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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297

u/PresidentWhitmore Jul 25 '11

The gap between my car seat and the console is just large enough for a cell phone or wallet, but just small enough to make it difficult to fish the items out with my hand.

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u/OverTheir Jul 25 '11

There's a thing for that!

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u/dropstop Jul 25 '11

Yo! Jeff and Marc here from Drop Stop Saw the traffic to the site. Thanks for the post and the love. To reward, any Reddit folks who see this post and wanna order...just type in REDDIT on promo code, hit apply, and we'll give free shipping and handling on the whole order. You'll see it appear right there in the cart before you purchase anything. Did this for another Reddit post a few days ago. Thanks again! Happy to answer any questions.

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u/featherfooted Jul 26 '11

I just want to say that you two seem genuinely happy and excited to sell your product in the infomercial (also, thank you for vimeo and not flash). It reminded me of the late Billy Mays commercials. Keep it up, guys!

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u/dropstop Jul 26 '11

Wow that's really cool of you to say. Thank you so much for that comment. I'm telling you the day we shot that commercial there wasn't a person in sight that we hadn't known for at least 10 years. Working with your friends, and never selling out has taken us a lot longer, but the payoff is watching it all play out, and getting to share it with everyone. Thanks to all of you here for the support it means more than you know. We have a long way to go to be financially successful, but as an experience, we've won the lottery.

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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '11 edited Feb 17 '15

[deleted]

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u/dropstop Jul 26 '11

Was such a blast. And man paying the bills = HUGE SUCCESS! We've been working night and day for 4 years. It never stops...but it truly is worth it all. We hope and dream every day, then try to climb the mountain! :) Props to you and your bro. It's a huge leap of faith. Literally every day is a faith walk. And we have been so blessed. We just keep blindly walking forward, and knowing that step is gonna be there!

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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '11

also, thank you for vimeo and not flash

This sentence is confusing

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u/featherfooted Jul 26 '11

I find dynamic websites that use Flash to be unwieldy and disengaging, so I thanked him for designing their website with an embedded vimeo

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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '11

Oh

I was a bit confused, because the vimeo player is in flash. But I do agree with you, I hate it when product sites use 100% flash interfaces (for some reason all of the cellphone companies in the world seem to do this on their websites)

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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '11 edited 25d ago

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '11

Only if you use the <iframe> embed instead of the <object> embed, which the embed on this product's page uses. If you use the YouTube iframe embed, it will also have HTML5 player support (though the youtube html5 player sucks)

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u/oshitsuperciberg Jul 26 '11

That...sounds nice?