Products · Broad category
Terminal UI apps
Raised as a usability problem by 10 people on Hacker News over 8 years (2019–2026), in 10 threads.
This is a broad category rather than one product, so its issues aren't ranked on the home page.
People raised many different problems with Terminal UI apps, but no single problem has yet been raised by 3 people in 3 different months and threads.
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 11 complaints
- Using a terminal on a phone with a virtual keyboard is horrible to operate2026-03-14
- Crashes on startup in a light-background terminal, so it can't be used2026-01-05
- Highlighted items and text become unreadable due to poor color contrast2026-01-05
- Navigation and actions are undiscoverable, so users accidentally delete files2024-05-10
- Users revert to cd/autojump muscle memory instead of using file manager, so they stay slower2023-08-22
- Complex TUI layouts are hard to use with a screen reader; cursor placement matters2022-05-11
- Must press function keys and navigate UI elements instead of using terminal conventions2022-04-25
- Mouse support needs a special incantation; GUI-style widgets feel clunky in terminal2022-04-10
- Can't reliably type Devanagari into terminals, and TUIs aren't accessible to assistive software2022-03-17
- Can't select text on screen without using the mouse, hands leave keyboard2022-01-23
- Author can't remember commands or keybindings unless used daily, so terminal interfaces are hard to use2019-07-08