Products · Broad category
User interfaces
Raised as a usability problem by 70 people on Hacker News over 19 years (2008–2026), in 67 threads.
This is a broad category rather than one product, so its issues aren't ranked on the home page.
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
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
- Controls don't look clickable and scrollbars are hidden, so users must grope to find what works2026-10-29
- Minimalist interfaces are so confusing that family members constantly need computer help2026-10-14
- Most UI designs are frustrating and confusing outside the most common use cases2026-10-03
- Nearly impossible to customize parts of a page's layout with user styles2026-02-16
- The app was too big and inflexible, so the author stopped using it much2025-11-15
- Commenter dislikes having to use a split view instead of editing directly with live preview2025-06-19
- Everything screams for attention, making it hard to find the most important part of the screen2025-05-27
- Interfaces rely on color so colorblind users cannot tell what things are2025-03-30
- Near unusable if you don't already know how to operate it2025-03-14
- Users must memorize commands and navigate clunky, often unsuccessful interfaces2025-02-26
- Products look amazing on promo pages but are hard to use2025-02-23
- Icon-only controls are often confusing for people to understand2025-02-23
- Can't tell which part of the UI is for what after border and color changes2024-07-28
- Settings are buried in cluttered interfaces, hard to locate2024-04-04
- Impossible to tell which elements are buttons, links, or plain text2024-03-20
- New interface is unreadable on a large 4K screen2024-03-10
- No physical feedback when dragging windows, so users lack tactile confirmation of interaction2024-02-01
- Beautiful UIs sacrifice functionality and usability for appearance2024-01-29
- Users blame themselves for not understanding modern interfaces, which are shamed as their fault2024-01-16
- Moving 2D content around in 3D with hand tracking and no haptics sucks2024-01-08
- UIs fail to convey information visually, are less discoverable and useful than older designs2023-11-10
- Interfaces get designed without HCI principles, so how to do things seems arbitrary2023-10-16
- Short session expiration forces users through terrible repeated logins2023-08-18
- A single UI across devices ends up poor on some or all of them2023-05-30
- Must wade through repeated 'as a user I want to' phrasing to find content2023-05-19
- Removing borders makes shape divisions hard to see for elderly or low-vision users2023-04-12
- UI freezes briefly after button presses because program logic runs on the UI thread2023-03-09
- Scroll bars shrink or disappear, leaving no way to scroll without a mouse wheel2022-12-13
- Hard to match labels to their switches because they are separated by varying distances2022-06-09
- Buttons blend into background so users can't tell which elements are controls2022-03-29
- Dense icons and arrows make it impossible to tell what each control does2022-02-01
- Modern interfaces are often slower to respond than Windows 3.11 interfaces2021-12-22
- Real interfaces cluttered with concentric circles, icons and unreadable tiny text2021-06-09
- New UI is garbage and users keep switching back to the old one2021-02-02
- Paternalistic dark patterns push users into accepting choices and leave them feeling powerless2020-09-23
- New UI is slower, lacks keyboard shortcuts, and changes old workflows unexpectedly2020-08-27
- Light backgrounds make text hard to read for someone with eye floaters and light sensitivity2020-07-04
- Too little information per screen, too many screens, oversized thumbnails2020-05-16
- Double presses within 100ms register as two actions, and dialogs grab presses meant for other buttons2020-04-19
- Users must learn many different, inconsistent interfaces instead of one2020-04-17
- No visual cues showing what actions users can take2020-03-20
- Many UIs ignore Fitts' law, making them extremely frustrating to use2019-12-30
- Tree-based interfaces hide information and require many clicks to reach it2019-08-23
- Setting up and managing the UML virtual machine was painful2019-07-08
- Couldn't get past the first form; struggled to figure out how to proceed2019-07-03
- Human positioning in 3D space is terrible without force feedback2019-05-20
- Same UI on a small screen gives a narrow view, unfit for human perception and tool use2019-03-07
- New interface takes seconds to load, slower than the old one2019-02-13
- Couldn't find saved posts after minutes in the new interface2019-02-13
- Animations make the interface less usable, forcing users to hunt for ways to disable them2018-12-15