles the top speed on their vehicles by design. So why does the speedometer go higher than _that_? Speaking of bad car design, we’re driving a loaner from the dealership that’s keeping our other car hostage. I was surprised when they gave us a brand-new Ford Bronco, but I suppose they’re marketing new cars while they demonstrate how difficult it is to get them to fix one we bought seven years ago. Anyway, instead of a shifter, this car has a little wheel you turn to change gears. The wheel doesn’t have any discernable stops you can feel as you turn it, so you have to look and see which letter is lit up to be sure you’re in the right gear. I was already thinking of never buying another Ford, and this isn’t winning me over. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2023, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/380 "2023-04-25T05:55:28Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > Most but not all. We moved a Volvo to Canada, and had to physically replace the mph-only speedometer dial with Volvo’s kph-only one. I think it’s a 2013 car, but certainly less that 20 years old. I’m still not sure whether the odometer is now in miles or in kilometers or what (it’s a relative’s car, so I don’t have to care directly). My Chevy was put into service in the United States, and bought at auction by a Canadian dealer. The Canadian dealer swapped out the Imperial/English everything as installed for use in the US (see NOTE below), so now the speedometer shows big km/h numbers, and small MPH numbers; and the odometer measures kilometers. Additionally, such things as the fuel gauge use symbols instead of “E/F,” the oil gauge uses a symbol, the battery gauge uses a symbol, and so on. Symbols are used rather than words in cars destined for Canada, so they can be sold in French-speaking Quebec without additional conversions. I can, with the touch of a button, switch to Imperial (MPH, miles, etc.), which comes in handy when I drive in the US. But since that’s not an everyday occurrence, I tend to keep things metric. Point is, that before the car could be sold in Canada, the conversion had to occur. NOTE: The dealer didn’t catch quite everything in the conversion. I still get a “Passenger Air Bag: On” display in English when somebody occupies the passenger seat; and the “Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear” message on the passenger-side mirror has no French equivalent posted on the window. And the little dot-matrix display on the dash is English-only: “Ice May Form, Drive With Care,” “Left Rear Tire Pressure Low.” and so on. Never mind, as a native English-speaker, if those were forgotten, it doesn’t bother me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621.md?page=18) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621.md?page=20)