Bad Design, or, the Futon Frame I Wish I'd Never Purchased

"Hey," my spouse said. "Let's get this futon frame I saw for sale online. It will be so useful in the office." And with those words, my adventure in the land of bad design, the parameters of which are outlined in Donald A. Norman's "The Design of Everyday Things," began.

According to Norman, several criteria are important in good design (or its opposite as described here, bad design.) The first we will consider is affordances, "the perceived and actual properties of the thing...how the thing could possibly be used." Okay, so far, so good. The futon frame looked like it was intended to have a cushion be placed on it, and then to be sat on, and indeed, if one looks up the purposes of futons, one finds that, indeed, people generally recline on them. So in terms of affordances, at least, the futon frame was right-on.

Next we have the concept of "constraints." In good design, the end-user should be constrained from using the product in a harmful or non-productive way. Unfortunately, this futon frame lacked a key constraint. It was incredibly difficult to put together and the included directions were laughably incomplete (more on that later), but even worse, it was easily possible to assemble the pieces backwards, in such a way that the frame looked almost right, but
forced the seated user to lean forward at a slight angle. I know this because we initially built the frame in this incorrect manner. There were indentations in which to slide thick, round, pre-attached pegs... the pegs fit perfectly, the back appeared to slide into place, and we thought we were on the right track. Until we finished putting it together, added a cushion, and attempted to sit on it. A constraint to prevent the pegs (and therefore frame) from sliding in backwards would have saved us a great deal of time and frustration.

Now, on to the concept of "mapping." "Mapping refers to the relationship between controls and their results. For instance, if you pushed down on something, you would expect it to go down. If you push down on this futon frame, because you want it to slide into horizontal, or bed, position, what happens? Well, it doesn't go down. It doesn't do anything. So then you might try pushing it forward, as to move it into horizontal position is to want to move it both down and away from you. Still nothing happens. Finally, as you lurch and push and pull in every direction, you learn that you must pull it both up and towards you (each of which is the opposite of the direction you actually want it to move) to get it to move down and away from you. Bad mapping.
The principle of "feedback," or information returned to the end user about how things are faring in his or her interaction with an object, is more germane to the world of technology, so I won't apply it to the futon frame. But that leads me to my final example of how the futon frame is the very paragon of bad design.

According to Norman, "conceptual models " allow us to predict the results of our actions. Sometimes our conceptual models end up different than the designer's conceptual models. The designer can help convey their conceptual model through inclusion of directions, which explain the designer's viewpoint of how the device ought to be used, or in this case, put together. Unfortunately, I previously disposed of the directions which came with the futon, not realizing I'd have the opportunity to share them with anyone. Luckily, they were so basic (and incomprehensible) that I was easily able to reproduce them for you here. They included no text, no written instructions, no clear presentation whatsoever of the designer's conceptual model. Instead, they were merely a series of hand-drawn images, each including a stick figure and a piece of the futon frame. I leave you with my faithfully reproduced image below, as an excellent example of how to botch design.