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People expect technology to suck because it sucks

tonsky.me

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Re: People expect technology to suck because it sucks

#421

Post by User95682 »

Dear Techies, Thanks for educating me on Tech...actually almost none of your comments had much meaning for me, a user. I’m not even sure how I got to this site. Not your issue.

The comparison between “reality” and Tech was revealing. If Tech mimicked reality there would be no fewer glitches but I think the nature of those glitches would be more understandable to the average user. Traffic slowing a page loading, moose on the roadway (download won’t actually do anything), no power to signal lights (display goes dark), those sorts of things.

I imagine the real world mimicking Tech would be more alarming. One might wake up and head for the bathroom when your closet slides in, blocks your path, and asks if you’d like to re-paint it. You decline and it forces you to respond with “We can talk later...” In the meantime, your small appliances clamor for you to perform maintenance routines. You wade through them into your bathroom when you realize there’s no longer a commode, there. You no longer have the administrator permission to use that device. Your phone rings, it’s the developer that built your house asking you to leave the doors unlocked tonight so their maintenance crew can rebuild some parts of your house.

Wait until you try to get to your mailbox!

I, user, don’t really hate Tech. I just wish there was rule in your industry that required products to work WHEN they’re released. Not after endless bug fixes or security patches (Yes, I’ve read the standard BS notices) which make me think, “...this one fixes what they did last time...”

Tech is like having cats. Entertaining, sometimes inspiring, but requiring so much attention and resources that it leaves you wondering whether it’s really what you want.

NOTE! Cats won’t warn you when your power company’s Tech will decide its unsafe for you to have their services.

Re: People expect technology to suck because it sucks

#422

Post by machello13 »

SilasX wrote: post #247
machello13 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But devices have also gotten smaller, lighter and more efficient, and software can also do much more today than it could a long time ago. I think the analogy is fine.

When the analogy was built off of saying that saying that cars are bad my metric X, when the claim was that software has gotten worse by metric X, and cars have actually gotten better my metric X, no, it's not a good analogy. And yes, there are some ways in which hardware has improved. But the claim is that, judged by what you're using it for, most UX-apparent aspects have gotten worse. Is there a clear way this is w…

> Latency from keystroke to character render has gotten worse. App start time has gotten worse. Lots of other latencies have gotten worse.

Do you have sources for this? I mean, I'm not sure there aren't rose-tinted glasses here.

> These would be arguably fine if the additional features you get were a necessary cost, but they're not.

> Each version of iOS gets more energy-intensive, for example.

I would argue that multitasking, camera postprocessing, widgets, background app refresh, and others are all features worthy of more resource usage. Many of those are things you can choose not to use if you want to save power.

Re: People expect technology to suck because it sucks

#423

Post by rglover »

robocat wrote: post #306
rglover wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discipline and professional responsibility on the behalf of programmers, coupled with patience. Everyone is in such an irrational hurry, it's been built into the "culture" such that rushing and making messes is acceptable. And by extension, customers expect things to be shit so you don't get in much trouble for doing it. It's a feedback loop that only stops if companies (and individual programmers) start taking pride…

> It's a feedback loop that only stops if companies (and individual programmers) start taking pride in craft Most programmers, and many companies, want to produce something of quality, well crafted. The drive for low quality kibble comes directly from consumers, and the inability/cost of judging value. A consumer can’t be expected to be a UI expert, and a slightly better UI might not drive sales because other factors…

That's a cop out for not doing the work. The choice is still in the hands of the people making the thing or offering the service.

Re: People expect technology to suck because it sucks

#424

Post by p_l »

fuzzygroup wrote: post #403
plankers wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also half-jokingly I feel like the exact same thing happens in grocery stores.

You aren't wrong at all. Stores regularly re-organize and what it says to customers is "your knowledge is worth nothing". The disregard of customer knowledge is an absolute anti pattern.

Some stores do it, some don't. However, when they do it's intentional in order to force you to go through aisles you might not have walked through otherwise, thus exposing you to more advertising and chances for impulse buys in addition to what you actually planned to get.

Yes, it's a definite dark pattern, but not so much an antipattern.

Re: People expect technology to suck because it sucks

#425

Post by sidpatil »

nicbou wrote: post #121

As an experiment, I logged every bug I encountered for a few days. I averaged 5 bugs a day, not counting dark patterns or bad design. Everything is broken, and nobody is upset. [1] Some of the software I use is so unreliable that I expect it to fail. I expect the Vodafone login page not to work properly. I expect one of my airpods not to connect on the first try. I expect my banking app to show random error messages,…

> So far, my only solution to this is to be a late adopter, and to favour simplicity over sophistication. I was recently considering going from paper notebooks to a tablet. That initiative stopped at the electronics store. The Surface Go wanted me to go through a setup wizard (after dismissing a few notifications). Two of the 4 iPads had working pencils. The ReMarkable reviews mention a host of issues. I never encountered any bugs with my Moleskine. It pairs flawlessly with any pencil I want, including older models.

Not to mention that it:

- doesn't need charging

- never freezes or crashes

- is much cheaper than a laptop or tablet

- distraction-free (no Internet, no apps, etc.)

Re: People expect technology to suck because it sucks

#427

Post by com2kid »

_qulr wrote: post #289
com2kid wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Innovation has never and will never happen on a schedule. This is simply greed-driven, promotion-driven, pointy-haired-boss-driven development. For consumer goods, it is the hype cycle. New updates and releases get press. They also restore consumer confidence. If Samsung announced that next year they weren't releasing a new Galaxy phone, the entire industry would freak out. Consumers would lose confidence in buying…

> If Samsung announced that next year they weren't releasing a new Galaxy phone, the entire industry would freak out. The smartphone industry has only themselves to blame for setting up this expectation. But it is possible to get off the train. I remember when Apple announced they were dropping out of the annual MacWorld San Francisco conference, because they didn't want to constrain their product release cycle. Appl…

The competitor in the 7 era wasn't more PCs, it was tablet mania. Fear of tablets replacing PCs lead to Windows 8.

Of course that didn't come to pass, but everyone acted like it was the future and the market responded accordingly.

Re: People expect technology to suck because it sucks

#428

Post by SilasX »

machello13 wrote: post #422
SilasX wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the analogy was built off of saying that saying that cars are bad my metric X, when the claim was that software has gotten worse by metric X, and cars have actually gotten better my metric X, no, it's not a good analogy. And yes, there are some ways in which hardware has improved. But the claim is that, judged by what you're using it for, most UX-apparent aspects have gotten worse. Is there a clear way this is w…

> Latency from keystroke to character render has gotten worse. App start time has gotten worse. Lots of other latencies have gotten worse. Do you have sources for this? I mean, I'm not sure there aren't rose-tinted glasses here. > These would be arguably fine if the additional features you get were a necessary cost, but they're not. > Each version of iOS gets more energy-intensive, for example. I would argue that mul…

Increasing keystroke latency was discussed on HN before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15485672

>I would argue that multitasking, camera postprocessing, widgets, background app refresh, and others are all features worthy of more resource usage. Many of those are things you can choose not to use if you want to save power.

For all those features turned off (before and after), the usage increases with each version.

Re: People expect technology to suck because it sucks

#429

Post by nicbou »

sidpatil wrote: post #425
nicbou wrote: post #121

As an experiment, I logged every bug I encountered for a few days. I averaged 5 bugs a day, not counting dark patterns or bad design. Everything is broken, and nobody is upset. [1] Some of the software I use is so unreliable that I expect it to fail. I expect the Vodafone login page not to work properly. I expect one of my airpods not to connect on the first try. I expect my banking app to show random error messages,…

> So far, my only solution to this is to be a late adopter, and to favour simplicity over sophistication. I was recently considering going from paper notebooks to a tablet. That initiative stopped at the electronics store. The Surface Go wanted me to go through a setup wizard (after dismissing a few notifications). Two of the 4 iPads had working pencils. The ReMarkable reviews mention a host of issues. I never encoun…

All of those were on my list of cons, particularly the lack of distractions. I avoided the Surface completely because Windows is anything but quiet and maintenance-free.

The iPad seemed pretty solid, but I'd have to turn it on and unlock it to see my notes, unlike a notebook.

The Remarkable seemed nice, bht there are lots of complaints that paper doesn't have.

The Supernote A6X was the most promising, but it was hard do get in Germany.

Re: People expect technology to suck because it sucks

#430

Post by dublin »

tomc1985 wrote: post #264
thewebcount wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We saw a failure case like this with a microwave in the workplace kitchen. It somehow got into a mode where it only turned on when the door opened . Needless to say we threw it out shortly after that was discovered. We didn't bother debugging it, but my guess is it was a hardware problem because the interlock should have obviously made it work the opposite of how it was and you'd hope that a software glitch couldn't…

Oh crap. That could blind a person. I thought microwaves had to have a hardware interlock for that reason

Since this is critical health and safety stuff that can lead to serious injury, everyone I've ever seen uses hardware interlocks - generally, the door-closed switch is in series with the microwave power supply, so it's impossible for it to make microwaves with the door open. Only an idiot would put a safety interlock under software control, when a simple switch will do.
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