Have you ever been exposed to design that is so horrible you feel like jumping off the roof in desperation? I have – more than once in fact. It usually happens when the design process is 100% seperated from the function of the product.

Remote controls to televisions and beamers are good examples. They usually look like shit and have a zilion buttons you will never use. To make it even worse they are usually black, with black buttons with dark grey text. Perfectly readable in a dark room – NOT.

I actually don’t watch much television so I will have the fight with any remote control at any time.

This blog post is about something far more important, namely coking plates.

Designed by idiots

Excuse my French, but most cooking plates are designed by idiots who have never boiled an egg themselves. The cooking plate I have in my new place is brand new from a highly reputable brand. But it drives me mad on a daily simply because of bad design.

Here are my complaints:

  1. It has 3 plates. The smallest one is in the back, meaning it is difficult to get to if the other plates are occupied too by larger and taller pots. Stupid design and when I looked around it looks like the majority of the cooking plate are designed that way.
  2. The touch control panel is black on a black cooking plate with dark grey circles indicating where you should put your greasy fingeres. And of the cooking plate is just a little greasy or wet you can’t see a damn thing, not even when the light is perfect. Why do they make such useless stupid design?
  3. It takes a half afternoon to increase or decrease the heat on a plate, because it is so dam slow! And it makes so much noise that the neighbours might think it is the fire alarm. Again stupid and useless design.

Why do they make stupid design?

I keep wondering why do the continue to make stupid design that contradicts the function of the product. We see it all the time everywhere in design and architecture.

One of the major reason why Apple became so successful was because the design and the product development processes were integrated. The design worked and work together instead of fighting each other.

It shouldn’t be rocket science for big brand to copy Apple’s recipe for success, but it obviously is.

In the meantime

In the mean time I will be looking for and old fashioned italian gas stove with real buttons, designed by chefs.


Is it just me or do you have similar frustrations? Put your comments below. Thank you