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Bug Blindness

danluu.com

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161–170 of 263 posts

Re: Bug Blindness

#161

Post by weinzierl »

That is something that should be obvious to any developer who worked with a real QA-team or person. They just have a different mindset.

The problem with contemporary software development is not only that often the majority of QA work is shifted left (meaning to the existing devs) but also that the developer mindset is contagious. Have QA-people, who are usually in the minority, work too long and too closely to the devs and they become blind.

I worked in V-model teams where the only communication between the development team and QA-team was supposed to be the spec. I still think that is the best way to develop software that works.

Re: Bug Blindness

#162

Post by raverbashing »

mrob wrote: post #156
raverbashing wrote: post #113

Does having a website with no set-width and unusable without reader mode counts as bug blindness?

No. Designers shouldn't force their own preferences on third parties. Everybody likes different text presentation, so websites should stick to the defaults and let readers configure their browsers as they prefer.

> Designers shouldn't force their own preferences on third parties.

Fallback to the default is a design choice, even if it doesn't look like it

Re: Bug Blindness

#163

Post by mrob »

Tepix wrote: post #154
lmm wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no way to specify a good size in CSS - a size that looks good on current computers will be too big on old computers, and a size that looks good on old computers looks too small on current ones. Browsers and users are the ones who can fix this.

I think your knowledge of CSS might be outdated. What's wrong with the following CSS snippet for example? body { max-width: 70ch; /* Limits the text column to a comfortable reading width */ margin: 0 auto; /* Centers the text column on large screens */ padding: 1.5rem; /* Prevents text from touching the edges on small/mobile screens */ line-height: 1.6; /* Gives the lines room to breathe */ } As for font size, you ca…

>What's wrong with the following CSS snippet

The problem is you're imposing your own idiosyncratic preferences on strangers. Your "improvements" cost valuable screen space. I paid good money for my screen space and I don't appreciate designers unilaterally wasting it because they personally think it looks better. The decision of how much (if any) space to spend on padding should be made by the user.

Re: Bug Blindness

#164

Post by raincole »

codeflo wrote: post #104
sgentle wrote: post #27

I think there are two opposite causes here: either an overly-aligned or completely unaligned mental model. For developers, bug-blindness tends to be because their mental model is so close to the system's model that both have the same blind spots, and the developer can't effectively think outside the system (the classic "QA walks into a bar, orders 0 beers, orders -1 beers, orders 0.999 beers" vs "customer walks into…

It's still a wild logical leap to me that we went from this observation, that maybe the bottom half of users never learn how the software works, to the idea that we should build software that is actively learning-hostile. In the old era, we established consistent UI patterns: this kind of button does X, this kind of button behaves like Y, here are the tools to solve your problem. Maybe not everyone learned the patter…

The root problem is so-called startup/growth hacker culture: you start from zero user. There are a lot of potential users out there. Far more than your current users. So, the best way to grow your business is not to retain your current users, but to grab new users.

In this scenario, you only need to cater to the most clueless users. There is no need to make an app learnable as you don't even intent to keep the users long enough for them to actually learn how your app works.

Re: Bug Blindness

#165

Post by mrob »

socalgal2 wrote: post #36
kmoser wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had this same discussion on another HN thread a while back. I prefer lines to run as long as possible; I find it difficult/distracting to move my eyes to the beginning of the next line every few seconds. I'm sure I'm in the minority, but I have to believe I'm not the only one out there who feels this way. Rather than having the website author wrap lines at a width that works for the average user or use case (which…

> I find it difficult/distracting to move my eyes to the beginning of the next line every few seconds. You must find it difficult to read books, magazines, newspapers, as all of them have short lines

The bad text formatting in printed works (including the bizarre decision to sacrifice useful vertical position cues ("ragged right") to imitate the technique medieval scribes used to reassure their patrons they weren't wasting valuable parchment ("full justification")) is a big reason why I avoid them whenever possible.

Re: Bug Blindness

#166

Post by janpeuker »

I agree quality blindness is curable. Many communities (e.g. Japanese, Swiss, Yemeni, Peruvian etc) have shown attention to detail is just a learning and, most importantly, social status process. Bugs are just the opposite of caring, and caring is at odds with hustle culture. I think Apple is a great example here - used to be meticulous and now every day the amount of tiny defects is just infuriating (just now I realised, for example, that Photos can't scroll with a mouse).

Re: Bug Blindness

#167

Post by IsTom »

atmavatar wrote: post #45
DrewADesign wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a common way for regular people to interact with a system is they just... don't have a model. None at all. Like, they click a thing and see what it does, and if it doesn't do what they expect they shrug and click something else. The horror of seeing a non-software person using a software system is realising that they usually cannot tell the difference between expected and unexpected behaviour, because they don't re…

> They’re smart enough I worked at a small company that had a policy of putting devs on front-line support in a rotation, both because it was too small to have dedicated support staff and because the owners wanted devs to understand how users interacted with the system better. I can assure you that while some users merely think differently than devs, there is cohort of users who are absolutely not smart enough. It's…

I wish it was just users. I once had to explain to a PM on client's side for 10 minutes that no, the software can't split $1.00 into three exactly equal invoices and we need to put that remaining $0.01 somewhere. In the end it seemed like he's given up without understanding the nature of the problem and escalated to have someone higher up to tell us to add it to the last invoice.

Re: Bug Blindness

#168

Post by asddubs »

munch117 wrote: post #121
swiftcoder wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Good UX I believe doesn't mean that the implementation details are hidden, but conveyed in a way that is human-readable. You do not hide the machine from the man, but translate between them in a way that makes neither of them invisible. This is where skeuomorphism used to be king before computers ate the world. In the 90s everybody knew how a paper book worked, so document readers presented as books. Everyone knew…

Skeuomorphism didn't fail. It feel out of fashion with designers. We should distinguish between skeuomorphic interaction design and skeuomorphic iconography. Attempts at skeuomorphic interaction design did fail badly, I'll give you that. Document readers that expect you to turn the page by pulling at the edge of the page, mimicking a page turn in a physical book, they're terrible. But skeuomorphic iconography works:…

I've seen an SD card icon used for a save icon before. I think conveniently the shape is similar enough to a floppy that you find it while scanning for it as well

Re: Bug Blindness

#169

Post by asddubs »

andyroid wrote: post #110
swiftcoder wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Good UX I believe doesn't mean that the implementation details are hidden, but conveyed in a way that is human-readable. You do not hide the machine from the man, but translate between them in a way that makes neither of them invisible. This is where skeuomorphism used to be king before computers ate the world. In the 90s everybody knew how a paper book worked, so document readers presented as books. Everyone knew…

Did it though? Most people young today probably never pressed a physical play/pause/stop button in their lives. Still, they get it. Some icons outlive their era, some don’t. > In the 90s everybody knew how a paper book worked I hope that’s still the case!

I guess even with the physical buttons you had to just learn that triangle means play and twin towers means pause

Re: Bug Blindness

#170

Post by nkrisc »

sgentle wrote: post #27

I think there are two opposite causes here: either an overly-aligned or completely unaligned mental model. For developers, bug-blindness tends to be because their mental model is so close to the system's model that both have the same blind spots, and the developer can't effectively think outside the system (the classic "QA walks into a bar, orders 0 beers, orders -1 beers, orders 0.999 beers" vs "customer walks into…

In my UX jobs where we did actual UX research with participants in the office the UX research team would go around before each session and find any available developers to come with and sit behind the one way mirror to watch.

You could always tell when it was someone’s first time watching a real user attempt to use our website.

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