Announcement for the Boycott Bad Design Contest'05, here is a summary, and the details follow....

• Open to everybody
• No Limit on number of entries
• No entry fee
• Awards worth Rs 30,000/-
• Deadline: October 24, 2005

This Contest is closed now.

You can view the results at the Boycott Bad-Designs Contest'05 Page.

UMO is holding a competition for identifying a Bad Design as part of or activities towards the World Usability Day. The entries will be exhibited on 3rd November 2005 on the World Usability Day.

Participation is open to everybody from every country in the world, and from any background- designers and design sensitive consumers!

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

Annoyances with day-to-day things

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.

We live in a world that is a consequence of conscious or unconscious design decisions made by the manufacturers or designers of the various systems. Most of times these decisions are resultant of hasty timelines, compromise on quality or just plain ignorance about 'you'- the one who is going to use them.

Here is a chance to take on these daily artifacts and highlight the use (or abuse) caused to you, or anybody at large. You need to identify examples of bad designs from your surroundings related to the above theme.

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

A jury will select the top 10 examples of bad design, all the short listed entries will be awarded a cash prize of Rs 3000 /- (Rs. Three Thousand Only) each.

The top examples will be identified based on their relevance of content, and the context in which the bad design is been identified.

We are in process of putting a jury of well-known professionals and socially active personalities. The names will be announced in due course, depending on confirmation.

An exhibition of the winning and short listed entries will be held and UMO will publish an exhaustive works report.

Deadline for Submission

Examples of Bad-Designs will be accepted through October 24, 2005

Rules and Regulations

Entries : No Limits on entries

Format : Image/photograph with description of the problem area.
The image/photograph could be either in digital format or a hardcopy.
The digital images should be of jpeg format not more than 500x400 pixels.
The photographs should clearly depict the problem area identified.

Entries in hard-copy/print format will not be returned.

Exhibition and Prize distribution

On World Usability Day, November 3, 2005

Submitting your entries

Mail your examples of bad-designs keeping the competition name in subject line to usabilitymatters [at] gmail [dot] com.

If you are sending through the snail mail, use the following address:

"Usability Matters.Org"
407E- Block,
Keerthi Apartments,
Yellareddyguda,
Hyderabad-500 045
India.

Please mention a little background information about yourself that may help identify you with your work and the email id that will help us get back to you with any communication.

Intellectual property rights

UMO, in its sole discretion, may use the art-work (images, photograph, written content) for any purpose, and change, alter, amend, add to, delete from and otherwise modify, including but not limited to, any and all the content that is submitted or posted with cuts, edits, rearrangements, additions and deletions and other alterations.

The responsibility for authenticity of all the submitted content, including the art-work and the personal information rests solely with the provider, and UMO will assume no role in case of litigations 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.

This Contest is closed now.

You can view the results at the Bad Designs Contest Page.