Products · Pattern or everyday thing
Hyperlinks
Raised as a usability problem by 8 people on Hacker News over 17 years (2010–2026), in 6 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
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 8 complaints
- Links look like normal text, so readers can't tell they are clickable2026-06-17
- Text stays same size when zoomed out, so it can't be made smaller2022-10-02
- Handwritten text can't be sized comfortably across different screen sizes and shapes2022-10-02
- Can't tell which text is clickable without hovering over each one2020-01-04
- Users accustomed to double-click opening files were confused by how links behaved2018-05-01
- Clicking a link by accident loses the reader's place in the original document2015-10-20
- Links always open in a new tab, so users cannot easily open them in the same tab2015-10-20
- Clicking a link navigates away at once, interrupting reading; avoiding this needs tabbed-browsing know-how2010-06-04