Bad Design

Blog One: 1/22/2019

Bad design occurs when a product is not designed with the user’s experience in mind. A product’s design should be “Easy to learn, effective to use and providing an enjoyable user experience” (Preece, Rogers & Sharp, 2015, p.2). Using these guidelines, it is easy to assess whether a product falls into the category of good or bad design.

Reflection on the Topic

  1. I had always thought of the concept of bad design in passing until it was mentioned in our text. Its meaning became active in my mind and I realized how important it is to think beyond the prototype and more closely on questions about a product’s usability and the type of user experience it will create.
  2. Mehmet Aydin of UX Collective, in his article discussing bad website design, states “The basic usability principles…help ensure a product’s behavior is predictable, expected, usable and therefore delightful to use”. He goes on to say “…Bad design can cause pain and frustration, that as designers we should always aim to avoid”. Mehmet, A. (2018, June 16). Good design vs bad design. Retrieved from https://uxdesign.cc
  3. Just the other day, I saw an ad for Alcon DAILIES Contact Lenses that was a perfect example of bad design. A couple had just sat down at a restaurant to eat when they realized they needed to make visual adjustments in order to read the small font on their dinner menus. What is brought to them is a product that is so blatantly bad its funny.

https://youtu.be/U6eQ3hcZlrI

Source: Lenses, A. D. (2018, May 15). Lose Your Readers. Retrieved January 22, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6eQ3hcZlrI

My Thought

“From this module, I learned about interaction design and the significant role that the user experience plays in this process. My new understanding of the concept of good versus bad design has struck me with feelings the resemble an epiphany. How something that should be the absolute basis of every design is often so easily overlooked just to get a product on the market is an excellent example of why seemingly great products fail. With the release of new technologies occurring at an exponential rate it is important to understand that some products will be difficult to use not because of a lack of competence on the user’s part, but because of sheer bad design. While this may not be comforting to some, I find it so because now I can reevaluate some of my past frustrations with technology and devices, or just a product in general, and can say hey, maybe it wasn’t just me.” (Ingrid Bright, 2019)

Reference List

  1. Preece, Rogers & Sharp, (2015). Interaction and Design: Beyond human-computer interaction. West Sussex, United Kingdom: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
  2. M. A. (2018, June 16). Good design vs bad design – UX Collective. Retrieved January 22, 2019, from https://uxdesign.cc/good-design-vs-bad-design-944dd36c9832
  3. Lenses, A. D. (2018, May 15). Lose Your Readers. Retrieved January 22, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6eQ3hcZlrI