Products · Pattern or everyday thing
Terminal user interfaces
Raised as a usability problem by 51 people on Hacker News over 15 years (2012–2026), in 34 threads.
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Every issue, all time, most people first
Poor accessibility and weak mouse supportUnreviewed
20122026- TUIs are slow and cumbersome to use compared to GUIs2026-10-09
- TUIs read aloud as meaningless characters, hard for blind users to use2026-08-29
- TUIs have poor accessibility and weak mouse support2026-08-22
Screen reader users must reread the whole screen after small changesUnreviewed
20122026- TUIs rereads the whole screen on changes, hard for screen reader users2025-12-23
- Screen reader users must reread the whole screen after every small change2025-11-06
- Hard for screen reader users to move between sections2021-02-16
Behaves poorly with mobile virtual keyboards in browsersUnreviewed
20122026- Terminal UIs on touchscreens need too much space and keyboarding is horrible2026-10-09
- Terminal apps have hundreds of milliseconds of input lag per keystroke2026-05-03
- Terminal UIs don't behave sanely with mobile virtual keyboards in browsers2026-02-13
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
- TUIs are slow and cumbersome to use compared to GUIs2026-10-09
- Terminal UIs on touchscreens need too much space and keyboarding is horrible2026-10-09
- Basic text editing in TUIs is so awkward the commenter bounces off them2026-10-02
- Page keys, scrollbar paging, and mouse selection behave incorrectly or don't work2026-10-01
- Overridden scroll makes it nearly impossible to move text and read below2026-09-29
- TUIs read aloud as meaningless characters, hard for blind users to use2026-08-29
- Complex layouts like file managers become awkward to use in terminal interfaces2026-08-29
- Keyboard shortcuts are required to navigate, and the mouse often doesn't work2026-08-29
- Copying text breaks with padding, borders, multiple lines, or narrow windows in TUIs2026-08-28
- Scrolling never feels native inside terminal emulators, varying by emulator and input device2026-08-22
- Can't click to place cursor, double-click words, or copy paste cleanly2026-08-22
- TUIs have poor accessibility and weak mouse support2026-08-22
- Each program needs learning a new interaction language, finding hidden buttons and information2026-08-22
- Each app has its own fixed keybindings, forcing users to learn them and configure separately2026-08-22
- TUIs resize and scroll poorly, with small UI affordances and no widgets2026-08-21
- Terminal tabs make a cluttered list, which is no better than a cluttered list of windows2026-08-21
- Can't configure familiar cursor-movement keys in input fields, so keyboard use is awkward2026-08-21
- Keyboard-navigated TUIs are the worst type of user interface2026-07-10
- Visually flickering TUI elements are inaccessible to screen readers without a descriptive reader mode2026-05-04
- Accidental mouse clicks in TUIs cause unwanted actions, requiring shift workaround2026-05-04
- Normal bash commands get swallowed by the TUI's parser after switching into it2026-05-04
- Terminal apps have hundreds of milliseconds of input lag per keystroke2026-05-03
- Users must guess navigation shortcuts and fiddle with terminal config and fonts to display correctly2026-05-03
- Can't select text with the mouse and scrolling is confusing, layout feels like scattered legos2026-05-03
- Keyboard users must tab through many pointless fields to reach buttons2026-03-13
- Very cumbersome UI that performs horribly when scrolling through lots of text2026-02-14
- TUIs flatten UI structure into a character stream, so they are hard to access2026-02-13
- Terminal UIs don't behave sanely with mobile virtual keyboards in browsers2026-02-13
- Tasks like branching conversations and flipping between files are tedious in terminal interfaces2026-02-02
- Weird issues occur when pasting or editing code2026-01-28
- Each TUI invents its own navigation keys, with no common fallback, so tabbed navigation gets confusing2026-01-06
- TUIs rereads the whole screen on changes, hard for screen reader users2025-12-23
- TUIs ignore mouse-free input, modifier keys, and tab navigation, forcing users into workarounds2025-11-07
- TUIs intercept mouse clicks so users must hunt for terminal key combos to copy text2025-11-06
- Screen reader users must reread the whole screen after every small change2025-11-06
- TUIs lack standards to communicate semantics to assistive technology2025-11-06
- Screen readers cannot tell menu options or selection state in terminal UIs2025-05-20
- Terminal interfaces don't work with screen readers, so blind users can't use them2024-08-21
- Can't differentiate left and right modifier keys, and external remapping tools fail to detect them2023-09-21
- Terminal apps like vi, tmux and mutt each behave differently, with no consistency2023-09-07
- Each terminal app has different key bindings, colours and ways to exit2023-04-16
- Each TUI app uses different keys for the same tasks, so nothing is consistent2023-03-12
- Copy shortcut differs from the browser's, forcing users to relearn it and wasting mental effort2022-12-16
- TUI elements can't be exposed to accessibility APIs, so screen reader users struggle2022-05-11
- Installed terminal programs are forgotten and hard to find again without a launcher2022-03-17
- Commands and their shortcuts are undiscoverable, forcing users to read documentation and memorise them2021-04-02
- Hard for screen reader users to move between sections2021-02-16
- Sorting by ticker mixes watchlist and portfolio entries together, which is counter-intuitive2021-02-06
- Cursor overshoots the intended line in slow terminals due to latency2020-07-11
- TUIs can't interface with screen readers, so visually impaired users struggle2020-05-07