Design Disasters: AMC’s Simulated Butter Dispenser

We come across a lot of bad design in our everyday lives, both online and offline. For most people, it tends to go unnoticed as they browse the Web, shop for groceries, drive their cars or dispense your own butter on your popcorn at the movie theater. That is, until something goes wrong and whatever you were using doesn’t work as expected.

As designers in the interactive space, we’re blessed/cursed with the ability to see all these nonsensical things that confound and disturb, even when we’re not at work. Things that range from tiny to massive. Why does that door handle look like you can pull it to open, when in fact you have to push? Why are parking and other wayfinding signs so difficult to understand? Why does the ATM have so many buttons when we only use 3-4 of them at most? Why was an offshore oil rig equipped with an emergency shutoff valve that can’t be manipulated underwater?