19 comments

  • jeisc3 minutes ago
    for the record, I am a furniture designer class 1985 Primrose Center and I made a table without a top to demonstrate this point: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jeisch.com&#x2F;img&#x2F;furniture&#x2F;tab_no_top_1988.jpg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jeisch.com&#x2F;img&#x2F;furniture&#x2F;tab_no_top_1988.jpg</a> and another one which is a table which is a holder for a painting: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jeisch.com&#x2F;img&#x2F;furniture&#x2F;tab_pointy_1987.jpg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jeisch.com&#x2F;img&#x2F;furniture&#x2F;tab_pointy_1987.jpg</a> the painting which is being held in the pointy table is this: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jeisch.com&#x2F;img&#x2F;paintings&#x2F;oil_martyr_1988.jpg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jeisch.com&#x2F;img&#x2F;paintings&#x2F;oil_martyr_1988.jpg</a> but it slides in and out basically it is a horizontal holder a painting.
  • ChrisMarshallNY7 hours ago
    I’ve always enjoyed the “useless teapot” that Don Norman has on the cover of DOET: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com&#x2F;images&#x2F;I&#x2F;61KtiLw7BtL._AC_UL600_SR600,600_.jpg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com&#x2F;images&#x2F;I&#x2F;61KtiLw7BtL...</a>
    • userbinator5 hours ago
      If the cap is screwed on and sealed, you should pour it from the side like a bottle of oil: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.team-bhp.com&#x2F;forum&#x2F;attachments&#x2F;technical-stuff&#x2F;1571948d1477742174-correct-way-pour-engine-oil-aha-moment-inside-img_4408.jpg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.team-bhp.com&#x2F;forum&#x2F;attachments&#x2F;technical-stuff&#x2F;1...</a>
    • drfloyd515 hours ago
      I believe it is actually called: The masochist’s teapot.<p>I recommend this book to anyone remotely interested in design. Even today it is fantastic.
      • ChrisMarshallNY4 hours ago
        Reading it was a watershed in my life.<p>I never look at doors, without evaluating their usability, anymore.
        • al_borland4 hours ago
          I bought a new door for my house recently. When the salesman asked what type handle&#x2F;knob I wanted, I had a bit of an internal crisis. The one he said post people got seemed like it would create a Norman door, which I desperately wanted to avoid. I ended up getting a standard knob to avoid being the absolute lunatic who spent 6 hours debating the merits of various door handles, but had I been alone, I would have absolutely done that. I still feel like I made a mistake every time I look at my door.<p>The book was a gift and a curse.
  • userbinator6 hours ago
    <i>IC: With AI getting bigger and more controversial and so on, have you used AI to create any of these designs?</i><p>That is an interesting point to bring up, because this type of &quot;almost but not quite right&quot; is exactly what AI seems to naturally create.
    • Gigachad4 hours ago
      I think the difference is AI images tend to create mush or impossible geometry. The ideas here where a minimal change to the design renders the item entirely unusable takes a fair bit of creativity.
  • Noe20972 hours ago
    &quot;what if objects were actually designed for a bad user experience, instead of a good one? she recalled in a 2018 TED talk. That was my ‘eureka’ moment.&quot;<p>Or, she stumbled upon some article or the very Wikipedia page about it:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Chind%C5%8Dgu" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Chind%C5%8Dgu</a>
  • AriedK3 hours ago
    This gets quite close to chindogu, the Japanese art of designing objects that kind of serve a very niche purpose, but then without being useful. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tofugu.com&#x2F;japan&#x2F;chindogu-japanese-inventions&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tofugu.com&#x2F;japan&#x2F;chindogu-japanese-inventions&#x2F;</a>
    • ChrisMarshallNY48 minutes ago
      I like the iPhone Control Center screenshot in there…
    • Nevermark1 hour ago
      i need a roller desk EV.
  • bcherry7 hours ago
    this really reminds me of the &quot;worst volume control&quot; from reddit <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;uxdesign.cc&#x2F;the-worst-volume-control-ui-in-the-world-60713dc86950" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;uxdesign.cc&#x2F;the-worst-volume-control-ui-in-the-world...</a>
  • Gigachad6 hours ago
    I love that these are all fairly beautiful, stuff you&#x27;d really love to have if it wasn&#x27;t fundamentally unusable.
    • TimByte13 minutes ago
      It really highlights how much we associate &quot;good design&quot; with aesthetics first, even though function is doing most of the heavy lifting
  • Incipient2 hours ago
    I feel like I&#x27;ve seen some of these designs a VERY long time ago? Is this something old that the person was just interviewed on recently?
    • benrutter30 minutes ago
      Yes! (The article says the project started a while back but the writer&#x2F;interviewer only just discovered it)
    • Cthulhu_2 hours ago
      It does do the rounds on the various social medias on the regular. The website looks interesting enough at least.
  • lelanthran3 hours ago
    This is a link to the interview. here is a link to the products website: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theuncomfortable.com&#x2F;#" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theuncomfortable.com&#x2F;#</a>
  • TimByte14 minutes ago
    This is such a great reminder that &quot;good design&quot; is mostly invisible until it breaks
  • whiteboardr4 hours ago
    It&#x27;s missing the Magic Mouse.
    • ProllyInfamous1 hour ago
      Or the M4 Mini power button...<p><i>on the bottom (both) WHY?</i>
  • anonymous3445 hours ago
    as a designer and innovator, i appriciete this. this gives me ideas really out of box, just to see these. amazing!<p>i also do this for ui and app logic: go to some Microslop service, they are all like these...sad but true
  • jrmg7 hours ago
    Now I’m wondering how you could create ‘uncomfortable’ versions of simple command line tools (ls, cat, more etc.) or perhaps shells.<p>Emacs and&#x2F;or vi, depending on your inclination, have text editors covered already, of course ;-)
    • II2II5 hours ago
      Well, bash offers vi and Emacs as editing modes. We&#x27;re already covered on that front. Many of the parameters for ls are cryptic, making it awkward to use for anything other than routine tasks without referencing the man page. more is so limited that many people choose to use a program used to concatenation files (cat) as a file viewer. Those who don&#x27;t want to reach for their mouse to use their terminal&#x27;s scrollbar buffer will use less, since it does more than more. Don&#x27;t bother parsing that last sentence with bison, unless you have a yacc to shave.
    • TimByte12 minutes ago
      This is a fun idea
    • al_borland3 hours ago
      Feed all command output through AI to summarize the results instead of actually giving the results.<p>Results from ls would be a few sentences explaining the types of files in the directory. Add a -l on there and it will give you a general overview of the permissions and size of the files. Ex. “These are rather large files that are primarily, but not exclusively, limited to root.”<p>Results from cat would give a summary of the file. You’d get the same results, with some degree of randomness from more and less as well.<p>Using any command with sudo would provide the same type of results, but in all caps.<p>Trying to pipe commands together would be a slop multiplier.
    • anonymous3444 hours ago
      jus used new ubuntu instead of ifconfig (weird name) it had ip couldnt figure from the help how to get actually show the ip<p>so linux is already there
      • lelanthran3 hours ago
        Yeah, Linux has been trending to incomprehensible commands.<p>In terms of usability, moving to FreeBSD from Linux is quite a positive experience. Pity that hardware and software support is limited on the BSDs.
    • bsjshshsb3 hours ago
      Use an agent for all CLI work.
  • eszed6 hours ago
    What&#x27;s wrong about the glasses? I&#x27;ve been staring at them and trying to figure out why they&#x27;re unworkable, as opposed to just a quirky pair of specs.
    • jaden6 hours ago
      The sharp angle of the bridge would dig into your nose.
    • parallel6 hours ago
      Pointy bit on the bridge of the nose.
    • starmole6 hours ago
      the sharp point on the bridge is going to hurt your snout.
    • anonymous3444 hours ago
      you don&#x27;t have glasses ever, i guess?
  • camillomiller1 hour ago
    The glasses would be great for pool playing, as they would sit higher on your line of sight :)
  • imp0cat2 hours ago
    The funny thing is that the toothbrush would actually come in handy for cleaning stuff other than teeth.<p>For example, the inner water tank of a robotic vacuum.
  • rajesh_me29109137 minutes ago
    [dead]
  • keithnz7 hours ago
    given the title, so may software developers must be living in bliss! &#x2F;s
  • abstractspoon2 hours ago
    All seems very contrived. Not what I would call creative