The biggest usability problems on Hacker News in the last 5 years
in the last 5 years
What’s this?
What am I looking at?
A ranked list of the specific usability problems people keep raising in Hacker News comments, such as “rejecting cookies takes more clicks than accepting”. Each one shows how many different people raised it and links to their comments. Search any product to see its own list. Inspired by Andrej Karpathy’s HackerTube, which ranks the videos Hacker News recommends.
Whodunnit?
Adnan Khan, founder of Justusability, which helps teams see where their customers get stuck. Claude read and grouped the comments; Adnan reviews the issues on these lists by hand. Not affiliated with Hacker News or Y Combinator.
Why?
Other projects built on Hacker News rank what it recommends: videos, books, tools. This one ranks what it keeps complaining about, because a problem that many people raise for years is one a design team can fix. Each reviewed issue names the usability principle behind it and suggests a fix.
Can I have the data?
Yes. Download every issue and the comments behind it as JSON or CSV. No cookies, no analytics, and search runs in your browser.
How is it ranked?
By how many different people raised each issue in the last 5 years. An issue is listed once at least 3 people have raised it, in at least 3 different months and 3 different threads. To rank in a period it also needs 3 people and 3 threads within that period. No thread counts for more than a third of an issue’s people, so one launch thread can’t carry it to the top. How we count
What does “Reviewed” mean?
Justusability checked that it’s a real usability problem, named the principle behind it and suggested a fix. Unreviewed issues, further down product pages, are grouped and counted by machine: you get the counts and comment links, but no quotes, principle or fix.
Is this what all users think?
No. Hacker News skews towards developers and technical people, and towards the US, so treat these as problems people report, not a measure of all users. The counts are a floor too: Claude has read only the part of Hacker News most likely to hold complaints. Method and limits
Something wrong?
Use the “Something wrong here?” link on the issue, or open a public correction report on GitHub.
How do I give feedback?
Send us feedback: email us, or leave a public note on GitHub. Ideas, products we should cover and things we got wrong are all welcome.
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1
Can't operate controls by feel, must look away from roadReviewed
Car touchscreens · 621 people in the last 5 years · raised since 2010
20092026 -
2
Rejecting cookies takes more clicks than accepting themReviewed
Cookie banners · 343 people in the last 5 years · raised since 2009
20082026 -
3
Consent popups are artificially hard to refuseReviewed
Cookie banners · 333 people in the last 5 years · raised since 2011
20082026 -
4
Local account setup is deliberately painful, pushing Microsoft accountsReviewed
Windows · 226 people in the last 5 years · raised since 2012
20072026 -
5
Touchscreen controls must be looked at, unlike findable physical buttonsReviewed
Tesla cars · 199 people in the last 5 years · raised since 2011
20092026 -
6
Quoted terms no longer force results to contain exact wordsReviewed
Google Search · 183 people in the last 5 years · raised since 2009
20072026 -
7
Mobile site constantly pushes app download, hard to useReviewed
Reddit · 169 people in the last 5 years · raised since 2017
20072026 -
8
Banner covers much of the screen and hides contentReviewed
Cookie banners · 165 people in the last 5 years · raised since 2012
20082026 -
9
Slow to interact with, with little guidance on proper useReviewed
Jira · 148 people in the last 5 years · raised since 2009
20072026 -
10
Takes ages to learn Nix with too little documentationReviewed
Nix · 146 people in the last 5 years · raised since 2013
20132026 -
11
Ads play before videos and repeat every minuteReviewed
YouTube · 145 people in the last 5 years · raised since 2010
20082026 -
12
Results cluttered with spam pages, hiding useful contentReviewed
Google Search · 142 people in the last 5 years · raised since 2008
20072026 -
13
Results look like ads, making organic results hard to tell apartReviewed
Google Search · 137 people in the last 5 years · raised since 2008
20072026 -
14
Start menu shows adsReviewed
Windows · 134 people in the last 5 years · raised since 2009
20072026 -
15
Settings are scattered across old Control Panel interfacesReviewed
Windows · 133 people in the last 5 years · raised since 2008
20072026 -
16
Banners designed to push users into accepting trackingReviewed
Cookie banners · 126 people in the last 5 years · raised since 2012
20082026 -
17
Search returns unrelated videos after a few matches, hiding the wanted oneReviewed
YouTube · 114 people in the last 5 years · raised since 2009
20082026 -
18
Captchas are so hard that users fail them repeatedlyReviewed
CAPTCHAs · 110 people in the last 5 years · raised since 2007
20072026 -
19
Recommendations repeat watched videos and push unwanted contentReviewed
YouTube · 109 people in the last 5 years · raised since 2010
20082026 -
20
Cancelling requires calling someone or hunting for a hidden optionReviewed
Subscription cancellation flows · 101 people in the last 5 years · raised since 2012
20102026 -
21
Tweets fail to load, and viewing content forces a loginReviewed
Twitter / X · 98 people in the last 5 years · raised since 2009
20082026 -
22
File Explorer takes several seconds to openReviewed
Windows · 97 people in the last 5 years · raised since 2010
20072026 -
23
Reject option hidden or less prominent than acceptReviewed
Cookie banners · 96 people in the last 5 years · raised since 2016
20082026 -
24
Cancelling Prime is deliberately hard, keeping people subscribedReviewed
Amazon Prime · 89 people in the last 5 years · raised since 2014
20142026 -
25
Autocorrect changes typed words to wrong ones, causing typosReviewed
iPhone · 87 people in the last 5 years · raised since 2008
20072026