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Ask HN: Why is today's Internet experience so user hostile?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is today's Internet experience so user hostile?

#51

Post by OliverJones »

Businesses deceive themselves when they think they measure user satisfaction.

There's a thing out there called "net promoter score." That's when somebody asks you "would you recommend our business to a friend?" It's based on a 2006 business book with the megalomaniacal title "The Ultimate Question." https://www.worldcat.org/title/ultimate-question-driving-goo...

In theory it's a great idea. In theory it effectively captures a user's attitude toward the businesss. Its inventor, Enterprise Rent A Car, used it to up their game in a competitive market requiring lots of personal service, and it worked brilliantly for them.

But, now the people deploying it in megacorps must have all gotten C- grades in business school. They use it to measure their SUPPORT REPS, not their BUSINESSES. They pretty much only ask it after a support call. So if you give a NO answer to the question because you're frustrated and needed support, the support rep gets dinged, not the product manager.

By the way, anything below a 9 on the 0 - 10 scale in the question means "NO, I would not recommend."

I once got one of those quizzes from my local ISP monopoly provider (Comcast) after somebody CALLED ME to try to sell me something. My answer: "Would I recommend you to a friend? You're a MONOPOLY! " Anyway, they punished the telesales guy for my NO answer. They should have punished the idiot who thought it was an appropriate way for a monopoly to measure customer satisfaction.

A plea to the people who run businesses: take those NO answers seriously. Use them to look for opportunities to improve, not opportunities to punish.

Re: Ask HN: Why is today's Internet experience so user hostile?

#52

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

I'll suggest over reliance on dependencies on the frontend.

The thing about a dependency frontend module, is that it often brings in some really cool stuff, like animations and attractive design elements, but also introduces inflexibility. You have to use the supplied design elements, and you can't modify the animations.

This gets compounded, when you aggregate dependencies.

Dependencies aren't bad. They are how we get big stuff done, with small teams. Done right, they can also enforce UI consistency, and improve quality.

Done wrong ... well ... not so much.

It's possible to have UI suites that provide a lot of customization options, but the customization comes at the expense of increased implementation complexity. There's usually a fairly significant learning curve, which isn't popular, when your boss is breathing down your neck, so many developers opt for the defaults (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as that can enforce consistency). It means that they are often using standard tools for specialized tasks (think using an English wrench on a metric bolt).

Also, developers and designers tend to hate (I mean sticking-pins-in-voodoo-doll-hate) usability folks, like Jakob Nielsen and Don Norman; which is too bad, because they have some great suggestions.

The backend can be a byzantine nightmare. Maybe it needs to be, but the frontend should be consistent, simple, and user-task-oriented.

That "user-task-oriented" is important. The deal is helping users to get stuff done. It isn't to impress them with eye-candy chrome, pretty design and fancy interaction. Good UI helps the user to get done what needs doing, and gets the hell out of the way.

The best user interface is the one you don't notice. That can be damn difficult to achieve.

This is often accomplished by doing rote, "cliché" UI. I write about that, here: https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/the-road-most-travel...

I am a fan of good interpretive SDKs (ones that don't just present the raw substrate to the programmer), and native coding.

Re: Ask HN: Why is today's Internet experience so user hostile?

#53

Post by Freak_NL »

r_singh wrote: post #27
antocv wrote: post #22

Users tolerating such bullshit is the reason why it exists and keeps on existing. Nobody is forced to continue using dark-pattern software, nobody was forced to use Apple and tie their credit-card to their "apple cloud account", yet normal users dont see a problem with it at all and just continue even paying for software which is hostile to them and their interests. Your question is like, "Why does DRM exist it is ac…

Users are the last ones to blame. If anything it’s policy makers, investors and industrialists. If you want to participate in society, you need a smartphone, and guess what? The whole world is okay with only 2 companies doing this….

I feel a constant tension where companies and governments are all but demanding everyone owns a smartphone with one of these two specific operating systems for all sorts of things (from banking, to authentication, to government services), but have to somehow facilitate the remainder of users as an afterthought. It makes a lot of things really suck, and that's ignoring all those walled gardens essentially requiring them (Whatsapp and Signal come to mind).

Re: Ask HN: Why is today's Internet experience so user hostile?

#54

Post by nly »

ilikerashers wrote: post #9
djohnston wrote: post #3

I've recently been travelling to some fam in Europe and the entire COVID experience is so convoluted and obscene I feel a moral obligation to defraud the private services profiting off of it.

Paying 100 euro for a test at the airport in Dublin when you depart so you can prove you didn't get COVID in the UK when you come back into Ireland 2 days later. No logic or reasoning.

€35 private antigen test in the UK[0], taken within 48 hours of your planned return, would have done it. You paid €100 because you didn't read the guidance and prepare.

[0] https://fly.randox.com/

Re: Ask HN: Why is today's Internet experience so user hostile?

#55

Post by rini17 »

antocv wrote: post #22

Users tolerating such bullshit is the reason why it exists and keeps on existing. Nobody is forced to continue using dark-pattern software, nobody was forced to use Apple and tie their credit-card to their "apple cloud account", yet normal users dont see a problem with it at all and just continue even paying for software which is hostile to them and their interests. Your question is like, "Why does DRM exist it is ac…

OK, let's say I won't tolerate it. What do I do?

crickets

And no, average users have never avoided scams, email spam is older than web.

Re: Ask HN: Why is today's Internet experience so user hostile?

#56

Post by djohnston »

nly wrote: post #54
ilikerashers wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying 100 euro for a test at the airport in Dublin when you depart so you can prove you didn't get COVID in the UK when you come back into Ireland 2 days later. No logic or reasoning.

€35 private antigen test in the UK[0], taken within 48 hours of your planned return, would have done it. You paid €100 because you didn't read the guidance and prepare. [0] https://fly.randox.com/

The fact that you're expected to pay some private company 35 quid for a test the NHS will send you for free is laughable and demands subversion.

Re: Ask HN: Why is today's Internet experience so user hostile?

#57

Post by jenscow »

sigmaprimus wrote: post #2

I agree with most everything you have said but wonder if it is just the internet or everywhere these days. I recently went through a McDonalds drive thru for the first time in a very long time and felt a longing for the old menu boards that had items and prices clearly listed instead of these TV screens with all the items and prices scattered about like a teenage girls dream collage. I walked into a new BestBuy store…

> was unable to have a meaningful conversation as they felt whatever was on their phones was more interesting

I hate that. If you're expecting something important - fine, take a quick glance to check, if it vibrates. But don't start scrolling while I'm trying to have a conversation with you. Put it down for 20 minutes, you'll be ok - it will still be on there.

> The world got itself in a damn hurry and it seems there is no place now for a feeble old man like me

The Shawshank Redemption

Re: Ask HN: Why is today's Internet experience so user hostile?

#58

Post by Freak_NL »

vmception wrote: post #23

Its mostly the KPIs. They just follow the A/B test that says people spend more time on the site without asking why the people spend more time on the site, when the answer is that the people are extremely frustrated.

That answer is unfortunately irrelevant to a lot of business models, and sometimes part of it. E.g., Pinterest (and many others) making use of their site frustrating if you don't submit and make an account, while being hard to avoid if you search for certain types of images.

(Another example I ran into was Instructables (this one specifically: https://www.instructables.com/DIY-REFLOW-OVEN/), where you can see and enlarge four photos submitted by people who followed the instructions, but have to create an account for the remaining two.)

Re: Ask HN: Why is today's Internet experience so user hostile?

#60

Post by gcthomas »

The web experience is hostile due to its capture by megacorps that are too powerful to be regulated.

The internet is a different issue. I have a great experience with my new fiber connection, SSH and Wireguard VPNs are all good. The persistence of smaller, calmer and noncommercial networks like Signal Messenger, XMPP, Matrix Mastodon and Gemini show that positive interactions on the 'net are possible when commercial imperatives are dampened or removed.

The Web, though, is a corporate capitalist dumpster fire.

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