Design Flaws That Ruined Gadgets
by James Marzano on Mar.09, 2009, under User Experience
Seth Porges over at Popular Mechanics has published a nice little list of some design flaws in current gadgets that are unacceptable. I like his rules (usability guidelines) that he publishes with each example…
- No Product Shall Harm Its User
- Products Shall Not Have Unintended Actions
- Avoid Overloading on Functions
- Handheld Products Should Not Be Slippery
- Touchscreens and Lag Do Not Mix
Some gadgets have famously bad designs. The N-Gage gaming cellphone looked like a Chocotaco, and it was nearly impossible to silence the Furby’s sadistic squeals without removing its batteries. Thankfully, the days of major companies releasing design trainwrecks are mostly over. That’s not to say that every new gadget works the way we want it to. Far from it. Rather, these days, you’re far more likely to find a product that almost does it right, but is still plagued by some singular fatal flaw that causes it to be buggy, frustrating, or even physically painful. Here are five recent gadgets whose designs failed in some simple way.
5 Design Flaws that Ruined Otherwise Smart Gadgets >>
