Products · Product
Microsoft Access
Raised as a usability problem by 33 people on Hacker News over 14 years (2012–2025), in 25 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
Users build half-working wrong solutions because Access looks like OfficeUnreviewed
20122026- Custom Access apps grew convoluted, with bolted-on features and workarounds that took time2021-06-15
- Amateur Access apps have cluttered forms with no coherent interface2013-04-09
- Users build half-working, wrong solutions in Access because it looks like familiar Office apps2012-04-12
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
- Needs workgroup changes, admin rights, missing files, and an unfixable dependency to run2025-06-20
- Accidental edits take effect immediately and can't be undone, making users afraid to experiment2024-05-30
- Access is seen as notoriously horrible to use, suffocating the category2024-04-24
- Commenter never understood how to build anything with Access, found it more confusing than web tech2023-09-11
- Job crashes midway and must restart from scratch, discovered at 9am2023-09-10
- Only supports a subset of SQL, so some joins don't work2023-06-21
- Hard for non-programmers to get insights from data stored in Access2022-08-17
- Interface feels disjointed; user can never settle into a workflow2022-08-17
- Easy to create a crappy database but hard to make a good one2022-08-06
- Custom Access apps grew convoluted, with bolted-on features and workarounds that took time2021-06-15
- Users create duplicate, inconsistent data entries, so reports show the same value differently2021-06-14
- Access is clunky and ugly, and its code is horrible to work with2021-02-11
- Exposes users to relational database complexity, so they must learn data modelling basics to use it2020-10-05
- Stale lock files need manual deletion and hunting down stuck processes to recover2020-01-26
- Bulk update option is hidden, so users manually edit hundreds of results2019-10-31
- Multi-line queries get collapsed to one line and comments are deleted after execution2019-10-31
- Switching tabs reformats the carefully formatted query into an unreadable mess2019-10-31
- Saving a query destroys its formatting, so every edit means reformatting by hand2019-10-31
- Forms have many similarly-named properties and inscrutably named options, hard to understand2019-10-31
- Pasted tabs show as zero-width, breaking text rendering and selection, causing syntax errors after edits2019-10-30
- Requires relational database understanding; drag-and-drop is as much cognitive overhead as SQL2019-01-29
- Requires a specific Windows datetime format, so entering times like 23:40 fails2018-11-01
- Replication treats differently-versioned Access files as identical, silently losing weeks of work2017-12-01
- Learning Access was a nightmare the commenter never grasped as a teenager2016-12-31
- Code stored in the form builder makes source control and testing manual drudgery2015-10-16
- Users build themselves into trouble and find it difficult to fix what they built2015-09-13
- Commenter finds Access incomprehensible and not intuitive, with no manual to learn from2014-10-11
- Access encourages inexperienced users to do things wrong and lacks proper foreign keys2013-05-24
- Access feels like a worst-of-both-worlds package with a poor user interface and experience2013-04-09
- Amateur Access apps have cluttered forms with no coherent interface2013-04-09
- Userforms become convoluted and confusing, scaring some users2013-04-09
- Buried popups required manual button presses, blocking automation of the app2012-11-10
- Users build half-working, wrong solutions in Access because it looks like familiar Office apps2012-04-12