Products · Broad category
Documentation websites
Raised as a usability problem by 32 people on Hacker News over 15 years (2012–2026), in 32 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.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads in the last 5 years.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Multiple documentation tools overwhelm people into giving up searchingUnreviewed
20122026- Search across company documentation is broken, so people struggle to find what they need2024-04-11
- Multiple documentation tools make people overwhelmed, so they stop searching2021-06-10
- Documentation tools have horrible navigation that users struggle with2021-05-27
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 33 complaints
- Docs are confusing to navigate; unclear if on the right page or site2026-09-02
- Keyword search finds nothing when your wording differs from the docs2026-02-09
- Can't find what One is; Get Started leads straight to installation instead of a description2024-10-04
- Docs link returns an error, so the user can't find starter examples2024-07-30
- Can't navigate web pages consistently with the keyboard, so user relies on a third-party add-on2024-06-04
- Had to click the documentation link three times to reach the real docs2024-05-04
- Search across company documentation is broken, so people struggle to find what they need2024-04-11
- Back button needs to be pressed three times to return to the previous page2024-01-07
- Finding the right page on doc sites is harder than re-searching Google2023-11-05
- Clicking home links on iPhone lands the reader in the middle of the target page2023-01-21
- Nested sections became hard to organise and navigate once the docs passed 100 pages2022-12-03
- Page took a long time and needed a refresh to load on mobile2022-08-12
- Sites can't be operated by keyboard; scrolling to the bottom doesn't advance to the next page2022-07-03
- Switching doc versions drops you at the start instead of the equivalent page2022-06-26
- Users can't find answers and blame themselves when pages don't exist2021-06-18
- Multiple documentation tools make people overwhelmed, so they stop searching2021-06-10
- Examples don't say which file a config goes in, forcing readers to hunt2021-06-07
- Search stays on "Initializing search" and only becomes usable after clicking the field on mobile2021-05-27
- Documentation tools have horrible navigation that users struggle with2021-05-27
- Hard to discover what they need on documentation sites2021-04-23
- Code examples overflow the column and force horizontal scrolling despite empty space2020-10-06
- Documentation styling breaks accessibility, making it hard for dyslexic and other readers to consume2020-08-30
- No link back to the main site, so visitors can't navigate out2020-07-12
- Docs are hard to navigate and assume unexplained terms and behaviour2019-11-24
- Tooltip covers the next chapter title and sometimes steals clicks2019-07-21
- Hard to find known information in large documentation sets; search works poorly2019-06-26
- Forced to click a button to see content, which feels user-hostile2018-12-10
- Docs bury the key information, so users must dig to find simple how-to steps2017-08-03
- Linked docs render poorly on mobile and are almost unreadable2015-12-29
- Couldn't find a list of shortcut keys in the documentation2015-09-27
- Must scroll a full screen past a banner before seeing content2014-05-21
- Front page confusing about whether it is a tool or a guide2012-08-17
- Fixed header takes up screen space and stays on top while scrolling2012-07-07