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Free software scares normal people

(danieldelaney.net)
917 points cryptophreak | 3 comments | 30 Oct 25 15:07 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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KronisLV ◴[31 Oct 25 08:46 UTC] No.45769724[source]▶
> It’s a bit like obscuring the less-used functions on a TV remote with tape. The functions still exist if you need them, but you’re not required to contend with them just to turn the TV on.

For telling software devs to embrace traditional design wisdom, using TV remotes is an interesting example - cause aside from the commonly used functionality people actually care about (channels, volume, on/off, maybe subtitles/audio language) the rest should just be hidden under a menu and the fact that this isn't the case demonstrates bad design.

It's probably some legacy garbage, along the lines of everyone having an idea for what a TV remote is "supposed" to look like and therefore the manufacturers putting on buttons in plain view that will never get used and that you'd sometimes need the manual to even understand.

At the same time, it might also be possible that the FOSS software that's made for power users or even just people with needs that are slightly more complex than the baseline is never going to be suited for a casual user - for example, dumbing down Handbrake and hiding functionality power users actually do use under a bunch of menus would be really annoying for them and would slow them down.

You can try to add "simple" and "advanced" views of your UI, but that's the real disconnect here - different users. Building simplified versions with sane defaults seems nice for when there is a userbase that needs it.

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1. TeMPOraL ◴[31 Oct 25 08:53 UTC] No.45769772[source]▶
I'd say it tells us that "good design" is stupid.

Remotes are fine. Except the modern ones that have a touchpad and, like, 8 buttons, four of which are ads.

People can handle many buttons just fine. Even one year old kids don't have a problem with this, which becomes apparent if you ever watch a small child play. The only people who have a problem here are UX designers high on paternalistic approach to users.

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2. KronisLV ◴[31 Oct 25 11:31 UTC] No.45770857[source]▶
> Remotes are fine.

Maybe? But, like, what's the value added by a bunch of useless bullshit buttons that will never be used? Greebles to make the customers think they're buying something cool?

Just put a menu one in there for the 1% of the times when you actually have to use the functionality there and don't do the equivalent of putting 30 widgets in your weather homepage.

It's not like anyone is losing their life or finds TVs to be unusable due to the status quo, but it also feels like the equivalent of cutting off the ends of your roast when putting it on a pan because that's how your mom did it which she learnt from her mom, without either of you knowing that the real reason is that your grandmother just didn't have a big enough roasting pan and it's just habit.

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3. TeMPOraL ◴[31 Oct 25 13:37 UTC] No.45771848[source]▶
Those buttons have functions. Many of them useful. Like with every other appliance or toy, people find the minimum amount of functionality they need/like, and rarely go beyond it. Fortunately, when an interface is static - like a physical remote, and unlike the modern best practice on computers - it's easy to just ignore things you don't care about. Human visual system is great at this, it literally costs ~0 cognitive burden to ignore the 90% you don't need on a static interface.

Related problem is that software business, and through it UI/UX, is obsessed about gaining new users, so everything is designed for ease of onboarding, at the expense of ergonomics and efficiency of continued use. It's backwards and dumb, and subscriptions should theoretically prevent this, but the truth is, software products are pretty much unique (there's rarely an actual competitor to switch to with the same set of features you need), and most products die or get killed before they move past the growth phase, so incentives align to catering for first-timers instead of already paying users.

And then UI/UX gets trotted as some industrial design wisdom, and this kind of backwards approach starts infecting design of physical products...