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Websites presenting me with a big button to download a "reasonable" default and hiding everything else behind a small link that I have to go hunting gor is real

Websites presenting me with a big button to download a "reasonable" default and hiding everything else behind a small link that I have to go hunting gor is really annoying. There is nothing reasonable about it. Don't think that you know better what your users want then the users themselves.

josteink 7y ago
Optimizing for the 99% use-case is fairly normal and reasonable. iOS users will almost always install apps via the AppStore. Most Windows-users are probably not interested in a DMG. Are you really going to argue against that? I agree that taking away options based on OS-detection is a seriously nasty UX anti-pattern though.
- abjKT26nO8 7y ago
  > iOS users will almost always install apps via the AppStore. Most Windows-users are probably not interested in a DMG. Are you really going to argue against that? It may be true in the case of iOS and Android, because they are so locked down. However, on more powerful platforms that Windows, Mac and Linux are it isn't. I may want to run it in a VM, or not install it, but place it somewhere on a shared drive, or anything that a non-handicapped OS is capable of facilitating and many of these things will mean I will want a binary not meant to be run by my native OS. Sometimes it happens that one of my devices will break and so I want to use another one to download something that will help me fix the issue. But now I'm going to have to go full Sherlock Holmes on a website that thinks it knows better what I'm looking for.
  - AgloeDreams 7y ago
    In fairness, highlighting the right button for your OS and showing an 'other downloads' button is really a 'You' problem that probably only affects less than half of 1% of users. Almost all sites also show a 'other OS downloads' button. But this is all meaningless, as shown above, UA will be replaced by a client hint property.

josteink 7y ago

Optimizing for the 99% use-case is fairly normal and reasonable. iOS users will almost always install apps via the AppStore. Most Windows-users are probably not interested in a DMG. Are you really going to argue against that? I agree that taking away options based on OS-detection is a seriously nasty UX anti-pattern though.

abjKT26nO8 7y ago
> iOS users will almost always install apps via the AppStore. Most Windows-users are probably not interested in a DMG. Are you really going to argue against that? It may be true in the case of iOS and Android, because they are so locked down. However, on more powerful platforms that Windows, Mac and Linux are it isn't. I may want to run it in a VM, or not install it, but place it somewhere on a shared drive, or anything that a non-handicapped OS is capable of facilitating and many of these things will mean I will want a binary not meant to be run by my native OS. Sometimes it happens that one of my devices will break and so I want to use another one to download something that will help me fix the issue. But now I'm going to have to go full Sherlock Holmes on a website that thinks it knows better what I'm looking for.
- AgloeDreams 7y ago
  In fairness, highlighting the right button for your OS and showing an 'other downloads' button is really a 'You' problem that probably only affects less than half of 1% of users. Almost all sites also show a 'other OS downloads' button. But this is all meaningless, as shown above, UA will be replaced by a client hint property.