Ever used one of those smart faucets that seems to cut out exactly when you to rinse your hands? Ever experience a park bench or architecture that feels designed to prevent you from using it? Too often things get designed in ways that hinder a positive experience to account for infrequent edge cases.

Constraints are a healthy part of any design process. In fact it even has a name - the "swoop and poop". In this talk Edward Stojakovic (@estojakovic) walked through ways in which members of the user experience team can learn to embrace the things that normally make you twitch.

By letting the wrong people dictate requirements we can wind up in circumstances where poor design leads to poor experiences. Rather than complain try strategies designed to work around the abuse of anti-patterns. Don't fall prey to the temptation to build a park bench with spikes because 5% of the population might "use it the wrong way". Consider embracing the abuse so that everyone has a more positive outcome rather than fearing the small percentage who may take advantage.