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The Mitel 5220 IP Phones we all use at work have the console and receiver on a slant of around 55 degrees. This is great for dialling and viewing the LCD text but the receiver holder is not deep enough in the plastic mould and at that angle the receiver slips off at only the slightest inadvertent tug. Bad product design that could've been averted with extensive testing surely.

― the neurotic awakening of s (blueski), Thursday, 5 August 2004 12:46 (twenty-one years ago)

The Meridien phones we use in the office, especially on the switchboard - they have a little display screen which is very faint, immovable and if there's any glare at all they're unreadable.

― Markelby (Mark C), Thursday, 5 August 2004 12:49 (twenty-one years ago)

yes, they're shit, innit?

― dog latin (dog latin), Thursday, 5 August 2004 12:52 (twenty-one years ago)

the cheap leather chair at argos makes you fall over backwards if you lean back too fast.

― ken c (ken c), Thursday, 5 August 2004 12:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh we bought a leather chair from Argos but, unless I assembled it incorrectly which is possible tho not probably in this case, it actually dipped forward rather than back, which is just absurd.

― the neurotic awakening of s (blueski), Thursday, 5 August 2004 12:56 (twenty-one years ago)

haha maybe that's why mine fall backwards (i put the chair bit wrong way round?)

― ken c (ken c), Thursday, 5 August 2004 13:00 (twenty-one years ago)

The ticket machines at overground London stations. You know the ones. The worst designed user interface I have seen in my life.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 5 August 2004 13:23 (twenty-one years ago)

the red ones with green buttons? thank god they seem to be being replaced by video screen ones.

― ken c (ken c), Thursday, 5 August 2004 13:30 (twenty-one years ago)

http://store.digitalfaucet.com/gallery/grater.jpg

They hurt your fingers!

― Wooden (Wooden), Thursday, 5 August 2004 13:36 (twenty-one years ago)

the red ones with green buttons? thank god they seem to be being replaced by video screen ones.

Hmm - no, I think those are the older ones, which are OK, if not brilliant. The ones with loads of buttons.

The ones I'm talking about are smaller and have a screen. Can't remember if they're touchscren or ATM like things with buttons along the side. Anyway, they used to have one at Finsbury Park BR, and still did at Walthamstow BR last time I looked.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 5 August 2004 14:11 (twenty-one years ago)

every fuxoring cinema up until about the last 5-10 years: the only thing they had to do was allow you to see a screen 40 ft high and 100ft wide from a distance of about 100 yards - but unless the seats in front of you were empty, you couldn't. Quite why it took about 80 years for raking angles to be increased...

those fuxoring metal teapots you get in some cafs & m/way service stations - carefully designed to ensure the tea/coffee runs down the front and misses the cup in its eagerness to attempt to flow back up the other side and up your sleeve

coffee 'cups' which have a polo-mint-sized handle - either with a hole too small to actually get yr fingers through, or which is FILLED IN to make you hold the thing like you're trying out for the monarchy

every single mobile phone and car - which retain designed-in vulnerability to casual theft so that the industries in question can rely on it to keep them in work

― Snowy Mann (rdmanston), Thursday, 5 August 2004 14:15 (twenty-one years ago)

This phone. My phone, and the phone of about 10 other people I know.

http://www.officedepot.com/pictures/sk/md/923051_sk_md.jpg

It's kinda cool and insect-y, I guess, which gets it out of the store. Then you realize that if you try to hold it with your shoulder, the shape and placement of the buttons will ensure that you disconnect your call. So you can't, say, sit on hold with customer service for 20 minutes and make a sandwich at the same time. Thoughtless.

― Kenan (kenan), Thursday, 5 August 2004 14:28 (twenty-one years ago)

The label on Cherry Pepsi, if that counts. It looks like it's wearing a pair of Jams shorts from the 80s.

― kelsey (kelstarry), Thursday, 5 August 2004 20:39 (twenty-one years ago)

http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20040804/i/r3923286853.jpg

― martin m. (mushrush), Thursday, 5 August 2004 20:52 (twenty-one years ago)

The man or the corn?

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 5 August 2004 20:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Or both?

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 5 August 2004 20:58 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.spilhaus.co.za/06alessi/images/Alessi_juicy.jpg

From design "genius" philippe Starck. The juice doesn't really go into the glass, it runs down the legs.

― jed (jed_e_3), Thursday, 5 August 2004 21:00 (twenty-one years ago)

The man or the corn?

It looks like Bush is not happy about the design of corn, but it's all meta and shit because I think Bush is poorly designed.

― martin m. (mushrush), Thursday, 5 August 2004 21:10 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.allmusic.com

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Thursday, 5 August 2004 21:46 (twenty-one years ago)

i have kenan's phone too. i must say phone design is getting really fucking retarded. it's all gone backwards. home phone design is ripping off cell phone design which doesn't make ANY sense since that is solely designed for portability and fitting in small places. that phone in question even comes with a shitty clip so you can wear it on your pants around the house or something (but of course!) i have another phone that has a bunch of buttons on the back/top of the handheld part. so when you put it on your shoulder you put people on hold, redial, switch lines, etc. brilliant! and then the michael graves target phone is too round to put on your shoulder. it just slips away. has anyone figured out how people use phones in the last, oh, 100 YEARS!!

oooo, i'm steamin!

― lolita corpus (lolitacorpus), Thursday, 5 August 2004 22:20 (twenty-one years ago)

I try not to use the phone, when I'm steaming.

― RJG (RJG), Thursday, 5 August 2004 22:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Except maybe to call the fire department.

― Harold Media (kenan), Thursday, 5 August 2004 22:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Another thing I hate about that phone -- having to press the display screen against your face. As soon as you put the phone down and see all the grease you left on it from mashing it against your cheek for several minutes, you feel like washing, even if you didn't feel dirty before.

― Harold Media (kenan), Thursday, 5 August 2004 22:53 (twenty-one years ago)

latebloomer OTM

― Andrew (enneff), Thursday, 5 August 2004 23:01 (twenty-one years ago)

From design "genius" philippe Starck. The juice doesn't really go into the glass, it runs down the legs.

Also the cover of Emotional Design. I've never used the thing, but I assumed it worked or it wouldn't have made the cover of a book. I still have a lot to learn about design, obviously.

― Harold Media (kenan), Thursday, 5 August 2004 23:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Before CDs become a thing of the past, I'd like to get just one that comes with an easy-open wrapper.

The cigarette manufacturers have got it right. You want in right now? Just pull this conveniently placed little red/gold srip.

― jim wentworth (wench), Friday, 6 August 2004 01:58 (twenty-one years ago)

er, strip, that is.

― jim wentworth (wench), Friday, 6 August 2004 02:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Ooh, ooh. Why,when the easy-open milk carton problem has been cracked for ages, do some manufacturers launch ridiculous new tops that set us back decades. Especially the plastic ones with a ring pull that half of the time snaps off when one pulls it, leaving one having to attack the thing with a knife.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 6 August 2004 12:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Easy open milk carton = a glass bottle, surely?

― Ricardo (RickyT), Friday, 6 August 2004 14:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Well yes, I agree, but even if one isn't being a container rockist about these things, other mechanisms that actually work are available.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 6 August 2004 14:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Glass is danerous!

― the neurotic awakening of s (blueski), Friday, 6 August 2004 15:03 (twenty-one years ago)

two weeks pass...

now we're gettingsomewhere

http://www.goodfoundation.com/other/pokia/media/phones/hotline/hotlineonsteelbg.jpg

― lolita corpus (lolitacorpus), Thursday, 26 August 2004 21:11 (twenty-one years ago)

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