Products · Broad category
Graphical user interfaces
Raised as a usability problem by 94 people on Hacker News over 18 years (2009–2026), in 92 threads.
This is a broad category rather than one product, so its issues aren't ranked on the home page.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
Every issue, all time, most people first
GUIs are slower to operate than keyboard inputsUnreviewed
20092026- GUI apps are slower to start and need more screen space and management2026-08-21
- UI operations are slow and sluggish despite faster computers2026-01-05
- Most GUIs are unintuitive and require lots of mouse clicking for simple tasks2025-12-05
GUIs cannot do certain tasks that the command line canUnreviewed
20092026- GUIs are too rigid, making it hard or impossible to combine operations2023-03-17
- GUIs require around a hundred clicks to do what a command line does in one pipeline2019-10-28
- GUI tools require finding buttons and hidden menus, wasting time compared to piping commands2014-10-10
Graphical interfaces are unusable for people who cannot see themUnreviewed
20092026- Graphical interfaces are unusable for people who cannot see them2026-09-25
- Graphical interfaces demand constant visual searching and thinking, unlike physical keys2025-02-23
- Modern graphical interfaces lack grouping and context, so users can't tell how to interact2024-05-11
Text shown in GUIs and web pages often cannot be selected or copiedUnreviewed
20092026- Text shown in GUIs and web pages often cannot be selected or copied2026-04-25
- Labels and error messages can't be selected or copied as text2024-04-19
- Cannot select text from buttons or menus in GUI apps2022-05-30
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 50 complaints
- Everything had to be dragged around with the mouse to work2026-10-26
- Graphical interfaces are unusable for people who cannot see them2026-09-25
- Every app has its own navigation scheme, so users must relearn how to move around2026-08-28
- GUI apps are slower to start and need more screen space and management2026-08-21
- People can't find the button they need, buried in menus they get lost in2026-06-06
- Text shown in GUIs and web pages often cannot be selected or copied2026-04-25
- Desktop and folder metaphors are meaningless to most users today2026-03-01
- UI operations are slow and sluggish despite faster computers2026-01-05
- Most GUIs are unintuitive and require lots of mouse clicking for simple tasks2025-12-05
- GUIs are inherently slower and less customizable than text-based interfaces, so less usable2025-11-07
- Updates move buttons and reorganise menus, so users must relearn where things are2025-10-22
- GUI dialogs and drop-down menus are inconsistent and not keyboard-first, making them harder to operate2025-10-19
- Visually searching for buttons and positioning windows by mouse is slower than keyboard commands2025-06-24
- Repetitive work requires looking, dragging the mouse and moving hands between keyboard and mouse2025-04-02
- Cryptic icons are hard to discover and understand, so people can't tell what they do2025-03-20
- Graphical interfaces demand constant visual searching and thinking, unlike physical keys2025-02-23
- Buttons don't look like buttons, fake download buttons, hidden long-press and odd swipe gestures2024-10-25
- GUI apps act like a pig when used over SSH connections2024-08-12
- GUIs are inaccessible and take ages to learn, with hidden features and bugs2024-06-20
- Modern graphical interfaces lack grouping and context, so users can't tell how to interact2024-05-11
- Mouse-driven GUIs feel cumbersome and slow compared to hotkeys2024-05-10
- Labels and error messages can't be selected or copied as text2024-04-19
- Buttons stay invisible until hovered, so users must guess what is clickable2024-02-01
- Users must guess swipes, shakes, corner taps and scrolling until something works2024-02-01
- Users must learn which elements are interactive and which mouse actions to use2024-01-13
- Users must hunt through many menus, then search online, to find one setting2023-05-01
- GUIs are too rigid, making it hard or impossible to combine operations2023-03-17
- Can't find the font size menu item and most programs don't let UI font size change2023-02-24
- Mouse-driven menus feel sluggish and cumbersome to operate compared with keyboard shortcuts2023-02-14
- GUIs with hundreds of settings become hard to learn and change frequently, breaking users' learned workflows2022-10-17
- Custom UIs don't follow OS conventions for right-click, copy/paste, tabbing and resizing, and feel sluggish2022-08-02
- Componentization-first XAML tooling sacrificed usability for developers building GUIs2022-07-13
- Existing desktop UI solutions felt too unsatisfactory or complicated for the commenter to use2022-07-08
- Cannot select text from buttons or menus in GUI apps2022-05-30
- Progress bar freezes with no clue whether the operation is stuck or still running2022-05-08
- Doing tasks in GUIs takes more steps and mouse movement than typing commands2021-12-13
- Update tools hang, return little information about progress, and feel sluggish compared to apt2021-06-19
- Mouse-driven UI elements shift, delay, or change, causing misclicks and mistakes2021-06-01
- Right-click menu options are hidden and depend on where you click, so features are hard to find2021-04-09
- Right-click menus require training, are absent on touch screens, and omit features2021-04-09
- Simplified menu systems give technical users a frustrating number of options for complex tasks2020-12-12
- GUI apps take ages to navigate with a mouse instead of keyboard shortcuts2020-11-01
- GUIs bring frustrating constant updates and interface changes that make things harder to use2020-09-26
- GUIs have become less discoverable and intuitive than older designs2020-08-27
- A GUI exposing all git-clone options would be scarier and as slow to parse as the manual2020-08-25
- GUIs hide features and change often, so users struggle to find and keep using them2020-07-08
- Gestures are hard to use on touch screens with no tactile feedback2020-04-22
- GUIs are slower to operate than keyboard inputs, losing efficiency2019-12-19
- Mouse-driven GUI interaction forces hand and gaze switching, slowing the commenter down2019-12-16
- Anything the developers didn't put in the GUI becomes impossible without writing your own tool2019-11-22