Difficult-to-use products: the niggles that let you down

I have a Pure Evoke-1 radio with a 12V power supply and a rechargeable Pure Evoke-3 radio with a 9V power supply that looks almost identical and has the same power connector.

I wonder what would happen if I plugged the 12V supply into the 9V radio.

That’s my nomination for dodgy design.

My old and cumbersome Murphy Richards Coffee Machine has sadly almost reached its final days and I need to replace it. I have looked at the new models on display in various stores with some disdain as to me they slightly resemble something I would expect to find in a sci-fi movie so the new purchase has been put on hold for the time being.

However, during a recent spring cleaning session I came across an old Cona Coffee Maker I had kept because of its beautiful and elegant design with its two glass bowls and arced handles I had been reluctant to throw it away. I set about cleaning it up and it now has pride of place on the kitchen worktop and still makes a perfect cup of coffee. Fortunately I had kept the instructions as it is quite complicated and a bit scary to use with its hubble bubble action but it is a joy to watch the whole coffee making process through the glass bowls from start to finish. I doubt very much whether it would pass today’s stringent Health and Safety regulations though.

My disappointment of the year has to be the You View box that Talk Talk persuaded me to have. It promised to do all sorts of things that my Humax recorder could not do. So long as I use it regularly it is OK up to a point, but it will not let me do catch-up on BBC or the commercial channels for more than an hour. And it is so slow to get started. It has to wake up for a start and it is slower even than I at that! Once it has woken up it then takes ages to get “ready”. I have often given up trying to receive channels through the box and reverted to the remote that came with the TV. Do not be talked into having one of these boxes.

I bought my husband a Nokia Windows phone and the writing was so small and in either red or blue on a black background that he could not read it. He hated it. He now has a Samsung galaxy ace,and loves it.

Not really a consumer product problem, but definitely a niggle caused by bad design: Why is there always gulley grating right alongside the air line at motor service stations? If there’s one thing guaranteed to drop on the ground and roll into the gutter it’s tyre inflation valve caps; their route to an after-life is via the drainage gulley. Not by chance, the service station shop has a handy packet of four replacement tyre inflation valve caps for sale at an exhorbitant price. Of course, on pulling apart the packaging they all fly out and head for the drain. Well who has a pair of scissors in the car for neatly opening valve cap packets? In-built perpetuality – it’s the new obsolescence.

So many products used regularly in the kitchen are badly designed ergonomically. Two I will mention here are kettles and water filters. Many kettles are narrower at the top with lids which do not open fully, so filling them at all is difficult, and from a water filter, impossible. I bought a cheapish Tesco kettle which I had to send back for this reason. I’ve now bought their Basic kettle, which is fine for opening, but the lead comes out at the front of the base making it awkward in my small kitchen.
Lookiing at kettles in general, there are so many to choose from, but very llittle difference between them.

Water filters – I have always used Brita, but will not buy them again. The jug designs differ mainly in colour and small details such as handle shape. They are all shaped to fit in the fridge door, altfhough I don’t know anyone who keeps theirs in the fridge, using them mainly for filling the kettle. The narrow shape makes them top heavy, easy to knock over, and they feel very heavy to lift. On the first one of the maxtra jugs I tried (Marella) the handle was not filled in all the way down, so the edges near the bottom cut into the hand. That went back to the shop My current jug (Fjord) has a strip of rubber around the base. I thought this was a good idea until I knocked it – instead of sliding along the worktop, the rubber strip gripped the surface, it fell over and onto the floor where it broke. I replaced it with the same design as I’d bought a year’s supply of filter cartidges, but am looking for an alternative ready for when that one breaks.

I have two internet radio’s including a Which recommended “Pure” brand. Worked great till it updated.
I have long suspected that the in-house reviewers of modern tech gadgets do not realise how difficult some menu’s are, with oft-required features hidden into several layers. I then have to go and find a manual – rarely paper – that tells me how to do things, or contact a helpdesk online. And it all takes time, when all I want to do is listen to a specialist online radio station.
I’ve ended up using my pc with the speakers on loud.

Hi all, thanks for your comments. We’ve rounded up some of them in our latest debate, which also includes links to easy to use products 🙂 https://conversation.which.co.uk/energy-home/difficult-to-use-products/