Products · Pattern or everyday thing
Mobile keyboards
Raised as a usability problem by 34 people on Hacker News over 15 years (2012–2026), in 30 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
Adjacent keys cause frequent misspellings and swipe typing guesses wrong wordsUnreviewed
20122026- Can't see what's being typed, so user repeats words and stray text gets inserted2022-09-19
- Adjacent I/O keys cause frequent misspellings; swipe typing guesses wrong words2021-11-30
- No visible indication of active keyboard language, so typos go unnoticed until later2014-10-15
Keyboard capitalises password's first letter even after changing it backUnreviewed
20122026- Keyboard auto-capitalizes first letter of password even after user changes it back2021-10-09
- Hard to type passwords with case changes and special characters on touchscreen keyboards2019-06-19
- Passwords get auto-capitalized with no caps-lock key and no warning about shift state2018-03-19
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 34 complaints
- Can't type correct sentences without autocorrect and adaptive key targets2026-08-05
- Complex formatting, symbols, and multitasking make phone writing constraining and painful2026-05-15
- Text editing and entry on phones is terrible, making web navigation difficult2026-05-05
- Backtick key takes over a minute to find on phone keyboards2026-04-05
- Typing on the phone keyboard in either orientation is frustrating2026-03-16
- Standard mobile keyboard is painful for typing CLI commands2026-02-27
- Accent typing on mobile keyboards is frustrating for multi-layout users2025-10-31
- Swipe and dictation messages come out full of mistakes that must be painstakingly edited2024-12-10
- Mobile keyboard lacks email layout and autocorrect mangles typed email addresses2024-10-29
- Keyboard resizes touch targets, so typing accuracy gets worse and doesn't improve2024-05-21
- No keyboard supports more than two languages, forcing switches back to plain QWERTY2023-12-08
- Autocorrect is unreliable on many phones, so users turn it off2023-11-18
- Typing error rate rose sharply after losing haptic feedback2023-10-07
- No tactile feedback, so can't feel keys or confirm presses without looking2023-09-26
- Hard to format code, fix misspelled names, reorder paragraphs and add punctuation on phones2023-09-24
- Text cursor editing on phone keyboards lacks the keys desktop users rely on2023-09-24
- Virtual keyboard keeps appearing and disappearing for no reason, forcing repeated power cycles2023-09-24
- Typing on phone keyboards causes many errors and slows writing, so people avoid it2023-09-24
- Typing on mobile forces pauses while waiting for autocomplete suggestions to appear2023-07-15
- Hard to move the cursor and hit specific keys on touch keyboards2023-04-16
- Typing lags noticeably in Notion, Slack and phone keyboards, with no setting to stop it2022-12-07
- Can't see what's being typed, so user repeats words and stray text gets inserted2022-09-19
- Users must switch to the numbers keyboard and tap a tiny row of digits for card entry2022-09-15
- Adjacent I/O keys cause frequent misspellings; swipe typing guesses wrong words2021-11-30
- Can't tell abbreviation periods from sentence ends, so input and autocorrect mangle text2021-11-05
- Keyboard auto-capitalizes first letter of password even after user changes it back2021-10-09
- Year dropdown forces scrolling from 2021 back to the user's birth year2021-02-11
- Hard to type passwords with case changes and special characters on touchscreen keyboards2019-06-19
- Numeric keypads lack a space or slash, so users can't visually verify card or date formatting2019-02-23
- Passwords get auto-capitalized with no caps-lock key and no warning about shift state2018-03-19
- No visible indication of active keyboard language, so typos go unnoticed until later2014-10-15
- Typing is very hard on mobile devices2014-07-21
- On-screen keyboard layout does not fit natural thumb movement, making one-handed typing painful2014-03-15
- Switching between text and number keyboard modes on phones is annoying2012-12-05