Products · Pattern or everyday thing
Hover interactions
Raised as a usability problem by 23 people on Hacker News over 17 years (2008–2024), in 20 threads.
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
Hover-only controls are useless for touch and screen reader usersUnreviewed
20082026- Hover-based interactions fail or behave unpredictably on touchscreens and are useless with keyboard navigation2022-04-07
- Hover popups are hard to hit for users with poor vision or shaky hands2021-03-20
- Hover-only controls are useless for touch and screen reader users and hard to discover2019-11-06
Hover elements pop up and block content when mouse passes overUnreviewed
20082026- Hovering links stacks endless modals that all vanish when the mouse moves slightly2023-05-24
- Hover popups hide content and reappear unexpectedly when scrolling back2022-05-07
- Hovering links opens popups that cover the article, blocking clicks and reading2021-04-19
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 25 complaints
- A button-looking element didn't work; had to click the text instead2024-02-19
- Hovering links stacks endless modals that all vanish when the mouse moves slightly2023-05-24
- Couldn't figure out in the UI how to revert nameservers to first-party2022-08-20
- Hover popups hide content and reappear unexpectedly when scrolling back2022-05-07
- Hover-based interactions fail or behave unpredictably on touchscreens and are useless with keyboard navigation2022-04-07
- Hovering links opens popups that cover the article, blocking clicks and reading2021-04-19
- Hover popups are hard to hit for users with poor vision or shaky hands2021-03-20
- Nested hover menus are hard to navigate and distract the user2021-03-20
- Hover menus open slowly and accidental hovers cause wrong clicks2021-03-20
- Hover popups appear and vanish constantly, blocking clicks on nearby targets2021-03-20
- Hover-only controls are useless for touch and screen reader users and hard to discover2019-11-06
- Hidden hover-activated UI is hard to trigger and forces drivers to look at the screen2019-01-03
- Hover-only menus leave mobile users unable to access site functionality2015-07-20
- Hover effects are hard to trigger by tapping on mobile2015-01-14
- Hovering over random elements covers the content the user is trying to click or read2014-11-03
- Hover elements pop up and block content when the mouse merely passes over them2013-12-21
- Makes it nearly impossible to hover over other thumbnails; leaves white line artifacts2012-10-10
- Website is bizarre and confusing, styled like an iGoogle-style dashboard2011-04-14
- Users must guess where hidden controls are, and they don't work on mobile2011-01-04
- Hover-only controls slow power users down and are hard to discover2011-01-04
- Information hidden behind hover doesn't work on touch screens2010-10-18
- Nested hover menus are easy to trigger accidentally and hard to navigate without precision2010-06-08
- Hover-dependent design is bad UX and unusable on touch devices2010-06-08
- Hover controls need a tap-and-hold gesture on touchscreens, which is counter-intuitive and unclear how to do2010-02-21
- Hover-only controls are unusable on mobile browsers without a cursor2008-11-19