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I remember being stoned out of my mind, trying to grab an Uber back home. I realized how terrible the Uber UI is. There's a shitton of confusing information an
by enw 6y ago
I remember being stoned out of my mind, trying to grab an Uber back home.
I realized how terrible the Uber UI is. There's a shitton of confusing information and buttons competing for attention, all at an equally ambiguous grayish tone. I just want to go home. I was with a friend who was equally high, and we kept laughing at how absurdly bad and confusing the UI is. Eventually the Uber arrived and I got home safe.
- airstrike 6y agoI routinely use the Uber app while entirely sober and have the exact same reaction. It's utterly terrible and I can't imagine what it's like for my parents to use it.
- warent 6y agoI have my phone set to a foreign language to help me learn, and Uber was unusable without translation
- giantDinosaur 6y agoIt seems a bit unfair to expect an app to work without being able to read the language. Was the translation bad or are you just saying that the buttons weren't obvious without a description you could read?
- wpietri 6y agoIs it unfair? I've done this with ATMs before and never had much problem. There are a lot of ways to signal information besides raw text.
- giantDinosaur 6y agoHow do you understand something like 'withdraw, with conversion' or 'withdraw, let your bank handle the conversion', without language? Is there an obvious image or button shape that'd signify this without prior knowledge? Curious, not sure I've seen an instance where this is obvious from any other cue. To expand on this: the mapping between images and other cues to a precise meaning is often actually pretty poor. To correctly navigate using images you often have to have prior knowledge, with the exception of the most downright obvious images or visual cues possible. On the other hand, text can have essentially arbitrary precision (although past a certain point it becomes difficult to parse) - and is thus actually often superior for first-use (or infrequent use) scenarios. The ideal is to have the best communication possible, and while I'm not sure as to the extent that Uber reaches that goal, text being unreadable and the app being unnavigable because you changed the language is, in my view, more on you than on the app developers.
- karlp 6y ago> How do you understand something like 'withdraw, with conversion' or 'withdraw, let your bank handle the conversion', without language? Is there an obvious image or button shape that'd signify this without prior knowledge? Let's say you're in Europe and and have a card in dollars: [] 1000€ [] 1000€ (1€/1.2$ -> 1200$)
- giantDinosaur 6y agoRight. Because you have numbers written in a common language, you can work out what your buttons did. Without that you wouldn't realise until you actually were hit with the conversion fee on one side or the other. If you changed the language and the numbers were written in Chinese, and then you blamed the ATM for being difficult to use without a translation app, how on earth is that not a problem with what you decided to do? Anyway, I digress...
- refactor_master 6y agoAnd then it starts asking about card type, and which account, and... Just gimme the money! But they’re usually designed in such a way that it’s impossible to hit a wall, and worst case you pay a $5 fee.
- rusk 6y agoI do this all the time. I understand from context. I’m relying on the position, some annotation and previous experiences to know what’s going on. This is good design and an illiterate person could be walked through this a few times and could then do it anywhere. Bad design is relying on your users continually having to teach themselves how to use your app.
- wpietri 6y agoFor that example, I'd say the text wouldn't help most people regardless of language. One would have to know a fair bit about the mechanics of currency conversion. I happen to know that, and I still would have to pick randomly, because this would come down to exchange rates that the interface isn't exposing. The correct user-focused interface solution for that particular problem is to show the actual costs next to each button. And then I'd think one would make the cheaper option the obvious default (e.g., bigger, greener), with the more expensive option less favored.
- cpobrien 6y agoI disagree that it's unfair to expect apps to work without reading. Some apps, sure, but I think a taxi application ought to be usable without being able to read. Consider 1. The user is drunk, and can't understand meaning of the text. 2. The user is preoccupied with other tasks, and skips over the words. 3. The user is illiterate. Functional illiteracy is prevalent in the United States, and being unable to recognize the characters of one's own language continues in many countries, too My company invests in ensuring many of their products are usable for the illiterate. I doubt it's the only company that does so.
- chris_wot 6y agoI know this sounds awful, but perhaps Uber drivers don't want drunk people who might vomit in their cars?
- warent 6y agoServices like Uber protects the road from drunk drivers. We want it to be easy to use while drunk.
- throwaway744678 6y agoSource: used to work for a direct Uber competitor (not in the US) Drivers and platforms definitely don't want too intoxicated passengers. Reasonably drunk? Sure. Completely high/passed out/etc? Nope. It's just too much of a mess to handle. There is indeed a vomiting fee, but it's more used as a deterrent for the users: it does not cover the actual cleaning + lost rides on a busy Saturday night... Bit of anecdata: sexual intercourse in the car is also not ok, and gets you banned. Yes, it happens. Drivers don't like it.
- chris_wot 6y agoExactly. The response to my comment misses the point that what is best for the rest of us is not necessarily what is best for the poor driver...
- adrianN 6y agoTypically you don't change your phone's language before being able to read at least a little bit of the target language.
- abanayev 6y agoI’m learning a foreign language right now, trying to break through to fluent conversation, and I have just changed my phone’s language thanks to your comment :)
- vishnugupta 6y agoI have set it to my first language which is non-English (Kannada, a South Indian language). And I can use Uber just because of my muscle memory. The UX is supremely fragile and confusing!
- aasasd 6y agoI'm still traumatized by the several years of using Windows in my native language. I was yet young and eager, but nonetheless had to spend plenty of cumulative hours wandering helplessly through the control panel, trying to decipher what they meant by all those attempts at translation. I've been using only English interfaces for more than a decade, but recently-ish relived the phenomenon with MS Office, and it doesn't get easier with experience.
- TeMPOraL 6y agoSame here. I always set everything to en_US, because that's the native language of computing. Any time I've had to use something in my native language (Polish), the translation was terrible - and the only reason I was not confused was because I could mentally untranslate the Polish text to the most likely English original. Speaking of computing and translations: the most annoying case I've had was not with UIs, but with books. Back in the day, I bought two C++ books by Scott Meyers (Effective C++ and More Effective C++), both published in Polish, and each by a different publisher. In the first one, they translated "template" -> "szablon" and "pattern" -> "wzorzec", and in the other, they translated "template" -> "wzorzec" and "pattern" -> "szablon". Took my teenage mind quite a while to make sense of the confusion.
- phowat 6y agoSame experience here. In college ( portuguese speaking country ), the teachers forbade us to buy translated books. We had to work with the english editions only, and I'm lucky this was the case having seen some of these translated books later.
- tinus_hn 6y agoI think excel used to have a translated macro language, so if you used the Dutch Excel you’d have to use Dutch words for ‘if’, ‘then’ ‘else’ etcetera. Truly insane.
- emteycz 6y agoThat's still the case today.
- justinboogaard 6y agoHave them try GoGoGrandparent.com! A way to use Uber and Lyft with a phone call. Call and press 1 to get picked up from home, call and press 2 to get picked up at your last location. We screen their drivers, make sure the cars aren’t too big or too small and monitor GPS and trip pickups so that if it looks like a driver is getting lost we can get them back on track. Our mission is to help people age independently in their home for as possible, regardless of their age - or sobriety!
- smeej 6y agoThanks for sharing this. What a delightful idea! My grandma is forever complaining about all the things she can't do anymore, but won't touch the internet, much less a smartphone! This may help restore some of her independence, and I look forward to sharing it with her!
- jlmendezbonini 6y agoWhat sort of things she can’t do anymore?
- smeej 6y agoShe drives, but not safely. She goes to the grocery store, but it takes a long time and tires her out. I'd tried to get her a smartphone just so she could use things like Instacart and Lyft, but she doesn't have internet at he and doesn't want to learn. If she could just make a call and get a ride, she'd be all for it!
- justinboogaard 6y agoHaha awesome, if you ever have any feedback please feel free to send me an email: justin@gogograndparent.com. I'd love to hear how we could improve the service and/or what we could do to make it easier to adopt.
- jimcsharp 6y agoHeads up, I get a page titled "Divya's Page Landing Tests ..." When I reach your website through Google ads. Very cool though. I would have loved this for my grandfather when he was still going places a few years ago.
- 1123581321 6y agoThat’s a good thing to simulate. Sometimes I’ll try half closing my eyes or shaking the phone while I try to use it. Uber to home is literally three taps, though!
- rolleiflex 6y agoWhat Uber is doing is likely by design, for the most part. They do highlight the user journeys in the app that generate more revenue, over others that might be cheaper or more close to what you need. That usually means the lower-revenue paths get more convoluted and longer. On the other hand if you’re price insensitive, you should be able to be on your way fairly easily. What they have is not necessarily bad UI, it just doesn’t have your optimum as the highest priority.
- MetalGuru 6y agoWhat does this even mean? Uber extracts money from you when you take rides. So how is a UI that makes it overly complicated to do that “designed to extract as much money from you as possible”?
- rolleiflex 6y agoTaking an Uber ride is easy as long as you don’t want to optimise for prices. I meant extracting as much money from you as possible in the context of other options in the app that might be more economical for you (if you don’t mind waiting, for example), not in the sense that Uber providing a service for you is somehow an involuntary extraction. It wasn’t clear before so I edited the comment, my apologies.
- djitz 6y agoDo they still have surge pricing? I once paid $289 for a 14 minute ride at 3am Jan 1.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- rolleiflex 6y agoThey do, they just stopped calling it surge pricing (or anything else). They just show you the higher price with a microscopic grey text underneath that says 'there's a lot of demand, prices are higher now'. If you don't take that route often and know the average price, like when you're travelling or in a city that you're unfamiliar with, you'd be excused to think that's the normal price and just go for it instead of waiting a few more minutes or checking Lyft instead.
- frompdx 6y agoI used to routinely have dreams about trying to use the Uber app but not being able to comprehend it's interface.
- underwater 6y agoA common dream theme for me is inability to operate a smartphone. The apps will lag or disappear. I'll tap on the wrong items and mistype words. It is a very 2021 interpretation on the "running late" dream trope.
- TeMPOraL 6y agoThat's a common reality for many. It's the reason I always buy the expensive flagship phone for my wife and myself. Lagging and disappearing apps (and hanging and/or rebooting during phone calls) is a constant occurrence on underpowered smartphones. Had such a phone once, and it did a "death through thousand papercuts" number on my psyche. Never again.
- enw 6y agoFor those curious, this is one screenshot I took of the UI that night: https://ibb.co/wzV8fQQ https://ibb.co/wzV8fQQ I fully expect sober and patient people to defend this UI, but it was utterly confusing at the time (and as a consequence sadly hilarious).
- wpietri 6y agoI agree, that's a lot. High/drunk people are legitimate users, especially for something like Uber! Another heuristic I user is, "can a person with an upset toddler work this?" Spending time around parents with small children made it clear that even the smartest person can end up with what is effectively a cognitive impairment if they are trying to keep a small child alive. Attention? What's that?
- SilasX 6y ago> Another heuristic I user is, "can a person with an upset toddler work this? Incidentally, another UI that fails this is those automated answering services that “cleverly” let you answer with your voice instead of “press 1 for whatever”. The screaming toddler (or pet) will repeatedly short-circuit the process and get interpreted as an incomprehensible answer.
- geoduck14 6y agoOh, my gosh. I got noise canceling headphones SPECIFICALLY for my kids - only to learn they block low sounds, but not high pitched screaming.
- rusk 6y agoThat’s a good thing. You can listen to what you want to without that nagging feeling you might be neglecting your kids!
- zelphirkalt 6y agoIf it happens often enough, you might train your kids to use the high pitch screaming sound though, as that will get them the attention. Scary thought what might develop from there!
- cameronh90 6y agoI tried once a while ago on LSD and couldn't figure out when it was asking for the pick up location vs drop off location.
- baxtr 6y agoIt’s terrible I agree. At the same time I wonder: does the UI then really matter for success? Uber seems to be fairly successfully with a terrible UI.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- TeMPOraL 6y agoIt matters. Problem is, UI designed for company success does not look like UI designed for usability and customer satisfaction. Company success has little to do with customer satisfaction these days.
- baxtr 6y agoBut if you do the latter, company success should follow ideally as corollary, shouldn’t it?
- mattanamg 6y agoThere is this famous case of a woman who was high and trying to request a Uber ride. She thought it was weird that the app was asking her so many information and so eventually gave up. Next morning, she realized she was almost there to become a driver herself.
- thotsBgone 6y agoI heard a story from an Uber driver about a drunk woman he gave a ride to who intended to Uber like 3 blocks, but who ended up Ubering over an hour to the wrong city before she realised her mistake.
- kangaroozach 6y agoI have always found Google Maps incredibly confusing and difficult to use. Its never clear what mode you are in, how to go back or where back will take you? The confusion is compounded why I use CarPlay. Its so frustrating and dangerous. WTF!
- highqaguy 6y agoHaven't used it in a good while, but I remember being confused by the selection available. Please. I just need to get home.