UsabilityMatters.Org is holding Boycott Bad Design contest since 2005 to provide opportunity for designers, design enthusiasts to create design awarenss by identifying Bad Designs around us as part of our activities towards the InstillDesign & UXINDIA Conference.

The selected entries will be exhibited online.
Participation is open to everybody from every country in the world, and from any background! There is no Entry fee.

Please go through the rules and regulations - and in particular - the conditions applicable to the intellectual property rights.

Theme for the Competition

Design of Everyday objects

How many times a day you've felt some things could just be "slightly" better than they are now? It may be your wash-basin tap, that tries hard to impersonate gym equipment by being hard and clumsy when you are all sleepy in morning, or it could be your phone bill that poses more intellectual challenge than toughest of the cryptic-crosswords.

Technology has become a way of life, but at the cost of ease of use. We come across so many products and systems at offices, banks, restaurants, theaters, reservation counters, transport stations and for that matter even in our homes. Most of them are pleasing to look at and offer great features but are rarely of any use. The common experience that has been observed amongst the users of these new age products and services is frustration leading to annoyance.

The Objective

The objective of this competition was to identify most badly designed product or a system or a service that we use in our day-to-day lives, get annoyed with and eventually ignore.

UMO's only agenda ever since its formation has been 'Good Design for Better Living'. But more importantly the route we have taken to accomplish this is by educating everyone concerned about design through various initiatives. We always believed that spreading awareness is the best form of education. Programs like 'Boycott Bad Designs' has been the most participated and appreciated initiatives of UMO.

Design in essence is a message, it is a medium through which designers and businesses communicate how a new product and service will make our lives both easier and exciting. We the design community should take the ownership of educating the users and consumers of products and services through better design. So much so that peripherals like communication design and information design around these products and services gets quite crucial in informing and educating users about them.

We welcome all enthusiasts of UMO to participate in our 9th year celebrations by spreading the spirit of good design even more strongly.
This competition calls on participants to identify bad designs, services and experiences from our everyday life. For inspirations and ideas, you can refer to Boycott Bad Designs , this was a program organized by UMO to identify and raise awareness about the badly designed products.

Awards and Acknowledgements

InstillDesign Workshops

• When you enroll for any InstillDesign workshop which is being organized by UMO and participate in the UMO: Boycott Bad Designs Contest, you are given discounted price to be part of the workshop.
• Top 5 entries whose entry is qualified and published on UMO site are eligible to get 100% discount to attend any of the InstillDesign workshops.

Grand Prizes

• Popular entries will be decided on the number of votes or likes received on the UMO website.
• A team of jury will select the top 10 entries of bad design will be awarded a cash prize of Rs 3000 /- (Rs. Three Thousand Only) each. And the top 5 entry with maximum votes are eligible for most popular awards.(There wont be any cash prize for popular entry)

The top examples will be identified based on their relevance of content, and the context in which the bad design is been identified.
In case of similar entries, whose entry is received first will be considered as qualified entry.

The jury and the judgment criteria

For Judgment jury will use criteria such as creativity, humor, visual communication, presentation, persuasiveness, originality, cleverness, relevance of content and execution and number of votes by public to identify the winner. An exhibition of the winning and short listed entries will be held and UMO will publish an exhaustive online works report.

Deadline for Submission

Examples of Bad-Designs will be accepted through September 11th, 2014
Submit your entries before March 19, 2013 and get a chance to attend Instill Design Workshops for free!!!

Rules and Regulations

• Entries: No Limits on entries
• Do not send the same entry which is already published on UMO site or else where
• Format: Image/photograph with description of the problem area.
• The digital images should be of jpeg format with minimum 200dpi resolution (high resolution for reproduction).
• The photographs should clearly depict the problem area identified.

Prize distribution

Prize distribution will be done either at TechEase2014 (IIITHyderabad) workshops or UXINDIA International Conference 2014

Submitting your entries

• Please register here and submit your entry online.
• for bad design examples visit the bad design showcase

Intellectual property rights
UMO may, in its sole discretion to use the art-work (images, photograph, written content) for any purpose, change, alter, amend, add to, delete from and otherwise modify, including but not limited to, any and all cuts, edits, rearrangements and other alterations, additions and deletions.The responsibility for authenticity of all the submitted content, including the including the art-work and the personal information rests solely with the provider, and UMO will assume no role in case of litigation and copied works. The involved parties shall have to settle the matter themselves, within the conditions the original work was published/released.We respect your privacy and will not be giving out, or sharing your personal information with any third party, for commercial or non-commercial use.