Products · Pattern or everyday thing
Material Design
Raised as a usability problem by 179 people on Hacker News over 18 years (2009–2026), in 98 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
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Every issue, all time, most people first
Animations quickly become distracting while using the interfaceUnreviewed
20092026- Animations slow interactions and get in the way, making the UI feel sluggish2026-08-11
- Padding and animations make the interface less usable2025-05-16
- Wastes screen space and uses slow animations, making file management slow and frustrating2024-01-15
Low contrast and poor fonts make the interface hard to readUnreviewed
20092026- Low contrast, unreadable fonts and bad layouts make screens hard for older users2025-01-31
- Low contrast and poor font choices make the interface hard to read2020-03-04
- Flat, low-contrast controls are confusing and slow to identify2017-11-14
Low information density and whitespace make screens harder to scanUnreviewed
20092026- Low information density with empty space and large buttons makes it harder to scan2025-05-16
- Extremely low information density and excess whitespace make screens harder to scan2025-05-16
- Excessive whitespace in apps and websites wastes screen space, showing too little information on phones2020-07-05
Touch-oriented redesign compromises mouse and keyboard useUnreviewed
20092026- Desktop versions of interfaces neglected in favor of mobile-first design2025-05-16
- Interfaces feel unintuitive to use, especially with touch2020-07-05
- Desktop interfaces were redesigned for touch, compromising mouse and keyboard use2019-03-07
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
- Interface is overcomplicated and opaque, hard to understand2026-10-29
- Oversized empty space and gaping button areas make interfaces hard to read and use2026-10-08
- Animations slow interactions and get in the way, making the UI feel sluggish2026-08-11
- Clickable items don't look clickable and selection is hard to see with a keyboard or remote2026-06-09
- Menu items overflow because designers assume users have huge 4K monitors2026-01-04
- Redesign reduces UX in favor of UI, making things harder to use2025-06-11
- Commenter finds the interface extremely confusing to visually process2025-05-27
- Hamburger menu feels off-center and is too resource intensive2025-05-19
- Cursor morphs into a circle that is hard to track near buttons2025-05-17
- Oversized buttons get in the way and waste limited small-screen space2025-05-17
- Tapping a dark mode button opens a full-screen about page with no visible way back2025-05-17
- Floating button covers content so users can't see or interact with what's underneath2025-05-16
- Scrolling through a page shows a completely black screen, making content hard to see2025-05-16
- Floating round button covers content, so users can't see or tap what's underneath2025-05-16
- Airplane mode no longer turns off Bluetooth, and turning it off now takes three clicks2025-05-16
- Low information density with empty space and large buttons makes it harder to scan2025-05-16
- Scrolling and cursor movement stutter badly, making the page laggy to interact with2025-05-16
- Large UI elements take screen space that is useful when writing emails2025-05-16
- Took a minute to find the send button on the new screen2025-05-16
- Floating buttons block content and can't be hidden, getting in the way when scrolling2025-05-16
- Mouse cursor feels laggy on the demo page due to odd cursor behavior2025-05-16
- Cursor stutters and the page lags hard when moving the mouse while scrolling2025-05-16
- Huge UI elements waste screen space and hide features behind menus2025-05-16
- Buttons are styled to look like plain labels, so users can't tell they're clickable2025-05-16
- At max font size, text gets cut off or pushed off screen2025-05-16
- Controls overlay content and obscure text, reducing visible screen space2025-05-16
- Menu icon looks like the mouse cursor and is unclear what it does2025-05-16
- New design hides important information on the screen2025-05-16
- Mouse cursor feels laggy, making interaction hard2025-05-16
- Padding and animations make the interface less usable2025-05-16
- Site is sluggish and laggy to interact with and slow to load2025-05-16
- Docs images load slowly with laggy placeholders, even on a fast connection2025-05-16
- Extremely low information density and excess whitespace make screens harder to scan2025-05-16
- Animation can't be stopped easily; pause button hidden below viewport; tiles look like static text2025-05-16
- Decorative cursor feels slightly slower than the native cursor2025-05-16
- Oversized controls waste screen space and make it hard to tell UI elements from decoration2025-05-16
- Interface gives new users too much whitespace and no clear teaching, so it's hard to learn2025-05-16
- Dot cursor blocks proper text selection; links are hard to see against the background2025-05-16
- Mouse feels laggy and buttons stick to the cursor2025-05-16
- Mouse cursor freezes, jitters and lags sluggishly on Windows browsers2025-05-16
- Commit count text is secretly a button, so users can't tell where to click2025-05-16
- Pages feel slow, less content space, and recipient field crowded2025-05-16
- Custom mouse pointer makes the browser feel slower than it is2025-05-16
- Design tested with static images rather than usable prototypes, so usability is neglected2025-05-16
- Removing shadows and borders makes clickability, state, and button types hard to tell2025-05-16
- Oversized buttons and padding waste space, so toolbar buttons don't fit on screen and navigation is slower2025-05-16
- Paragraphs float into place after scrolling, which is disorienting while reading2025-05-16
- Oversized buttons take screen space and become annoying for experienced users2025-05-16
- Cursor gets captured when hovering over buttons2025-05-16
- Send button design looks good in screenshots but is hard to use2025-05-16