Some products have been around for many years and have never been updated to reflect poor design flaws. You know the things we're talking about, umbrellas, airline seats, milk cartons, and even bras. We've complained about these things for a long time but always say, "why doesn't somebody make this better?" We wondered the same thing. These products need serious feature updates because they are simply poorly designed.
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#1 Christmas Lights
We all know this struggle. For decades people have had to fight with Christmas lights ever year. You carefully put your lights away in a box until the next season but when you open them up to use them again you find that somehow they got mangled, tangled, and all tied in knots. Once you've struggled for a few hours untangling them, you find that they don't even work because one bulb has blown out. Instead of making just the one bulb go out, the entire string will not light up. It has taken forever and a day, but this poor design has made decorating for the holidays a chore for many until recently. They have lights now that don't all go out at once but they need a way to keep them from tangling into a pile of wire.
#2 The Microwave Keypad
When most people use a microwave oven they only use a few buttons. Yet, microwave makers insist on placing several dozens of buttons on the keypads. Studies have found that the only buttons people use are the numbers, the start button, and the stop button. Some admitted to using the defrost button a few times, but that's questionable. Some people don't even know what most of the buttons are for or why they are there. Many microwaves have a pizza button, a popcorn button, a drink button, and even a button for fish or poultry. These are all useless and just cost the consumer more money.
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#3 The Juice Carton
It's always been difficult to open a milk or juice carton. Tear back the plastic coated tab, try to pull it out, and hope for the best. Some companies have tried new plastic containers with handles, and most now have a pull ring spout in the middle in place of the old fashioned rip and tear method. But even those don't work that well. If you buy a low-grade brand that doesn't even have the new plastic spout, your asking for trouble. If you don't open the container properly the first time, it's all downhill from there. All manufacturers should get on board and make a container that's easy to use for everyone.
#4 Umbrellas
Most umbrellas work pretty well, but in this day and age, you think there would be something a little better to use to protect ourselves from the wind and rain. Old fashioned umbrellas are nice to look at as long as it's nor rainy or windy. When the wind blows just the slightest, the umbrellas turns inside out and rips apart at the seams. You end up wet and the metal pieces on the ends break off and bend. People think umbrella companies create this design purposely to keep selling new umbrellas. Other people agree, there simply hasn't been much of an improvement to a failed design in decades. It's time they start making better umbrellas.
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#5 Economy Airplane Seats
If you're flying coach chances are you're not going to be very comfortable. This is due to the design of the seats in coach. Most of it is fine, set aside no leg room, until you get to the headrest. The rest comes out pretty far from the back of the seat, right at your neck. This causes you to keep your head tilted forward for the entire flight.
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#6 Bad Head Rests
The seats in coach have a slight "C" shaped curve which doesn't go with any body contour at all. By the time you've reached your destination your neck is killing you from sitting the wrong way. You can slightly correct the issue with a neck pillow but the airlines should simply design seats without a headrest at all. If you need one, you can ask for a pillow or bring your own with you.
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#7 The Cereal Box
Whoever designed the first cereal box deserves credit for creating one of the worst everyday things that are badly designed! To open the cereal box you need to open the box very carefully to make sure that you don't tear it. Next, you need to carefully pull open the inside bag that contains the actual cereal to make sure that it doesn't tear. After pouring your cereal you need to reassemble the package or else the cereal will go stale before the next time you eat it.
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#8 The Inner Bag
If you managed to keep the inner bag intact without ripping it apart, you need to remember to fold it down to keep the cereal fresh. Many cereal makers count on this so that your breakfast goes stale and you need to purchase another box if you desire fresh cereal. It seems like there are better ways to package cereal, but so far nobody has come up with a cost-effective and desirable way. They can put a man on the moon but can't keep cereal fresh....
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#9 The Bra
If you are a woman or even a man who has looked around at bras in a store, you'll see that many of them have cups that are held together with a cute little bow or decoration. Well, according to 75% of the women surveyed, this is not a well thought out design feature. Apparently, no woman has breasts that are separated that far apart. No woman's cleavage is that large. When a woman wears this type of bra they find that the top of their breast pops out of the cup because that little bow doesn't give the cup enough support. That can result in a woman's breasts looking misshapen. So regardless of how cute that bra looks, buy one that supports your breasts and not makes you look doughy.
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#10 Fast Food Soda Cups
I'm not sure when this happened or why, but I do know that whoever changed the design of the soda cups for fast food chains needs to be examined for mental problems. They used to have a slot or hole in the lid at the edge, where you stuck your star in and just drank your beverage. Somehow, it got changed to a hole in the middle of the lid where you put the straw into the cup. This makes no sense and you have to tilt your head downward to drink your beverage. Your chin actually hits the lip of the cup and the straw is never long enough. Aside from that, they overfill the cup with ice and the top if like a well full of sticky soda that drips down your chin when you tip the cup to take a sip from the straw. This is one design upgrade that failed miserably.
