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It’s a fascinating tool and thanks for the link! But oh my word — I need to find and download a weather station file, then upload it again to the same tool? I d
by sonofhans 4y ago
It’s a fascinating tool and thanks for the link! But oh my word — I need to find and download a weather station file, then upload it again to the same tool? I don’t spend much time in GIS tools, but this feels almost maliciously opaque :D
These instructions are hidden behind a “Toggle Instructions” button which is hidden in a popup which is hidden in a select control:
> “Once you have found the right weather station, select its indicator and click the 'Download Weather File' link in the popup. This will download the selected file to local storage so you will need to select the 'Load...' button or the 'Load Weather File...' menu item and locate the downloaded file on your system.”
I mean, I UX for a living and I’ve seen some daft shit, but I’ve rarely seen a tool so useful and polished in its presentation which presents a less-clear surface area to the user. I want to put a frame around it somehow, as The Master Antipattern.
- jonnycomputer 4y agoI don't like to criticize things I get for free.
- bicijay 4y agoI mean... Why not?
- Godel_unicode 4y agoIt’s extremely rude, and a great way to convince people who make useful free stuff that the world is composed of assholes and that it’s not worth it.
- bawolff 4y agoAs someone who has made free stuff in the past, what's even the point if other people don't engage with it? And does it even count as engagement if its just fluff and not critical engagement? Positive vibes only makes the positive vibes meaningless.
- Godel_unicode 4y agoAs someone who has made lots of free stuff that tons of people actually use, the internet is full of people who think that they are super insightful and that their scathing indictments of the shade of grey that you picked are incredibly useful. It’s full of people who think that they are entitled to have no social skills because they “know UX”. It’s orders of magnitude easier to destroy than to create, and our culture is all about supposed experts gate-keeping with their banal comments about UX problems that boil down to personal preference.
- bawolff 4y agoTo be clear, i definitely agree, the internet is full of crazy people with irrational complaints. I suppose i consider that part of the price of putting oneself out there. Its hard to imagine getting rid of that without throwing the baby out with the bath water, so to speak.
- modriano 4y agoIf you spent a lot of time making something useful to a small set of users who already had extensive domain knowledge, but users without extensive domain knowledge found it confusing and couldn't derive value from your product would you prefer A) they tell you about their experience, or B) users just view your product, quietly wonder "what am I looking at?", the silently move on?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- thombat 4y agoMeant for a reply to the adjacent Godel_unicode but the nesting limit (?) precludes that: No, rude asshole criticism is extremely rude. Well-pitched constructive criticism is a gift, although you'd be right to say that when addressing strangers it's easy to come across as a demanding prick. So if you can provide that feedback for improvement along with sincere praise then criticize away.
- yababa_y 4y ago> but the nesting limit (?) precludes that the nesting limit is way deeper than this, there's a cooldown timer for replying too fast in a thread. and if you view the page for the comment, you can always reply.
- thombat 4y agoThanks for the explanation! Since my last comment on anything was a couple of days ago I guess the cooldown gets tripped by something else too (possibly I went back+forward a couple of times so looked like obsessive reloading)
- jamiek88 4y agoNo, you just need to click on the ‘n time ago’ bit which opens that comment which then enables you to reply directly no matter how nested or save/favorite. I.e. your comment I replied to said ‘2 hours ago’ I clicked there and replied.
- sonofhans 4y agoYou’re welcome to that, of course. There’s prior art: “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” etc. But there is, for one thing, a difference between a personal gift, and publishing something for public use. Consider that you’re literally contradicting one of the foundations of the Internet — criticism and improvement. How many websites have you or I visited in the last 25 years? If none of us criticized things we got for free, most critique would never occur at all. How would we learn and improve without that? I mean, is creating a bug ticket on a FOSS Github project criticizing something you get for free? It strikes me as an odd position. Now of course one shouldn’t be an asshole while criticizing, or hurt people deliberately. But I don’t see any of that in my comment.
- jonnycomputer 4y agoNot everything on the internet or web is really intended for public consumption, even if it is left open to it. The standard for a personal tool is far different than one intended as a tool for general use.
- bequanna 4y agoFair enough, but I think most people appreciate constructive criticism with good faith, specific suggestions on how to improve.
- otikik 4y agoWas that not a piece of free UX feedback?
- jonnycomputer 4y agoSometimes free still costs too much. (:
- UncleEntity 4y agoLike gift horses?
- jonnycomputer 4y agoAt my work, in the break room, some people left stuff on the table for anyone to take. A neti pot, an Outback Steakhouse bobblehead figurine, some Christian romance novel. They stayed on the table for three years, until I threw them away.
- dkarl 4y agoYou're taking flak for being too harsh, but I'm glad you posted, because without your second sentence I don't think I could have figured it out. It's too counterintuitive to select a file, download it, and then upload it. My mind would have rejected it before even considering it if I hadn't read your comment before I clicked. It's a neat and interesting visualization, though, once you get past that. I could see it being useful.
- GenerocUsername 4y agoNot sure if this is the case here, but lots of weather APIs cost money, so if they tried to integrate the full process themselves they would no longer be providing a free service, and instead losing money. So by outsourcing the download portion to you, each IP may get a few free downloads and then you just provide the data yourself saving the creator money and allowing the tool to be free...
- hutzlibu 4y ago"I don’t spend much time in GIS tools" Me neither, but are there any GIS tools, that get it right? My (limited and possibly outdated) experience with them is kind of horrible. Buttons and information overload and the workflow of experienced users is strictly memorized. I know some people (used to) make their living, just by knowing where to click around in ArcGIS and helping others who do not know the interface structure so well.
- LegitShady 4y agoSoftware experts exist for pretty much every piece of complicated software. There is so much you can do in arcgis that only someone who spent a lot of time would know how to use the tool and when to use the tool, but most gis technologists don't need their help as they spend time in the software to learn it too.
- twelvechairs 4y agoId love if someone made a better tool for this - perhaps someone from HN will see this and pick it up. Its one of those cases where you need some techincal knowledge and its not going to make money so gets missed despite its importance.
- dogcomplex 4y agoGuarantee you that over 50% of people who visit this site turn away in frustration, and over 90%+ of the people who aren't computer scientists on Hacker News lol. Yep this is a beautifully-functional tool but the UX is ridick! Also - Select your city by dragging through the map? Weird chart with blue boxes result one has no idea how to read without digging for further instructions?