The most ubiquitous example of 'bad' interface design is a city's CBD. A CBD is so familiar to us, we don't realise how terrible it is!
Why is the experience of landing in a new city so exciting and disturbing at the same time? Because we don't know where anything is, what the social norms are, where the social enclaves are for each subculture: each of these has to be learned over time, through trial and error, and through investigation. This is true for a city within our own country as well as ones in other countries with completely different cultures.
Before technologies such as online maps and searches, we had maps of roads, some with a red + sign to indicate where the hospitals were. Sometimes the city installed blue street signs to point to places like a museum - but you found these by chance. What about finding a toilet in a hurry if last night's seafood revisited? Even this is difficult in 2011.
A more friendly design interface for any CBD would be numerous information points that could pinpoint shops and services and provide advice, catering for the lowest common denominator. Not everyone has an iPhone, and my grandma wouldn't even know what one is.
Hahaha, very good point! Why isn't there more standardization around signage? You would have thought the 'grid system' of cities, such as New York, would have made it easier, but it hasn't (not in a thousand + years or so).
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