8 ms·

>> (Our design team will never listen. This is because they, one, don't listen to anyone ever; and two, never use the products they design. Oh, sure, there migh

>> (Our design team will never listen. This is because they, one, don't listen to anyone ever; and two, never use the products they design. Oh, sure, there might be a user study or two. But they never actually have to live with or work with the damn things.) This is so obvious from everyday life that someone really ought to write a paper about it and have it published in Nature. Because it will certainly be published. It will probably become the most cited paper of all times, just because of all the pent-up pissed-offery that everyone carries in them, going around in a world where nothing. ever. fucking. works! dammit. Pfh. Sorry for the vent. This is what impractical design does to people.

andreareina 5y ago
It's a book actually: The Design of Everyday Things
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  That book, IMNSHO, should be required reading for anyone that designs anything to be used by anyone.
  - smilespray 5y ago
    Last week, I bought ten copies of the book for everyone in our team — regardless of role.
    - gswdh 5y ago
      Surely, they only need one each?
    - spogbiper 5y ago
      Better ship a copy with every product sold so the customer can properly appreciate what you've done
  - micromacrofoot 5y ago
    Their managers should read it too, lots of bad products come from inflexible business requirements
- kyaghmour 5y ago
  That's such a godawful book. In my view it epitomizes everything that is wrong with design today. And the worst part is that comments like these make it come off as the go-to reference to actually solving these problems. The reasons it's the worst design guidance out there is that it teaches: 1) that engineers should NOT be entrusted/involved with user design. 2) to conceptualize users as blissful idiots. 3) that obscuring errors in a system is actually a good thing. All of these are things that I see the lasting effects of in products I use in every day. Don't get me wrong, I bought this with the best of intentions. It was the highest rated design book on Amazon on the topic. Reading through was an extremely painful exercise in essentially coming to realize that everything I see broken in the engineering teams I work with and products I use is actually codified in words. Take this excerpt as an example -- p. 65: "Eliminate all error messages from electronic and computer systems. Instead, provide help and insight." Are you f'ing kidding me? You cannot seriously think this is right. For the longest of time I wondered why I hated using Apple products. It turns out Norman was schooled at Apple and they absolutely practice this teaching. I bought an early-day iPod touch circa 2007 and proceeded on to loading all my music on it. A few upgrades later, some albums disappeared without any error. I searched and searched and searched, trying to describe my problem in a number of different ways on Google to see what I could find. And all I could find were semi-answers. But you know what? If it had actually displayed "error 0xFHJAD1234" when failing during the upgrade, I could've actually google that. And I'll spare you the story of what I had to do when the family Mac's HDD failed ... So this is what we actually get, devices that SILENTLY fail, designed for people who are assumed not to know what they're doing and who likely do NOT have any technically-literate person around them that could assist them if they could in fact identify the problem. Worse, this philosophy probably hints at a level of intellectual ignorance/arrogance that is quite fascinating. You see, in my line of work I have to be able to walk engineers I work with from the gate-level silicon all the way up to cloud and AI. Without any false modesty, I think I have a fairly good idea of how modern computer architecture works. Yet, I will be the first to tell you that I have no idea how any of these systems work in full. In fact, no one does. Not the best of kernel developers nor the best of chip designers. To claim that you can somehow inventory every possible problem in a computerized system and then provide a graceful exit from that or useful info is either ignorant or arrogant or both. But since you've eliminated engineers from the design loop (see #1 above), no one will tell you you're full of it. So yeah, no. Do read Norman's book. But look at it as everything you should NOT be doing.
vsareto 5y ago
I get that you're pissed, but there's plenty of technology that you seemingly forget about (being pissed off makes you a bit irrational) that works most of the time. Saying nothing ever fucking works is just a dumb take
- bombcar 5y ago
  It’s nice sometimes to have a deep dive into technology that does work, and works so well you barely even notice it. When it’s failing is when it comes to the forefront. Crappy touchscreens seem to be a major component in lots of them, had an experience with an elevator “system” with a touchscreen that was mildly annoying.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
    It's interesting that you and the sibling comment both mention elevators :)
- marcosdumay 5y ago
  Hum... Nothing that was redesigned on the last few decades works. From cars and elevators to software. Anything that interaction designers touched is broken.
  - justin_oaks 5y ago
    Yes. Change for changes sake. It's hard to improve on something that already works fine.
- YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
  Alright, I exaggerate. But when there's so many things that just don't work, and so few things that just work, then I think I'm justified to say "nothing". Kind of like Yogi Bera says "nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded".
- YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
  Btw, here is the litany of broken systems that led to my outburst above. I'm two months (at least) without data on my phone. I didn't need to use it and I'm a lazy ass so I didn't try to fix it. When I call them, a kind youg man on the other end of the chat says he's reset my service and within a couple of hours I'll definitely have data. In a couple of hours I have no data, but now I also have no service: "emergency calls only". Result! Of course I can't log into my account to see what's up, because it's trying to send me a TFA code. It can't send it to my mobile, since it's dead, but it sends it to my landline which is in the UK. I'm in Greece now. I try to get help by clicking on a link in the page where I fail to login. I'm taken to a page with an "AI assistant" called TOBi. The page has the assistant's icon, smiling at me encouragingly and a wheel that's spinning, spinning, spinning... and spinning. I think I pass out from all the spinning and all the screaming and pulling at my pigtails. I finally realise I can actuall call a number to ask for help. Fortunately my friend still has service. I have to blow a few raspberries down the line to convince the (other) chatbot that it can't understand my speech, but I'm finally connected to a human being. The kind young woman on the other end of the line tells me she has reset my service and I will definitely have my service back in 24 to 48 hours. Three days later I definitely don't have service. I try to log in to my university email to pick up some work I need to do, but it asks me for a TFA code. That it sends to my mobile. I call Vodafone for a third time. This time, I'm put through to a technician. He asks me to take my sim out of my phone and read the S/N off it "to make sure it's the right sim". Hang on. To do what? I put the sim back in the phone and I have service. Ah. So that's what he wanted me to do. He could have said so. And I should have thought of it. So, nothing works. Not even my goddamn brain works anymore. If that was a dumb take, that's because I'm dumb and useless and so is everyone else, it seems. Except for the guy who doesn't know how to tell you "did you try taking it out and putting it back in again?". Because that's the only thing that works anymore.
dang 5y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31311625 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31311625.

andreareina 5y ago

It's a book actually: The Design of Everyday Things

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
That book, IMNSHO, should be required reading for anyone that designs anything to be used by anyone.
- smilespray 5y ago
  Last week, I bought ten copies of the book for everyone in our team — regardless of role.
  - gswdh 5y ago
    Surely, they only need one each?
  - spogbiper 5y ago
    Better ship a copy with every product sold so the customer can properly appreciate what you've done
- micromacrofoot 5y ago
  Their managers should read it too, lots of bad products come from inflexible business requirements
kyaghmour 5y ago
That's such a godawful book. In my view it epitomizes everything that is wrong with design today. And the worst part is that comments like these make it come off as the go-to reference to actually solving these problems. The reasons it's the worst design guidance out there is that it teaches: 1) that engineers should NOT be entrusted/involved with user design. 2) to conceptualize users as blissful idiots. 3) that obscuring errors in a system is actually a good thing. All of these are things that I see the lasting effects of in products I use in every day. Don't get me wrong, I bought this with the best of intentions. It was the highest rated design book on Amazon on the topic. Reading through was an extremely painful exercise in essentially coming to realize that everything I see broken in the engineering teams I work with and products I use is actually codified in words. Take this excerpt as an example -- p. 65: "Eliminate all error messages from electronic and computer systems. Instead, provide help and insight." Are you f'ing kidding me? You cannot seriously think this is right. For the longest of time I wondered why I hated using Apple products. It turns out Norman was schooled at Apple and they absolutely practice this teaching. I bought an early-day iPod touch circa 2007 and proceeded on to loading all my music on it. A few upgrades later, some albums disappeared without any error. I searched and searched and searched, trying to describe my problem in a number of different ways on Google to see what I could find. And all I could find were semi-answers. But you know what? If it had actually displayed "error 0xFHJAD1234" when failing during the upgrade, I could've actually google that. And I'll spare you the story of what I had to do when the family Mac's HDD failed ... So this is what we actually get, devices that SILENTLY fail, designed for people who are assumed not to know what they're doing and who likely do NOT have any technically-literate person around them that could assist them if they could in fact identify the problem. Worse, this philosophy probably hints at a level of intellectual ignorance/arrogance that is quite fascinating. You see, in my line of work I have to be able to walk engineers I work with from the gate-level silicon all the way up to cloud and AI. Without any false modesty, I think I have a fairly good idea of how modern computer architecture works. Yet, I will be the first to tell you that I have no idea how any of these systems work in full. In fact, no one does. Not the best of kernel developers nor the best of chip designers. To claim that you can somehow inventory every possible problem in a computerized system and then provide a graceful exit from that or useful info is either ignorant or arrogant or both. But since you've eliminated engineers from the design loop (see #1 above), no one will tell you you're full of it. So yeah, no. Do read Norman's book. But look at it as everything you should NOT be doing.

vsareto 5y ago

I get that you're pissed, but there's plenty of technology that you seemingly forget about (being pissed off makes you a bit irrational) that works most of the time. Saying nothing ever fucking works is just a dumb take

bombcar 5y ago
It’s nice sometimes to have a deep dive into technology that does work, and works so well you barely even notice it. When it’s failing is when it comes to the forefront. Crappy touchscreens seem to be a major component in lots of them, had an experience with an elevator “system” with a touchscreen that was mildly annoying.
- YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
  It's interesting that you and the sibling comment both mention elevators :)
marcosdumay 5y ago
Hum... Nothing that was redesigned on the last few decades works. From cars and elevators to software. Anything that interaction designers touched is broken.
- justin_oaks 5y ago
  Yes. Change for changes sake. It's hard to improve on something that already works fine.
YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
Alright, I exaggerate. But when there's so many things that just don't work, and so few things that just work, then I think I'm justified to say "nothing". Kind of like Yogi Bera says "nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded".
YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
Btw, here is the litany of broken systems that led to my outburst above. I'm two months (at least) without data on my phone. I didn't need to use it and I'm a lazy ass so I didn't try to fix it. When I call them, a kind youg man on the other end of the chat says he's reset my service and within a couple of hours I'll definitely have data. In a couple of hours I have no data, but now I also have no service: "emergency calls only". Result! Of course I can't log into my account to see what's up, because it's trying to send me a TFA code. It can't send it to my mobile, since it's dead, but it sends it to my landline which is in the UK. I'm in Greece now. I try to get help by clicking on a link in the page where I fail to login. I'm taken to a page with an "AI assistant" called TOBi. The page has the assistant's icon, smiling at me encouragingly and a wheel that's spinning, spinning, spinning... and spinning. I think I pass out from all the spinning and all the screaming and pulling at my pigtails. I finally realise I can actuall call a number to ask for help. Fortunately my friend still has service. I have to blow a few raspberries down the line to convince the (other) chatbot that it can't understand my speech, but I'm finally connected to a human being. The kind young woman on the other end of the line tells me she has reset my service and I will definitely have my service back in 24 to 48 hours. Three days later I definitely don't have service. I try to log in to my university email to pick up some work I need to do, but it asks me for a TFA code. That it sends to my mobile. I call Vodafone for a third time. This time, I'm put through to a technician. He asks me to take my sim out of my phone and read the S/N off it "to make sure it's the right sim". Hang on. To do what? I put the sim back in the phone and I have service. Ah. So that's what he wanted me to do. He could have said so. And I should have thought of it. So, nothing works. Not even my goddamn brain works anymore. If that was a dumb take, that's because I'm dumb and useless and so is everyone else, it seems. Except for the guy who doesn't know how to tell you "did you try taking it out and putting it back in again?". Because that's the only thing that works anymore.

dang 5y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31311625 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31311625.