Products · Pattern or everyday thing
Permission dialogs
Raised as a usability problem by 15 people on Hacker News over 12 years (2015–2026), in 14 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Users click through permission prompts without understanding what they grantUnreviewed
20152026- Users are asked for permissions so often they accept without understanding implications2026-08-24
- Users click through permission dialogs without reading them because they are too broad and confusing2026-04-20
- Users click through permission prompts without understanding what they are granting2025-06-04
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 15 complaints
- Users are asked for permissions so often they accept without understanding implications2026-08-24
- Users click through permission dialogs without reading them because they are too broad and confusing2026-04-20
- Buttons look identical but change meaning, so users must read text carefully2025-06-15
- Users click through permission prompts without understanding what they are granting2025-06-04
- Permission dialogs are so frequent that users click yes to almost everything2025-06-04
- Users click dialogs reflexively without reading them, so they miss important choices2025-05-13
- Users don't understand authorisation popups and find too many choices hard to navigate2024-09-19
- Permission prompts are alarming and confusing, eroding trust in apps2023-04-09
- Selecting the option to stop Home Depot selling data shows only a blank page2023-01-29
- Dialogs offer only a deferral option, not a permanent decline, forcing repeated dismissals2022-09-23
- Permission prompts pop up on page load before the user has interacted with the site2022-03-01
- The UI for maintaining permission groups and allocations never got the attention it needed2021-10-23
- Declining permissions takes spinners and complex option trees while accepting is instant2020-01-20
- Users click OK on permission boxes they don't understand just to make them go away2018-09-12
- Users dismiss popups without reading them, so they can't make informed choices2015-10-05