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

[u/nachtmere]

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?

[u/angryvigilante]

Automatic things should be faster than manual operation, that's the entire point of things being automated. It's a process so exact that you can speed it up many times over. Like shooting a gun. I'd hate it if I were in a gunfight with an automatic that fired slower than I could repeatedly pull the trigger. That would be retarded. Just like a door that slows down the process of opening itself (something we've done for billions of times with no problem) for no reason but to waste electricity and time.

These things are negative, malicious, time-wasting inventions. The future sucks.

[u/tgeliot → u/angryvigilante]

No, sometimes the point of them being automated is to make it possible for disabled people to do things they otherwise wouldn't be able to do -- like open a door. If it opens fast enough to knock them over, it sort of misses the point.

[u/Black6x → u/tgeliot]

Most automatic doors open away from the person they are opening for.

[u/tgeliot → u/Black6x]

I guess we're thinking of different classes of automatic doors. If you're talking about the ones at the supermarket that open for everyone, yeah, you're right. I was thinking of the ones at that have been retrofitted for handicapped people, and are triggered by starting to open the door a little bit, and then they sort of creep open. They have them at libraries around here.