When design goes bad
A long time ago I read a book that changed how I looked at, well, basically everything. That book was The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman. It's packed with examples of bad (and some good) design — everything from objects to software to architecture. The basic idea is that the user has different interests than the designer, and when they come into conflict, you end up with unusable products and lots of errors.
Take the door. Seems simple enough. But how many times have you pushed a door when you needed to pull it open, tried to turn a door knob when you needed to slide it, or just plain walked into a glass door you didn't see (ok, fine, that was me). I'll always remember one line from the book, which went something like: "When something as simple as a door has to come with an instruction manual — even a one-word manual — then it has failed."
Along those lines, my latest rant about poor product design is over at Scientific American. This time, it's about the hazards of the instant soup cup. The soup cup might not be quite as bad as the Coffeepot for Masochists on the cover of Norman's book, but it certainly comes close.