Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apps Getting Worse

tbray.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

561–570 of 635 posts

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#561

Post by TeMPOraL »

lupire wrote: post #551
TeMPOraL wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where did we make the wrong turn? We force companies to grow, I guess. All of the bullcrap the banks are doing mostly serves one purpose: get you to buy more of their products at terms that are bad for you. All the complaints I have against the UX of the banking websites and apps I use can be attributed to this: they do a shitty job on purpose, because the site/app is primarily a vector to upsell you loans, credit…

Why would a shitty app promote more sales? The only reason I use MegaBank and its obnoxious but functional app is that Local Credit Union can't afford to build a decently functional app.

> Why would a shitty app promote more sales?

Because part of it being shitty is obnoxiously advertising you financial products, making it hard to perform the tasks you want with your money without being upsold something, and making it near-impossible to use your account without going through the app/webapp (or a visit to the bank, or the ATM - which is also pushing ads).

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#562

Post by majani »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #52

> It’s obvious. Every high-tech company has people called “Product Managers” (PMs) whose job it is to work with customers and management and engineers to define what products should do. No PM in history has ever said “This seems to be working pretty well, let’s leave it the way it is.” Because that’s not bold. That’s not visionary. That doesn’t get you promoted This mentality isn't unique to product managers. Mobile…

For those who are tired of this culture, you might want to take a look at working on projects targeting poorer countries. There, backward compatibility with older technologies is what is prized, and newer technologies hinder adoption rates.

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#563

Post by avh02 »

mattmanser wrote: post #70
thaumasiotes wrote: post #36

I just started reading a Kindle ebook on my phone and on a Kindle device. The process of switching from one to the other used to be that you open the one, read your location number in the book, and jump to that location in the other. At some point Amazon introduced "real page numbers" for their ebooks. Those are supplemental numbers intended to synch up with the page numbering of physical books. You could display you…

Err, no, the process for switching from one to the other is that they sync last page read automatically. You shouldn't be doing anything. It works auto-magically for me all the time. I read a lot of books, and I often switch between my Kindle and my phone several times a book. Maybe you don't have your Kindle connect to your network or whatever, but the reason you're struggling is because you're following the less tr…

I've had a kindle for years, though it was idle for about the last two... Recently brought it back to life, read a few pages then tried to continue reading on my phone (which I had never used before). First thing it did was take me to the wrong page. I suspect things aren't as perfect as you think they are, and the parent comment has faced issues just as I have. Denial of possible issues is the same as release notes which say "we fixed all the bugs".

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#564

Post by lobocinza »

godelski wrote: post #338
willhinsa wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are objective measurements that can be done, but they’re difficult/expensive to do effectively. Like, “How many interactions/seconds does it take our users to find X?” It’s difficult because you have to know what “X” a user was looking for, which requires some varying degree of asking lots of users and reading those responses to be accurate. Measuring “engagement” is far easier to orchestrate practically and or…

> Measuring “engagement” is far easier to orchestrate practically and organizationally, even though it produces awful software. Engagement is such a terrible metric. I'm not saying it should be thrown out, but it is classic example of Goodhart's Law[0]. Rage is engagement. Too much reliance on engagement is what got social media into a race to the bottom. That's not the mark of a quality product. Measuring is hard, y…

Not everything can be quantified but things should be at least qualitatively validated by the user base. Sometimes the problems are well know by anyone reading the app reviews and still aren't properly fixed.

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#565

Post by oakfr »

ec109685 wrote: post #171
oakfr wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fait point. I would also add: blame the AB test culture that has creeped in everywhere. I am pretty confident that the current layout of the Spotify UI is not the result of a design team but the outcome of hundreds of back-to-back AB tests (some of them coming out positive, to the benefit of the career of the ideator)

Good point. There's huge praise when an A/B test shows positive results. "Ship it, we've made the world better!" So that feedback loop is going to incentivize short term thinking and small changes that might not be beneficial to the whole.

"it's only +0.65% clicks but zero is outside the confidence interval! let's ship it! ten more like these and we've reached our quarterly target!!"

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#566

Post by blowski »

avh02 wrote: post #560
blowski wrote: post #19

This article sounds rather ‘truthy’. On HN, you’re always getting to get some upvotes for saying “technology used to be so much better, amirite?! Bloody product managers ruining everything!”. But it’s harder than that. Apps need to keep up to date with operating systems, technology changes, business changes. Take The Economist mentioned. Maybe they noticed an uptick in cancellations, so the change was designed to ste…

> I preferred the old version. But my wife, who had never used it until last year, got on fine with the new one. This could be one of those things where you don't know it can be better until you see it. Things like - faster computer, more comfortable car, better mattress (for you). Sometimes you live fine until the glass shatters and the old one will never be the same. Edit: this sounds very consumer-y, it's just the…

It could be, I agree. A bit like the "Flub programmer" paradox - you don't know something would be better for you because you don't know it exists.

On the other hand, it could also be that some people prefer the old way because they've got used to it. Any change to is uncomfortable for them simply because it's different. Every time Facebook has updated its timeline, my sister complains saying "the current one is perfect", forgetting that she'd previously said it was so bad she was closing her account.

To what extent it's one rather than the other is extremely subjective. If Facebook had not updated its UI (and the apps mentioned by the OP had not changed theirs), then they may well have gone out of business. Always saying "the old version was better" is just a form of nostalgia, a sentimental view on which most corporations in a modern capitalist economy cannot thrive.

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#567

Post by jareklupinski »

torgian wrote: post #371
g_p wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do wonder if to some extent the inherently subjective nature of UX/UI design is what keeps it forever going? Designers want to stay employed and not just become a "bring in one-time at the start" contractor, so they justify changes through continual enhancement or similar, assuming the current solution may be one of a few local optima rather than the global optimum. Lacking objective numerical comparison, perhaps d…

Well, take a look at fashion design. Objectively, there are a lot of really crazy designs that no one would wear in the real world. But designs for clothing always keeps changing, even if they are small, subtle changes. I think you can apply the same towards design of anything. Tastes change. While a certain design philosophy might be a godsend in 2010, it might be considered trash in 2015. To be fair, I also think a…

I like the idea of doubling-down on UX patterns as a 'fashion' that we all have to adapt to each occasion and season.

We'd quickly branch into 'busines formal' UX patterns that change infrequently, only splashing a company color in places but largely uniform, all the way through to 'haute couture' UX patterns like the recent 'brutalist' trend, trusting they only appear on trendier sites and dropshipping fronts.

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#568

Post by grishka »

Shaddox wrote: post #528
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would wholeheartedly agree with that. Developers don't talk about enabling people or making lives better anymore, they don't talk about helping people work more efficiently or use their computer more effectively. Developers treat their users like cattle now. They addict them and herd them and farm their eyeballs for ad-revenue. They don't program to make the world a better place, they program because it's a fun way…

To be fair, the user profile also changed a lot over the years. What used to be a 'programmer for power user' space, now it's all about minimalism and pretty, dysfunctional interfaces. I can see why one would become jaded and separate themselves from users. Also another problem that doesn't seem to be talked about a lot is that way too often, the stake holders and the developers have nothing in common with the end us…

As I see it, it's plain and simple: companies want to make all the money in the world at any cost. This "growth" is how they measure their success among each other. But caring for their users and treating them as adults with agency doesn't earn as much as manipulating them into doing something they never intended. And this manipulation drives the ongoing dumbing down of everything. Back in the day, if you were annoyed by something in a piece of software, you went looking for a setting to make it your way, and more often than not, you found and changed it. No more.

Apple in particular is a good example here. They used to position themselves as a company that makes great tools that empower people. But now they're putting their own agenda, and, conveniently, bottom line, before that. That's how we end up with endless redesigns of things that worked perfectly fine for everyone (e.g. safari).

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#569

Post by godelski »

bosie wrote: post #490
godelski wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I thought I would like the single top switch better than a single FAB, but after using it for a while, I think the switch feels more confusing than fresh (the action bar is a nonstandard location for a switch). This seems to be addressed by one of my complaints. Was this feature not tested before pushed out to users? I get that design is difficult. Anyone saying otherwise is biased. But it seems like a big problem…

The problem with your approach though is that there is no such thing as 'a user'. There are so many different cohorts of users. In your testing workflow it seems you are only using hardcore users for it. People obsessed with your software (internal or beta users) before pushing it out to the masses. How do you avoid leaving the other cohorts behind?

> How do you avoid leaving the other cohorts behind?

Time, larger testing sizes, A/B testing in the main product, and not rushing things out.

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#570

Post by anontrot »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #29

The worst offender recently in my opinion is Spotify on desktop. It used to be that when you clicked on an artists page you would see all the music tracks listed. Now it's all buried deep in and you have to search through the individual albums. Even the list of albums itself is not shown on the main artist page, you have to click "See Discography" first. The "Home" page is even worse. Where is my discover weekly play…

it's infuriating when you click on the artist and see like 5 songs, and rest all are in oblivion.
Post reply on HN