We've all heard about crappy design, something that turns a blind eye to user-friendliness, logic and common sense, aesthetics, and people in general. We’re talking billboards, TV ads, product packaging and product design, websites and apps, you name it.
The phenomenon of crappy design is that no matter how much our marketing strategies and advertising techniques have evolved in the past decades, it still finds its place in our daily lives. Check out some examples of crappy design in Bored Panda’s previous features here, here and here.
This time, we are taking a step further. Sometimes the design is so annoying, senseless and defunct that it seems like the brands are doing this deliberately or at least without shame. There’s even a whole corner of reddit dedicated to cases “when a*** design things.”
With a whopping 2.9 million members, the community pokes fun at the mentality that “nothing comes before profit, especially not the consumer.” Below, we wrapped up some of the evilest designs, so let us know what you think of them in the comments!
This post may include affiliate links.
Ah Station Design
Taxes
Appstore For You
Bad design can be found everywhere, from the products we use every day to the websites we visit. Poorly designed products can be difficult to use, causing us to waste time and energy. They can also be dangerous, as faulty product or packaging designs can lead to accidents.
Meanwhile, websites with bad design can be hard to navigate, preventing us from finding the information we need. They can also be visually unappealing, making us less likely to return. At the same time app can have a very bad user experience which means people will be reluctant to use it. From confusing navigation to cluttered layouts, anyone can spot a very poor design.
Brand New Protein Powder, Not Even Filled Half Whey
Felt Like This Sub Would Appreciate This Statement
Screw You Pinterest
Your content fills up and pollutes the search engine results yet people can’t even view your bulls**t user-submitted content without signing up for a damn account. Going to add to you to my Personal Blocklist so you don’t appear in my searches and waste my time anymore.
Pinterest is a cesspool. I found some of my facebook photos had been uploaded on pinterest. A girl (wannabe maker/influencer/scammer) reuploaded them with her watermark and used them as example of her creations. Had to subscribe to the website to report the images, and after weeks of waiting... nothing happened. Zero answers, support or even an automated mail. In the meanwhile those images were stolen by others and popped around for a while on other websites, mostly on ads of promoting scams. Stopped uploading my work anywhere.
Jerk designs seem to take a step further than simply bad designs and come across as downright unethical and immoral. They snuck their way into the products and services we consume, and sometimes we don’t even notice them.
According to Danny Sapio, the lead product designer at Method and cofounder of Confettihabits.com, shrinkflation is a classic case of less product and more profit. “Companies use this tactic to discreetly sell less of a product at the same price that it was before.”
Moreover, Sapio argues that “companies can do this through labeling by displaying “FAMILY SIZE” or “PARTY SIZE” despite it being the same amount as the regular item.” For us, the unsuspecting shoppers, it’s something that’s really easy to miss.
Trashy Company
Hellofresh. If I Don’t Need To Call To Make Orders, I Shouldn’t Need To Call To Unsubscribe
Cashing In On That *cough*
Another great example of jer design practices is the use of lethal enforcers. They require the user to take the action that the company wants before they can do what they intend to do.
“Lethal enforcers are essentially a way that companies gatekeep the decision making for users. Instead of giving users a free choice, the company decides for the individual the decision that should be made then makes that their only choice,” Sapio explained.
An example of a lethal enforcer is when you want to write a review on Yelp but have to download the brand’s app first. “Or when a company suppresses relevant search results to display sponsored products or content.”
I Want My Money Back
I Chose The Bottle Because A Tube Wasn't Enough! This Trojan Trickery Is An Abuse Coming From A Brand With Recognition
Well here’s a company that cares FA about both its customers and the environment.
Bought These Sticky Notes Cause I Thought The Gold Border Was Nice
Sapio also urges to look out for one of the trick questions known as the loaded questions. They take an advantage of our good nature. “We assume that we don’t need to read the entire question because we’ve already collected the information we need to answer it.”
Natural Is A Trademark
So It Was A Lie
Really?
Another very shady design practice is throttling. “Throttling is when a company intentionally downgrades the service or product with the hopes that the customer upgrade. This is different than forced obsolescence because the product still works; it’s just much slower and shittier than it used to be,” the product designer explained.
It turns out that even giant brands like Apple have been found guilty of this. Apple has settled a class-action lawsuit over its practice of slowing down older iPhones, agreeing to pay up to $500 million to impacted consumers.
“Another example is ‘unlimited’ data providers that sneakily slow down internet speeds once they pass a certain threshold of data usage,” Sapio concluded.
Youtuber Gets Every Single Video On His Channel Copyright Claimed Despite Having The Rights To All The Music In His Videos
This Mcdonalds Menu
Just hold up the queue on purpose till the ad finishes, so you can choose what you want!
Both Weigh 500g But The Green One Is In A 30% "Bigger Bag More To Share"
Customer: it's a bigger bag with more chips. Company: no no, it's just a bigger bag
Cup Design That Makes The Drink Look Like It Has Actual Fruit
Disney Leaves The Inside Of Their $6 Icecream Hollow
The Sticker Was A Lie
Amazon Prime Video Doesn't Tell You If A Show Is Unavailable In Your Country Until After You Subscribe To Amazon Prime
Indeed his refusal to help people may have ended lives.
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Get a VPN account and ‘switch countries’ as you like. We’re mostly using it to watch UK content from NL but it works for anything and is only 2.50 or so per month if you sign up for a longer period.
I tried that and still couldn't purchase anything because it would recognize my country from my credit card
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Worst than that: in my country (Switzerland, french part), some show are available in amazon prime menu, but when you click on it, it refuse to start... no message, no explanation, nothing. Another example: a french movie (in originla french language), which is available on Prime in France, is only available in german (no subtitle, no other language, no original language) in Switzerland. Last example: some month ago, I started a new anime on amazon. Each night after work I watched like 2 episodes. When I want to start the 7th (the 4th evening): nothing worked. The episodes 7,8,9 and 10 (last one) are here, on the list, on the serie, but didn't start. I thought it was a bug, so I try the next day... it got worst: the serie is listed, but impossible to get into it. Next week, the serie is only available in german... final: 3 months later, the serie is again available fully in french. AMAZON PRIME is F**KED UP!
I would deal with f**ked up Amazon Prime if I was able to live in Switzerland
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Sucks for the person who doesn’t have access to Grimm. That show was 🔥
We should all be aware now that capitalist companies will do anything to f**k us. They are not our friends, they are not likeable and we should hold no brand loyalty. They jockey for market share by any means necessary. We are their marks and all we are are another pocket to squeeze from.
To quote Gabe Newell: "One thing that we have learned is that piracy is not a pricing issue. It’s a service issue... The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates."
I appreciate the utter crapness of this, but it might well be that it doesn't know your actual location until you subscribe. However, if this is the case, then it needs to be more transparent and say that the content is not available in all countries, and preferably have a pop up to let you see which countries it is available in.
That’s just… cold, especially if you only subscribe to watch a certain series
I live in Ecuador and copyrighted infringement isn't really a thing here. I look on Amazon prime for interesting shows, then just download the torrents.
Or better still you decide you want to rent a movie and they then state that as you try to reset you account because you've forgotten the password it goes into lock mode and you have to contaxt them overseas
prime is becoming a scam site, i pay to watch, but now they are running ads
It seems like the lists of programs I can't watch grows longer every time I go to Prime.
That's why I boycot Amazon and Amazon-related products completely. There are alternatives plenty
This is why you use proxies, VPN's, adblockers, and sponsor skip extensions. Distribution has always been a gambino-level RICO affair, but in Murica that is completely legal since all they care about is money.
UM, you aren't telling us you subscribed to get that one movie did you? Just be glad you don't dont have a Fire TV. You know the Netflix ad with all the movie squares well it is supposed to look like that on the Fire TV I get one row, writing in the blocks and maybe one or two blocks with regular movie squares. I think it might be I;m looking at controversial historical material. People their get in theor feeling and start doing stuff they aren't supposed to because they think they have that right. So, disappoint in Amazon fire TV. Used to be absolutely perfect, now...junk.
Deffo not the only one where you can't trust the series to actually be there until you subscribe. Living in Finland gargles monkey balls when it comes to available content. Weird combo of local stations holding the permits and the lack of capable translators willing to work for the peanuts they get offered is mostly to blame.
We had this when the UK left the EU, 90% channels disappeared along with films I had bought. Netflix ... no change.
Who even uses amazon prime it uselles just install cracked version of hbo max on google
Demand access, since they offered you access in the first screenshot.
Juliet ruined the show anyway theres a reddit for those of us who now hate her as a person
Or you can only watch certain episodes of some shows but they just random
EVERYTHING that is streamed, becomes a Torrent in hours of release.. ie, you can pirate ALL of it! ;)
Or you have to go to MGM through Amazon Prime, and subscribe to their channel before you can watch certain shows or movies!
Thats why I always Google if a title is available in my country and what streaming service for the current date
At least it’s a terrible show and they’re not really missing anything.
You shouldn't have to but if you wanted to use a VPN service you can watch all the shows that are unavailable in your country. With a virtual private network it can't tell where you are so they can't limit what you can see.
The past few years I haven't even been able to access Amazon Prime Video app. It won't load at all. Even if I go from the main Amazon app.
I bought a bunch of shows too like TopGear, and now they're gone!!! It's SO IRRITATING
I am an American living in Bogotá, Colombia and our family deals with this every day.
This sounds like a good show. What is it rated? Buuuuuut it's probably going to be dubbed in english if it's available in the US.
Not sure about anywhere else, but here in Canada, I sign in to my Amazon account before going anywhere near Prime Video. They know where I am and the unavailable videos disappear. I know people hate Amazon and Bezos, but we'd be at a loss at our house without Prime Video.
I hate everything about Amazon. On principal, haven't shopped anything Amazon for about ten years.
Unless you live in the US, it’s probably best to avoid Amazon Prime for exactly this reason.
This Design Pisses Me Off Every Single Day
Unremovable Ads On My $2,500 Samsung Smart TV
Spending $175 On A Textbook Only To Receive A 2 Inch Stack Of Unbound Papers. Binder Sold Separately!
Dislikes Helped You Know If A Video Was A Scam, Misleading Or Had False Information
Read: We intend to continue to host questionable content as long as it generates revenue for us, and no, we’re not going be transparent about it, because that will obviously also affect our revenue.
Literal Hell For Budget Flyers - Standing Seats
Hey This Hotel Room Is Only $99 A Night, Great Deal!!!
They should have just said the hotel is FREE, then charge the $99 as a booking fee or something. Who wouldn't like a FREE hotel, eh?
They Replaced Half The Mirrors In My Local Shopping Mall's Bathroom With Advertising Boards!
Heard We Are Having A Rigged Democracy Binge
The Fact That You Can't Uninstall Facebook On Certain Phones
They Decided To Completely Cover Their Tenants' Windows With Ads Because Who Needs Natural Light And Fresh Air?
My Work Place’s ‘Low Plastic, Recyclable Eco-Pens’ Have A Secret At Their Core
My Age Preferences Are There For A Reason, Tinder
Keurig Sensor Blocks Your Brew Unless It's "K-Cup Compatible", Aka Has Scannable Foil. Slap On An Old Foil To A 3rd Party Cup And Suddenly No Issue
Such A Great Deal!
My Chinese "Smart TV" Plays A 15 Second Chevrolete Commercial Every Time I Turn It On
Perfectly Fine Lighters With No Way To Refuel Them... Planned Obsolescence Is Asshole Design And Terrible For The Environment
As**ole School System Charging Kids For Lunch And Then Blaming Parents
My Printer Just Did A Firmware Update And No Longer Recognizes My Third-Party Ink
Shrinkflation Used By Cadbury To Literally Cut Corners. The Bottom Chocolate Bar Is More Than 8 Percent Smaller
Mess with my sandwich, mess with my glue… BUT DO NOT MESS WITH MY CHOCOLATE
5$ Pen Size vs. Ink
Designed For Dissuading The Homeless. Literally Just Uncomfortable For Everyone Else
Why do people do this stuff? Like, if you dont want people to sleep on the streets, there are infinitely better things to do
8% Alcohol Or
Food Delivery Service That Tells You “Someone Is At The Door! Okay We Lied”
I Wish My Professors Graded Like This
Press Dismiss To Update This Printer
Facebook, I'm Beyond Words
Tenerife Airport Shows Ads On The Flight Information Screens Every Few Minutes (For At Least A Minute), So If You're Unlucky You Have To Wait Before Knowing Which Gate To Go To
F**k You Vegas
Makes Me Want To Cancel Even Harder
They will try to offer the craziest deals if only they can get you to stay. It took me 20 minutes to finally cancel.
I Love Ads On My £250 Console That I Continue To Pay £6 A Month To Play On
New Instagram "Feature"
I quit Instagram last week. The new shenanigans are more than I can take. I just don't need that much advertising for overpriced t-shirts
I Would Like To Thank Suave For Increasing The Size Of Their Bottle By -17%
They Knew What They Were Doing. It Was Perfectly Placed In The Box
By Opening The Envelope For The License Agreement, You Agree To It
My $2,500 TV Has "Sponsored Content" Built Into The Menu
That show is really awesome(I love Lucy) but the advertisements put a damper on it. Honest question, why are they doing this? It's not like they are startups
Wanted To Cancel My Subscription... Now I Have To Talk To Someone
Every country should have a law that states that ending an account/subscription must be as easy and convenient as it is to starting it.
My $200 Textbook Won’t Let Me Copy Paste More Then 84 Words To Make A Study Guide
Price Was $5.76. Can Only Pay With Quarters
Sony's $330 Headphones Doesn’t Work With A Ps4
Chipotle Goes All-Out Advertising That For The Next Week Delivery Is Free, And Then Casually Makes The Delivery Menu Priced Higher Than The Regular One
These Bluetooth Headphones Have To Be Permanently Plugged In To Provide Power
That one's arguably the stupidest and most impudent so far: You specifically buy bluetooth pods so you're not leashed to your phone and they not only kill that single advantage but have the audacity to advertize with "never needs charging"! OF COURSE I DOESN'T IF THERE'S NO BATTERY AND IT'S CONSTANTLY PLUGGED IN!
Apple’s Proprietary USB A Extension Cable
The $20 Toilet Paper My Auntie Bought (On The Right) On Amazon Compared To A Normal Roll (On The Left)
Powerade Is Using Shrinkflation By Replacing Their 32oz Drinks With 28oz And Stores Are Charging The Same Amount
Youtube Lets You Purchase A Movie, But Still Age Blocks You
Well lol, if you are age " blockable " you shouldnt be buying anything online, because lets face it, there is 99.9% chances you're using your parents card, and they should be the ones buying it.
Packaging That Tricks You
Can We All Agree Having To Pay For A Human Necessity Is A Major As**ole Design?
No, we can’t. The toilets are always kept clean, an attendant is always on duty and no-one is ever just hanging around in there doing god knows what. If the bogs are open, an employee is there somewhere. It’s also a lot safer - I’d rather use a paid toilet at the railway station late in the evening than anywhere else.
2k19 Is A Retail 60$ Game. They Put Non Skippable Ads In From Another Company
Apple Using Different Wallpapers And Trying To Make Us Believe The Pro And The Pro Max Has No "Notch" Compared To The Base Model
You Can't Play Doom I And II Offline On Switch Without Creating A Bethesda Account
They Took Away The In-Store Signage To Force You To Download Their App
Um...no. I despise Walmart, but this isn't even remotely true. The circled area highlighting the missing price tags is an overstock area. You can clearly see the price tags on all the other shelves. That...and this photo was posted on Reddit 2 years ago.
Can we talk about the horrific design behind the downvoting system on this site? Down votes are not dislikes, downvotes get you suspended and then banned. And there are anonymous trolls who follow popular Pandas and downvote comments for no rhyme or reason.
I got banned for a day last week, I backtracked my comments and I hadn’t written anything polarizing or remotely vulgar/offensive etc. i still for the life of me can’t figure out why I was banned and I tried to ask BP for clarification but zilch
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Screw this. This fight against greedy capitalistic demons will never be won if our only hope is waiting for gov official to protect the people. We need to bring back the guillotine and go all french on these bastards.
Bad sirs, you sit on a throne of lies. Thirty percent more lies, to be exact.
Can we add Amazon delivery times to the list? (or did I miss it?) So many times I see "Buy within the next 3 hours to receive it TODAY" So i buy it as i really need it quick only to see. . "Estimated delivery time: TOMORROW". . . Why Amazon? WHY?
The main problem is that it isn’t sustainable to expect people who are poorly paid and poorly treated to bring you whatever you want on the same day you order it.
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1> It took a site 30 seconds to start sending spam to my email, but they want up to 10 days to make it STOP? 2> "... and other natural flavors" - wtf?
One of my favorites was the label on a Mr Goodbar. It proudly proclaimed, "Now! More peanuts!" I suppose it wouldn't help sales if they advertised it as having less chocolate.
Dumb design: Disney Plus doesn't even have all the Disney / marvel movies and it makes me mad 'cause like??? Why does it cost that much then, if you're gonna make people pay to watch the movies that aren't there too- Signed, a girl who got bored and thought she'd watch Spider-Man, the old ones OR into the spider verse and none were there
Can we include Youtube thumbnails for videos that do not feature in any form whatsoever within the video.
I can see why you'd consider it humiliating, but all I thought was how impressed I was that you were willing to give the inside view. Super bad s**t can happen to anyone, and we only think we have control of our situations.
Stellar journalism as always: 1) Report on what someone said 2) Report on what a bunch of nobodies ("Twitter user Katy") said about it. 3) Publish it under the assumption that it qualifies as journalism.
And yet with a quick scroll through you’ll easily find Japanese companies, U.K. companies, Chinese, American, and a few that have no clear country. If the agenda is attacking the U.S. then they are certainly mixing plenty of other nations in there. As for anti-capitalism that’s because these issues relate to being conned by companies, perhaps if they put customers first rather than profit they’d represent capitalism a bit better? It MAY be that capitalism isn’t as good as it could be? It MAY be that you are sucking a bit too much from the capitalism teat? Defending the big business who’ll strip all of your assets is a little hmmm sheepish ain’t it?
Load More Replies... Can we talk about the horrific design behind the downvoting system on this site? Down votes are not dislikes, downvotes get you suspended and then banned. And there are anonymous trolls who follow popular Pandas and downvote comments for no rhyme or reason.
I got banned for a day last week, I backtracked my comments and I hadn’t written anything polarizing or remotely vulgar/offensive etc. i still for the life of me can’t figure out why I was banned and I tried to ask BP for clarification but zilch
Load More Replies... Screw this. This fight against greedy capitalistic demons will never be won if our only hope is waiting for gov official to protect the people. We need to bring back the guillotine and go all french on these bastards.
Bad sirs, you sit on a throne of lies. Thirty percent more lies, to be exact.
Can we add Amazon delivery times to the list? (or did I miss it?) So many times I see "Buy within the next 3 hours to receive it TODAY" So i buy it as i really need it quick only to see. . "Estimated delivery time: TOMORROW". . . Why Amazon? WHY?
The main problem is that it isn’t sustainable to expect people who are poorly paid and poorly treated to bring you whatever you want on the same day you order it.
Load More Replies... 1> It took a site 30 seconds to start sending spam to my email, but they want up to 10 days to make it STOP? 2> "... and other natural flavors" - wtf?
One of my favorites was the label on a Mr Goodbar. It proudly proclaimed, "Now! More peanuts!" I suppose it wouldn't help sales if they advertised it as having less chocolate.
Dumb design: Disney Plus doesn't even have all the Disney / marvel movies and it makes me mad 'cause like??? Why does it cost that much then, if you're gonna make people pay to watch the movies that aren't there too- Signed, a girl who got bored and thought she'd watch Spider-Man, the old ones OR into the spider verse and none were there
Can we include Youtube thumbnails for videos that do not feature in any form whatsoever within the video.
I can see why you'd consider it humiliating, but all I thought was how impressed I was that you were willing to give the inside view. Super bad s**t can happen to anyone, and we only think we have control of our situations.
Stellar journalism as always: 1) Report on what someone said 2) Report on what a bunch of nobodies ("Twitter user Katy") said about it. 3) Publish it under the assumption that it qualifies as journalism.
And yet with a quick scroll through you’ll easily find Japanese companies, U.K. companies, Chinese, American, and a few that have no clear country. If the agenda is attacking the U.S. then they are certainly mixing plenty of other nations in there. As for anti-capitalism that’s because these issues relate to being conned by companies, perhaps if they put customers first rather than profit they’d represent capitalism a bit better? It MAY be that capitalism isn’t as good as it could be? It MAY be that you are sucking a bit too much from the capitalism teat? Defending the big business who’ll strip all of your assets is a little hmmm sheepish ain’t it?
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