I first read Donald Norman’s the Design of Everyday Things a decade or so ago. It made me realise that whenever I can’t use a kettle or a telephone or even a door it’s not my fault. Somebody, somewhere, made a poor design decision. It’s never user error, always designer error. Ever since then I’ve kept an eye out for atrocious designer errors.
Last week I was staying in a hotel in the South West of England. Hotel shower fittings are notoriously badly designed and every badly designed shower fitting is badly designed in its own way. The one in this hotel room was, however, the worst I’ve seen in a long time.
I’ll give $50 of Amazon vouchers to the first person who can tell me how this fitting is meant to work and why I found this one particularly bad (note you need to do both for a chance of winning). I’ll also give $50 of vouchers to what I judge is the best design critique, at my discretion.
BTW, based on a straw poll here at Red Gate I think my money is safe.
Here it is:
Post your answers as comments to this post …
Next week I’ll tell you why this design is so bad. Subscribe to the RSS feed and don’t miss out.