Are there such things? If so my hoover should win one, put it onto “hard surface” mode and the vents from the “bag” area blow out in front of the hoover, blowing the dust around instead of hoovering it!!

So whats the worst designed item you own?

You should have got a Henry – he does a ‘suck job’, not a ‘blow job’.

Dyson with 4 foot of solid pipe at end! Useless for cleaning car unless dropped in through open sunroof! Still mostly useless. Now replaced with 20 year old vax. Total vacum heaven!

unless dropped in through open sunroof

Don’t drop a Dyson – I’m very reliably informed that they break.

Ha ha!

I don’t tolerate poor design. If it’s shite, it’s out. I’m pretty fussy.

S’actually really hard to think of something. Aesthetic, function, what category?

Cycle lights that have loads of different modes annoy me. You have tocycle through 20 different settings, just to turn the bloody thing off. Or hold down this switch for x seconds or whatever. On/off and mode switches needed, then.

Hang on, let me get me supper…

Henrys are actually outstanding, if that can be said of any vacuum cleaner. Cheap too. They take bags but I’ve heard of people running them bagless.

Dyson with 4 foot of solid pipe at end!

Pipe would imply a cylinder rather than an upright. The pipe on our Dyson (a 12+ year old one) comes off if you want to do something like a car.

Got a Tefal Avanti Toaster that is too shallow for most bread so you either have to turn the bread and burn the middle or live with an untoasted top bit.

finger: We’ve got one of those but with added fun because the timer doesn’t work

Much of the utterly useless Alessi kitchen stuff that Ms Spanner loves:

Corkscrew (in the shape of a woman wearing a long dress) that won’t let you remove the cork from the thread.
Phillipe Starck juicer – squirts juice straight into the users’s eye.

We didn’t get the kettle designed so that steam passes through the tubular metal handle when the water boils – seemed a bit too much of a sacrifice for ‘clever design’!

knees. Bloody useless.

right knees seem to be fine – it’s just the left ones that play up.

Femidoms (do not actually own any) but what was the point?

wwaswas, I could do a swap with you. Sounds like between us we have a pair of working knees.

Got a Tefal Avanti Toaster that is too shallow for most bread so you either have to turn the bread and burn the middle or live with an untoasted top bit.

We had an Tefal and found that. Thing is most toasters are like that and I hate having to take the top crust off to fit the bread in. Was actually considering taking a large piece of bread into my local Allders to test in which toasters it would fit but my wife pointed out that I’d look like a nutter and be removed.

£150 Dualit toasters that don’t pop up.

They may not pop up, but – 1. The timer works so the bread doesn’t burn.
2. They toast nice and evenly.

But yes, they are stupidly expensive

The ‘touchscreen’ section of my Sony Ericcson K850i, which is just there instead of normal soft keys.
Half the time they don’t respond, then they respond when you aren’t actually touching them.

And thoughtfully Voda has placed the Vodafone Live button on one of the ‘touchscreen buttons’ so I access Vodafone Live by accident with ridiculous frequency.

NorthCountryBoy, does the pipe not come off the hose? It does on our Dyson so you can use the hose (plus attachements) to clean your car without 4ft of pipe attached.

Posh blingy can openers from “specialist kitchen stores” that cost £20 and last 20 seconds.

Now replaced with old skool £2 jobbie from supermarket, never fails

Predictive text, the first thing I do when I get a new phone is turn it off

Was actually considering taking a large piece of bread into my local Allders to test in which toasters it would fit but my wife pointed out that I’d look like a nutter and be removed.

LOL!

Why not cut a piece of card, the same size as the largest piece of bread, and take that with out, to try for size?

That way, you’d only look slightly cranky rather than full on ‘care in the community ought really to be under full-time supervision’.

Excellent, glad to see it isnt only me that suffers from idiot designs! We too have the Tefal toaster that is too small for just about any normal bit of bread – surely thats a critical measurement when coming up with your design Mr Tefal!?

Predictive text, the first thing I do when I get a new phone is turn it off

Predictive text works perfectly for me. My sister also hated it and thought it was terrible design until I showed her how to use it. She’d misunderstood the concept entirely, and assumed that something that had become popular and widespread was actually stupid – in fact it was her that was stupid.

my wife spent years sending me texts w i t h a s p a c e b e t w e e n each letter because she couldn’t turn predictive text off and couldn’t use it. She also wouldn;t let me switch it off for her.

I u s e d t o g e t r e a l l y f r u s t r a t e d r e a d i n g m e s s a g e s f r o m h e r.

Roll top baths – no where to put your wine/whisky/soap etc

Samsung Omnia phone. Great concept and form factor – rubbish execution

Toothpaste tubes that don’t stay rolled up

LOL at the spaced text message, like you dont already get a small enough space to write in!

Our Brita filter kettle – you have to fill up a top section and then wait five minutes for the water to filter through. Then wait five minutes (okay, two..) for it to boil. Stand back when pouring as it dribbles boiling water all over the place. Rubbish.

My vaccuum cleaner (some Samsung jobby) has a big “design award” sticker on it. I’m assuming it refers to a bad design award rather than a good one.

When towing it along, it will eventually manage to turn upside down and slide on the lid rather than roll on a pair of huge wheels, and then those huge wheels stick out about 5mm from the body, thereby ensuring that they will catch on a door frame, and when you nudge it with foot, the next time you tow it along it flips upside down… again!

Actually, our vaccuum cleaner’s not the best either – an Electrolux, Dyson based thing. We bought it as it was advertised as being THE hoover for pet owners. It even comes with an attatchment called a ‘pet-paw’, which has its own spinny brush, and is supposed to pull pet hair from curtains, stairs, etc.

Well, the ‘pet-paw’ blocked up after the first use and had to be taken apart, cleaned and screwed back together. Don’t bother with it now. And this hoover is twice the weight of our old one. Bah.

The sidestand switch on an Aprilia Futura. The switch connects to a relay via about 2 ft of cable, Getting to the switch to replace it – easy, but the cable disappears into a black hole and without removing the relay block and petrol tnk i cannot see how to remove the cable, Asking the Internet – the answer is to not bother and just short the switch completely. Instead, I’ll cut the old cable and splice the new switch in, but surely just using a block connector to disconnect the wire from the switch would have been easier.
Fekkin Italian bikes.

The UK banking regulatory system

ah another hoover thread, how convenient!

which is the worst hoover, my vote has to go to the (now defunkt) woolworths own vacuum, the dust cylinder used to fall out and self empty when ever near to the end of hoovering giving a cleaning and additional “bonus round”, thankfully it actually spontaneously combusted and left my (1st floor) apartment via an open window! 😀

Predictive text works perfectly for me. My sister also hated it and thought it was terrible design until I showed her how to use it. She’d misunderstood the concept entirely, and assumed that something that had become popular and widespread was actually stupid – in fact it was her that was stupid.

Isn’t predictive text intended for people who like to type in English rather than presenting a stream of aural letters that make sense purely to someone who can’t understand more than one form of communication like a spasticated gibbon?

DELL PC’s

why don’t they just ignore any size standards and make their own rubbish parts, which break down, and need replacing with massively over priced spares.

ohh wait, they do!

I like the carpets in my car. Whoever designed it had really thought it through

Its a family estate car. So likely to be owned by someone with kids/muddy dogs/mountain bikes etc. I know! Lets fit it with white carpets. Genius!

We bought a dualit coffee pot thingee. Coffee grounds never stayed in the little hopper, coffee tasted burned and it was a b*tch to clean. Anyone want to buy it, one careful owner, nice and silver and stuff to match your expensive kitchen gadgets.

White carpets?! Thats just moronic in an estate car!

like the carpets in my car. Whoever designed it had really thought it through

Its a family estate car. So likely to be owned by someone with kids/muddy dogs/mountain bikes etc. I know! Lets fit it with white carpets. Genius!
Binners said

Even more genius that you bought a car knowing your family hobbies and you got one with white carpets 🙁

I like the rest of it apart from the carpets though. But… point taken…. I am an idiot!

White mountain bike saddles