Design Observation

Reflections on “Bad” and “Good” Design in My Daily Life

My keen observation and passion for design allow me to pay attention to good or bad designs in my daily life. About a year ago, I started to record these observations and posted them on my blog to hone my judgments of good design. I also hope that someday I will be able to solve the problems that the bad design has not solved. I only put  a few of them on my portfolio site, and you can see more works here.

iPhone clock

These days I often set Alarm and Timer, but I always make mistakes. Every time I want to stop Timer, I touched “repeat”.

We can see from the comparison picture that “STOP” appears at different positions of the two functions. Although I understand that designers may want to highlight the most commonly used behaviors, this design is too inconsistent and easily lead to mistakes.

Egg roll machine

This is a wonderful user-centered designed egg roll machine: The iron plate used to heat eggs is a five-sided roller. The time of rotating 5 times after putting in the egg is enough to turn it into a delicious slice, no seconds wasted.

Sugar

I put a piece of sugar into my coffee every day. The reduction of the grid every day gives me a  sense of ceremony. Would it be fun to combine sugar with a calendar?

Youdao dictionary

This ad is seamlessly integrated with the dictionary application itself.

Google Doc

Recently, I discovered that in Google Doc's comment mode, colors are not sorted by absolute characters but by relative characters. Our own changes are green and the other red. It's really thoughtful, before discovering this, I often worry about my partner missing my green change.

Sip: a color management tool in Mac

After clearing the color history and reactivating Sip, it will show some sentences about color-related philosophy of life randomly. this emotional designed blank page perfectly meets its function, quite lovely.

Vue: A video editing application

This saving video progress bar is very unique and interesting. I feel like it is saying, "I'm working hard to make this video!"

The Microsoft Flower Recognition App

Although it said, “NOT FOUND,” when I recognized a cat, it still showed, “it might be a cat,”  very loving.

Sip: a color management tool in Mac

In Sip, each color has a name. It feels a lot warmer compared to the dull color values. It’s just like a little wizard telling you what color it is, rather than a boring machine.

Prisma

It shows a donation reminder when you buy the "love" filter, and shows that the money you paid will go directly to the children. This is a great way to encourage people to donate.

M&M's Fan

Many small fans try to reduce accidental damage by using a soft blade, but M&M's Fan goes further; you must keep pressing the switch to active it, at the same time the blade begins to shine. When you release the switch it immediately stops. I have observed the way children using it and found that it significantly increases  security and fun compared with other small electric fans.

Lexin Sports bracelet

Ever since I bought a sports bracelet for my parents, I have to kept buying chargers for them because they get lost easily. Until one such bracelet surprised me—we can unplug the wristband and charge it directly, which removes the hassle of using a separate charger. Accessories are always painful.

Flipboard

The first time I opened Flipboard, it said it would push notifications only once a day and all of them were carefully selected; So different than usual, I accept this push request. In recent days, however, it feels a bit too frequent. Today I verified it: it pushes notifications more than three times a day. Breaking one's promise is worse than not promising at all.

Eleme Take-out service platform

I think this is a great way to tip a delivery man: showing some products they may need instead of the amount of money. It is to some extent changing a commercial behavior into a social behavior. Sometimes we want to give some money to express our gratitude, but we do not want to give too much. We may feel embarrassed if we give too little money. However, giving a cup of coffee or a Coke makes both of us feel better-just like we are friends.

Tecent QQ: an IM tool

I really do not like the little trick of QQ. On my birthday, it sent many messages to me pretending to be my friends’ direct messages; actually they might only click to confirm in a push notification. I think letting the machine appear to be self-righteously clever is kind of emotionally cheating. Interpretation of human emotions depends on interpretation of the behavior; the concern behind the clicking of a button in a push message is definitely different from manually opening QQ and typing in some words.

IKEA clouds lens hood

Staying with my nephew doudou, I found out that children like to watch lights. But because they hurt their eyes in doing so, we need to hood the light for them. In the mother and infant room in IKEA, I saw this interesting cloud lens hood, which feels very warm-hearted. It’s both practical and lovely and can be bought.

Tecent QQ: an IM tool

In QQ, the picture can be sent directly by dragging it to the dialog box, a more intuitive operation.

Special haircut apron

I saw an apron like this with a transparent window at a barber’s shop(photo from taobao.com); it allows people to  play with their phone while having their hair cut. It’s so sweet, albeit ugly.