4 ms·

I got 19 miles away with my first guess, the map zoomed in and I thought "that's a weird bug", zoomed it out, and then proceeded to guess other guesses that wer

by kylec 3y ago

I got 19 miles away with my first guess, the map zoomed in and I thought "that's a weird bug", zoomed it out, and then proceeded to guess other guesses that were hundreds of miles away. Interesting concept, but poorly communicated.

tasuki 3y ago
> Interesting concept, but poorly communicated. It was communicated in the very first sentence of the instructions. It's just that both you and me failed to read the instructions. We have no one to blame but ourselves.
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  This feels like morality vs outcomes reasoning. “Morally”, no we don’t. (Me included.) Say, if you are a games designer and want to get the message across, then you can start A/B testing ways to get your point (pun mostly not intended) across more effectively.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    One of the major ways this point is driven home in real life is through... letting the person fail in their task, suffer the consequences, and hopefully remember to read the goddamn manual the next time. Of course then there's a failure mode of e.g. bureaucracy, where people know everything is in the "manual" somewhere, they just don't trust themselves to understand it.
    - kylec 3y ago
      In this case though it's "you failed! try again tomorrow!" (because it's a daily thing). The odds I'm gonna come back tomorrow are extremely low though.
  - kylec 3y ago
    I feel something like "OK, you made your first guess, now try to get even closer! Here's another image" would have been helpful.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  No, this is a design problem. The fact that so many missed it is just evidence of how subtly tricky good design is.
  - croshan 3y ago
    You’re both right—a better world emerges, when we each look towards ourselves to solve the problems we see.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    That's a kind of standard answer about manuals and design, and on the one hand I understand its practicality, but on the other hand, I'm starting to have doubts - this approach may be another cause of exacerbating the very problem it's trying to work around. That is, the more stuff is usable without reading manuals, the more people ignore the manuals - making it harder to build complex, powerful tools, and in fact creating a strong design pressure to "fisher price" your product. Overall, this trend ends up disempowering users.
    - smaudet 3y ago
      I mostly agree, except this is a simple game. It should be simple to play. If folk aren't seeing the text laid out in front of them, there are a couple tricks - demonstrate, make the instructions pictographic/difficult to dismiss. There is a fine line between making your game accessible and providing too much instruction, but I can think of a couple visual cues that probably could have been given. That being said I had no problem reading the intro, on the other hand I will regularly finish those long, long, long 45 minute articles that have "congratulations you made it to the bottom", and I know generally people who are great at reading much, much faster than me have little problem figuring out "techy" things, so I do think in general people just don't read enough.
  - Zandikar 3y ago
    Correct, this is a design problem, but no one's pointed out what the specific problem is: The "Instruction" that most people perceive is the title of this post on HackerNews. By the time you actual visit the site you ALREADY have an idea of what it's supposed to be about, the colors draw your eyes to "Here's how you can tell your score, press here to start" and skip the fine print entirely. People MIGHT skim the "fine print" that is the actual instructions with key details, and what do you read when you skim? The first part of a paragraph/sentence to establish a subject and action. And what's the First part of that sentence? The same thing the title of this post told you. "Oh, yeah, I already know this" Skip to the pretty colors telling you how to score your guess and start the game. EDIT: Also, the UI after you click through to start also assumes the user read the instructions, instead of trying to organically guide them to the same conclusions. /EDIT. Cue so many people wondering how they could miss something laid out so clearly in front of them.

by kylec 3y ago

tasuki 3y ago

> Interesting concept, but poorly communicated. It was communicated in the very first sentence of the instructions. It's just that both you and me failed to read the instructions. We have no one to blame but ourselves.

actionfromafar 3y ago
This feels like morality vs outcomes reasoning. “Morally”, no we don’t. (Me included.) Say, if you are a games designer and want to get the message across, then you can start A/B testing ways to get your point (pun mostly not intended) across more effectively.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  One of the major ways this point is driven home in real life is through... letting the person fail in their task, suffer the consequences, and hopefully remember to read the goddamn manual the next time. Of course then there's a failure mode of e.g. bureaucracy, where people know everything is in the "manual" somewhere, they just don't trust themselves to understand it.
  - kylec 3y ago
    In this case though it's "you failed! try again tomorrow!" (because it's a daily thing). The odds I'm gonna come back tomorrow are extremely low though.
- kylec 3y ago
  I feel something like "OK, you made your first guess, now try to get even closer! Here's another image" would have been helpful.
ethanbond 3y ago
No, this is a design problem. The fact that so many missed it is just evidence of how subtly tricky good design is.
- croshan 3y ago
  You’re both right—a better world emerges, when we each look towards ourselves to solve the problems we see.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  That's a kind of standard answer about manuals and design, and on the one hand I understand its practicality, but on the other hand, I'm starting to have doubts - this approach may be another cause of exacerbating the very problem it's trying to work around. That is, the more stuff is usable without reading manuals, the more people ignore the manuals - making it harder to build complex, powerful tools, and in fact creating a strong design pressure to "fisher price" your product. Overall, this trend ends up disempowering users.
  - smaudet 3y ago
    I mostly agree, except this is a simple game. It should be simple to play. If folk aren't seeing the text laid out in front of them, there are a couple tricks - demonstrate, make the instructions pictographic/difficult to dismiss. There is a fine line between making your game accessible and providing too much instruction, but I can think of a couple visual cues that probably could have been given. That being said I had no problem reading the intro, on the other hand I will regularly finish those long, long, long 45 minute articles that have "congratulations you made it to the bottom", and I know generally people who are great at reading much, much faster than me have little problem figuring out "techy" things, so I do think in general people just don't read enough.
- Zandikar 3y ago
  Correct, this is a design problem, but no one's pointed out what the specific problem is: The "Instruction" that most people perceive is the title of this post on HackerNews. By the time you actual visit the site you ALREADY have an idea of what it's supposed to be about, the colors draw your eyes to "Here's how you can tell your score, press here to start" and skip the fine print entirely. People MIGHT skim the "fine print" that is the actual instructions with key details, and what do you read when you skim? The first part of a paragraph/sentence to establish a subject and action. And what's the First part of that sentence? The same thing the title of this post told you. "Oh, yeah, I already know this" Skip to the pretty colors telling you how to score your guess and start the game. EDIT: Also, the UI after you click through to start also assumes the user read the instructions, instead of trying to organically guide them to the same conclusions. /EDIT. Cue so many people wondering how they could miss something laid out so clearly in front of them.