≡ Menu

Mystaeks Wur Maid

A few sample answers from the loooooooong thread: What are some examples of bad design? – Quora

1: The 11-Day Traffic Jam

Let’s take a look into one of the meetings when building the highway.

“Look this highway’s volume is growing by 40% a YEAR!”

“What do we do?”

“Let’s blow some money, let’s make a 50-Lane Highway!”

“Good idea! There can never be a traffic jam now!”

Seems good so far right? Nope!

The 50-Lane Highway has to end somewhere right? Well it did.

They decided to let the 50-Lane Highway merge into 6 lanes at a toll booth. Afterwards, they decided to do construction work on the roads near the merge point.

Also take into consideration the trucks on the highway were overweight, causing them to accelerate slower.

What happened because of this?

An 11 Day Traffic Jam

You heard me right. 11 Days. And you thought your daily commute was bad.

(People seem to disagree on how many lanes the highway has. My sources confirm it has 50 lanes and even if it doesn’t, why can’t it be named the 50-Lane Highway as a nickname? How anticlimactic it is to say “An eleven day traffic jam happened on the 48 and a half lane highway!”)

2: The Antilia- Mukesh Ambani’s House

The world’s most expensive housing for one family. Officially $1 billion USD (or Rs. 6,400 crore).

Think about it for a second. ONE FAMILY, A BILLION USD.

Now look at that ugly looking piece of junk once again. A billion dollars. Look outside any window from the building, and you can see abject poverty all around. And then you choose to make something for 1 BILLION USD, just for your own family.

It’s your money, and I know you have the right to spend it any way you want, Mr. Ambani. But at least design it to become a landmark- a thing of beauty and pride for the city (btw, Burj Al Arab also costs 1 billion USD to build, is a source of national pride, and brings in tourism and money for itself and for others as well), or just to look like an average office building, but at least not something that makes the whole area look poorer by addition of a billion dollars to it.

If this is not bad freaking design, I don’t know what is.

Oh, and btw, some Vastu went wrong, and hence the Ambani family is not even currently living in it.

3: The Relish Packet –

Clearly one of the worst-ever instances of purpose-defying packaging, completely ignoring its intended function…

1. They are often difficult to open since the plastic stretches and the edges aren’t always cut the same, leading to making a mess almost every time you open one.

2. IF, by some miracle, you don’t get vinegar all over your fingers opening the packet, it’s only going to soak the burger/hot dog/sandwich you’re putting it on, and that’s all you’ll get from your first squeeze, anyway.

3. You can never get all the pieces out of the packet, no matter how hard you try. The main thing you’re after is the main thing left behind. Now your bread’s soaked and you’re struggling to get to the last 2 of the packet’s original 5 pickle molecules. Keep going, or open the next one to add another splash of the vinegar you didn’t want in the first place?

4. There is NOWHERE near enough relish in one packet for ANYTHING you might use it for even if you could get it all, leaving you to hassle with 3 or 4 of these little nightmares to even approach a tablespoon of relish.

5. It makes glass ketchup bottles seem brilliant by comparison.

4: Your typical economy class airline seat………

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Snakepit Kansas February 7, 2018, 7:52 AM

    50 lane highway: Someone who designed that has no understanding of Theory of Constraints.

  • tired dog February 11, 2018, 5:18 PM

    Airline seats: I’d like to find the ‘models’ used to size these iron maidens…hell I work with an airline company and can’t even find this info.