These painful volume controls show how not to do UI

Volume control UX is one of those things that you don't notice when it works, but when it goes wrong, it can be incredibly frustrating. Anyone who's ever spent time tapping and waving at their headphones in an attempt to get them to work, or spent a while peering at their screen and making minute adjustments with their mouse in an attempt to get the volume they want will know what we're talking about.

When it comes to volume control on a computer or phone, Twitter user @0xDesigner (opens in new tab) has gathered up some of the absolute worst examples, which initially came from a Reddit thread of developers, who competed to make the worst volume control interface back in 2017. The results are worth a look. They range from the overly complicated:

To the nostalgic (and not in a good way):

And there are plenty more in-between. A few more of our favourites are below:

We recommend checking out the full thread (opens in new tab) and the original Reddit post (opens in new tab). And if you want to make sure you avoid making such abominations in your next project, see our best UI design tools, and take note of more UI design fails, including the lessons you can learn from them. 

Read more:

• 14 design fails that were so bad they were actually good
• The video game UI design fail that's driving players wild
• The 7 golden rules of UX design