User experience (UX) design can be defined as the process of designing products, systems and services with the emphasis on offering a meaningful experience for end-users. The process revolves around an in-depth understanding of the user journeys, as well as the functionality of the features.
In recent years, UX design has been widely recognised when it comes to designing mobile and web applications. This may be a better way to phrase it on second thought:
As UX designers, our main goal is to ensure the product or service is of high usability and can thereafter bring great value to the end-users. Despite the advancement of UX design, users are still experiencing products that clearly demonstrate poor UX design thinking.
Here’s a sneak peek at some of the products that drove us mad:
1. Milk Cartons
Photo Credit: Reddit
Horror level: 👻👻👻👻👻
With only a vague arrow that is labelled as “Open”, users may encounter difficulties when opening the milk carton. Based on past experiences, the success rate for peeling the glued sides open is relatively low. What one would end up with is a very messily torn side or a peeled-off top layer of the carton print. The end result? Definitely not a nicely opened milk carton.
Another identified downside of this product would be the inability to re-seal the milk carton once opened. As a result, consumers will find themselves having to chug down the entire carton of milk in a single seating.
Photo credit: Unsplash
Thankfully, over the years, product packaging designers have blessed us with the screw cap design for milk cartons. Not only does this help consumers open up a carton with greater ease but it also helps to maintain the freshness of the milk. However, there are still milk cartons out there in the market that have yet to implement such a design.
2. Toothpaste
Horror level: 👻👻👻👻
Photo credit: Unsplash
At the start, a gentle squeeze should suffice in getting the toothpaste out of the tube, but why does the extraction process have to be a nightmare over time? At the end of it all, we are left with a gnarled toothpaste tube, twisted beyond the point of recognition in a partly futile attempt to avoid wasting the product.
Photo Credit: Aliexpress
With the drive to improve the overall user experience, brands have presented multiple innovative solutions to resolve this problem. These toothpaste dispensers/squeezers aid in the process of extracting toothpaste with just a simple turn of the knob; some can even be automatically dispensed with a sensor! Unfortunately, bulkier items like facial wash tubes and moisturisers still fall under the wrath of product wastage as they might not fit into these dispensers.
3. Nail Clippers
Horror level: 👻👻👻
Trimming your nails is probably a weekly affair for many and if you’re a frequent nail trimmer like myself, you would understand the frustration of having your nails fly everywhere. These nails will ultimately end up missing until your robot vacuum decides to pay it a visit.
To combat this struggle, product designers have taken the liberty to come up with a separate nail storage box over the nail clipper, effectively storing the trimmed nails during the process
Photo credit: Amazon
However, it is worth noting here that user experience is never one-size fits all. Despite the innovation of this idea, there are contrasting reviews with users claiming that the additional feature makes zero to minimal difference. Will there ever be a better solution to nail cutting? If we are lucky, we might be able to catch and find that flying nail during our weekly nail cutting sessions!
4. TV Remote
Horror level: 👻👻
Photo credit: Pexels
Did you know that a regular TV remote has at least 40 buttons on it? Most importantly, do we even know the functions of each and every button?
The reason behind this phenomenon of growing amounts of buttons is due to the lack of give and take. As remotes tend to evolve from their previous versions, new features are constantly being added while older features are never removed. This leads to increased complexity of the remote designs.
Classic remotes were designed to operate without the use of on-screen menus, therefore there was a need to have a separate button for each function. Yet, with the rise of smart TVs, is there really a need for so many buttons on the remote?
Photo credit: Apple
Apple is widely known for their polished product design and the design of their remote is an epitome of a simplistic and minimalistic design. With the majority of viewers using a smart TV, the common functions needed on a remote would simply only be the navigation arrows, menu button and the play/pause buttons. The Apple remote also has a touch swipe function on the arrow buttons that enable users to navigate much more efficiently.
Do you relate to this list of everyday horrifying objects? Don’t let poor UX design scare yourself and your users this scary Halloween season and let our UI/UX designers provide a human-centric and design-led solution perspective for your digital transformation journeys. Interested in onboarding a project with us? [Let’s connect!](https://www.2359.co/contact)
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