andrea resmini

In Italy, like in most other countries I believe, we have what is called the bollo auto, in the English speaking world car tax, or road tax, or even vehicle license fee. That is something you pay on a half-yearly or yearly base because you own or drive around a car. In darker ages you had to suffer time-consuming queues in some murky and crowded place where after showing handful of dubious-looking papers to a bored clerk you ended up paying the wrong amount, but this is the Internet Age: we have the Web, we have automated procedures, we do it online, we do it better.
So climb in, ladies and gentlemen, let's go pay some bollo auto.

So far, this is probably my preferred example of what could often be used as the official usability motto: so little, so much.
This is your run-of-the-mill ice-cream freezer stand, the one with the long glass window and plenty of ice-cream flavours behind to choose from.
Just take a look at what stands on the floor, directly in front of it: if you can't figure it out, let me explain that this is a small podium much like those used say for the Olympics or any sports event.

Oh man.
What were they thinking when they had this designed?

Having being trained as a designer in the late Eighties - early Nineties, that is when designing had more to do with wood, metal and plastic than screen estate, I still consider hardware design a somewhat important and fairly captivating part of my job, even after some straight sixteen years struggling over the immaterial whereabouts of the digital trade.

So, being all wrapped up in usability and accessibility issues as I am recently, when I came across this thingie, this automated kiosk for payment of medical tests (a ticket, in Italian. Well, sort of.) located in a neighborhood public medical center (Italians only: a CUP) mostly used by mothers with children and elderly, retired folks, I was offended, amazed and vastly impressed all at the same time.