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It's Don Norman meets the Muppets! Actually I really appreciate someone collecting collective stupidity in one place. I am constantly frustrated by terrible de

It's Don Norman meets the Muppets! Actually I really appreciate someone collecting collective stupidity in one place. I am constantly frustrated by terrible design and product decisions every day (both at work and in general) that I can't do anything about. Maybe shame will work.

pg_is_a_butt 7y ago
It's just free advertising. After the public is sold on the fact that a certain NEW! feature represents a fix to the thing everyone hates, the manufacturers will have already embedded something new that will keep you idiots buying the next NEW! thing forever. You're all sheep.
Nextgrid 7y ago
The problem is that I'm not sure it's stupidity. I bet a lot of this BS is caused by "data driven" decisions that maybe improve ad engagement by 0.1% at the expense of everyone else's productivity, but the company considers the 0.1% increase a win. What makes me sad is that it seems like us who appreciate & demand good quality, no-nonsense software seem to be a minority, and the masses don't seem to care. I've noticed most non-tech people just accept their fate, either they've already came to terms with the idea that "tech sucks and will always suck", or they legitimately don't know how the experience can be improved (a lot of things may look absurd to us as developers, but might not to someone not familiar with how those things are built) or that they think software is delivered by gods or equivalent superior entities and that they, the "peasants" have no way to call for change even though voicing discontent in feedback sometimes works and is at least worth a try.
- ratww 7y ago
  I agree with everything, except with the part that tech people appreciate and demand non-nonsense software. A lot of people in tech enjoy being the "ultimate power user" and are proud of using things that look or feel complicated. You just have to look at HN itself to read trough rationalisations of why software is bloated and why bigger software is probably better. It's never driven by data or by facts, it's purely by anecdotal experience.
  - ryandrake 7y ago
    We, collectively as the software industry, have the power to fix this. The fact that awful software still exists demonstrates we don’t care or want to fix it. It’s not a popular opinion here, but software developers/designers are responsible for bad software.

pg_is_a_butt 7y ago

It's just free advertising. After the public is sold on the fact that a certain NEW! feature represents a fix to the thing everyone hates, the manufacturers will have already embedded something new that will keep you idiots buying the next NEW! thing forever. You're all sheep.

Nextgrid 7y ago

The problem is that I'm not sure it's stupidity. I bet a lot of this BS is caused by "data driven" decisions that maybe improve ad engagement by 0.1% at the expense of everyone else's productivity, but the company considers the 0.1% increase a win. What makes me sad is that it seems like us who appreciate & demand good quality, no-nonsense software seem to be a minority, and the masses don't seem to care. I've noticed most non-tech people just accept their fate, either they've already came to terms with the idea that "tech sucks and will always suck", or they legitimately don't know how the experience can be improved (a lot of things may look absurd to us as developers, but might not to someone not familiar with how those things are built) or that they think software is delivered by gods or equivalent superior entities and that they, the "peasants" have no way to call for change even though voicing discontent in feedback sometimes works and is at least worth a try.

ratww 7y ago
I agree with everything, except with the part that tech people appreciate and demand non-nonsense software. A lot of people in tech enjoy being the "ultimate power user" and are proud of using things that look or feel complicated. You just have to look at HN itself to read trough rationalisations of why software is bloated and why bigger software is probably better. It's never driven by data or by facts, it's purely by anecdotal experience.
- ryandrake 7y ago
  We, collectively as the software industry, have the power to fix this. The fact that awful software still exists demonstrates we don’t care or want to fix it. It’s not a popular opinion here, but software developers/designers are responsible for bad software.