Random Thought of the Day

Yeaaaah. If you are going to put a slogan across the front of your vehicle - you should probably make sure it's readable to the cars in front of you.

Like when I am in front of your vehicle and I look in my rear view mirror. I shouldn't have to translate it because it's backwards. It should appear like normal - like the Ambulance text appears in my rear view mirror. I'm guessing you put that on there so folks could read it when you're sitting behind them in traffic, right?

Today the truck behind me had a slogan on it that read:



Not that it's all that hard to figure out what it says, but still - wouldn't you want the sign to appear to the person in front of you as: Turn it On! ?? (FYI: it was for an appliance company).

how to make your product unusable

Arrange action icons by color coordination, rather than the action they perform. Ya good move. That's usable. Because color coordination should always trump usability. Because the sign out icon should appear before the search. I mean search isn't important right? YEAAAHHHH

Come up with a design that is so confusing - you can't even explain it to the people you are trying to get to approve the design. Ask the people you are explaining it to, what you meant. Cuz we know somehow.

Bad Product Design

So being a UI Designer I am always trying to make things easier to use. I need to make sure that the product meets the mental model of the user. Well and I am passionate about what I do.

So I am always analyzing other products for good and bad. Like the iPhone - it's a great design, although the scroll initially annoyed me because you have to move your hand in the opposite direction than I had expected, but I quickly learned the behavior, and have no more issue with it.

Donald Norman's Design of Everyday Things is a great book about this whole subject. He's also written Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things - which I haven't read yet - it's on my list of things to do. And he just published a new book: The Design of Future Things that is getting mixed reviews. But I will have to check it out for myself to decide.

Now onto the bad design that has been making me nuts. I bought a plug in air freshener from Bath and Body Works. You take this oil thing and screw it into the thing that plugs into the wall. It smells really nice - I'm enjoying that at least.

However, to screw in the scent thingy - you have to screw it in counter clockwise! To screw it out - you screw it out clockwise!! WTF??? Who does this? For years maybe hundreds of them, people have screwed things in clockwise and unscrewed them counter clockwise. It's a UNIVERSALLY accepted way to do things!!!!!! All items I have ever encountered before that had to be screwed into something worked with this model. So because I already have a mental model of how this works.. righty tighty, lefty loosy - I assumed this would follow the universally accepted model..... but nooooooooo why should millions of products built to a certain standard make them think it's a good idea to follow that?

On one hand I've only had to change out the oil thing 3 times, but on the other each time it makes me angry that it's backwards!