Less friendly when you don't know what gadget they power.

As a technology enthusiast and sometime pack rat, I have collected plenty of wall warts, those compact power supplies we’ve all come to know and love. I wish that all devices could have the power supply built-in like my printer, monitor, speakers, etc. but I also realize that you can’t always fit it into a compact device. So sometimes I guess it’s okay to have an external power supply.

But as as I was sifting through my cable collection the other day, I realized that about half of my power supplies are generic supplies with no indicator what device they belong to. Yes, production costs stay low, but c’mon. Put a sticker on it at least—that way I know when it’s time to find a new home for my old warts.

And, if you really want to be cool, why don’t you figure out how to standardize so that more power supplies are interchangeable? Does your device really require 11 volts with a center-negative connector?

The Samsung Knack: another cell phone keypad gone wrong.

My grandparents recently took a leap into the 21st century by signing up for a cell phone. I’ve had my iPhone long enough that I had forgotten how ugly and painful the majority of cell phones really are! Invariably, the worst cell phone offenses come from the keypads.

My grandparents ended up with a Samsung Knack because it was cheap and had reasonably large buttons. In fact, Samsung really gets some points for the generous key size and dedicated keys for ICE, 911, and speakerphone. But even with these minor wins, function was clearly sacrificed so that the phone could be made more ugly.

The most grievous offense is the navigation pad. The little dots are impossible to press, and for some reason the arrow keys have dots instead of arrows, obfuscating their function. To make things worse, there’s a little “OK” button in the middle that ends up getting half of the key presses meant for the arrows. The “OK” button seems to be totally redundant anyway, since “Send” does everything “OK” does.

How about the button labeled “Clear.” It doesn’t clear anything. It can be used to navigate up one level in the menu hierarchy or as a backspace key. Totally counter-intuitive to group these functions; even worse to call it “Clear.”

The symbols on the pound and star keys are also particularly confusing, and the buttons on the sides of the phone were way too easy to press accidentally. I could go on and on about how bad this keypad is, but instead I think I’ll go write a thank-you note to my iPhone.

My favorite kind of crosswalk button

As I was crossing the street today, I remembered the crosswalk buttons on my street in Davis. I think they’re really great because they give you so much feedback. You can’t help but know what’s going on. When you press it, it kinda clicks. And it makes a beep. And the light flashes. And it continues to beep until you get a signal, at which time it tells you to cross (the ones in Davis actually spoke, telling you which street to cross). That’s tactile, aural, and visual feedback all in one device!

Contrast that with the pesky buttons at most crosswalks. The most common kind are mysterious buttons that you suspect weren’t connected to anything. I usually press these 5 or 6 times, just in case they really aren’t connected to anything.

More recently I’ve started seeing a button that has no button–you just touch it. This at least makes a beep for you, but just isn’t quite as good as my favorites.

Picture from Flickr’s acordova

The device causing my headache

Here at my university they use this network authentication system, Cisco Clean Access. It’s meant to be easy for everyone–the administrators and the users. And, if all you ever do is pull up Firefox and browse the web, it’s not that inconvenient.

The trouble is that as nearly as I can discover, there are only two ways to authenticate. The first is to install a Windows client application that automagically authenticates you. This is an unattractive solution for people like me who don’t like lots of random programs running all the time. It’s even less attractive if you’re using a Mac or, in my case, an iPhone.

So what we’re left with is the web interface. You open a browser and no matter where you try to go, you are redirected to the authentication page. No problem if you just opened Firefox and pointed it to Design Observer. But it leads to the silent death of many processes trying to access internet resources without ever opening a browser–like the email app on my iPhone. Or an SSH session in PuTTY.

I wish I could think of a better way, but I see the plight of the administrators. Who’s gonna solve this one for us?

The brightness screen...what exactly is going on here?

So my friends with iPhones keep asking why mine is so dark. Until today I had no explanation. Maybe the screen is defective? The backlight? As evidence that I hadn’t messed anything up, I opened the brightness control to show them that “Auto-Brightness” is turned on.

Apparently “Auto-Brightness” doesn’t mean that it’s fully automatic. Honestly, I still don’t know what it does. But the real problem was the slider above the “Auto-Brightness” button that I thought was being ignored when Auto was on. Hmm. That screen could use some work, I think.

Pressing doesn't do the work. Click to see original instructions.

I had a thought while I was ironing the other day. You see, I always want to press harder on the iron to get wrinkles out. This must be a common instinct, because I’ve seen irons with warnings not to press too hard. This is because the pushing doesn’t do so much good as the heat and the steam.

So here’s a thought–why not build an iron that can change the heat and steam depending on the pressure applied? As you press harder you get more steam and heat. You could put buttons on it to choose a fabric, thereby choosing maximum heat & steam levels. That way your silk doesn’t scorch.

Now the real question. Has this been done? I haven’t seen such a thing. Leave a comment if you have!

Kimberly Clark substitutes signage for good design

But this one is worse than the rest. A lot worse. The concept is simple: pull a towel to get a towel. But it seems that one hand doesn’t always exert enough force to dispense the towel (I can confirm from personal experience).

But the really mystifying part is that instead of adjusting the mechanism to reduce the force required to dispense a towell, Kimberly Clark decided to print big signs on the dispensers warning people that one hand would not be enough. It’s annoying. Really.

And, incidentally, in what situation is the failure of a paper towel to properly dispense classified as an emergency? ‘Cause I can’t think of any such situation.

eBay confuses the searching

But the Advanced Searches of the web seem to get the short end of the design stick. A few days ago I spent 5 minutes trying to remember how to search for completed items on eBay (this option has moved around over the years).

You see, I mistook all the search options in the sidebar for the Advanced Search. It turns out that the real Advanced Search is on another page. At the very least, they could have put a link to the Advanced Search over in that sidebar where I kept looking for the completed items checkbox.

iStockPhoto makes Advanced Search easier

I really love the route that iStockPhoto has taken here. You have immediate access to most of the criteria you need right on the search bar (keyword, media choices, and sorting options). But if you still need more options, you don’t get whisked away to another page, they just use a little JavaScript goodness to make the search bar expand to show all the options. Brilliant!

Why can’t I download this audiobook again? Nevermind that Audible’s website was poorly programmed and so I never actually downloaded it the first time. If I buy a book, I ought to be able to download it again, right? If I had gotten the file, I could have made a million copies, right?

Same problem with the MSDNAA system on campus. I get one download. I can look up my product key all I want, but no second downloads. So I have to get the ISO from a friend and use my key.

I’ve been trying to think of some good technical or legal reason for this practice, but I can’t think of one. Can someone smarter than me leave an explanation?