UI / UX
User interfaces and “user experience” ideas.
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Background: Nearly all modern cell phones have the same touch-screen form factor. Except for a few buttons of low importance (e.g. volume adjustment, power, camera shutter), all interaction is done through the screen itself. The issue: This style of interaction makes use of only one finger, and leaves the remaining four fingers with nothing to…
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Background: “Warning” stickers / “caution” tape are occasionally placed on or around objects to indicate that they are dangerous. The issue: However: what if the tape itself is the source of danger? For example, if a roll of “BIOHAZARD” tape was accidentally dipped in a vat of bubonic plague, there would be no way to…
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Background: Back in the ancient days before iPhones, people would store files in a hierarchical fashion in “folders” or “directories” on their computers. The issue: Sometimes, despite relatively descriptive folder names, it is not clear what a folder / directory actually is. For example, on Mac OS X, a casual user may be flummoxed by…
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Background: If you stay in one apartment or house for a long time, you tend to accumulate a large number of superfluous possessions. But it’s hard to get an idea of exactly how much stuff you have. Proposal: Moving trucks should have a weight sensor on them to tell you how many pounds of stuff…
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Never be confused by a signaling bus again, assuming you frequently drive behind buses instead of taking public transit (you monster)
automotive, blinker, car, emergency blinkers, hazard lights, is amber even a color or what, is the light yellow or amber or orange or what, official color names are lacking, what are those emergency lights even called, what if the lights are like tangerine or something, who came up with that double triangle icon anyway
Background: Every vehicle has two turn signals on the back. These can indicate one of two things: 1) Car is turning left / right. 2) If both lights are blinking: “hazard / emergency / vehicle is stopped in roadway.” Fig 1: The emergency / hazard lights are usually activated by this button. The issue: Unfortunately,…
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Background: Many product names are ambiguous when used as a keyword in a web search. For example, in the most egregious hypothetical case, if you had a program named “The” it would be almost impossible to do an English-language search for it. Imagine searching for “The problem,” or “The crashing when I load too many…
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As previously discussed on this very site, “gamification” is a hot topic in the world of behavioral influence. The car manufacturer Qoros (观致汽车) (Wikipedia link) is attempting to use this technique in the automotive world. The picture below (from the electronic dashboard of a 2015 Qoros sedan) displays the “Beat the Line” achievement. Unfortunately, a full…
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Background: Old 8-bit video games typically do not adhere to modern standards of occupational safety or handicapped-accessibility. The issue: The issue we will deal with here is making an old game, in this case, Zelda II for the Nintendo Entertainment System, properly compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. Obviously this will be simplified,…
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6 Baffling Apartment Arrangements You Won’t Believe Are Real* (* they are not real)
architecture, hey there’s no space for a dining table, man who designed those layouts anyway, movable walls, reconfigure your apartment, some crazy apartment layouts or something, those bedrooms in the floorplan don’t look like they would actually fit a bed, those bedrooms would totally fit like a crib or twin bed, what is a “den” anyway isn’t that just a living room, whoa what is up with these layouts
The issue: Many modern apartments are extremely well-built structurally (or perhaps even over-built), but have terrible interior layouts. Unfortunately, it is extremely expensive to reconfigure a floorplan, even if no load-bearing walls (or walls concealing wires or plumbing) need to be modified. For maximum cost-efficiency, a person interested in remodeling could potentially just take a…
WorstPlans: updated every Monday since July 2014! 
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