Poorly designed things that make using them difficult?

[Whatisthisfuckery]

Spice jars, who in hell has designed the dimensions of spice jars? What measurement of spices does one usually find in a recipe? Teaspoons. What can you not quite fit in a spice jar? A fucking teaspoon. Whose bloody bright idea was it to design a jar that makes it hard to dispense the most common measurement of the ingredient contained within?

Ahh, that’s better, I needed that rant.

Go on, rant away. What poorly designed thing makes you angry inside?

Expensive foundation in a glass pump bottle - there's no way to get the last but out!!

@mommybunny

All skincare in opaque jars and bottles where you can’t tell how much you have left.

And gin. Hendricks or the Aldi knock off. Even shining it up to the light doesn't help. And its weighty so you cant tell if its empty til you go to pour one.

Remembered another

Hand soap with the pump lids, you have to screw/wind the pump round in one direction or other to get the pump to release so you can dispense the soap. I can’t count the number of times I’ve bought these and then can’t get the pump to release!!!

And pump dispensers that stop working once the contents fall below a certain level, even though there is still quite a lot left.

My stupid car key fob.
Because it was in an RFID thing for a while over lockdown it decided it would no longer actually open the car. Now, it's a keyless entry/use car so not having a working key is a bit crap but you can take the fob apart and create a old style key to open the doors. But - opening the doors triggers the car alarm (which you can't turn off because the key fob doesn't actually work) However the dashboard now says "put key in special place to deactivate the alarm" which would be fine if 'special place' was mentioned in the index of the handbook (it's not) or indeed under alarm, key, dashboard, error code or anything vaguely related - its not. It's not mentioned in the handbook at all. To find out where the 'special place' is you need to cover your ears (remember the alarm is still going) and Google the fucking thing and find out that in on some car owners forum in 2008 Bob, 34 from Kent also had this problem and found out where the Special Place was. Bob didn't know how to stop it from happening again though. I am still making my key and then throwing it into the Special Place like I'm defusing a bomb. And, given the last time my other car needed a new key programmed it cost £200 it shall ever be thus.

Mobile phones. I use my phone as erm a phone, with text messaging ( should I need to email, browse the internet etc I have a laptop, iPad designed for that explicit use!)
I have small hands, ginormous cell phones make it hard for me to use, carry and takes up too much space in my bag. I loved my iphone5, fitted in my hand etc... can we have phones that are not mini iPads oh no, they have to be ginormous and bulky. Samsung aren’t much better either ....

Yes to the PP who said the stupid cardboard cutting edges on cling film/foil/baking parchment. The Tesco baking parchment box is particularly rubbish, and the parchment itself isn’t grease proof either.

I’m blind so I have a little plastic gadget with pins that you hook over the side of a cup when you’re pouring water, and when the water reaches a certain level it beeps. Brilliant idea, except if you get any water on the main plastic bit it will die and never work again. Whoever was responsible for that amazing bit of design needs a slap quite frankly. I mean the whole thing about being blind is you can’t see where you’re pouring the bastard water, so the odds of water coming into contact with a device used for the dispensing of water is rather high.

[quote CaveMum]A lot of things like this are due to the world being designed by and for men - the dimensions of things like smart phones are based on the size of the "average male" hand; supermarket shelves positioned based on "average male" height, etc.

Read "Invisible Women" By Caroline Criado Perez, it will blow your mind!

invisiblewomenbook.co.uk/[/quote]
I imagine that's why vaginas are so badly designed too. God supposedly being a man and all.

"Bob from Kent" 🤣

I always end up googling random car stuff on the forums.

@FTEngineerM

My iron, it’s a sexy black colour. EXCEPT YOU CANT SEE HOW MUCH FUCKING WATER IS IN THE TANK.

Every time I use it it irritates me

Stop ironing. You will never see the red mist again.

@gracelessladyhottramp

Expensive foundation in a glass pump bottle - there's no way to get the last but out!!

I have little makeup spatulas to get the last bits out.

Packets where one corner is supposed to be “easy open” but it either doesn’t open at all, snaps off, or rips one small strip of the clear film plastic cover off, leaving all the rest. Most commonly found on fish, bacon, chicken breasts etc.

I've become that twat that has giant jars and bottles in my laundry room containing pods, powder and other washing products because my twig fingers can't open any of the child-proof tubs!

I can't tell whether I love or loathe the soy sauce bottles that don't let it out drop by drop. The spout bottles are great for measuring high quantities but I end up getting half a cup poured on my sushi??

I have a coffee bean grinder that is entirely not safe to be washed. It's designed for coffee, herbs and other small things to be ground so it's not just reserved for coffee. Even when wiping it out (around the non-detachable blades) there's always a hint of basil in my cappuccino.

Liquid foundation that you can never scrape everything out of (even with cosmetic spatulas) and the useless lids on loose powder that let 0 product out.

Ring pull cans of tomatoes etc are bloody agony to open. And tin openers are mostly rubbish. Except my gran's old fashioned one which worked but was an offensive weapon.

I'm left handed. Practically everything

I cycle. I need to take lots of allen keys with me for mending poroises. I thought it would make sense to get a 'Swiss army knife' type set of allen keys so I could ditch the individual ones. The all in one set is held together at either end by bolts that get loose frequently and require allen keys to tighten them, but I can't tighten them...

Tea Pots - or is the routine dripping an intended functionality

Urine sample test tube things. How on earth are women supposed to aim into them without getting the (paper) label wet?

Architect-designed buildings that don't work. I can't figure out what architects actually do.

Our building was recently remodelled and the architects saw fit to put slippery tiles on the stairs.

@CounsellorTroi

And pump dispensers that stop working once the contents fall below a certain level, even though there is still quite a lot left.

I buy conditioner in salon-sized bottles. So when the pump stops working, there's still a lot left. I had two bottles recently in this position and stood them upside down in a jam jar - I landed up with over half a jar of conditioner!!!! It would so easily have gone to waste.

yes yes yes to the spice jar thing. My theory is that "proper" teaspoon measures DO fit. But these companies don't actually thing about real cooks who are mostly women just frantically pulling together dinner for their family and being a bit casual about exact measurements etc.

This might just be my useless plumber, but all our taps are so close to the bloody wall that cleaning behind them is extremely difficult and the buildup of limescale is a pain!

@HeyDemonsItsYaGirl

Urine sample test tube things. How on earth are women supposed to aim into them without getting the (paper) label wet?

YES! Our doctors office leaves a huge pile of large plastic cups in the bathroom with a sign saying pee into the cup, decant into the container and toss the cup. V disturbing seeing all the manky cups in the bin but at least it works.

I came on to say that the Maui brand shampoo and conditioner is impossible to get out of the bottle because they are square. It's really hard to grip and squeeze it enough to get anything out. I get that the square shape makes for less wasted space when transporting but it's no good if it doesn't even come out of the bottle!
I keep buying it because I do the curly girl method and I can get Maui in Sainsbury's but it really annoys me.

I would also like to nominate my gas cooker for bad design. It isn't big enough for 4 decent sized pans on it at the same time because the frame that holds the pots above the flame only has four supports that curve downwards at the corners. So if I put three pans and a frying pan on my hob the frying pan comes flying off diagonally on to the floor if I'm not EXTREMELY careful. This is also a problem when the pans overhang the knobs and I can't turn anything down unless I very carefully move them out of the way. My new kitchen will have an expensive induction hob.

@toria658

Mobile phones. I use my phone as erm a phone, with text messaging ( should I need to email, browse the internet etc I have a laptop, iPad designed for that explicit use!) I have small hands, ginormous cell phones make it hard for me to use, carry and takes up too much space in my bag. I loved my iphone5, fitted in my hand etc... can we have phones that are not mini iPads oh no, they have to be ginormous and bulky. Samsung aren’t much better either ....

You need an iPhone 12 Mini. It’s smaller and thicker than most modern phones so it has a slightly retro feel. I love mine, so much better than all those quasi-tablets that pass for phones these days.

The newer style of fish and meat packaging where the top is sort of shrink wrapped to the base around the meat. Has anyone ever managed to open one of these without taking a pair of scissors round the edge of the meat??

Packets of cheese. The film lid always opens from the opposite side to the top slice of cheese. I’d like to be able to open the packet just slightly on the same side as the top slice, remove the top slice, then close the packet. But instead I have to remove the film lid from the entire fucking packet because the top slice is furthest away from the opening.