January 30, 2004 12:08 AM

Broken: Car's mileage display

Here's a picture I took of a rental car a few months ago. Why is it that many new cars have a mileage display without tenths of a mile? There's no way to track your progress when the directions say "go half a mile and turn left."

I can't imagine any reason why auto makers would remove a useful feature like that. It doesn't save them money; there's no tradeoff where drivers are actually helped by the removal of tenths. Seems like an obvious step backwards in the user experience of the car.

(I also don't understand why a digital display is better than analog - you used to be able to see the numbers turning over, giving a very accurate sense of the mileage. But even a digital display would be OK, if it would show the tenths of a mile.)

January 28, 2004 12:59 AM

Broken: Marketing translations

Chris Law points us to Marketing Translation Mistakes, a site run by Tex Texin in Boston. An excerpt:

2003-12-20
A few years back Reed Business News relaunched itself with the branding: "If it's news to you, it's news to us.".
It was replaced after a couple of days...

January 27, 2004 03:01 AM

Broken: Amp switch

Tom Smith writes:

The switch for this guitar amplifier is round the back. Seconds went by as I tried again and again to turn it off, and the little red light kept coming on again...

January 26, 2004 03:00 AM

Broken: DVD Genre menu

Jack Kelly writes:

While searching the Warner Brother Home Video site, my search came up empty. (To be fair, the search was "broken" due to my typo.) Then I decided to browse by Genre for my selection, and the last visible option in the pull down before having to scroll down is "DVD Favorites Under $1."

Of course, it's actually "Under $10", and there are some other selections that are cut off as well. But with all that white space to the right, there's no reason to have these cut off.

January 23, 2004 03:12 AM

Broken: Grinder buttons

  David Owens writes:

This photo is of the mini-food processor I bought (after agonizing over it for weeks). Boy, was I surprised to see the labels after forking over some serious money for the high-end "cast metal" version.

I guess this one made it past the "quality inspectors."

January 22, 2004 03:04 AM

Broken: CNN clock

Bill Jackson sends us this picture of the clock shown on CNN at certain interstitial moments during its broadcasts.

The problem is that the clock's hands are always in the same position. Except for two minutes during the day, the clock is always wrong. How hard would it be for CNN actually to display a clock with the correct time? (At least the appropriate number of minutes after the hour?)

January 21, 2004 02:59 AM

Broken: CNN news alert

Portia Scott writes:

Read the update - will it be dropped, or elevated? Just poor writing...

-----Original Message-----

From: CNN Breaking News [mailto:BreakingNews@MAIL.CNN.COM] 

Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 9:36 AM

To: TEXTBREAKINGNEWS@CNNIMAIL12.CNN.COM

Subject: CNN Breaking News




-- U.S. terror alert to be dropped to yellow, or elevated, today,

sources tell CNN. Watch CNN or log on to http://CNN.com (AOL Keyword:

CNN) for the latest news.

January 20, 2004 02:51 AM

Broken: Another hotel card key

Daniel Brown writes in with another broken hotel card key:

I've seen some puzzling card keys, but this one took the cake. With the two snuggly bedmates facing me (right-side up), I slid the key into the door and got no response. 6 or 7 tries later, something compelled me to look at the key more closely. Upon moving my thumb, I realized that the directions on how to use the key were under it. The people in the bed had to be inserted feet-first into the door.

January 19, 2004 02:50 AM

Broken: Hotel card key

Daniel Brown writes:

The card key in some hotels needs to be placed in a slot to "turn on" the room (lights, A/C or heating, etc.) In the picture, the grey thing at the top is the card key inserted into the switch making one question the purpose of the arrow. They're apparently indicating the DIRECTION the card key should travel when being inserted and not the destination of it.

January 16, 2004 03:12 AM

Broken: Cliches in writing

The newly released 2004 List of Banished Words lists the most overused cliches of the last year.

I take exception to the crack about "in harm's way," a historic phrase dating back over 200 years from the U.S. Navy; otherwise, it's a good list of things that are "broken" verbally in news stories and common usage today.

January 15, 2004 03:30 AM

Broken: Technical documentation

Paul Schreiber points us to this visual warning on a Dell PC box. Taken from the very entertaining Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness by Darren Barefoot, the caption is "If you drop this box on a dog, don't trip over its tail."

January 14, 2004 03:00 AM

Broken: New Nokia phones

Brian Snyder writes:

I'm amazed at Nokia's latest trend towards unconventional keypads on their phones. Both this new 7600 and their 3650 models throw away the ubiquitous keypad standard, forcing users to completely re-learn the most basic activity: dialing the phone.

Being a person who remembers numbers partially by key pattern, I can tell you from the pictures alone that I would never buy one, regardless of its technical prowess.

Plus, wouldn't you feel stupid holding one of these things up to your head?

January 13, 2004 03:17 AM

Broken: BART ticket vending

Carl Myhill writes:

I have rarely seen quite such a display of baffling and inconsistent user interfaces - all intended to 'help' you buy a ticket for the BART train in San Francisco.

January 12, 2004 02:38 AM

Broken: Clothes iron

 Daniel Brown writes:

This was an iron in my hotel room in Paris. I have seen it elsewhere since but learned a valuable lesson from this first encounter with it.

It wasn't until I was actually USING the iron, having settled on a modest heat setting, that I realized where the heat-to-material chart was... on the BOTTOM of the iron! Hence, you wouldn't be likely to find the information you needed to use the iron until you were actually using it.

An even stranger side note... If one were to turn the iron over to more clearly read what the chart contains, the water that was now heated in the iron would drain out the top and onto your feet.

January 9, 2004 03:18 AM

Broken: Milk jug

 Bob Sifniades writes:

This Wawa half-gallon (1.89 liter) milk container has instructions to "grasp here," but it's practically impossible. The idea is to grasp by pressing your thumb on the ridges on one side, with your fingers on the matching ridges on the opposite side. But the ridges are too small and smooth, the plastic is too slippery, the container is too heavy, and it curves inwards, so your fingers slip, and the container never leaves the table. I suppose it would work if you wore non-slip gloves, or the container were mostly empty. Instead, I picked it up by grabbing it around the neck, under the bulging section.

January 8, 2004 03:00 AM

Broken: Tire gloss packaging

Dean Hart writes:

The attached is a great, long lasting liquid tire shine product. But geez, it comes in a clear plastic bottle, is purple in color, and smells incredibly like grape soda! Keep it away from the children!

January 7, 2004 03:00 AM

Broken: Gas pump

Grant Skousen points us to this gas pump in rural Utah.

January 6, 2004 03:38 AM

Broken: (List of consumer complaints)

Alex Bergmann points us to a CNN.com article listing the top 10 consumer complaints last year. After things like auto sales, credit, and telemarketers, come these two additions familiar to This Is Broken readers:

No. 7 offender (tied) : Household goods... consumers were irked by defective goods, deceptive advertising, and failure to honor warranties or give refunds...

No. 8 offender (tied): Internet/e-commerce. ...an increase in complaints about several issues, including trouble with merchandise ordered online (such as misrepresentation and failure to deliver), failure to receive goods bought in online auctions, and questionable billing practices...

January 5, 2004 03:00 AM

Broken: No Parking signs

Eric Hammond writes:

I took this picture in Monrovia, California. I did park there. I didn't get a ticket. I don't know why.