25 Worst Products of All Time

posted by Jes… 

PC World recently released its 25 Worst Products of All Time article. While I don't necessarily agree with all of their choices, I think the 'worst' products tend to earn their status because of one (or more) of these things:

1. Bad usability
2. Sketchy ethical practices
3. Poor customer service
4. Trying to shoehorn a revenue model into a free product
5. Buggy software

Much of what is often categorized as buggy software actually has more to do with the first item on the list: poor usability.

As I was thinking about my own personal choice for the worst products ever, most of the things that came to mind were products that had poor usability. Poor usability combined with items (2) and/or (3) above creates a powerful cocktail for a truly infamous product.

With that in mind, here are a few products with poor usability in my opinion:

• Yahoo's small business web site services
• Toyota Prius' bluetooth calling feature
• Almost all wireless print servers

Please post comments with your own products, and maybe we can compile the list of 25 Worst Usability Experiences of All Time.

Incidentally, if you need to improve the usability of landing pages or registration processes for your online e-business initiative, contact us here at Brooks Bell Interactive.