Give an example of a badly designed product.

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Give an example of a badly designed product.

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SD24 · Answer 1 · 2021-04-26T09:52:40+0000

An example of a badly designed product is Vimeo (video watching/creating app) Vimeo is a video sharing platform that allows users to view and share content. It is a two sided marketplace that caters to viewers as well as creators of content and allows creators to control views throgh customizable privacy features. What makes it my least favorite: It does poorly on the below parameters: innovation Intuitive Usability issue Honest/Simple 1. Non Intuitive - Viewers: The home page is blank when you start - giving the users no clue into how they can start engaging with the content

2. Usability Issue - Viewers: It does a poor job of allowing me to find even the purchased videos and I had to search and memorize a way to be able to search and find videos I purchased

3. No innovation - Viewers - It has a watch tab which gives almost no selection to users as it is one row of carousel for users to browse through and hence there is no way I will find any relevant content in the space

4. Creatires: Even though the app is entirely focused on creators it has confusing navigation that basically shows video, create and showcase which is not intuitive and leads to confusion for new users on how they could go about crating content

5. Overall the app feels like it is only designed for creators so viewers feel unwelcomed. Lack of stickiness. Irrelevant videos shown in one row did not help the user to discover and view content.

Maha Alam · Answer 2 · 2019-11-20T02:29:41+0000

Badly designed product

Before I begin, I'd clarify what is meant by 'bad'. I'm assuming that I can suggest improvements to a product I use today. When I think about products I love using today, I have a simple criteria:

1) Product solves a need that no other products solve the same way, it's unique

2) I use it frequently use it and it works

3) The product is intuitive

The product I will focus on is iMessage (iPhone native messaging app). I've come to use other messaging apps more because they have unique characteristics that I think iMessage is missing.

The user cases for iMessage are:

1) Sending a message to someone from your contacts

2) Searching messages for something previously sent

3) Searching someones contact info from your list of messages

4) Sending a photo to someone

5) Calling someone from your messages

6) Searching for photos previously sent

7) Replying to texts recieved

When it comes to iMessage, iPhone can do 1, 4, and 7 with the least amount of clicks. However, I think the rest of the tasks can be improved. I think when it comes to user efficiencies, you want to be able to achieve a task with a minimal amount of clicks. User cases 3 and 5 take more than 1 click. Where as on other messaging apps such as WhatsApp it is easy and more intuitive. Finding contact info should be super quick. In iMessages it takes 4 clicks to find out what the users phone number is. That isn't intuitive.

Search doesn't exist for 1:1 mesages on iMessage. I find that saving a message to come back to later is hard. For example, a user scenario could be saving someone address info or apartment buzzer. Currently, right now you search for all your messages and the app will return messages from all your chats even if you know who you want to search messages with. The improvement I would suggest here woud be - being able to save messages and come back to them later.

Another improvement for #7 is to be able to reply to older messages. Scenario here would be if you were having a group conversation and weren't active in the conversation at the time. When you go open up your messages, you can go through the conversation and reply back to messages you might have missed. Currently, you reply is general to the conversation and not specific to someones message. WhatsApp has also solved this problem well.

To summarize, more users will resort to using other messaging apps since iMessage is lacking intuitivity.

Ram G. · Answer 3 · 2019-11-16T05:35:07+0000

I will use the shoe with lace as the product. It is widely used for years. I will ask clarification question: is this an issue with 1. product usefulness, 2. ease of use, 3. aesthetic and / or fashion sense.   The user segments men and women. will focus on men segment. The subsegments in this are Students, Employees: factory/construction, or business, retired/seniors. I will ask if I can focus on Employee segment - mainly business/corporate/academic setting.   Assume focus on business user in corporate setting. Typically leather or sports/casual shoe is used.

will look at two options: shoe with lace and shoe without lace.

1. shoe with lace: pros - is widely accepted, aesthetic, provides stability.   cons - takes longer time to put on 1 - 2 mins, requires to sit or bend to tie laces, if socks are thick, will have to force into shoe, requires to tighten lace and tie knot, the know may come off and cause fashion mistake, is hard to take off at airport security queue, is also time consuming to put back on in security queue while managing the other acticles, is not easy to take off in the airplane itself, and if taken off in the airplane is difficult to put on. 2. shoe without lace - cons. is geeky and less stylish, less stable and not tight fit, pros: easy to put on, take off, time saving, comfortable.

solution: i will propose creating a hybrid shoe, that will have laces for appearance, to take care of the fashion/style aspects, but actuality will function like a lace less shoe. This combines best of both shoe designs.   pricing wise will keep at same/ slightly higher than non lace version.

Metrics: run promo and test market on amazon. look at adoption and take rates and extrapolate.

gauri · Answer 4 · 2019-06-21T05:27:04+0000

I travel a lot and in order to plan a vacation, weather plays a very important role. In order to avoid any delays and diversions, I prefer to book all the attractions based on the weather.

Because I have iPhone, I am used to looking at the pre-installed weather app but it doesn't give me a lot of information to plan the travel for each day. I generally end up searching the weather on the app.

I can think of the below personas of the app

- Traveller

- Locals

- Business like: mail delivery, airlines, constructions etc

I am going to stick to traveller persona. The goal of the improvement is to increase user engagement. Let's list their pain point

Use-cases

* As a traveller I would like to see predicted daily weather for the dates I am travelling and also suggestions for what kinds of clothes to bring.

* As a traveller I would also like to see hourly predicted wind and precipitation for the travel dates in order to plan the day ahead with any attractions.

* As a traveller, I would like to know if the destination weather has high pollen or dust allergy for the travel date

Solution

Option	Impact to User	Dev Complexity
Allow user to select a certain date range and provide an "estimated" forecast based on history to the user. When showing the forecast for the date range, show small icons to suggest the kind of clothing to bring. Ex. If it is predicted to rain then show an "umbrella icon" ; If summer then show a "swimsuit icon"	High	Low (the data is already available)
Allow a user to drill down to 7-days ahead forecast by hour and provide wind, humidity, pressure information	Medium (might not be accurate)	Low (it is difficult to get the hourly data predicted)
Allow a user to select a date range and provide predicted information regarding any known allergies for the destination	High	High (people with allergies can adjust their travel plan based on the information)

Based on above I would go ahead with solution 1 & then 3. In order to measure the success, I would looke at the below metrics

* number of users selecting a date range and getting the weather information for a particular destination

* number of users viewing the "allergies" data

* average time spend/user (should increase)

syadav2 · Answer 5 · 2018-11-09T04:49:26+0000

Would like to talk Uber Express Pool as a badly designed product or a feature:

I would be evaluating it on common design principles:

1. Product solves the problem it is intended to solve

2. The product is understandable and easy to navigate

3. Product delights the user

4. Product sends feedback to the user when something goes wrong

The express pool gives riders option to share their ride at an affordable price by walking a few minutes to a common point.

Uber express pool feature failing on number 2 and 3. I happened to use a couple of times and every time I ended up canceling the ride. Let me explain why after confirmed booking it asks you walking down to common pickup point but there is no live navigation available only few statically presented dotted lines make your way to a location. It shows you like "walk 250 meters south-east" and the name of pickup point. I always have a hard time finding north, south, east, west location :) and . I am sure many would have faced the same doing it. Hence this feature is not understandable and tough to navigate.

Ever since I have canceled my last booking and entered 20 mins late in a crucial meeting I would talk negatives of this feature to at least 10 people and hence customer centricity dies totally in here. Feature completely breaks the flow and its very likely to annoy the user. Along with it if one rider gets late in finding point would be annoying for other riders

Suggested solution:

1. They would have come up with real-time navigation facility helping the users reaching pickup point hassle free.

2. May add live location sharing option through text messages.

raunakpan2000 · Answer 6 · 2018-09-26T08:36:13+0000

Here is a 2 step process to answer such questions -

1. Clarification - what does bad mean? Is it bad user experience, bad product design, bad / useless / unnecessary features.

2. Identifying problem - based on the above clarification, you have to suggest who is the predominant user type and why do you think it is bad. For example, in uber India - the safety feature is poorly designed because it doesn't clearly suggest the specific call to action, which could be contacting the police or general safety report during your drive.

Mostly, this question is asked to judge your analytical and product vision skills. And the follow up question would be - how would you improve it.

Prateek Srivastava · Answer 7 · 2024-09-14T08:04:34+0000

The framework to answer such questions is to clarify "bad". Is is poor UI, functional solution, or product support?

Once the objective is clarified, we need to understand the user, their needs, and pin point the gaps. These gaps should be with respect to the lever we had identified earlier.

Lastly, if possible identify the metrics getting effected and delve into any possible trade-offs the product is trying to address. Is the trade-off a conscious one?

In sum, begin by clarifying and then delve into the gaps basis the lever identified. Close by talking about the metrics effected and if there is any trade-off at play.

Kristina Kolibab · Answer 8 · 2021-11-17T01:09:54+0000

An example of a badly designed product is AllTrails. AllTrails is an outdoor enthusiast web and mobile application that allows users to search for and save trails for hiking, trail running, snow shoeing, and other outdoor activities. If you upgrade to the pro version, you can even download the trail maps for offline navigation, which is helpful for multiday hikers or those new to hiking and with limited experience navigating trail markers. When I think about why this is a badly designed product, it comes down to 3 factors, which I will now dive into deeper below.

1. Understandable - I find that AllTrails is missing key information on each of the trails profile pages, including where the trailhead actually starts, if it happens to be 0.5 mile from where the map directions tell you to go and park. I also find it difficult to confirm if a certain trailhead requires paid parking, is closed for the season, or requires a special permit. Currently, to figure this information out you have to read recent reviews left by other users, however, these reviews could be months inbetween so you are still left guessing if what they said still applies.

2. Convenience - Living in upstate NY, some trails can become treacherous during the winter months, requiring snow shoes, micro spikes, or poles. The trails then become a guessing game of how much snow that particular area got, or you have to leave the app to search the surrounding city to see how much rain or snowfall they received, which is inconvenient and potentially dangerous.

3. Useful - Searching using their map feature feels very clunky, it starts by showing pins with numbers, to show how many sub trails are located near that particular trail. However, when you go to zoom in, the numbered pins update without warning and the sub pins start popping up all over the place, sometimes out of view if you zoomed in too far. This is very annoying and not helpful at all, especially when some sub pins are far enough away from each other to begin with, so the numbered pins feature becomes useless and confusing.

If I were to improve AllTrails, here are some solutions I would pose:

Add the payment/parking details to the profile section, potentially allowing users to update this information as it becomes necessary, similar to wiki. There is a risk with people adding faulty information though.
List the local rangers number so that users can call to confirm things like parking, permits, payments, are dogs allowed, weather, etc. There is a risk with the rangers phone ringing non-stop though.
Integrate with weather app to show real time updates of local precipitation and temperature.
Refrain from using numbered pins unless zoomed far enough out that pins will overlap, and even then, it there are less than 3 pins overlapping, maybe still useful to show them separately.

@Fsh02 · Answer 9 · 2021-10-12T20:47:52+0000

I'll ask if I need to find software/app product or any type product and assume the asnwer is to find a bad app that is popular. To answer this question, first I am going to define requirements of a good product in my mind and when a product is not satifying those requirements, I count it as bad product. A good product need to:

Solve a real problem for users
Be easy to use (Good UX)
Offers innovative solution to delight and surprise customers

I think Zillow is one of popular product that has desgin flaws. Zillow is a product that is helping home buyers to find out about the inventory of homes in geographical area of their target. Home buyers then can book a time to visit the home by real estate agent that is approved by Zillow. Home owners also can claim their home in the platform to add to descriptions and add pictures of their home. It also helps landlords and renters in the similar way by listing/showing all available homes and their monthly rent. Zillow provides other services like mortgage and buy your home; however, my focus is on their main features which are home buying and renting.

As I explained users of the product are home buyers, home owners who want to sell their house (sellers), home renters and landlords. I used Zillow to buy and rent homes and my experience is that while listing homes on the map is very good solution to find what you want, it is hard to decide if price of home/rental listed in the app is good/fair/high price for the property. I think this is one of main pain points for users of this product that is not solved very well. In the first glance, when you look at detail page of a home (for example a home that is for sale), they listed a price estimate called as Zestimate. However, if you want to research this price, Zillow does not provide right tool. You can search sold homes in the area that are from 5 years ago, while most likely you want to see homes that sold last year, or last 6 months. Also, their price estimate easily changes for a particular home when it is off the market or no the market which is a trust issue for a frequent user of the app. I have noticed more many times that when home owner set a price above Zillow estimate, Zillow increases the price of home to be closer to home owners asking price. While this issue could be due to the fact that they did not know exactly about home conditions (e.g. home was renovated recently), it is not explained well in the product. Therefore, user can think that Zillow only wants to make asking price sound fair to increase the number of transactions as they benefit from it at the end (lose of customer trust). For rentals also they are not providing houses that have been advertised recently (past month, or past 3 months) and market research is unsolved problem. When I compare them to Redfin (their competitor) while Redfin is also changing their price estimate once a house is marketed, they are providing much better tools to perform a market research of your own.

Another area that I think Zillow did not address a customer problem is searching based on neighborhood (while Redfin does this). Families who have kids so often are interested to know more about the neighborhood and search in certain neighborhood rather than a city.

In conclusion, Zillow does not serve users well for performing their own market research, their price estimate moves when a house is marketed without transparency to user about the reasons for this change and they are not providing right tool to customers who like to search based on neighborhood.