The Uncomfortable – a collection of deliberately inconvenient objects | Hacker News Reader

The Uncomfortable – a collection of deliberately inconvenient objects

theuncomfortable.com

114 pointsrusk26 comments

Those are only for fun, but real stuff are designed to be deliberately inconvenient (e.g. against homeless people): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_architecture

There really is a very sharp relief between security and tasteful design

. . . and pigeons.

Very much reminds me of Jacques Carelman's "Catalogue of Unfindable Objects", one of my dearest book memories. A Google search gives some examples of objects from the catalogue [1].

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=Catalogue+d%27objets+introuv...

It's a nice touch that the website itself is horrific to negotiate, at least on mobile. (Yes, of course when I zoom in on a picture I want all the non picture stuff to expand and cover all the pictures. Who wouldn't want that?)

Indeed. The site itself is uncomfortable! It's meta.

"Brave" UX design choices - I'm looking at you!

You could add most of the APIs I've ever had to use to this list.

I know it may sound silly, but looking at these too long actually causes a minor stress reaction for me. As in, they make me uncomfortable. I think it's because I imagine trying to use them and the frustration that would ensue.

Nice!

Previous work by Jeremy Hutchison:

http://www.jeremyhutchison.com/work/project47.html

http://www.toxel.com/inspiration/2013/01/07/useless-objects/

http://www.erratum.co/products/

Why do I have this feeling that most of these objects could be used to document the developers experience working with 'enterprise' Java constructions?

Clever, and driving my OCD side mad. The uncomfortable mug doesn't look too bad though, I can imagine a mittened hand slipping through the handle.

I love the design of that double wine glass; I imagine that it'd only make sense for two headed ogres :)

This is one of those rare things on the Internet (startups included) that you just "get" instantly.

I like this. It reminds me of that blog about things fitting perfectly into other things. (except the opposite)

Not totally useless. Still can be sold as motivational posters and meme material.

The ones that are usable and broken are good, like the elongated teapot.

The things that no human would possibly design are just silly.

Would love it if they had a site with just the purposefully poorly designed, but still workable objects.

Pretty sure that already exists. I'd put most of Amazon's catalogue under that category...

Two words: headphone jack.

I'll bite: What is wrong with the headphone jack?

They are great! Where have they all gone?????

The Moto Z, iPhone 7, LeEco LePro3, HTC U Ultra, the Essential Phone, and probably a lot of others ditched the 3.5mm headphone jack, in favor of various wired digital and wireless headphone options. They're referring to the perceived impracticality of those design choices.

> The things that no human would possibly design are just silly.

I would keep many of them on bookshelves. It's art when its only purpose is to visually stimulate a mind.

I imagined the tea pot spout being longer than the paired tea cup. It isn't clear if this is the case or not.

Pouring might still be workable from an edge, but I'd consider it broken if the spout doesn't fit in the cup.

Unfortunately, none of these things have that subtlety of terrible designs which makes them so insidious.

The biggest anti-pattern is the stateful VCR-like digit displays with a couple buttons.

They're somewhat going out of style because more stuff has touch screens or can be controlled by a smartphone. But lots of audio equipment still uses this "pattern". And thermostats have it.

I'm a programmer and I still have problems figuring out that their state machine is without the manual. I just bought a $20 clock with the same issue. It doesn't help when one of the actions is "hold a button" either. There's no feedback as to what action you performed -- did I hold it for long enough?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com