When I did my degree, nobody told me that my life would forever be cursed.

Not once was I taken aside, sat down, and told in clear and simple words that my life would never be the same.  Like hyperactive kittens faced with a vat of warm fishy milk, we lapped up the techniques to spot usability issues with gusto.  So as we left the safe confines of university and gazed upon the world with our quizzical eyes, it didn’t take long for the horror to become apparent.

They were everywhere.  Nothing escaped a healthy dose of rubbishness.  Both physical and cognitive, unusable products abound.

But what of the curse?  Well it’s nigh on impossible to switch off your unusable product antenna.  And as you gaze on dumbfounded by the stupidity of a design, you can’t help but feel a little bit of your life seep out of your ears.  Sometimes it’s just a little, and it drifts out at a relaxed pace.  At other times, it’s a spleen venting avalanche of verbal diarrhea.

It was over Christmas that I had the misfortune to witness quite possibly one of the worst products I have ever seen: a talking alarm clock.  The box did proudly proclaim: A pleasant voice announces the time every hour.  Spot the problem?  Every hour.  Slumber. Slumber. Slumber. Slumber. IT’S THREE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING AND I THOUGHT YOU WOULDN’T MIND BEING WOKEN UP BY MY DULCET MECHANICAL WARBLINGS.  No slumber.

But chances are, you wouldn’t even get to experience this, because you’d have thrown it at the wall before then.  Not one member of the family could work out how to set the alarm and EVERY SINGLE button press resulted in an ear piercing bleep that sucked your very will to exist.  That this product exists at all I find shocking.  Even if the intended audience for this product was a blind person, it still fell woefully short of any use.  If I ever meet the designer… WhyIoughta *shakes fist*

And I guess this brings me to my point.  There is so much in this world that shouldn’t really be here.  Gadgets that fail to deliver, features that go unused, clutter that clogs essential functionality and any song by Celine Dion (sorry Celine if you’re reading this).  Whilst it’s often great to be able to announce a wide feature set to make your products sound feature rich, it’s only through a deep understanding of what is actually essential that you can hope to attain usable products.

Once you know what’s most important, it’s then that you can exert your full design enthusiasm towards ensuring that the functionality you do include is usable.

Milk cartons

*sobs*

Auntie Mavis