Question of the Week: What Is Intentional Bad Design and How Does It Work?

We’ve all experienced bad design. (If you haven’t, click here. Now you have.) 

Bad design may prompt you to ask the following:

• Does the designer of this monstrosity have a fully functional brain?
• Who would approve this shoddy work?
• How did this embarrassment make it all the way to production?
• If this passes for good design, could I hire out my 4-year-old to do the same quality of work? 

While you may not have pondered child labor, you’ve more than likely questioned the validity or effectiveness of certain designs. And you may have even stood slack-jawed and aghast at the inhumanity of it.  

Then again, you may have determined that the design was intentionally bad.

Like Good Design, Intentional Bad Design Aims to Get Results

See, if the bad design is intentional, then it serves a purpose for good in the minds of the designer and their client. Whereas if it’s just straight-up unintentional  bad design, it’s sleeping on the job. (Slacker.)

Some examples of intentional bad design are as follows:

The Fine Print

Designers know the importance of clear communications in marketing. It's pretty much, like, the first thing they teach in Marketing Designer School. So then, shouldn’t designers make ALL marketing communications clear?

Nope.

If a particular communication could end up detracting from the sale - such as an unsavory restriction, a potentially devastating side effect, or some other legalese - then the designer incorporates the smallest font possible that allows it to still be legible. 

That otherwise beautifully designed ad is now marred by some strange tiny floating text off to the side near the bottom. But it’s totally intentional.

Product Labeling That Looks Cheap

Take a gander at a can of split pea soup from the illustrious kitchen of Wolfgang Puck. Then glance over at the generic or store-brand split pea soup from the mysterious kitchen of nowhere.

Now for some, the photo of a steaming bowl of tantalizing soup juxtaposed by the Puck moniker on the label is reassurance that it’s worth every penny of that $3.89. (That’s 389 pennies.)

But for others, they see Wolfgang and his pretty bowl and feel immediately resentful that they have to pay for such a spectacle. They’re far more drawn to the no-frills neighboring can of store-brand split pea soup without so much as a picture of a pea. Maybe a hokey cartoon drawing, at best.

And to this consumer, money not wasted on great label design means VALUE to them.     

Strange Chairs and Music

The new coffeeshop is super sharp. It’s gorgeous with huge windows, an ultra-friendly staff and coffee that was just roasted, shot through a tube across the ceiling and tastes like happiness.

So when you sit in one of those cool looking chairs, you’re

disappointed at how uncomfortable it is. And why in the world are they playing the sort of music one might hear in their head when they’ve finally cracked? You’re tempted to see it as an oversight. It’s not though. 

It’s intentional bad design. 

Sure, they want you to like their place and their coffee and, well, them. They just don’t want you to stick around too long. It’s bad for business.

There are other examples too - like putting the milk at the back of the store to make consumers walk through, or attaching hugely cumbersome items to bathroom keys so they don’t get left behind on the toilet. (Or in it.)

And There Is Plenty of Intentional Bad Design in the Digital World Too

You know. Pop ups, newsletter sign-ups that offer no escape, anti-ad blocker blocker pages, breaking up a single story into 8 pages versus 1 page, and then putting 1 paragraph of content on each page, things of that nature. 

The reality is, intentional bad design is used by all sorts of businesses to help make additional sales, drive customer decisions and achieve higher margins. It may not appeal to one’s appreciation for aesthetics. And yeah, it might even be adding a little more ugliness into the world.

But like it or not, it works.