Three interface designers are sitting around trying to use a Blackberry.

Sounds like the start of a joke, right? Well, kind of.

Let me rewind: In about September last year, I switched from having two phones (which actually saved me money, since what was killing me was the cross-network charges) to having one phone when Vodafone announced their new plans would include cross-network calling and texting. The oddities of Vodafone’s network meant that I couldn’t keep my Vodafone prepay number with my new phone, but I could keep my Telecom one, so I did. Meanwhile, my old phone has been sitting plugged into the wall at home in case I got any messages or calls to my old number.

Which, it turns out, happens quite a bit: even though I’ve told my boss my new number numerous times, his Blackberry seems to magically switch back to the old one whenever he’s not looking. So this morning, when he was in a meeting, I decided to sneak in there and see if I couldn’t figure out what was going on, because Alan has enough on his plate as it is.

I couldn’t even get into the address book.

Simone found the address book, and found my old number, but couldn’t edit it.

Toby suggested pressing the side button, because that usually means ‘edit’ on his girlfriend’s older Blackberry. That opened the camera and took a photo of her leg. When she asked Toby how to get out of the camera, all we could figure out was turning it off.

Seriously. Nothing is labelled. Nothing did what we expected. And we design interfaces for a living. How does something like this happen?

I know, it’s been a while since I posted anything, but I’ve been collecting things to complain about, which is pretty much what the internet is for, right? Expect more of the same, hopefully tempered by something a little less jaded and cynical.