Nominations for the worst bit of design ever.

Domwells..
What is the packaging for that fantastic product …

I am always amazed at the chest freezers in supermarkets. Aldi/Lidl’s all have the slidey tops, whereas all the big supermarkets still use the open top versions. Madness for so many reasons.

I’ve done loads of energy stuff in supermarkets. The retail team trump every other dept. they are VERY protective of open chilled cases, I’ve seen someone ejected from a meeting for suggesting it.
Legend has it that govt asked them to do it and they all refused. It’s a huuuge waste. We have put night blinds on and they save a massive amount of energy, but the night stocking staff CBA to sue them most of the time.
We’ve spent hundreds of thousands doing LED lighting retrofits and they save a lot, but it’s a drop in the ocean compared to the reductions which could be made in putting a few glass doors on.

The big toilet roll dispensers that put so much resistance on the paper that you only ever get one sheet.

Those crappy metal tea pots you get in cafes which just pour tea all over the table. And the matching milk jugs that dump milk everywhere.

The Aprillia RST Futura has a sidestand down cut out switch which cuts the engine if you try to ride the bike with the sidestand down. Useful? Not when the ****ing thing decides the sidestands down when you’re doing 60 on a bend.
Audi A4 juction box including air bag warning light is under drivers seat. Move the seat back, connector can come out and you need to take the seat out to plug it back in again.

Any bulb on a modern car.

Having a system that allows you to put the wrong bulb in the sockets – single filament, and duel filament. 5w, 10w and 21w bulbs can be fitted interchangeably in the same bulb holders.

I had a weird electrical gremlin recently where if I had the headlights on and my foot on the brake the car would carry on running if I switched off the ignition and even if took the keys out. It would keep on running until either the light were turned off I released the brake. Turns out I’d put the wrong bulb in during a dark, rainy roadside fix, but it shouldn’t be physically possible to put the wrong bulb in.

I’ve done loads of energy stuff in supermarkets. The retail team trump every other dept. they are VERY protective of open chilled cases, I’ve seen someone ejected from a meeting for suggesting it.
Legend has it that govt asked them to do it and they all refused. It’s a huuuge waste. We have put night blinds on and they save a massive amount of energy, but the night stocking staff CBA to sue them most of the time.
We’ve spent hundreds of thousands doing LED lighting retrofits and they save a lot, but it’s a drop in the ocean compared to the reductions which could be made in putting a few glass doors on.

This makes me surprisingly angry. Sadly, I imagine there is studies that show sales drop by x%, if lazy feckers have to slide a lid to get at their oven chips?

Wall sockets, those stupid screws and the back boxes they screw into. Can’t believe a better design hasn’t been done for that!

all of the above esp. small car headlight bulb changes. the designer should be stood by the side of a busy road in the dark ,in the rain and made to change them one after the other for the rest of time. motorway road markings at M62 tingley junction just sort of abandon you in the wrong lane. M62 /M606 junction same,plus badly phased lights.I could go on but its the season of goodwill oh yes christmas…

Futon company sofa beds – such hideously weak poorly designed joints render the item combustable if you move it without lifting it completely (a two person job!).

Those daft toilet doors on trains that, unless you know which magic combination actually closes and locks the door, actually open to reveal the user on the pot.

This makes me surprisingly angry. Sadly, I imagine there is studies that show sales drop by x%, if lazy feckers have to slide a lid to get at their oven chips?

Pretty much their exact argument. Frozen cases generally have doors now, but they think that someone won’t buy their butter if they have to slide a flipping door and will drive to another supermarket to get it instead……..

Triangular head bolts. The only reason is to make people either buy specialist tools or take it to a dealer.

Those daft toilet doors on trains that, unless you know which magic combination actually closes and locks the door, actually open to reveal the user on the pot.

I saw this happen, they open and shut so slowly too. Poor guy had to sit waiting for it to open, waddle over click close, waddle back, sit and wait. All in front of a crowd of commuters trying to look away. 😆

In the hands of a woman:

In the hands of a man:

Hellmans mayo plastic bottles..
Hell by jimmyg352[/url], on Flickr

Absolute crock of shite. The Nob who designed it should be forced to extract every last blob of product from every bottle sold then shagged up the arse with a knotty pit prop. I had to cut the bastard in half to get the last 4 dessert spoonfuls out & I have ORDERED my Mrs not to buy anymore Hellmans products till I get a response from my sarcastic complaint to them!

the designer should be stood by the side of a busy road in the dark

I’m an advocate of architects being encouraged / compelled / condemned to spend a week living or working in the buildings they design.

I did some work recently in the marvellous new Glasgow School of Art Reid Building, with its splendid views of the burnt husk of the Macintosh Building.

The building is quite long and orientated on an East-West axis. The pedestrian entrance is at the west end of the building. The goods entrance is at the east end of the building. The goods lift is at the west end of the building. The pedestrian lift is at the east end of the building.

We have brand new roll in milk chillers in work with glass doors and belive it or not I’ve never heard so many complaints, all old people all the same complaint. They walk straight into the doors.

High-intensity LED front lights on cars – why don’t they switch off at night?

*supports essel’s Hellmans’ boycott*

Not so much a design as a specification… Alloy wheels.

Fine as optional extras for people who think a necessary drudge like driving can be ‘cool’. Yay make a wheel out of a metal thats too soft and leaky for purpose and let people pay extra for them – lets charge a fashion premium for different shaped tyres too. Especially if its a tyre profile that leaves the soft alloy susceptible to damage – win win.

Totally retarded as standard equipment. They don’t hold air and the don’t hold their shape.

Most things these days are ‘designed’ unbelievably well. If you feel differently about an item, chances are it wasn’t designed with you in mind.

Most things these days are ‘designed’ unbelievably well. If you feel differently about an item, chances are it wasn’t designed with you in mind.

Like an iPad…

…but with the greatest of respect, I do think you’re wrong.

Great Pandas

Useless

Why Jamie?

All this packaging that people moan about is designed perfectly for shipping a load of plastic tat from china to the shop shelf cheaply without the goods being damaged and still looking good when they get put out – even to the extent that the skating frozen characters dress is pinned out to the right angle – the fact that you or I spends 30 minutes with bleeding fingers won’t a)Have entered the desgners head or b) make a blind bit of difference to me buying it as I don’t really have a choice

Same goes for so much other stuff – its designed for someone along the chain but not the end user. Do you hear anyone say “oh I was going to buy a Nissan Juke but the bulbs are too difficult to change and all fit each others sockets” No of course not, but those issues probably kept the designer to budget and therefore his job.

Same with an IPhone/ipad etc – look great don’t they – Jonathan bloody Ive and his slippery metal icons sell by the million because of this and then whats the first thing everybody does? Yes put a case around it because they are fragile slippery little suckers. Not really designed for carrying around in a back pocket actually..but then they never were.

There are of course equally many examples of tragically bad design but quite often the design fulfilled the brief that was set perfectly.

Why Jamie?

All this packaging that people moan about is designed perfectly for shipping a load of plastic tat from china to the shop shelf cheaply without the goods being damaged and still looking good when they get put out – even to the extent that the skating frozen characters dress is pinned out to the right angle – the fact that you or I spends 30 minutes with bleeding fingers won’t a)Have entered the desgners head or b) make a blind bit of difference to me buying it as I don’t really have a choice

Same goes for so much other stuff – its designed for someone along the chain but not the end user. Do you hear anyone say “oh I was going to buy a Nissan Juke but the bulbs are too difficult to change and all fit each others sockets” No of course not, but those issues probably kept the designer to budget and therefore his job.

Same with an IPhone/ipad etc – look great don’t they – Jonathan bloody Ive and his slippery metal icons sell by the million because of this and then whats the first thing everybody does? Yes put a case around it because they are fragile slippery little suckers. Not really designed for carrying around in a back pocket actually..but then they never were.

I can see what you’re saying up to a point – someone can be frustrated by a design solution because the solution wasn’t focused on them ^ like the triangular bolt heads up there ^ they probably improve ease of assembly on the production line over something more DIY friendly like a phillips head- they may shave small amounts of time of each assembly that add up to thousands or millions of pounds of savings a year for the manufacturer. The designer has done good designing if that was the objective. The problem is designing is bigger than the designer – no matter how good a designer you are, in practice you can only be as good as your client. The designer is being paid by the client, but the client is being paid by their customer so no matter how happy the client is – design solutions are poor if the customer is poorly served.

and, by design, you fulfilled the contrarian brief for this thread.

+1 Weetabix and on Alfas – the Arna. Designed by Toyota (Datsun) and built by Italians…

and, by design, you fulfilled the contrarian brief for this thread.

Your saying I was designed? You haven’t gone all religious on us have you? Or is this a test designed to provoke an emotional response?

Those crappy metal tea pots you get in cafes which just pour tea all over the table. And the matching milk jugs that dump milk everywhere.

The crapness of the design is one thing but what really galls is that they have become the standard issue. why do cafe owners continue to buy them when life experience must tell them they are crap. and yet there they are, millions upon millions of them. It makes me maddddd….

Revolving doors, those ones typically fitted to Morrisson’s shops these days (other retail emporiae also attract my hate). You know the ones – 2 chambers with a T section at the end so you all squeeze in to one chamber, shuffle forward and then find that the T makes everyone stop moving to dart for the gap. Which means the people at the back are backed into the following door – which then stops the whole frigging thing.

Hateful hateful design.

Resealable rice / pasta packets… which can’t be resealed because the bastard packet is made of some ‘super-tear’ plastic which a) tears halfway down the packet and b) deposits half the contents on the floor!

Why Jamie?

First off, apologies for being so blunt.

In relation to the sealed plastic packaging, it may meet the remit of being easily packaged/shipped. But when the likes of Amazon are making an option to buy the same products, but in ‘frustration free packaging’. Then surely the design has failed one of it’s objectives, if an alternative solution has to be offered to meet the demand for non-sealed packaging.

I guess it’s probably 50/50 user error vs bad design. But that figure is so approximate, that this sentence is designed to fail 8)

Same goes for so much other stuff – its designed for someone along the chain but not the end user. Do you hear anyone say “oh I was going to buy a Nissan Juke but the bulbs are too difficult to change and all fit each others sockets” No of course not, but those issues probably kept the designer to budget and therefore his job.

Funny you should say this – I plan on doing exactly this when I buy my next car. The plan is to agree a price with the dealer but then put a clause on the deal saying I’ll only buy it he can change the bulb in less than 5 mins. I do appreciate that I might be visiting a lot of a dealers and end up with a very left field car choice but it winds the hell out of me that what should be a user serviceable part so often isn’t.

Unlike convert it may not be something which makes or breaks it for me, but it’s certainly something I consider as a factor when buying a car – my Mondeo is just about OK (you only have to remove the headlight, not dismantle the whole car, and the rear bulbs are simple), my old 406 was doable with no tools at all in under a minute for any bulb. If the designer isn’t considering that, then he’s not doing his job thoroughly.

Of course, to go completely OT, this issue should be solved by type approval legislation.

Or is this a test designed to provoke an emotional response?

Turns on Voight-Kampff machine.

Turns on Voight-Kampff machine.

if you can find the on switch – now theres a terrible bit of design

Most toasters. Dont actually fit bread in properly so the top of the bread remains untoasted. Oh and the plate drying rack i got off ebay which doesnt fit plates in it.

Tea pots that dribble – basic function is to pour
Starbucks coffee cups that do the same – but a good reminder not to buy such awful coffee
QWERTY keyboards – original reason long redundant, now it’s simply stupid
Three seats on a commuter train – three??? Two fit if you are lucky (or in first class!)
Modern deodorants – stink worse than sweat
“You are a valuable customer” – that’s why we make you wait for hours on the end of the phone

And the winner – the €

The bizarre pantagraphesque carbon contraption my mate takes to the bike shop every week for the weekly bearing change.

QWERTY keyboards – original reason long redundant, now it’s simply stupid

What would you have as an alternative through. I’ve got a label printer where the keyboard is in alphabetical order presumably to make it marketable in all territories rather than have a qwerty for the uk and azerty for france and so on. Drives me fricking nuts.

The original reason for the layout is redundant but any other layout would just be arbitrary now wouldn’t it?