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I feel like the modern web is an exercise in adversarial UX. I am constantly fighting with it to get it to stop doing - and pardon my Anglo-Saxon here but I thi

by _moof 5y ago

I feel like the modern web is an exercise in adversarial UX. I am constantly fighting with it to get it to stop doing - and pardon my Anglo-Saxon here but I think it's warranted - obnoxious bullshit. Hotkeys, pop-ups (er, sorry, modals), text fields with paste disabled, login walls and other dark patterns... just let me use your website! I get why the hotkey scourge came about, because folks are trying to build apps on a platform that isn't actually a platform. Browsers provide some but not all of the facilities of a real operating system (I'm using "operating system" here in the larger sense of "an integrated software platform that includes a complete toolbox a la Windows, macOS, etc."), so everyone's forced to reinvent square wheels. But understanding it doesn't make the experience as a user any less painful. And although I very much prefer to be able to work from the keyboard whenever possible, hotkeys as they exist on the web today ain't it. They're inconsistent, undiscoverable, and aren't integrated with fundamental UX principles like "don't destroy the user's work" and "let the user recover from mistakes."

ryandrake 5y ago
The infuriating part of this is, we keep complaining about all this horrible web UX over and over, on a web forum that a large number of web developers read daily. There are probably web developers browsing this thread right now, maybe reading this very comment, who are actively doing this to the web. Hey! Web Developer Reading This: PLEASE STOP making the web terrible. The very people who can fix this are reading HN. Just stop. Put the keyboard down. Put away the Javascript. Forget those modal pop-ups and newsletter sign-ups. Now do some meditation. Think about what you are doing to the user's experience when you start typing again. I'm really talking to you, mister web developer reading this, who has a JIRA ticket up next in the queue asking you to add a dark pattern to a web site. Please stop. Articulate to your manager why this is horrible, and don't do it. All it takes is people (us, here on HN) to stop doing these things, and things will slowly start getting better.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  > Put away the Javascript. Forget those modal pop-ups and newsletter sign-ups. This would make a lot of careers obsolete though (and even entire companies - I'm sure there are "newsletter popup as a service" startups). It's hard to make someone understand something when their paycheck depends on not understanding it.

by _moof 5y ago

ryandrake 5y ago

The infuriating part of this is, we keep complaining about all this horrible web UX over and over, on a web forum that a large number of web developers read daily. There are probably web developers browsing this thread right now, maybe reading this very comment, who are actively doing this to the web. Hey! Web Developer Reading This: PLEASE STOP making the web terrible. The very people who can fix this are reading HN. Just stop. Put the keyboard down. Put away the Javascript. Forget those modal pop-ups and newsletter sign-ups. Now do some meditation. Think about what you are doing to the user's experience when you start typing again. I'm really talking to you, mister web developer reading this, who has a JIRA ticket up next in the queue asking you to add a dark pattern to a web site. Please stop. Articulate to your manager why this is horrible, and don't do it. All it takes is people (us, here on HN) to stop doing these things, and things will slowly start getting better.

Nextgrid 5y ago
> Put away the Javascript. Forget those modal pop-ups and newsletter sign-ups. This would make a lot of careers obsolete though (and even entire companies - I'm sure there are "newsletter popup as a service" startups). It's hard to make someone understand something when their paycheck depends on not understanding it.