Bad UI Battles: Redditors are at it again, here are the worst (or best?) 5 of them

If you’re looking to have some of the worst (or best, as they can be quite funny) times of your life on the Internet, then you should try some bad UIs (bad user interfaces). They will most surely give you some of the best laughs and headaches of your life.

If you don’t have time for them but still want to know what the fuss is all about, we’ve gathered up the worst (or best, again, depending on how you look at them) 5 of them. Hint: you’ll never look at Microsoft Paint again without the instinct to shake the brush before using it.

Let the Bad UI Battles begin:

5. Microsoft Paint and the need to shake the brush for one minute before using it

Yes, we all know that Microsoft went all AI with its native Paint app, with tools such as Cocreator instantly creating images at users’ requests, but this bad UI is not so instant.

Instead, you’ll need to shake the virtual brush with your mouse for 1 minute straight before using it. You know, just like in real life.

It looks rather painful, but the ‘help’ at the end is all we need to know to put this one into our top 5 of the worst bad UIs.

4. Selecting country codes by the alphabetical order of the country they belong to

And yes, that looks as horrendous as it sounds. According to this Reddit post, which has gained huge popularity in less than 24 hours, for many Redditors, this only means one thing: it would be a nightmare to have this implemented on a website.

It’s just bad. Painfully bad. I have a headache just looking at it. So, paradoxically, this makes it a worthy candidate for our Top 5 worst (or best) bad UIs.

3. Selecting country by throwing a dart at it in a virtual globe

Yes, the Bad UI Battle continues with another selecting country UI option, but this time, it’s even more frustrating. Visitors are asked to select their country by throwing a dart at a constantly moving virtual globe.

In fact, here’s how it looks, according to this Reddit post.

It’s really bad, the globe is constantly moving, and if you were in a time managing situation, this would be incredibly frustrating, to say the least. Fortunately, no one has officially implemented this. Yet.

2. Facebook’s Messenger Volume Slider and the frustration of selecting the right volume

Whether we’re speaking about Windows OS or Android, iOS, or any other social media platform, we all manually select the preferred volume rather than resort to automatic means, such as keyboard shortcuts. Even if we do it manually, there is a pleasure in clicking at the right spot and hearing the volume going down.

However, in a real-life situation, it seems that Facebook’s Messenger takes the second spot in our Top 5 worst Bad UI. The worst thing? This is actually real, and it’s quite a nightmare to select your preferred volume on Messenger. I mean, look at this Reddit user.

It’s quite counterproductive if you ask us.

1. Voting Reddit posts in 3D

The award for the worst bad UI and the winner of the Bad UI Battles (for now, of course), is none other than the ability to vote for Reddit posts in 3D.

It became an instant success among Redditors, gathering more than 2k votes in less than 15 hours.

Plus, if you want to have a good laugh, you can also check this Reddit post where users are discussing the possibility of such a feature on Reddit.

But yes, this would be a literal hell, and despite the title of the post, I would find myself afraid to vote for a Reddit post with such UI.

You can also contribute with your Bad UI on this Reddit forum here, and you can vote for other Bad UIs there as well. Maybe we’ll turn this into a regular thing. However, we don’t want to give the tech giants too many ideas.

What’s your favorite Bad UI from these 5? Or which one gave you a headache?