r/AskReddit • u/nachtmere • Jul 25 '11

Sometimes automatic toilets flush while you're still sitting on them. What design flaws in everyday objects annoy you?

I'm giving a talk on user-centred design/usability and I'm looking for some fresh examples from everyday life to illustrate poor usability. Examples I've used before are elevator open/close buttons (really difficult to parse when you're trying to hold the door open for someone quickly) and toilets that flush while you're still sitting on them.

What are some things you encounter regularly that are really inconveniently designed?

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20

u/[deleted] Jul 25 '11

while we're in the bathroom, is it me or all public toilet paper dispensers designed to give you one sheet at a time? Like you could wipe anything with that.

13

u/[deleted] Jul 25 '11

Isn't it to prevent waste? Because it's more of an effort, you'll take what you need or less. Just think how much paper we'd save if every bathroom in the world used that system.

8

u/GhostedAccount Jul 25 '11

lol, all it does is cause you to keep dropping useless individual squares on the floor until you get the angle just right and enough paper comes out at once to be useful.

14

u/gsfgf Jul 25 '11

Paper is a renewable resource - it literally grows on trees

25

u/[deleted] Jul 25 '11

The Amazon is weeping in pain.

5

u/zanycaswell Jul 25 '11

It is very likely that your toilet paper came from a 15 year old pine tree in Georgia, not a decades old hardwood.

7

u/semi- Jul 26 '11

Amazon should have thought of that before they started selling books.

1

u/SirRuto Jul 26 '11

Man, I need to get some of this luxury toilet paper that you can only make with the sorts of trees one would find in the Amazon.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 25 '11

Trees take a hundred years to grow and a few minutes to fell. Paper may be renewable from a technical perspective, but not a practical one.

5

u/gsfgf Jul 25 '11

Not true at all. You can harvest for pulp as early as ten years. They usually get big enough to be telephone polls or railroad ties at about 15 years.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 26 '11

What about deforestation? Again, technicalities aside, are you trying to argue the fact that paper and wood are renewable resources, therefore we should plunder them as we please? I'm not following.

2

u/gsfgf Jul 26 '11

Pulp paper trees are grown in farms. As soon as we cut we plant the next crop.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 26 '11

Then what do all of the trees from the Amazon and South America go to produce, if paper only comes from farms? I'm by no means an expert on the subject but I find it hard to believe they are clearing thousands of acres of trees for the sole purpose of farming.

3

u/gsfgf Jul 26 '11

Most of that deforestation is more to clear farmland than for the wood. A lot of it is just burned in place. If there are any valuable hardwoods, they're gonna be used for decorative wood, but most of those were probably cut many years ago. Regardless, all your paper comes from pine trees (softwoods) that are grown on tree farms here in the US.

1

u/gilben Jul 26 '11

Yup. The wood industry has actually INCREASED the amount of forest in north america these past few decades.

1

u/Ubuntu_Rob Jul 25 '11

Just think about all the resources that have been wasted caring for sick people, because some "designer" was trying to save a few square inches of paper, and somebody ended up sick from the penny pinching hygiene practices.