"Doors with ambiguous hinges and handles that necessitate "push" or "pull" instructions."

Brilliant post (via Design Observer) about the worst designed everyday objects. Including:

1. "I always wondered why umbrellas have sharp metal points right at eye-level."

2. "The standard headphones that come with IPods."

3. "Pretty much everything ever marketed as storage for spices."

4. "The design of URLs, a pet peeve of mine. Almost all of them contain redundancies or dependencies that cause them to be way too long, or likely to become broken within a matter of months."

5. "I think many would say that the rulers of the US right now are poorly designed." (Do they mean Rulers or rulers?)

Fantastic stuff.
 

 

Comments

[Mat]

I read something the other day which I can't for the life of me find right now. But it was around the subject of badly designed products (mainly technology products like mobile phones, PDAs, MP3 players etc.) being designed to break because there is money to be made from the consumer's dependence on that product by offering them a cut price replacement or selling the 'parts' to third party retailers. Admittedly this does sound like 'one of those rumours' but it did make me wonder...

[henry lambert]

which reminds me that any door with a protruding and fixed handle should be pull. If it's push it should have a flat plate. So often you get 'aesthetically pleasing' handles which are completely counter intuitive.

[Rob Mortimer]

I think the iPod headphones are actually pretty reasonable in design terms. The colour means that everyone knows you are listening to an ipod rather than a generic mp3 player.

Best headphones ive ever had included with anything... not as good as a proper set tho of course.

[davidthedesigner]

"An ambiguous hinge" - is that something that doesn't know whether it holds a door onto a frame or is one half of a 1980s light comedy act?

[nellie apple]

Your site is superb! I’ll be back soon!

[nellie apple]

URL’s – we need a new design … or you figure it out because I hate broken links. It’s mind bugging!
Thank you! J

[Simon]

I agree with Rob about the iPod headphones. They're OK... I guess it depends on the shape of your ears!

I do have a problem with a 'design icon' not a million miles away though - namely the revised iPod Shuffle. Apple have redesigned something that was tiny to something that's a little bit tinier. The trade-off in size seems to mean that you need a dock to connect to a mac - it's too small to incorporate a USB port... kinda makes it difficult to use the Shuffle to port a file over from one PC to another. Real form over function stuff.

Another is the dreadful Alessi conical kettle. £120 to boil some water, anyone? If you pour the kettle too soon after it's finished boiling, the hot water spurts out uncontrollably of the spout. Oh, and it's got a pointless little plastic birdie that clips into the spout. Cute. It doesn't whistle, but if you forget to remove it, the scalding water will pour out of the holes in it at 90-degree angles to the kettle. A true design icon.

And don't get me started on the New Beetle and New Mini...!

Wow. I never realised I'm a design grouch! maybe it happens when you reach 30?

[caroline panico]

I store my herbs and spices in small brown glass pill bottles with circular lids with label stickers on the top (in a typewriter(??) font). They sit in a top drawer in the kitchen, all look the same 'ish' and make a nice noise when I open the drawer.....