Products · Product
Scribd
Raised as a usability problem by 99 people on Hacker News over 18 years (2007–2024), in 66 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.
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Every issue, all time, most people first
Download forces sign-up page before accessing documentUnreviewed
20072026- Forced Facebook login with unexplained permissions, then paywall to get the PDF, with no clear alternative2012-12-29
- Must log in or grant Facebook access before downloading the document2012-08-09
- Download requires Facebook login and broad permissions; PDF later locked behind upload or payment2011-09-13
Document viewer slow and laggy when scrollingUnreviewed
20072026- Hosted documents display in a clunky JavaScript viewer worse than the browser's PDF viewer2020-08-15
- Slow, banner obscures text, pages load late after scrolling2014-01-17
- Document viewer has an obnoxious, useless interface around the actual content2014-01-17
PDFs forced into clumsy Flash reader and not downloadableUnreviewed
20072026- Flash document viewer had pauses, slowdowns, and poor text rendering2010-06-19
- Can't download PDFs; must use a clunky Flash/HTML viewer instead2010-05-23
- Embedded Flash reader feels disconnected from normal browsing, making it frustrating to use2010-05-07
Document takes about five minutes to load, then requires clicking downloadUnreviewed
20072026- Document pages hang and navigation and reload fail, so reading gives up2013-12-14
- Long documents load from the first page, so jumping to a later page means waiting minutes2012-06-05
- Pages load very slowly and the interface is unresponsive2011-09-25
PDF scrolling nearly unusable and viewport very smallUnreviewed
20072026- PDF scrolling is nearly unusable and the viewport is very small2014-05-25
- Can't zoom into document pages properly because they're served as GIFs, and extra clicks and loading are needed to reach the PDF2013-12-06
- PDF layout assumes large portrait displays with huge margins, hard to read on screens2010-11-30
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
- Forced to add a credit card after choosing Continue with Google for a free trial2024-08-24
- Cancel process buries the confirmation at the bottom and adds an extra page, so users stay subscribed2021-05-30
- Free trial charged without clear notice; receipt showed $0.00 at time of charge; extra offer page before cancelling2021-05-02
- Struggled to cancel subscription; couldn't find payment settings in the app2020-10-01
- Sign-in button deceptively vague, silently creates a new account instead of signing in2020-09-08
- After LinkedIn login, the user isn't shown as logged in and must find the account menu2020-09-08
- Delete option is hidden behind the Change Password button2020-09-08
- Mobile site advertises itself more than the content, making content hard to reach2020-09-08
- Login with LinkedIn button hidden; popup login didn't log user in until repeated attempts2020-09-08
- Delete account option is in an unintuitive place in settings2020-09-08
- Opt-in text is obfuscated legalese and opt-outs are dark patterns that are hard to navigate2020-09-08
- Hosted documents display in a clunky JavaScript viewer worse than the browser's PDF viewer2020-08-15
- User-submitted documents locked behind paywalls, described as dark patterns2018-04-12
- Plain text on the site is made nearly unusable2016-09-16
- Scribd gets in the way between user and the information they want2016-09-15
- Site is so hard to use the commenter immediately closes the tab2015-01-02
- Commenter found the service's overall experience horribly hard to use2015-01-02
- Screen grays out after half the PDF, forcing an app download to finish reading2014-11-13
- Commenter finds Scribd's interface horrible and refuses to use it2014-11-13
- Interface is horrid and terrible to use, per commenter2014-07-15
- Replaces the open-or-save choice with an inferior, confusing implementation2014-05-25
- Text too small, can't resize, zoom buttons overlap, download link hard to tap2014-05-25
- Find function hijacks Cmd+F and fails; ad blocks scrollbar dragging2014-05-25
- PDF scrolling is nearly unusable and the viewport is very small2014-05-25
- Documents often stop responding or crash the tab after a few slides2014-01-17
- Slow, banner obscures text, pages load late after scrolling2014-01-17
- Document viewer has an obnoxious, useless interface around the actual content2014-01-17
- Document pages hang and navigation and reload fail, so reading gives up2013-12-14
- Can't zoom into document pages properly because they're served as GIFs, and extra clicks and loading are needed to reach the PDF2013-12-06
- Searching for an author returns irrelevant results with no way to filter by type2013-10-01
- Portfolio presentation is pixelated and framed in an awful, hard-to-view interface2013-05-01
- Forced Facebook login with unexplained permissions, then paywall to get the PDF, with no clear alternative2012-12-29
- Must log in or grant Facebook access before downloading the document2012-08-09
- Website denied access to a document on their phone due to incompatibility2012-06-05
- Text in some documents can't be searched or copy-pasted; copying yields gibberish2012-06-05
- Long documents load from the first page, so jumping to a later page means waiting minutes2012-06-05
- Ads disguised as slideshow controls, so users click them by mistake2012-05-13
- Presentation loops into redirect and dumps user on unrelated index page2012-02-15
- Fake buttons and shaking-window ads trick users into clicking ads2011-12-18
- Viewer adds the UI twice and is so slow it is unusable2011-10-30
- Pages load very slowly and the interface is unresponsive2011-09-25
- Download requires Facebook login and broad permissions; PDF later locked behind upload or payment2011-09-13
- Ad inserted above slides shifts layout, forcing constant scroll readjustment when clicking through2011-06-23
- Ads and toolbar shift around, overlap text, and make reading hard2011-05-23
- PDF layout assumes large portrait displays with huge margins, hard to read on screens2010-11-30
- Firefox locks up and crashes every time a Scribd page loads2010-11-30
- Scribd's document display is so degraded that reading documents is worse than before2010-11-30
- Document page is wrapped in four large ad units, hard to read2010-10-08
- Hidden extra hoops appear after login: must upload a document to access file2010-10-07
- Downloading a PDF requires registering first, which is a hurdle2010-09-02