Products · Broad category
CAD software
Raised as a usability problem by 39 people on Hacker News over 15 years (2012–2026), in 38 threads.
This is a broad category rather than one product, so its issues aren't ranked on the home page.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Feature wizards are counter-intuitive and error reporting is poorUnreviewed
20122026- Expressing shape ideas in CAD is painful and cumbersome, with too much typing and mouse hunting2026-09-15
- CAD interfaces are clunky, with counter-intuitive feature wizards and poor error reporting2026-02-20
- Professional CAD tools are arcane, with many special-purpose features and a hard-to-learn UI model2025-10-31
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 41 complaints
- Text field seems to allow trying the site, but submitting demands signup2026-10-15
- Expressing shape ideas in CAD is painful and cumbersome, with too much typing and mouse hunting2026-09-15
- Prompt is lost at signup, progress panel is tiny on mobile, and generations cannot be cancelled2026-07-06
- Users must discover touchpad input controls through a ton of trial and error2026-03-03
- CAD interfaces are clunky, with counter-intuitive feature wizards and poor error reporting2026-02-20
- Searches return irrelevant results and descriptions lack basic facts like size2026-02-12
- Fine mouse work on screen causes eyestrain, so CAD is unusable2026-02-12
- Pop-ups steal focus every 10 seconds during slow launch, interrupting other work2026-01-12
- Advanced features and shortcuts are hard to discover, so users keep doing tasks the slow way2025-12-07
- Professional CAD tools are arcane, with many special-purpose features and a hard-to-learn UI model2025-10-31
- CAD tools have horrible UX, baffling missing features and terrible documentation2025-07-28
- Inconsistent UI conventions across CAD tools make navigation controls hard to relearn2025-06-18
- Free CAD systems have a poor UI; zooming or changing view loses selection2025-04-24
- Mac version feels less performant and responsive than the Windows version2025-01-09
- Toggling which of tens of project files are active is maddening2024-12-16
- Tools may initially be frustrating for programmers used to writing code2024-12-16
- Takes paragraphs of text to build basic parts, and only simple shapes come out2024-09-29
- Hard to select what you point at in cluttered views, needing multiple views2024-09-03
- Large CAD models are unusably slow to navigate inside a VM, around 5 FPS2024-06-22
- Confusing two input fields led to piles installed outside the site boundary2024-02-05
- Complex shapes are hard to make because spline tools are clunky2024-01-21
- Describing brackets and fixtures in text requires paragraphs of language, which is time-consuming2023-12-21
- Experienced users can't navigate the CAD interface; newcomers struggle with many tools2023-12-19
- Spends an hour finding where to edit a fillet or chamfer in an unfamiliar CAD program2023-10-20
- Must redesign common parts like latches from scratch every time2023-04-17
- Hard to split a circle into arcs using intersecting lines2023-02-19
- Adding fillets manually is extremely painful; libraries are slow and don't handle every case2022-03-28
- Solvers for complex shapes are very slow and glitchy2022-03-16
- Ribbon interface made 2D CAD less usable; intrusive features clutter the workflow2021-06-07
- Version control systems are bloated and need dedicated staff to set up and maintain2020-08-03
- Hard or impossible to use with mouse only when precise control is needed2019-12-19
- Frequently used features require many more clicks to reach after UI rearrangements2019-05-06
- Crammed tiny widgets made tools extremely hard to navigate with each release2019-05-05
- Users can't tell which tiny icon matches which operation, needing a cheat sheet2018-08-06
- CAD built for one country's drawing rules is hard to use in another without workarounds2016-12-09
- Users struggle to learn CAD; its UI and mental models diverge from how people think about their work2016-12-06
- Modeling in CAD software is still a constant pain even for experienced users2015-11-23
- Takes a lot of time to learn before getting useful results2014-11-19
- Outdated map sent crews to the old intersection, so they couldn't find the accident2014-04-24
- Most EE CAD software is unintuitive and a pain to configure2014-03-10
- Icons for every tool are hard to learn and find, making CAD programs hard to use2012-05-10