7 Good and 7 Bad design I encounter in one day
Story of a recently inaugurated student to design.
Nowadays I started seeing things through a designer’s vision. This phenomenon introduced me to a whole new world where I frequently find myself being in an interrogative situation with products. These acts keep me busy enough for a day. Now maybe someone is wondering how a designer sees products. For those people, some questions need to be asked to elaborate product anatomy. Like these-
- Is the product useful?
- Is the product balanced?
- Is the product understandable to the user?
- Is the product honest?
- is the product well planned to the last detail?
- is the product environment friendly?
- does the product possess purity and simplicity?
With these questions being in the back seat of my mind, I started my day in a diligent way. The first product that caught my attention is toothpaste.
- (+1) Nowadays toothpaste comes in a collapsible tube which prevents the paste from outbursting. This tube gives the user precise control of the paste flow. Thus in spite of not being in a conscious state the user never experiences a confused or bad feeling using this product. This is why Toothpaste in tubes is used throughout the world and has been a very successful invention.
After finishing my morning grooming routine I needed to sort my laundry problem and there I encountered the product Surf Excel Matic.
- (+2) Now, this product has two caps and both are for different use. The outer cap has a small and scattered bumpy texture over the cap head. This surface is used for rubbing the stained portion of the cloth before putting it into the washing machine. So there is no need for an extra tool to carry and use. Which shows a minimalist approach to a problem. The other cap has a unique shape that helps to measure the liquid detergent for the task at hand. Which is adding a purposeful function to the cap.
While all the hard work is done by the washing machine I wraped my bathing session and went for a sacred exercise of the day. After my prayer, there is a ritual of lighting an incense stick devoting to God. There I found the Safety Matchbox to be very impressive.
- (+3) This little product is capable of producing fire after rightful strike without having any powerful odors, toxic ingredients, expensive manufacture, complicated and dangerous use. The use of red phosphorus is a very genius way to prevent self-igniting fire. Matchbox is a great designed product as it fulfills the purpose of lighting fire, being very inexpensive, a very mobile product, easily placed in any space, and biodegradable.
As the Ambrosial scent purifies the whole room I prepared myself for work. While setting up my workstation I found myself in a very bad situation. The placement of the USB port on my laptop is the reason.
- (-1) The placement of the USB port on the left-hand side of my laptop is a very irritating one. Whenever I try to use the USB port inattentively I end up putting the USB in the LAN port. So the LAN port tends to get damaged quite often. Which hampers my fresh mind and Productivity, and also giving stress on my wallet. Thus it offers a bad user experience.
I didn’t expect to encounter back-to-back bad User Experience after the USB port disaster. And yes it was my keyboard which made me face it again.
- (-2) As I placed my keyboard on the desk pad and tried to move as per my ergonomics, the foldable legs collapsed on their own. Then I noticed throughout my session it happened numerous times. Then I started looking for the reason for this strange behavior. The very act of putting a rubber surface at the end of the foldable legs put them at a disadvantage. The purpose of the rubber surface on the foldable legs was to provide more stability on a smooth surface. But lack of a clip or position holder completely changed the user experience from good to bad as I was working on a desk pad that has a matte and rough surface.
As the keyboard gave me a hell lot of an experience I automatically searched for good and bad features on my over-the-head headphone and guess what I found. A couple of good features on that product.
- (+4) This product doesn’t have any fixated wire for connectivity but a jack instead. That helps the longevity of this product. Most of the wired headphones tend to dysfunction after a period of time for bad quality or some other issue with the wire. Whereas if some problem happens to the wire of this product one can easily replace the AUX cable as it is largely available in the market. This product is equipped with revolvable speaker units which help the user to carry the product more easily and in a hassle-free manner.
As time went by I ended up having a need for Scissors for my creative content. There I recognized a product from my childhood. A foldable scissor.
- (-3) This product was introduced in the goodwill of making Scissors easier and safer to carry as they became small after fold and having no sharp and pointy edge. The problem lies in the targeted customer portion. We, Indian people, generally have a thick finger. It is super hard to put fingers into the scissor handle as it is too small for a general Indian’s finger. Even if someone is able to put their finger in, then for lack of Ergonomics this scissor gives you challenges to operate.
At the time I was accumulating my memory down the memory lane the clock hits 12 o clock. Out of pure desperation, I ran towards our refrigerator and opened the freezer compartment for some ice so that I could have some chilled juice. There I noticed the shape and sitting position of the Ice Tray is a bit different.
- (+5) Upon close observation, it appeared that there are two knobs in front of the tray. If you twist that knob then all the ice in the ice tray drop-down on another tray for collecting the ice cube. This feature helps me to stay away from the painful past experiences of demoulding the ice from the ice tray. There is also a good sign for describing which way to twist the ice tray so that any new user can follow the instruction and at the end of the process gets a consistently even shaped ice cube.
After enjoying my delicious chilled juice I needed to focus on the project at hand. There I was stuck after a point, and could not understand an interface to edit photos. That was Snapseed.
- (-4) Snapseed has a complicated interface that is more suitable for an advanced user. When you go through the tools menu there are so many flat icons and small illustrated pictures to understand the function of any icons. After opening one of the illustrated icons there are even more Bizarre controls to tweak your photos. For a new user, this experience is not user-friendly.
My work routine was a bit exhausting after a long period of time. As I intended to add some nicotine to my system for further work I was face to face with a very well-designed product. Yes, it’s Rolling Paper.
- (+6) The rolling paper has a very easy-to-understand packaging. The way this product appeals to a user to use the product is very simple. the clean and intelligent packaging of this product is the key to approach the users. when a user pulls out a sheet from that packaging the next paper or sheet comes out slightly so that the next paper pulling event will be not a problem and happens smoothly.
As the day was about to come to an end I intended to do some grocery shopping. As for the Covid-19 issue, I could not get out to the shopping mall. But not to worry about that, cause Spencer’s gives door-to-door delivery.
- (+7) the Category interface of spencer’s is good. The colorful picture and original groceries are alike from a visualization perspective. There under that panel, they offer you a sub-category that has bold fonts. The search for groceries was never so exciting.
I scheduled my exercise at the time of dawn. After getting all the groceries I was getting prepared for cycling. then I realized I need to grab the Pumper and blow some air into the tube.
- This pumper has a good innovation going on. This product has a clipped mouth for one user’s work purpose. But that feeling was overpowered by two bad designs.
- (-5) First, the clip for the tube holder is designed in such a way that, if you place the tube there, it will not hold it for a long time. The head or end portion of the tube is comparatively heavily weighted. So whenever one tries to put the tube in its own place it starts to drop off the clip.
- (-6) Second, the junction place where the tube meets the pumper’s body is inserted vertically. Therefore the moment one tries to fill in air to the tire, the tube of the pumper embraces crease and sometimes in the future it will get detached from the body. As for the placement of the tube, the user needs to put the pumper very adjacent to the wheel or it will show signs of tear.
As I took my cycle and went for a little cycling session, I felt some discomfort around my right ear. The Bluetooth wireless headset which I was wearing, was about to drop off my ear.
- (-7) This product Doesn’t have a sense of balance and aesthetic. If a user is about to use the product while running ,then this headset will surely fall off from the ear cavity. This product possesses an extra battery unit on the right side. As a result, in a case of heavy movement, a user can’t feel equal motion around the neck. Which will surely lead to a bad user experience as he or she will be constantly adjusting the earpiece.
Now if you are wondering what all the (+ve) and (-ve) numbers are about. It is a serial number while (+ve) means GOOD and (-ve) means BAD. After such a long and quite exciting day, I felt like —
Bad design is like Driving on a smoggy weather while Good design is like driving on a clear winter morning.
