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Norman door - a door which is confusing or not immediately obvious how to use. The concept comes from Dom Norman, who wrote a popular book on the subject of UI in his book, The Design of Everyday Things. There are a lot of very poorly designed things out there, including doors. Post your favorites! This is the thing that inspired me to make this thread:   I encountered this while staying at an B&B for some time. This stove + oven + countertop has a pretty glaring issue.  Up top, we can see the four burners with four lights indicating if they are hot. The heat indicators are arranged such that they mirror the positions of the burners, which is actually good design! You often see stove knobs and indicators in a flat line with graphics next to them indicating which tell you which burner they correspond to. Here, they layout easily conveys to you what corresponds to what without any additional icons that might run off with wear and without requiring any amount of thought or room for mistake. But of course, here is the problem:  Everything else is obscured! Underneath this lip of the counter, which completely blocks your vision unless you crouch, is all the buttons and knobs.  Critically, the "Is something on?" light is also down here! Complete obscured!  Many times, I would come into the kitchen and discover someone had turned on the stove but fail to turn it off, and without noticing it was still on, just leave the room, leaving it running completely unattended for hours! If you look around the back, you see that this oversight was likely the assembler's fault rather than the manufacturer.  The back lip of the counter is flush with the cabinet. It's likely the B&B owner wanted the oven facing the sink and fridge, but didn't want the overhang where the chair is now to be toward the entrance. The end result though is something which is frustrating and dangerous to use. But what horribly-designed things have you encountered? A door? An app? A forum search function?
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Oct 7, 2022 08:42
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| # ? May 3, 2024 07:56 |
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We got new badge readers on our office entrances. The old ones were very standard to my mind, if you swipe your RFID card the LED turns green momentarily and it beeps. Door is unlocked. If it fails to read (because everyone has at least 3 RFID cards these days) it stays red and doesn't beep. The new ones are twisted and punitive. If you swipe your RFID card the LED cycles through green, purple red. It does this whether the read is successful or not. If it beeps once, the read failed. If it beeps twice, the read succeeded. No, it doesn't play a sad chime when it fails. Just one of the same beeps that beep twice when it actually works. Several dozen times per day I hear people rattling on the locked door because the LED cycles and it beeped, but they didn't wait to hear whether or not it made the second beep.
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Oct 7, 2022 12:30
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my Ersa wave machine is 20 years old and runs a very specific computer that requires the use of very specific software, because industrial equipment (especially German industrial equipment). Ersa's control software for that machine is, basically, still ported from Windows 95, visually and functionally. It runs a copy of WinXP that has been deactivated for years. It takes 3-5 seconds to respond to clicking on buttons. Germans make the most unintuitive poo poo in the world regarding software.
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Oct 7, 2022 15:46
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MrQwerty posted:my Ersa wave machine is 20 years old and runs a very specific computer that requires the use of very specific software, because industrial equipment (especially German industrial equipment). I work for a German software company. We have graphs in the software. Recently, I made some changes to the UI and decided to switch to different languages to make sure it functioned correctly. It was at this point that I noticed that the numbers were not localized in German. 1/2 was written "0.5", 1k was "1,000". Germans can't even build software for themselves I guess.
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Oct 7, 2022 15:51
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Shadow0 posted:I work for a German software company. We have graphs in the software. Recently, I made some changes to the UI and decided to switch to different languages to make sure it functioned correctly. From my experience working on Bosch and Ersa equipment (Steriline, too, evidently the Italians cribbed notes from Germans), this is 1000% true. edit: that Steriline glass sterilizing tunnel could only properly stop the flow of glass into a cleanroom through a switch that turned off the belt in the cleanroom it was feeding. If the people in the vial washing room stopped the belt through the software, it turned off the heaters. This led to many 2-5 hour delays depending on how fast 2-3 people in the cleanroom realized the people in the glass room, yet again, didn't follow instructions that were not in an SOP and complete tribal knowledge, because the software was trash and didn't communicate a drat thing to you. MrQwerty has a new favorite as of 15:58 on Oct 7, 2022 |
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Oct 7, 2022 15:53
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I have light switch buttons in my building's stairwell that exist on every floor. You press it, the light goes on - great. However, you can't refresh the timer while it's on. So you either need to get to where you need to go before the timer is up, or figure out how many floors you can reach before the timer is about to expire - and then wait until it expires so you can press it again. Otherwise it goes dark while you're halfway up a stairwell.
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Oct 7, 2022 22:01
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My in-laws have the loving worst light switches I can imagine The have clicky parts, you can push. They have a slider you can move up and down. The have a light detector too! And gently caress me if I can't figure out how to work the drat things. That has to be bad ui
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Oct 7, 2022 22:20
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I just found one that, while minor in its way, really bugged me a few weeks ago. I tried to resurrect my old Wii U game console, which for anyone who doesn't know was a starter attempt by Nintendo at having a console that plays on your TV while having a wireless gamepad with a second screen for your controller. Since I hadn't turned it on in years, the gamepad had unpaired from the console. Simple, just hit a button to pair them up right? Nope. Nintendo's (then-) shiny new interface for doing this requires you to enter a randomized series of four card suits on the controller (heart, diamond, club, spade) in the order that they're shown on the TV. But the HDMI out isn't working on my console, and I can't switch to component out without having the gamepad paired. But theoretically, you can brute force every one of 256 possible combinations since your console's order won't change. But the pairing screen for your TV times out after a bit, so you have to guesstimate how long you can try before you have to reset everything before continuing. In the end, I couldn't even get that to work after a ton of trying. It just made me think the whole time about what a completely convoluted interface they designed that had a major point of failure, when it could've been so much simpler and more robust.
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Oct 7, 2022 22:42
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My apartment has no less than 3 interfaces to control the heating. In the hallway is a dial on the breaker. This controls how much total energy the heaters will charge up with overnight, when electricity is cheaper. In each room is a heating box thing. It builds up heat throughout the night based on the dial set on that individual heater. In each room is additionally a dial and a switch. I had thought they controlled the heat, but actually they simply say when to turn on the fan - if it drops below X degrees, activate the fan if it the switch is on. This is such an annoying balancing act. You have no power to adjust the heat except the day before, and only by guessing. "Tomorrow will be X degrees? Guess I'll set it to 2.5 tonight!" And then you have to decide how much each room individually should charge! The dials with the temperature on them only control the fan in each heater box, and there's no reason to ever put them below the max. If you want the fan on or off, flip the switch. Of course, the fan doesn't control the heat at all. So if it's too hot, you can't turn it off the heat anyway, it was already charged last night. Because the heaters are little more than thermal mass, they are tremendously hard to move. Many of the cables are too short to put them where I want, but extending them requires an electrician. In the end, I often need to open a window, wasting heat; or turn on a space heater, wasting electricity. Edit: And actually, I'm not even sure I have the description of what every setting does correct!
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Oct 7, 2022 22:52
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I used to have this Brother sewing machine that would start with the needle automatically aligned to the left, instead of centered. If you didn't manually change the alignment before sewing, the needle would hit the foot and either jam or break. I had that machine for twelve years and I cannot tell you how many needles I ruined.
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Oct 8, 2022 00:03
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Captain Hygiene posted:In the end, I couldn't even get that to work after a ton of trying. It just made me think the whole time about what a completely convoluted interface they designed that had a major point of failure, when it could've been so much simpler and more robust. They're also region locked for no reason! And they only ever made one screen per console, you can't get replacements, and you can't do anything without the tablet, so in a few years the WiiU is going to be even more of a brick!
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Oct 8, 2022 02:01
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My car’s radio system has a button on the steering wheel that lets you change the channels, but the order it keeps the stations in changes depending on whether you’re on the Radio screen or not. If you’re on the screen that lists the radio stations, it shows them in a descending list on the lefthand side of the screen, so the “up” arrow moves up the list (towards favorited station 1), and the “down” arrow moves down the list (towards favorited station 10). But if, say, the GPS is on the screen instead, the “up” arrow moves towards the higher numbered station (10), and the “down” arrow moves towards the lower numbered station (1). It took me way too loving long to figure this out after I got the car, and I still get it wrong after five years of owning it.
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Oct 8, 2022 05:39
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My LG microwave oven. It seems like the only time you can change the time on the clock is to turn it off and back on at the outlet. The clock then blinks and is fairly easy to change. The problem being the microwave is set in a recess about head high and the only way to access the power outlet is to get one person to pull the microwave out and awkwardly hold it at chest height while a second person turns the power off/on. Maybe there's a combination of buttons to press? Dunno. I just know it's a huge pain in the arse every time there's a blackout or daylight savings kicks in. I don't have a manual for it. Have tried  to no avail, but the model number is on the back and would require the same process to see what it is.
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Oct 8, 2022 07:05
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I ran into one on my washing machine today. We went out at 1000 and I thought we might be out until 1400, so I put the delay end to 4 hours. We ended up getting home around 1200, so the cycle hadn't even started yet. There's no way to cancel or change the delay. You can't even turn it off, you have to pull the plug and wait for a minute to reset it.
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Oct 8, 2022 10:08
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HelloIAmYourHeart posted:I used to have this Brother sewing machine that would start with the needle automatically aligned to the left, instead of centered. If you didn't manually change the alignment before sewing, the needle would hit the foot and either jam or break. I know a handful of people who sew and make clothes as a hobby, and literally every single one of them is either regularly complaining about needing to fix their sewing machine or at a loss because it's doing something weird and they can't figure out what the problem is. These are all otherwise intelligent people who I'd trust to figure out basically any problem that comes their way. I don't know if the issue is that there are a bunch of really poorly designed machines or if there's just something about them that exploits a weird mental blindspot but it's a remarkable trend. My partner has 4 sewing machines (two were gifted as "I have no idea what's wrong and I give up but you can have it if you want") and of the lot the only one that works well consistently is a Singer from like 70 years ago
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Oct 8, 2022 10:16
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Oct 8, 2022 10:37
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My rowing machine has this control panel: The display has three segments, and it tracks six categories of information. Four of those categories are on the same screen segment, which cycles between them on a timer. This cannot be changed, it's just what it does. I only care about time and calories, and I don't even have the optional attachment that makes the pulse metre work at all, but I can't have the calorie count permanently on-screen. Also, that control layout is weird. I'd have made the big central button start/stop. But nope, that's the button to cycle between each information type so you can reset them individually (or set a goal count or time). Oh, and the screen is recessed so the labels on the bottom segment don't actually line up with the indicator if you're looking at it from any angle but straight on.
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Oct 8, 2022 11:26
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In some parts of the world, light switches for bathrooms (and only bathrooms) are placed outside the room. Presumably, this is to avoid potential problems with mixing electricity and water or steam. But now you're at the mercy of anyone outside the room at your most vulnerable. 
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Oct 8, 2022 12:27
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Shadow0 posted:In some parts of the world, light switches for bathrooms (and only bathrooms) are placed outside the room. Presumably, this is to avoid potential problems with mixing electricity and water or steam. But now you're at the mercy of anyone outside the room at your most vulnerable. Actually that's good because you know whether someone's in the bathroom without having to knock.
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Oct 8, 2022 12:50
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~Coxy posted:Actually that's good because you know whether someone's in the bathroom without having to knock. Just flip the switch off and listen for the holler. If you hear nothing, it's vacant or the occupant is dead.
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Oct 8, 2022 12:59
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My wife's 2018 Mazda does not have a button to open the rear hatch from inside the car. You have to get out to open it. As well, the steering wheel controls for the radio are missing one of the two most important features. You can't skip to your next preset station. Instead, the button you would expect to do so changes the input (FM, AM, XM, etc). I'm way more likely to want to change stations while driving than I am to want to suddenly listen to AM radio... For some reason there's a dedicated physical button just to reset the tire pressure monitor? Would make more sense to put it in the infotainment center somewhere. Updating its navigation system required an SD card, the Mazda website, and paying money. The door auto lock/unlock for the fob is ridiculous. Moving even a foot away from the car will relock the doors, so if you get out and want to access the back seat, it will lock the door between you exiting the front seat and getting to the back door. Great car mechanically and aesthetically, but just bonkers software/convenience choices.
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Oct 8, 2022 14:08
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A while back I got myself a fancy daylight alarm clock to make waking up in the winter darkness a bit nicer. And while it generally works, the button layout is just bonkers. It's got some touch at the front and four tactile buttons on top, and absolutely no rhyme or reason how they're ordered or function. The buttons for snooze, disabling the alarm, and changing the light are all touch-based, so very much not ideal to operate in the morning when you're hardly awake yet and want to avoid accidentally hitting the wrong one. Three out of the four tactile buttons are for stuff you only ever use once like setting the alarm tone and time display type, but the fourth one sets the time display brightness, which is something I do every single day. Setting the time is done by a short button press on the respective button, but setting the alarm time is done by a long button hold, so it's not even consistent in that regard. Last but certainly not least are the light controls. It offers both daylight and coloured light modes, and the only way to control that is to cycle between light off -> daylight -> coloured light, with a separate control for the specific colour you want to see for the latter. So every single morning it wakes me up by automatically activating the daylight mode and the only way to then shut it off is to cycle through coloured light first (and get a faceful of maximum brightness green light first thing in the morning). They're all minor issues, but it's really apparent that absolutely nobody involved in the design ever considered how it would be typically used and how to minimize necessary button presses during regular use.
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Oct 8, 2022 15:13
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Eclipse12 posted:My wife's 2018 Mazda does not have a button to open the rear hatch from inside the car. You have to get out to open it.
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Oct 8, 2022 15:19
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wa27 posted:Funny, all of those things are not problems on my 2008 Mazda. I can't believe they still do the physical updates for the maps. At least it's an SD card though. Mine has a whole DVD-ROM drive in the glove box that's only used for the map update disc (which is sever hundred dollars). Oof. You'd think they'd have other applications for it.
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Oct 8, 2022 16:45
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wa27 posted:Funny, all of those things are not problems on my 2008 Mazda. I can't believe they still do the physical updates for the maps. At least it's an SD card though. Mine has a whole DVD-ROM drive in the glove box that's only used for the map update disc (which is sever hundred dollars). You could fill a lengthy thread with just bad car UI\UX. The biannual map update for my 2020 Hyundai is 35GB. I had to buy a 64GB flash drive just for it as it was really picky. It is fairly painless though, when you put in the drive you can tell it to start updating after you turn the car off or wait a few hours. It then sends me an email when it's complete in a couple hours. (You can drive the car just fine if it's still updating, just no entertainment system) The bad UI for Hyundai is the car is a 2020, and the UI for the infotainment has been updated three times, once quite drastically. I didn't have any HD radio info for a year. The station would play, but none of the metadata had anywhere to display until an update a year later. Now I'm glad it's not abandoned as soon as it's sold, but gently caress just give me Wireless Carplay with all these updates. The car has wifi damnit, and a lower trim had it. Figure it out. 
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Oct 8, 2022 18:02
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Kit Walker posted:I know a handful of people who sew and make clothes as a hobby, and literally every single one of them is either regularly complaining about needing to fix their sewing machine or at a loss because it's doing something weird and they can't figure out what the problem is. These are all otherwise intelligent people who I'd trust to figure out basically any problem that comes their way. I don't know if the issue is that there are a bunch of really poorly designed machines or if there's just something about them that exploits a weird mental blindspot but it's a remarkable trend. My partner has 4 sewing machines (two were gifted as "I have no idea what's wrong and I give up but you can have it if you want") and of the lot the only one that works well consistently is a Singer from like 70 years ago There's lots of fiddly little bits inside a sewing machine, and they get pretty easily gummed up with lint. A little regular maintenance goes a long way. edit: "I have no idea what's wrong" is often "has the wrong kind of bobbin in it" when it's a used machine, especially an older one. HelloIAmYourHeart has a new favorite as of 19:56 on Oct 8, 2022 |
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Oct 8, 2022 18:14
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Shadow0 posted:My apartment has no less than 3 interfaces to control the heating. This sounds particularly convoluted, but yeah, I don't understand why thermostat controls are so goddamn complicated.
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Oct 8, 2022 19:02
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~Coxy posted:Actually that's good because you know whether someone's in the bathroom without having to knock. Only if the switch is oriented correctly. My bathroom switch, hall switch, and kitchen switch are all the same style and very near each other. Up is on for the bathroom switch, the hall switch depends on the other hall switch, and up is off for the kitchen switch. (I also constantly keep turning on/off the hallway light when entering the kitchen because I kept expecting the switch there to work like the bathroom light since both sit near each other and both are directly outside their respective doors.)
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Oct 8, 2022 19:03
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Every one should be as simple as mine, an otherwise unlabeled dial that goes from "off" to "hi"
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Oct 8, 2022 19:04
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PirateDentist posted:You could fill a lengthy thread with just bad car UI\UX. Thank you so much; you have no idea how helpful you've just been to me.
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Oct 8, 2022 19:07
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my favourite bad UI? the something awful front page
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Oct 8, 2022 19:50
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Cyril Sneer posted:This sounds particularly convoluted, but yeah, I don't understand why thermostat controls are so goddamn complicated. If anyone else is confused, the term to Google is "storage heater" and they sound absolutely insane.
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Oct 8, 2022 22:17
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https://userinyerface.com/ have fun, see how far you can get without punching your monitor.
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Oct 9, 2022 20:25
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Laserjet 4P posted:https://userinyerface.com/ Completed  That's pretty great, I don't remember running across it before,
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Oct 9, 2022 20:35
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 Found in a piece of lab equipment. If you think it increases speed by turning knob to the left (counterclockwise), think again - that's an arrow, indicating direction. You gotta turn it clockwise. May be obvious, but for me that one took a bit and multiple questions as to why it was doing a bunch of nothing.
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Oct 9, 2022 20:56
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Shellception posted:
Nah, it's a dumb label. Clockwise was my natural assumption, but the arrow being underneath it made me think they reversed that for some unknown reason.
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Oct 9, 2022 21:10
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Shellception posted:
Why even bother putting "increase"? What other things can you to speed with a knob other than increase or decrease it?
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Oct 9, 2022 21:28
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The first apartment one of my friends lived in for a short while after moving out had a switch that would turn off the power in the entire apartment. This switch was identical to a common light switch, and was in fact placed below a light switch on the same wall. The only difference was that the one above it was split into three switches. Of course, the very first time I and some other friends were there, someone hit it because they thought it was just a light switch. The Nintendo Switch eShop favourites/wishlist has some baffling issues. The heart icon you hit on the game page to add a game isn't a toggle, if you hit it once you can't hit it again to remove it, it just gives you the message about having added it to the list again. Even more bafflingly, it doesn't automatically remove items once you've purchased them, you have to go to your wishlist and manually remove any games you've bought.
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Oct 10, 2022 11:56
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I've never found a more reliable way to get list entries ignored than to pin them at the top of a list ignoring any other mandatory or optional sorting.
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Oct 10, 2022 15:46
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KennyMan666 posted:... Nintendo does a lot of stuff that's just baffling. When smash bros...uh, the previous one was in development they proudly announced that if your connection dropped, it would swap in ai for your opponent so you can finish the round seamlessly. The upshot is that you can never know whether that kickass finisher you just pulled off was against a real human. It's not strictly UI, but it's a window into an alien mindset. In the current Animal Crossing's multi player, it will block new arrivals to the town if anyone has a menu open. During arrival, it takes control from all the players to show a little cutscene. If the town player limit is too high it becomes basically unplayable due to these cutscenes. Basically, Nintendo gives the impression of not taking online stuff seriously. Blue Footed Booby has a new favorite as of 16:39 on Oct 10, 2022 |
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Oct 10, 2022 16:36
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