5 ms·

As sort of a sidenote: websites about UX seem to have the worst UX. Clicking the link, I'm not only met by a social sharing bar that uses 1/6th of the screen an

As sort of a sidenote: websites about UX seem to have the worst UX. Clicking the link, I'm not only met by a social sharing bar that uses 1/6th of the screen and screws scrolling up (because for some reason it should follow through my scrolling but somehow only be visible when scrolling upwards), but a faux-chat window overlaying the content where a Tom is asking me how he can help me. Not at all, thank you. At least being so up-front about how absolutely terrible your website is means I didn't stay long enough for a modal asking me to subscribe to their newsletter to pop up. Does anyone actually believe that this crap leads to a better user experience? Are UX concepts and standards so inbred that the people involved just can't separate chocolate pudding from excrement anymore?

mirimir 9y ago
Also, a couple of the images leave me wondering. The walk with orange and black walls? The iPad, keyboard, mouse and pen? And no alt text? Strange.
- Semiapies 9y ago
  It's the idea that random themed images will increase your engagement. No faith in the content.
  - mirimir 9y ago
    That didn't work for me. I was left with "WTF?". And wondering whether I'm too old to get some joke. Or maybe just not British ;)
lloydtl 9y ago
I personally think Tom is great. But then I am him.
- boomlinde 9y ago
  Do you personally introduce yourself to every visitor? If not, you're probably not the Tom I met.
a3n 9y ago
> As sort of a sidenote: websites about UX seem to have the worst UX. Clicking the link, I'm not only met by a social sharing bar that uses 1/6th of the screen This comment anecdotally reinforces my impression that UX people today (I assume you're either a UX people, or a people interested in UX) have a bias for full-width sites and browsers. I rarely run my browser full-width (and I think many UX/UI designers rarely do anything else but full-width). When I opened the page under discussion, I didn't see any social sharing bar at all, just editorial content. And when I read your comment I went "huh?" And then "oh." So I full-widthed my browser, and saw what you're complaining about. (I didn't notice any scrolling problems. And I didn't notice a popup; that may be because of my adblocking addons.) As far as I'm concerned, this site exhibits very good UX for this particular aspect of the site. If the browser isn't wide enough to display the sidebar, it gets moved to below the editorial content. That's so refreshingly respectful! Most often I see "beautiful" sites that have to be sidescrolled if the browser isn't full-width. I do two things in that situation: 1. I turn off styles, which then makes everything flow within the viewport (It's 1990 again!) and moves all the blocks to the order that they appear in the html. Because all I care about are words and pictures, not features. Again, in this site's case that works fabulously, because the site makers ordered their blocks so that editorial content is first; abcnews.com is a good example where, if you turn off styles, the content of interest doesn't appear until you scroll way down the page. 2. Or I leave.
- ASalazarMX 9y ago
  > have a bias for full-width sites and browsers. Ah, of course. He's using it wrong!
  - a3n 9y ago
    No, not at all. If he doesn't like it, then he doesn't like it, I can't disagree with that at all. My point is that the page builders consciously thought of this part, and came up with a reasonable and accommodating design, which I (a narrow-width user) only noticed because of the comment.
    - rhizome 9y ago
vogt 9y ago
As a UX designer I have seen a lot of this stuff over the years and I always find it funny. DesignerNews.com, which is an imitation of this site, is chock full of articles like this. The big thing to understand is a lot of people in The Blogosphere(TM) who post articles about UX don't really give a rip about anything other than the pageviews whether it's for ad revenue, establishing themselves as a thought leader, or trying to market their company. Even worse, there are some people who don't even ACTUALLY know much about UX, they just want to post an article about it to spread around LinkedIn and seem relevant by harping about the importance of UX, etc. Having said all that, if you sift through all the garbage there are some great resources. Some of the big players in the space tend to do it well. InVision's blog, for example. UXPin are pretty good. There are lots of little ones like UXPowerTools' content marketing emails that are starting to do a good job as well. At this point as someone who is always trying to improve as a UX designer, I have become accustomed to vetting the 100:1 ratio of garbage articles to bad ones.
- jtraffic 9y ago
  This should have been obvious, I guess, but when I read your comment it felt like a revelation. Suddenly, so many articles make sense. It reminds me of the inconsistency inherent in most books about how to beat the market.
- cturhan 9y ago
  I saw it was like designernews.co and I was about to ask how it's that imitation of this site. I agree about these "UX Sites" doesn't present good UX. NNGroup website[1] does its job great since they are pioneer on user experience and usability. They frequently publish articles about how all these pop-ups, modals etc effects the usability. https://www.nngroup.com/ https://www.nngroup.com/
  - vogt 9y ago
    I just mean imitation in it's simplest of forms, which is to say, some creator saw HN and thought it would be good to do a design-focused version. The idea itself is good, it's just a lot of junk gets posted there. I still visit it. Some improvements would make it much better.
Kenji 9y ago
>As sort of a sidenote: websites about UX seem to have the worst UX. That reminds me of my numerical methods professor who gave talks on how to present things - and his lecture was literally the worst at the entire uni and this is not just my opinion, this fact was established by anonymous student vote. He had power point presentation slides stuffed full of formulas - literally 10-20 lines of mathematical theorems and proofs, and he just clicked through the pages, leaving no more than a few minutes for such complex slides.
jpindar 9y ago
Don't forget the light grey on white text.
tentakull 9y ago
I clicked the link, interested, saw the design of the article's website, and closed the window.
tomcam 9y ago
https://tools.pingdom.com/#!/8gBS9/http://whatusersdo.com/blog/make-websites-age-friendly/ https://tools.pingdom.com/#!/8gBS9/http://whatusersdo.com/bl...

mirimir 9y ago

Also, a couple of the images leave me wondering. The walk with orange and black walls? The iPad, keyboard, mouse and pen? And no alt text? Strange.

Semiapies 9y ago
It's the idea that random themed images will increase your engagement. No faith in the content.
- mirimir 9y ago
  That didn't work for me. I was left with "WTF?". And wondering whether I'm too old to get some joke. Or maybe just not British ;)

lloydtl 9y ago

I personally think Tom is great. But then I am him.

boomlinde 9y ago
Do you personally introduce yourself to every visitor? If not, you're probably not the Tom I met.

a3n 9y ago

> As sort of a sidenote: websites about UX seem to have the worst UX. Clicking the link, I'm not only met by a social sharing bar that uses 1/6th of the screen This comment anecdotally reinforces my impression that UX people today (I assume you're either a UX people, or a people interested in UX) have a bias for full-width sites and browsers. I rarely run my browser full-width (and I think many UX/UI designers rarely do anything else but full-width). When I opened the page under discussion, I didn't see any social sharing bar at all, just editorial content. And when I read your comment I went "huh?" And then "oh." So I full-widthed my browser, and saw what you're complaining about. (I didn't notice any scrolling problems. And I didn't notice a popup; that may be because of my adblocking addons.) As far as I'm concerned, this site exhibits very good UX for this particular aspect of the site. If the browser isn't wide enough to display the sidebar, it gets moved to below the editorial content. That's so refreshingly respectful! Most often I see "beautiful" sites that have to be sidescrolled if the browser isn't full-width. I do two things in that situation: 1. I turn off styles, which then makes everything flow within the viewport (It's 1990 again!) and moves all the blocks to the order that they appear in the html. Because all I care about are words and pictures, not features. Again, in this site's case that works fabulously, because the site makers ordered their blocks so that editorial content is first; abcnews.com is a good example where, if you turn off styles, the content of interest doesn't appear until you scroll way down the page. 2. Or I leave.

ASalazarMX 9y ago
> have a bias for full-width sites and browsers. Ah, of course. He's using it wrong!
- a3n 9y ago
  No, not at all. If he doesn't like it, then he doesn't like it, I can't disagree with that at all. My point is that the page builders consciously thought of this part, and came up with a reasonable and accommodating design, which I (a narrow-width user) only noticed because of the comment.
  - rhizome 9y ago

vogt 9y ago

As a UX designer I have seen a lot of this stuff over the years and I always find it funny. DesignerNews.com, which is an imitation of this site, is chock full of articles like this. The big thing to understand is a lot of people in The Blogosphere(TM) who post articles about UX don't really give a rip about anything other than the pageviews whether it's for ad revenue, establishing themselves as a thought leader, or trying to market their company. Even worse, there are some people who don't even ACTUALLY know much about UX, they just want to post an article about it to spread around LinkedIn and seem relevant by harping about the importance of UX, etc. Having said all that, if you sift through all the garbage there are some great resources. Some of the big players in the space tend to do it well. InVision's blog, for example. UXPin are pretty good. There are lots of little ones like UXPowerTools' content marketing emails that are starting to do a good job as well. At this point as someone who is always trying to improve as a UX designer, I have become accustomed to vetting the 100:1 ratio of garbage articles to bad ones.

jtraffic 9y ago
This should have been obvious, I guess, but when I read your comment it felt like a revelation. Suddenly, so many articles make sense. It reminds me of the inconsistency inherent in most books about how to beat the market.
cturhan 9y ago
I saw it was like designernews.co and I was about to ask how it's that imitation of this site. I agree about these "UX Sites" doesn't present good UX. NNGroup website[1] does its job great since they are pioneer on user experience and usability. They frequently publish articles about how all these pop-ups, modals etc effects the usability. https://www.nngroup.com/ https://www.nngroup.com/
- vogt 9y ago
  I just mean imitation in it's simplest of forms, which is to say, some creator saw HN and thought it would be good to do a design-focused version. The idea itself is good, it's just a lot of junk gets posted there. I still visit it. Some improvements would make it much better.

Kenji 9y ago

>As sort of a sidenote: websites about UX seem to have the worst UX. That reminds me of my numerical methods professor who gave talks on how to present things - and his lecture was literally the worst at the entire uni and this is not just my opinion, this fact was established by anonymous student vote. He had power point presentation slides stuffed full of formulas - literally 10-20 lines of mathematical theorems and proofs, and he just clicked through the pages, leaving no more than a few minutes for such complex slides.

jpindar 9y ago

Don't forget the light grey on white text.

tentakull 9y ago

I clicked the link, interested, saw the design of the article's website, and closed the window.

tomcam 9y ago

https://tools.pingdom.com/#!/8gBS9/http://whatusersdo.com/blog/make-websites-age-friendly/ https://tools.pingdom.com/#!/8gBS9/http://whatusersdo.com/bl...