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Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

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Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#681

Post by KineticLensman »

TomGullen wrote: post #660
toomanyrichies wrote: post #155

One example of quality design which I gleaned from reading Don Norman's "The Design Of Everyday Things" is the metal plate I've frequently seen on doors which are meant to be pushed. The only affordance of such a plate is its push-ability, and the fact that someone actively installed a metal plate (instead of just relying on the door's natural flatness), as well as its location at the point of maximum leverage (all t…

Here in the UK a lot of bathrooms in pubs and other places have push to get in, and handles to get out. Never understood that, I'd like to push to get out once I've washed my hands!

Inside the bathroom itself, the doors on individual stalls usually open inwards. One pragmatic advantage of this approach is that if the door opens while you are seated, you can push it closed without getting up. Or requiring help from someone else outside. This also drives the use of push-in-pull-out handles.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#682

Post by Knufferlbert »

toomanyrichies wrote: post #155

One example of quality design which I gleaned from reading Don Norman's "The Design Of Everyday Things" is the metal plate I've frequently seen on doors which are meant to be pushed. The only affordance of such a plate is its push-ability, and the fact that someone actively installed a metal plate (instead of just relying on the door's natural flatness), as well as its location at the point of maximum leverage (all t…

I like the affordability too, but it also does not take into account edge cases.

Our office door has this metal plate, it pushes outside (I believe it is that way for fire safety reasons). If there is strong wind on the outside, the door has the habit of whipping around after pushing it a bit, leading to shattered glass once every year or so.

Closing the door in strong wind also means grabbing it on the edge and pulling it, the wind kind of reverses on the last couple inches, I have no idea how that did not lead to broken fingers yet (you do it once, then you never try to close it again).

I guess it's a failing to consider all use cases of the door, and the metal plate thing should only be used indoors.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#683

Post by oriolid »

alok-g wrote: post #586
oriolid wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The basic AirPods are the lowest latency Bluetooth headphones I have tried. In A2DP mode the latency is somewhere around 30ms that is almost good enough for playing an instrument through them but certainly good enough for games or phone calls. The theoretical minimum for AAC is around 21ms. For calls the problem is that somehow Apple didn't invent a proprietary extension so you're stuck with HFP sound quality.

That is good indeed. I was reading that the numbers are higher than 200 ms. https://semiserious.blog/airpods-pro Is the latency under A2DP mode specified somewhere?

My numbers are from measuring round trip latency through headphones and phone's built in mic and then basically guessing which part is input and which part output latency (they're both small). 200ms is certainly in line with most Bluetooth headphones. I'm not sure what the guy is doing differently from the app I'm working on, but for us AirPods are clearly the lowest latency choice.

EDIT: Ignore what I wrote below and see the update. I'm getting similar latency numbers.

Generally, the guy is getting so massive latencies that I suspect he's doing something wrong. The app I'm working on has MIDI to wired audio latency around 10ms when audio buffer size is dropped to 128 samples, so 70ms sounds really excessive. Touchscreen is both slow and the timing is all over the place (try playing drums in GarageBand to see) so it might explain some of it.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#684

Post by tim333 »

hermitcrab wrote: post #519
raz32dust wrote: post #130

Google flights is fantastic. Don't know if it is "the best-designed thing I've ever used", but it is on top of my mind as I just used it yesterday. Google doesn't get enough credit for the things that they did do well - including Search and Maps. Another is Macbooks - the pre-2015 ones at least. I haven't used the latest M1 ones, which I hear great things about. The Aluminum body, the flawless screen, magsafe, great…

Still using my ~10 year old MacbookPro pretty much every day. The little plastic feet have fallen off and I'm on my second power adapter (and that is looking a bit ropey), otherwise it still works great.

You can get new feet for not much on ebay https://www.ebay.com/itm/174018177659?_trkparms=ispr%3D1&has...

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#685

Post by jzellis »

My Doc Martens. The design of a shoe is pretty well worked out, but the devil is in the details, and my Docs have been carrying my fat ass through deserts and snow and jungles and cobblestones and pavement for twenty years, and I got em used. That's not just down to materials, it's down to design.

The Gerber Chameleon (and its Remix followup) pocket knife design. (https://www.gerber-tools.com/Gerber-Remix-22-01969.php) Absolutely brilliant - the pivot itself is a ring, so when you use the knife you have zero chance of slipping and cutting yourself, and instead of a side to side motion for cutting, you just use your hand naturally, the way you would a handsaw.

And the iPad stand and mount I use, whose brand escapes me. It folds compact to fit in a bag and the legs and main clamp separate for easy carrying, but the feet pivot outward or can be used, when pivoted inward together, as a base that can be slid into a holder (that came with it) or anything that can hold it up. I often slip the feet behind the vertical pipes in our kitchen to watch videos while I'm doing dishes, and I've built a lap desk that uses pipe strapping to allow me to slide the stand feet underneath the desktop, so the iPad itself doesn't take up any space at all on the desktop - it's just hovering over it like an IKEA worklight. Fantastically simple and useful design.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#686

Post by jtwaleson »

masklinn wrote: post #648
jtwaleson wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you just push it all the way through, the tip of the seal won't be compressed. No effort to do it like that.

I don't really understand why you'd do that though, do you not rinse the press after every use? Just stow it with the pieces separated unless it's in "travel mode" no?

Well, the beauty of aeropress is that you don't have to rinse the inside of the cilinder every time. It cleans itself. Most of the time I just clean the rubber. Also, storing them separated takes more space in the cupboard.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#687

Post by wnkrshm »

2020random wrote: post #422

I used to have a large dobsonian telescope made by Orion. It had a good quality mirror. It came with features like automatic tracking. In general, a dobsonion telescope has a simple design that made it cheap and easier to use compared to other telescope setups. The dobsonion mount also allowed for a large aperture that would have been unwieldy otherwise. For me, it is an example of how complex things can be made simp…

I would add binoculars in general are pretty amazing - putting the distance between optical elements of a refracting telescope into a small ergonomic package.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#688

Post by loufe »

nicbou wrote: post #533

MDN and the NHS website are some of the best knowledge base websites I know. Each do a really good job of communicating information. They put a lot of thought into the language they use and it shows.

Conversely, the "F1" help in so many other Microsoft (especially windows) help page - which often ignores preferred browser - is the absolute worst help system I've ever seen. Literally never once has that page aided me in any way.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#690

Post by bstpierre »

mtreis86 wrote: post #626
gkfasdfasdf wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any advice on technique with the splitting axe? Use the same way as the maul?

Put a heavy bungee cord (the rubber type) around the log a bit above the bottom, then the pieces don't go flying.

Even better, use an old tire.

I like to set the tire on a large round, place a few smaller pieces inside the tire (so they don’t go flying out) and then chop them all before clearing and refilling. Also works with a single medium piece inside the tire. Large pieces you can quarter first, I don’t have much trouble there with pieces flying around.

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