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Take something as simple and necessary like Messenger or WhatsApp. Try to use it with no previous knowledge, texting, calling, turning on camera during call. Al

Take something as simple and necessary like Messenger or WhatsApp. Try to use it with no previous knowledge, texting, calling, turning on camera during call. All the text the UI displays, how it is worded. It's ridiculously unintuitive, not inclusive, a real barrier. There should be law to mandate the UI of any app beyond a userbase of 100M. If you say that would severely restrict apps becoming that big, yeah that would be kind of the point.

BHSPitMonkey 3y ago
Recently I was helping someone in my life who'd gone through a stroke (not too old or tech-unsavvy) to learn a password manager and go through various websites' password reset flows. It really forced me to confront the reality of what you described, i.e. that computing really has become an inscrutable, confusing mess where nothing makes sense and we've just come to accept it. It used to feel like being "tech savvy" meant thinking logically as the system designers would have, but now I think it just means being conditioned through years of abuse into knowing the unwritten rules of how to skillfully outmaneuver bullshit interfaces and dark patterns.
- qiine 3y ago
  > how to skillfully outmaneuver bullshit interfaces and dark patterns. I hate how accurate this is, especially on mobile
- jeroenhd 3y ago
  This is one of the reasons I'm putting my hopes into passkeys. The login flow couldn't be simpler. You could even give someone a physical key snd tell them that's what they use to log in, so they can keep their logins safe like they do their house key. You'll always need a password and some difficult second factor for your Apple/Google account, but when you've got that sorted, the rest becomes do much easier.
drooopy 3y ago
I kind of agree with this. Whatsapp for example, has become so incredibly big in many different parts of the world that it has become a sort of de facto standard for communication to the point where government agencies even use it to communicate information to citizens via chatbots. It feels to me like there is a need for formal standardization but how would you go about enforcing that?
- poisonborz 3y ago
  The same way you enforce any other standard. Companies with 100m+ MAU apps are easy targets.
Double_a_92 3y ago
My elderly parents especially have problems with buttons that need 2 steps to press them. E.g. in Whatsapp if the other party wants to start a video call, a small button will pop up that just shakes around and needs to be pulled up. They usually don't even notice that button. And if they do, they certainly don't understand that it needs to be pulled up... Another big issue is that buttons and input fields are often not clearly recognizable as one.
- hnlmorg 3y ago
  This is one of my own personal gripes with modern interfaces. Interactive widgets are often indistinguishable from non-interactive elements. I'm only in my 40s, still very hands on in tech and I still struggle with some applications. It's gotten to the point where I now loathe most web-based and mobile applications.
a_gnostic 3y ago
Or how about mandate the option of a open-sourced customizable UI plugin? This opens up competition again.
indymike 3y ago
> There should be law to mandate the UI No thank you.
- Baguette5242 3y ago
  I don’t see why people get so shocked about this proposal. There are laws to force architects to make their buildings accessible to people with disabilities, so I don’t see why it would be shocking to force companies that generate revenues from apps with a certain amount of user base to make their apps accessible.
  - indymike 3y ago
    Going to jail or being fined over widgets doesn't make a better world.
tharne 3y ago
> There should be law to mandate the UI of any app beyond a userbase of 100M. Gross. No thanks. If you don't like the UI of an app, just use something else for cryin' out loud.
- wildrhythms 3y ago
  What is this plethora of options people have for banking, paying rent, getting documents from their doctor... And this isn't just an issue with phone apps either. When I visit my bank account online I'm met with full page advertisements for other services from the bank and I have to hunt around to find the tiny gray 'No thanks' text before I can even get to my accounts. And from there, I'm met with constantly changing UI patterns and abstract hieroglyphic icons instead of plain text like it should be.
  - tharne 3y ago
    > What is this plethora of options people have for banking, paying rent, getting documents from their doctor... And this isn't just an issue with phone apps either. There are a lot of ways to pay bills. You named one that you happen not to like.
- poisonborz 3y ago
  Care to explain further why there should be zero regulations on the UX of monopoly applications used by ~15%+ of world population? Good luck on trying to avoid the 3 top messaging applications in today's world. How is this different from regulating content moderation? It's like telling a wheelchair user to just use another station or form of transport. If you have global reach, you have global responsibilites. And the end goal wouldn't even be regulated apps - it should simply be too complex to create apps with such a reach. Forcing open protocols instead of proprietary gardens. This is what the messaging interoperability of EU's DMA act is also supporting.
  - tharne 3y ago
    > Care to explain further why there should be zero regulations on the UX of monopoly applications used by ~15%+ of world population? Because there isn't a monopoly on chat apps. What you're asking for sounds like rules for the sake of more rules. I can think of more than half a dozen chat apps offhand: Signal Messenger, Whatsapp iMessage, all manner of IRC clients, Slack, Teams, stock SMS, Discord, Matrix/Element, Telegram, Session, and so on and so on. We're not talking web search here, the market for chats is diverse and competitive. You got walled gardens, open source, and everything in between with a bunch of different UI's.
someotherperson 3y ago
There is some level of a fix to this: which is to have an option that turns icons into their alt text. The camera icon becomes the word "camera", to flip the camera becomes the word "flip", the call icon becomes the word "call" and so on. It's low effort to implement: just add the appropriate tags if they're not there, throw some i18n at it, then test it on different screen sizes. This can probably happen on the OS level with some design guidelines.

BHSPitMonkey 3y ago

Recently I was helping someone in my life who'd gone through a stroke (not too old or tech-unsavvy) to learn a password manager and go through various websites' password reset flows. It really forced me to confront the reality of what you described, i.e. that computing really has become an inscrutable, confusing mess where nothing makes sense and we've just come to accept it. It used to feel like being "tech savvy" meant thinking logically as the system designers would have, but now I think it just means being conditioned through years of abuse into knowing the unwritten rules of how to skillfully outmaneuver bullshit interfaces and dark patterns.

qiine 3y ago
> how to skillfully outmaneuver bullshit interfaces and dark patterns. I hate how accurate this is, especially on mobile
jeroenhd 3y ago
This is one of the reasons I'm putting my hopes into passkeys. The login flow couldn't be simpler. You could even give someone a physical key snd tell them that's what they use to log in, so they can keep their logins safe like they do their house key. You'll always need a password and some difficult second factor for your Apple/Google account, but when you've got that sorted, the rest becomes do much easier.

drooopy 3y ago

I kind of agree with this. Whatsapp for example, has become so incredibly big in many different parts of the world that it has become a sort of de facto standard for communication to the point where government agencies even use it to communicate information to citizens via chatbots. It feels to me like there is a need for formal standardization but how would you go about enforcing that?

poisonborz 3y ago
The same way you enforce any other standard. Companies with 100m+ MAU apps are easy targets.

Double_a_92 3y ago

My elderly parents especially have problems with buttons that need 2 steps to press them. E.g. in Whatsapp if the other party wants to start a video call, a small button will pop up that just shakes around and needs to be pulled up. They usually don't even notice that button. And if they do, they certainly don't understand that it needs to be pulled up... Another big issue is that buttons and input fields are often not clearly recognizable as one.

hnlmorg 3y ago
This is one of my own personal gripes with modern interfaces. Interactive widgets are often indistinguishable from non-interactive elements. I'm only in my 40s, still very hands on in tech and I still struggle with some applications. It's gotten to the point where I now loathe most web-based and mobile applications.

a_gnostic 3y ago

Or how about mandate the option of a open-sourced customizable UI plugin? This opens up competition again.

indymike 3y ago

> There should be law to mandate the UI No thank you.

Baguette5242 3y ago
I don’t see why people get so shocked about this proposal. There are laws to force architects to make their buildings accessible to people with disabilities, so I don’t see why it would be shocking to force companies that generate revenues from apps with a certain amount of user base to make their apps accessible.
- indymike 3y ago
  Going to jail or being fined over widgets doesn't make a better world.

tharne 3y ago

> There should be law to mandate the UI of any app beyond a userbase of 100M. Gross. No thanks. If you don't like the UI of an app, just use something else for cryin' out loud.

wildrhythms 3y ago
What is this plethora of options people have for banking, paying rent, getting documents from their doctor... And this isn't just an issue with phone apps either. When I visit my bank account online I'm met with full page advertisements for other services from the bank and I have to hunt around to find the tiny gray 'No thanks' text before I can even get to my accounts. And from there, I'm met with constantly changing UI patterns and abstract hieroglyphic icons instead of plain text like it should be.
- tharne 3y ago
  > What is this plethora of options people have for banking, paying rent, getting documents from their doctor... And this isn't just an issue with phone apps either. There are a lot of ways to pay bills. You named one that you happen not to like.
poisonborz 3y ago
Care to explain further why there should be zero regulations on the UX of monopoly applications used by ~15%+ of world population? Good luck on trying to avoid the 3 top messaging applications in today's world. How is this different from regulating content moderation? It's like telling a wheelchair user to just use another station or form of transport. If you have global reach, you have global responsibilites. And the end goal wouldn't even be regulated apps - it should simply be too complex to create apps with such a reach. Forcing open protocols instead of proprietary gardens. This is what the messaging interoperability of EU's DMA act is also supporting.
- tharne 3y ago
  > Care to explain further why there should be zero regulations on the UX of monopoly applications used by ~15%+ of world population? Because there isn't a monopoly on chat apps. What you're asking for sounds like rules for the sake of more rules. I can think of more than half a dozen chat apps offhand: Signal Messenger, Whatsapp iMessage, all manner of IRC clients, Slack, Teams, stock SMS, Discord, Matrix/Element, Telegram, Session, and so on and so on. We're not talking web search here, the market for chats is diverse and competitive. You got walled gardens, open source, and everything in between with a bunch of different UI's.

someotherperson 3y ago

There is some level of a fix to this: which is to have an option that turns icons into their alt text. The camera icon becomes the word "camera", to flip the camera becomes the word "flip", the call icon becomes the word "call" and so on. It's low effort to implement: just add the appropriate tags if they're not there, throw some i18n at it, then test it on different screen sizes. This can probably happen on the OS level with some design guidelines.