IH01-James ChunJye Tong
From IEOR 170 Spring 2007
[edit] Good Designs and Bad Designs in Our Everyday Lives
Good Design: meebo.com
The website www.meebo.com is a very powerful tool for people who use the internet to communicate with others. This website provides an interface that allows the users of different messengers: AIM, MSN Messengers, Google talk, and Yahoo Messenger to use the service without having to download and install the programs. It is useful when one does not have the right to install such programs to the computer, for example, the computers in public library. The best thing about the design of the website compare to other web-messengers is that it does not open new windows for new conversations. Unlike other web-messengers, all the conversations in meebo stay in just one window. This is very useful because the pop-up windows are usually blocked in public computers. The website does not change the interface of the messengers, so the users feel very comfortable when they use it.
Bad Design: SLC Highlighter
The highlighter I got from SLC is very poorly designed. Even though it has a very interesting looking and has five colors, but it is not very useful. The highlighter is too big and is really hard to hold and write. Because of its size and shape, it can hardly fit in any types of stationery organizer.
A Better Design…
Make the highlighter into rectangular shape so it is easier to hold. To have multiple colors in one pen can be accomplished by making the different colors into interchangeable pieces. The new design will be easier to carry and easier for users to write.
