In my last post I mentioned how things will get real busy for me over the next couple of months. And interestingly this busy-ness has already sparked so many things and projects I want to focus on when I'm fully on the road after this current phase of my deep matrix involvement has ended. Projects I have been meaning to tackle for so long that it's become quite hilarious actually that I need a span of "less time available" to boil my activities down to the essentials and to re-prioritize my Earthly routines.
And over the years, many of these project ideas and visions of what I want to do and create have been knocking on my door in an often subtle, sometimes not so subtle way. Things that I keep getting reminded about rather often.
One of these creative to-do's stems from a recurring theme that arises when I use any sort of software designed for a specific purpose. And what keeps bugging me to no end is poorly-designed products, especially purposefully ill-designed products.
Don't get me wrong, I am fully aware of the reasons why we don't and can't have ideal products within the confines of what people call "our economy" today, as I have written about in my tzm series.
Still, every time I stumble upon a product that isn't only designed poorly but designed poorly on purpose I get the sense of sweet retaliation, and with it all the various ways I could go about doing so, in a way that allows me to vent some steam and to make it entertaining while clearly showing these products don't need to be this way at all!
So, one of the projects marked down for the next year will be to document the unnecessary and mindblowingly stupid design choices that exist in most of our commonly used software and how they are actually not stupid at all but rather: sinister. Sinister because there is no explanation sufficient to explain how the largest companies of the world would not be able to see what they are doing. As a smart dude once said:
Never ascribe to incompentency what can easily be ascribed to ill intent.
And that's exactly right!
And while I have already touched upon some of the generalities in purposefully stupid product design in my rant a few months back, I really can't wait to simply do a screen capture while doing basic tasks any user would want to do, showcasing how many roadblocks are intentionally put in our way and how we are stopped from excelling in popular software environments and hardware conventions because we keep buying the BS - literally. In the best case, the manufacturers of said products would be thankful forsuch a series and the ensuing discussion (assuming they actually WANTED customers to be happy, which I highly doubt for most companies these days). I have long given up my hopes on that for the major operating system providers for example, there is no way they don't see what they are doing and so we'll see what products get featured ;)
As I will write about in the coming days, it isn't about the money. Maybe it was never really about the money... it's a conclusion that comes quite naturally when one sees that these product aims are not about designing successful products or a happy customer base.
Do you have an example now?
If you want a small taster let me show you one of the videos from way back when that hit the nail on the head. I didn't make this but my first thought when I saw this video was: Well, one video LESS I have to make, this dude has totally nailed it already and the vast number of people agreeing simply shows that we are right! We always hear and learn that it'sallegedly in the best interest of the company to improve and optimizem, "customer is king" and all that jazz... but for some of the largest players in the industry it seems to be quite the opposite...
Even though Cinemassacre's video has gathered massive views by now, if merely one of you out there has never seen it it will be totally worth posting here for the sense of liberation it gives anyone who has ever tried doing basic tasks with printers within the last decade, wondering: Why does this have to be so difficult?!
It's also rather amazing to see that things have not improved one bit in all these years, according to my own recent experiences with printers of newer generations. It's almost like we are slowly maneuvred to getting used to all of these restrictions and limitations that once started out as somewhat plausbile symtpoms of incompetency. Well, in my opinion we are well past that point today. But more on that in the coming days.
Here's the video, some great and concise entertainment about something that shouldn't happen but "usually" does. You think those manufacturers aren't aware of it?
Enjoy <3
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Thanks for stopping by <3