4 ms·

Would it be unkind to suggest that they could look into hiring a designer or two?

cwyers 10y ago
"Jeff Bezos is an infamous micro-manager. He micro-manages every single pixel of Amazon's retail site. He hired Larry Tesler, Apple's Chief Scientist and probably the very most famous and respected human-computer interaction expert in the entire world, and then ignored every goddamn thing Larry said for three years until Larry finally -- wisely -- left the company. Larry would do these big usability studies and demonstrate beyond any shred of doubt that nobody can understand that frigging website, but Bezos just couldn't let go of those pixels, all those millions of semantics-packed pixels on the landing page. They were like millions of his own precious children. So they're all still there, and Larry is not." https://gist.github.com/chitchcock/1281611 https://gist.github.com/chitchcock/1281611
- draw_down 10y ago
  Ah yes, I do recall reading that. And now they're proudly launching products with shit like this: https://media.amazonwebservices.com/blog/2017/AWS%20CodeStar-01-CodeStarWorkflow.png https://media.amazonwebservices.com/blog/2017/AWS%20CodeStar... I get that the graphics aren't the important part, but jeez.
  - nailer 10y ago
    UX is more than graphics. But yes, if AWS had any kind of sense of UX, DigitalOcean wouldn't exist.
    - geoka9 10y ago
      > UX is more than graphics I'd say they are orthogonal. Craigslist's graphics are bad/nonexistent but I like its UX a lot.
  - jeffbarr 10y ago
    What's wrong with that graphic?
    - draw_down 10y ago
      Depends on how you look at it!
    - newsat13 10y ago
      I would like to know as well. I agree it's not "sexy" or "wow" but it communicates what it's meant to. This is like any graph my college professors made - they did their job.
      - cwyers 10y ago
        Does it? What's with the arrow going through the crowd of people there?
    - lojack 10y ago
      The fonts are all off. Looks as though antialiasing is turned off, and the kerning is all wonky. It's also inconsistent -- look at the spacing between the top of the boxes and the headers.
  - jeffbarr 10y ago
    The team saw your complaint and supplied an updated graphic, which is now in the post...
- jacquesm 10y ago
  Amazon is doing ok though.
  - lojack 10y ago
    > Amazon is doing ok though. This is despite their terrible UX, not a result of good UX.
neduma 10y ago
I couldn't agree more.
sergiotapia 10y ago
Amazon AWS has to have the worst UX out of all the devops UI's I've ever seen. CPanel looks nicer than their UI.
- tsukaisute 10y ago
  And yet, I like the current look. It's clean and functional, and doesn't have the modern/flat/whatever style that makes one lose context easily. Do you prefer something like the S3 redesign? I'm scared they will do that to the whole site. (Not to mention, most tasks you should script/do from the CLI, once you got the hang of things.)
  - Chlorus 10y ago
    Can you script 'reading the docs' for me, because that's the part where their design most grates ;) ? Por ejemplo, for tables of methods/functions on objects, the cell sizes are ridiculously huge, so I have to zoom out to like 25% on the page to see more than 2 funcs at a time.
- newsat13 10y ago
  CPanel has a terrible UX. TBH, I don't understand the point of the product. I see that it makes it easy to "edit" files without having to SSH but seriously server administration goes away beyond editing files without understanding syntax. I can only take comfort that most of CPanel deploys are in intranets (or so I hope).
  - ohyeshedid 10y ago
    Don't forget that installing CPanel also basically hijacks your system. Want to remove CPanel and manage everything properly? Just reimage and build from scratch, otherwise you'll end up going bald from scratching your head, and blind from hatred. I understand the urge for some people to use a control panel, but CPanel and it's like seem specifically designed for people that want to be webhosts without knowing anything required to be an actual webhost. I think that's reflected in the UI/UX.
- 10y ago

"Jeff Bezos is an infamous micro-manager. He micro-manages every single pixel of Amazon's retail site. He hired Larry Tesler, Apple's Chief Scientist and probably the very most famous and respected human-computer interaction expert in the entire world, and then ignored every goddamn thing Larry said for three years until Larry finally -- wisely -- left the company. Larry would do these big usability studies and demonstrate beyond any shred of doubt that nobody can understand that frigging website, but Bezos just couldn't let go of those pixels, all those millions of semantics-packed pixels on the landing page. They were like millions of his own precious children. So they're all still there, and Larry is not." https://gist.github.com/chitchcock/1281611 https://gist.github.com/chitchcock/1281611

draw_down 10y ago
Ah yes, I do recall reading that. And now they're proudly launching products with shit like this: https://media.amazonwebservices.com/blog/2017/AWS%20CodeStar-01-CodeStarWorkflow.png https://media.amazonwebservices.com/blog/2017/AWS%20CodeStar... I get that the graphics aren't the important part, but jeez.
- nailer 10y ago
  UX is more than graphics. But yes, if AWS had any kind of sense of UX, DigitalOcean wouldn't exist.
  - geoka9 10y ago
    > UX is more than graphics I'd say they are orthogonal. Craigslist's graphics are bad/nonexistent but I like its UX a lot.
- jeffbarr 10y ago
  What's wrong with that graphic?
  - draw_down 10y ago
    Depends on how you look at it!
  - newsat13 10y ago
    I would like to know as well. I agree it's not "sexy" or "wow" but it communicates what it's meant to. This is like any graph my college professors made - they did their job.
    - cwyers 10y ago
      Does it? What's with the arrow going through the crowd of people there?
  - lojack 10y ago
    The fonts are all off. Looks as though antialiasing is turned off, and the kerning is all wonky. It's also inconsistent -- look at the spacing between the top of the boxes and the headers.
- jeffbarr 10y ago
  The team saw your complaint and supplied an updated graphic, which is now in the post...
jacquesm 10y ago
Amazon is doing ok though.
- lojack 10y ago
  > Amazon is doing ok though. This is despite their terrible UX, not a result of good UX.

neduma 10y ago

I couldn't agree more.

sergiotapia 10y ago

Amazon AWS has to have the worst UX out of all the devops UI's I've ever seen. CPanel looks nicer than their UI.

tsukaisute 10y ago
And yet, I like the current look. It's clean and functional, and doesn't have the modern/flat/whatever style that makes one lose context easily. Do you prefer something like the S3 redesign? I'm scared they will do that to the whole site. (Not to mention, most tasks you should script/do from the CLI, once you got the hang of things.)
- Chlorus 10y ago
  Can you script 'reading the docs' for me, because that's the part where their design most grates ;) ? Por ejemplo, for tables of methods/functions on objects, the cell sizes are ridiculously huge, so I have to zoom out to like 25% on the page to see more than 2 funcs at a time.
newsat13 10y ago
CPanel has a terrible UX. TBH, I don't understand the point of the product. I see that it makes it easy to "edit" files without having to SSH but seriously server administration goes away beyond editing files without understanding syntax. I can only take comfort that most of CPanel deploys are in intranets (or so I hope).
- ohyeshedid 10y ago
  Don't forget that installing CPanel also basically hijacks your system. Want to remove CPanel and manage everything properly? Just reimage and build from scratch, otherwise you'll end up going bald from scratching your head, and blind from hatred. I understand the urge for some people to use a control panel, but CPanel and it's like seem specifically designed for people that want to be webhosts without knowing anything required to be an actual webhost. I think that's reflected in the UI/UX.
10y ago