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559 points cxr | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.205s | source
1. kldg ◴[] No.44483095[source]
YES!! These design policy drives me insane. I review products independently for work, and it's such a hassle trying to figure out how to use modern products. The biggest problem in consumer electronics right now are capacitive touch buttons (that is, not a touchscreen); they're in all sorts of places they shouldn't be. They're put in lights, in fans, in earbuds -- you need some real darn small hands to not mess up your touches on a lot of these tiny wireless earbuds. I was evaluating some desk lights intended for guests in hotels -- there's no indication at all you're supposed to touch two of the four arches' sides on the light to toggle on/off, and it registers correctly maybe 40% of the time. Are you going to have front desk explain to every guest how to turn a simple desk lamp on/off, or put a manual on everyone's table and refuse to explain it? It would have been so much improved with a physical push button or toggle switch instead of doing this Three Seashells thing.

Then on the software side I find Youtube particularly annoying, especially with their show-on-hover buttons for thumbnails. You want to click on a video, right, so you stop thinking about it and move your mouse to it and click it, but when you hover over it, buttons spawn, meaning there's a fair chance you're not going to click the video to launch it as you intended, but may be redirected to Youtube's ad disclosure policy page instead, as if anyone wanted to read that.