Bad human factors designs

I had to go on www.baddesigns.com and on this site I had to find bad design errors and comment on what exactly they are considered bad design.


Example : An athlete bought a waterproof watch for athletic events composed of swimming, cycling and running. He purchased a nice sport watch, a "Triathlon" model, so he could time himself in the pool and confirm he was counting the laps correctly. After just a few workouts, the watch filled up with water! he took it back and they happily replaced it, saying that he must have accidentally pushed the buttons under water!


The watch was water resistant to 100 m. He looked at the instruction booklet that came with the watch. On the last page of the instructions was printed...


WARNING: TO MAINTAIN WATER-RESISTANCE, DO NOT PRESS ANY BUTTONS UNDER WATER


This limitation seemed ridiculous since using the watch to keep track of laps in the pool would involve pressing buttons on the watch while swimming.

Design Suggestion

The athelete is likely to press the watch buttons underwater because the warning isn't obvious. If a warning sticker was placed on the watch, it would be more obvious.


Of course, a better solution would be to design the watch to allow the buttons to be pressed while swimming, without ruining the watch. Some other brands of watches allow this.


The errors of the site would be that they basically don't work as they are supposed to.