Ask HN: Products that suck but you still use?
81 comments
Ffmpeg.
The results don't suck. They're awesome.
However, the insane number of combinations of flags, the fact order of flags can change things, and the "defaults aren't best" are all issues that make it a true pain to use.
... Yet the GUIs and wrappers that exist to make it friendlier inevitably either make it slower (Handbrake's thread limitations) or don't support about half of the filters it can provide.
The results don't suck. They're awesome.
However, the insane number of combinations of flags, the fact order of flags can change things, and the "defaults aren't best" are all issues that make it a true pain to use.
... Yet the GUIs and wrappers that exist to make it friendlier inevitably either make it slower (Handbrake's thread limitations) or don't support about half of the filters it can provide.
Hah. Let's combine your pain and mine. I actually use FFmpeg daily in Android. Terminal, indeed.
I always felt that ffmpeg should give up on the config flags except for basic presets, and use Lua scripting to allow any deeper modification of the workflow.
Then you end up with something that has the usability of `wpa_supplicant`: confusing command line arguments _and_ strange, hard to parse input files.
The Mac OS app store. The fact you have to have an account to update programs you already have installed on your computer is ridiculous. As is how the system makes you login/register to do anything, the fact it seems to require a credit card number even for free apps as well as the stupidly lengthy registration process in general. Then again, the registration process for Apple accounts in general seems kinda busted, and makes me wonder what the hell happened to their UX designers when coming up with that bit.
For something you can actually do more with?
Well, I guess every A/B testing program I have to use would count there. Both VWO and Adobe Target have their strengths, but it definitely seems like they were designed by people for whom good UI and UX design was not a strong point. Target has a confusing interface with buttons that say save not actually saving the content and rather limited targeting rules, whereas VWO seems to think no one should be able to edit projects associated with multiple subaccounts at once, or that anyone using the code view shouldn't be able to upload new images.
It'd be nice to see one of these tools designed by a company/individual who knows how to design something worth a damn.
For something you can actually do more with?
Well, I guess every A/B testing program I have to use would count there. Both VWO and Adobe Target have their strengths, but it definitely seems like they were designed by people for whom good UI and UX design was not a strong point. Target has a confusing interface with buttons that say save not actually saving the content and rather limited targeting rules, whereas VWO seems to think no one should be able to edit projects associated with multiple subaccounts at once, or that anyone using the code view shouldn't be able to upload new images.
It'd be nice to see one of these tools designed by a company/individual who knows how to design something worth a damn.
This is actually a really interesting idea.
Could you give me some more details about the different pain points you have with these softwares? Where you see an opportunity to do things differently etc.
Thanks in advance!
Could you give me some more details about the different pain points you have with these softwares? Where you see an opportunity to do things differently etc.
Thanks in advance!
Well to be honest, the issues really just come down to UX not being held as a priority here, since quite a few elements of the program's design flow just don't work as you'd logically expect them too.
For example, in both VWO and Target you're basically encouraged to put the test live before you're given the option to preview it in a web browser. The process only gives you the chance to save a draft and preview after you've set up the goals and been encouraged to put it live.
How I'd do it on the other hand is that the system would create a draft test as you start building it, and the editor window would have an option to preview it in a browser, which would do the same thing as the preview option for 'saved' tests. That way, people can browser test as they go along.
Images would work more like the WordPress media gallery, with a button accessible in both versions of the editor to select them there, plus the same option coming up if you choose to edit an image in the visual one. This would let people add/update images in the code only mode, plus make it much easier to find existing uploads, since VWO doesn't give you any way to see what media you've uploaded before.
(Target doesn't even seem to let you upload new images to their servers at all, which is kinda ridiculous)
Making the UI consistent in other places would be useful here too. For instance, both the rules for running the test and the audience segmentation use a very similar interface (with a dropdown menu and options for browsers, IP addresses, device types, etc) but the former has options the latter doesn't, like going by cookie values or JavaScript variables. These look the same, and the rules available to filter by should be the same.
I also feel such a piece of software needs to be able to know what's on the page/in the DOM and run/segment audiences based on that too. Because at the moment, if certain pages don't have a certain URL structure/cookie value/window variable, we can't limit the test to those pages (on either VWO or Target).
However, in some cases, they may have an element with a certain ID or class present instead. So we should be able to have the platform check for that, and run the test/segment results based on whether a certain element exists in the DOM. Same with the actual content of an element too; we should be able to run a test only if say, the h1 tag has a certain word in it.
The whole 'only one subaccount at once' and 'editor/preview window is tired to the main one' suck to deal with too. That's because at the moment, if I have two sites on VWO and want to compare a test across them, it flat out doesn't allow that. But this makes no sense. The subaccounts shouldn't be completely firewalled for those with the right permissions here, they should only be separate for those who only have access to one or the other. It should be like a forum permissions setup, where say the owners of Google.com and Microsoft.com can only access tests on their domain, but a marketing team working with both can compare them without having to use multiple browser sessions.
And the window thing... well that needs to stop existing at all. At present, closing the test window/tab will also close any separate windows/tabs associated with said test, at least in VWO.
They should just stay open as you'd expect them to.
So yeah, that should give you a bit more detail here. However, I'll probably write a whole article on the matter later too, complete with pictures and videos showing the issues from a user perspective, since both VWO and Target are pretty much UX/usability trainwrecks that need real designs teams like the ones used for Slack/Apple/Netflix/whatever.
For example, in both VWO and Target you're basically encouraged to put the test live before you're given the option to preview it in a web browser. The process only gives you the chance to save a draft and preview after you've set up the goals and been encouraged to put it live.
How I'd do it on the other hand is that the system would create a draft test as you start building it, and the editor window would have an option to preview it in a browser, which would do the same thing as the preview option for 'saved' tests. That way, people can browser test as they go along.
Images would work more like the WordPress media gallery, with a button accessible in both versions of the editor to select them there, plus the same option coming up if you choose to edit an image in the visual one. This would let people add/update images in the code only mode, plus make it much easier to find existing uploads, since VWO doesn't give you any way to see what media you've uploaded before.
(Target doesn't even seem to let you upload new images to their servers at all, which is kinda ridiculous)
Making the UI consistent in other places would be useful here too. For instance, both the rules for running the test and the audience segmentation use a very similar interface (with a dropdown menu and options for browsers, IP addresses, device types, etc) but the former has options the latter doesn't, like going by cookie values or JavaScript variables. These look the same, and the rules available to filter by should be the same.
I also feel such a piece of software needs to be able to know what's on the page/in the DOM and run/segment audiences based on that too. Because at the moment, if certain pages don't have a certain URL structure/cookie value/window variable, we can't limit the test to those pages (on either VWO or Target).
However, in some cases, they may have an element with a certain ID or class present instead. So we should be able to have the platform check for that, and run the test/segment results based on whether a certain element exists in the DOM. Same with the actual content of an element too; we should be able to run a test only if say, the h1 tag has a certain word in it.
The whole 'only one subaccount at once' and 'editor/preview window is tired to the main one' suck to deal with too. That's because at the moment, if I have two sites on VWO and want to compare a test across them, it flat out doesn't allow that. But this makes no sense. The subaccounts shouldn't be completely firewalled for those with the right permissions here, they should only be separate for those who only have access to one or the other. It should be like a forum permissions setup, where say the owners of Google.com and Microsoft.com can only access tests on their domain, but a marketing team working with both can compare them without having to use multiple browser sessions.
And the window thing... well that needs to stop existing at all. At present, closing the test window/tab will also close any separate windows/tabs associated with said test, at least in VWO.
They should just stay open as you'd expect them to.
So yeah, that should give you a bit more detail here. However, I'll probably write a whole article on the matter later too, complete with pictures and videos showing the issues from a user perspective, since both VWO and Target are pretty much UX/usability trainwrecks that need real designs teams like the ones used for Slack/Apple/Netflix/whatever.
Have you tried Google Optimize?
No, though it does seem like an interesting service to try out at some point.
Anki's interface really discourages me from using it. Quizlet seems like a much better alternative (though spaced repetition requires a subscription).
A while back I was looking for something that would index my external hard drives so I could browse them and view file metadata. None of the options seemed appealing.
I really want a personal, locally-hosted wiki that lets me write in Markdown, keep revision history, link between documents, and attach files. Having inline-executable code like Jupyter would be cool also. I've bought a few versions of VoodooPad only to be disappointed by how basic it is.
A while back I was looking for something that would index my external hard drives so I could browse them and view file metadata. None of the options seemed appealing.
I really want a personal, locally-hosted wiki that lets me write in Markdown, keep revision history, link between documents, and attach files. Having inline-executable code like Jupyter would be cool also. I've bought a few versions of VoodooPad only to be disappointed by how basic it is.
Yeah. I use it, but I don’t feel like I have any facility with it. Flash cards sound simple, but there is a lot of subtlety to more advanced use cases. The problem is they cannot communicate the ideas very clearly,quickly. Thus the interface feels pretty awful because I am not entirely sure what everything does. I think it has a lot of power, just a difficult learning curve. The shared decks online are hit and miss too. (From a learning Japanese person’s view)
I have been looking for something similar and settled on using notion.so
I dont like how self host is not an option but its very clean, supports markdown, has an awesome interface as a personal wiki, and the free tier has plenty of space.
I dont like how self host is not an option but its very clean, supports markdown, has an awesome interface as a personal wiki, and the free tier has plenty of space.
Facebook Messenger.
They keep moving the buttons and the UI every once in a while, hiding message requests in some new place every once in a while. They never talk about the changes and the Messenger Web app is slow to load and often has UI bugs.
They keep moving the buttons and the UI every once in a while, hiding message requests in some new place every once in a while. They never talk about the changes and the Messenger Web app is slow to load and often has UI bugs.
I really don’t like most pdf viewers. Adobe acrobat and preview are the two I go between and I don’t really love either.
Acrobat bites but I actually like Preview. Okular (on Linux) is the other one I use but don’t think it’s any better than Preview.
I know the reason why, but I still get annoyed when basically everything I want to do with a PDF can never be done with Acrobat
Try Sumatra PDF, if your system supports it. It's very light-weight. Since web-browsers have basically become PDF readers, I've kind of abandoned it, but I may go back to it once Microsoft deprecates their version of Edge.
I also dislike most pdf viewers. I got a little obsessive about it and eventually concluded that the best options are PDF-Xchange on Windows and PDF Expert on MacOS and iOS
[deleted]
The whole corporate world in my experience uses Foxit.
Gmail.
It's wildly slow going from one mail to another, but I still gravitate towards it because I don't want to install an actual app.
It's wildly slow going from one mail to another, but I still gravitate towards it because I don't want to install an actual app.
Heh, Mac mail because I don’t like using a web browser for mail.
Yeah but that still slow. If you scroll while it loads your 8k of emails, you end up in a weird scroll position. Working with received attachments is always a mistery.
Plus it's the only Mac app that loads it's main window instead of your draft letter when clicking on app icon.
Oh and no cmd+(+/-) for zoom while composing emails.
And it occasionally opens while I watch YouTube in full screen
Plus it's the only Mac app that loads it's main window instead of your draft letter when clicking on app icon.
Oh and no cmd+(+/-) for zoom while composing emails.
And it occasionally opens while I watch YouTube in full screen
Ubisofts Uplay: they have serious problems with user accounts and log in. They hoisted a 2factor authentication on it, but some thing's not right with it: fails to accept the 2 factor codes for many users saying code is wrong, locking people out from there accounts and purchased games, even locking out their access to support which may be the only way of resolving these issues.
So frustrating that something as fundamental as user login is botched up by a major software company.
So frustrating that something as fundamental as user login is botched up by a major software company.
Amazon Music. I paid for it because I could intermingle my Bandcamp music and obscure CD rips and then they took that feature away.
I should switch to Google Music but that doesn't work with my Echo very well.
The state of online music sucks.
I should switch to Google Music but that doesn't work with my Echo very well.
The state of online music sucks.
I had my bank cancel all amazon music subscription charges after paying for it for almost a year after I stopped using it. Turns out they cancelled ALL charges from amazon. Am I a bad person?
What's not to like about Amazon Music? I use it for streaming music and have been pretty happy with it.
I want all my music in one place. If I want to hear the new Janelle Monae, I want it there. If I want to hear Braindead Sound Machine's cover of Walking After Midnight that I ripped off the EP I bought in 1996, I want it right there. I want my voice assistant to be able to find any of it without me having to know if it's something in the streaming library or if it's something I ripped.
There's only two streaming services left that let you do that: Apple and Google. And I'm not letting Apple anywhere near my music collection after what that iTunes Match bug did to my mp3s.
That leaves Google. So now I'll have to upload my music to yet another service until they too decide not to allow uploads anymore and then I'm screwed.
There's only two streaming services left that let you do that: Apple and Google. And I'm not letting Apple anywhere near my music collection after what that iTunes Match bug did to my mp3s.
That leaves Google. So now I'll have to upload my music to yet another service until they too decide not to allow uploads anymore and then I'm screwed.
[deleted]
Roku. I have three Roku TVs and a Roku stick. My main one also has
an AppleTV 4K attached.
Why do I hate it?
The remote has hardcoded buttons that went to the highest bidder.
Half the home screen is an ad and even the screensaver has an ad.
Why do I hate it?
The remote has hardcoded buttons that went to the highest bidder.
Half the home screen is an ad and even the screensaver has an ad.
As a rider on this comment, I would like to add Plex. Plex used to have plugins, which were super useful. However, in the latest version they removed the plugins in favor of their own options. Instead of being able to stream local news from the local news station's website, we now have the opportunity to pay for this stream instead.
That sucks. I haven’t used Plex in about three months and didn’t realize it. The Plex channels had the benefit of being able to watch supported video on websites like the CW without commercials.
Yes plex is slowly eroding away - but it’s still the best option IMO.
And they changed their privacy policy to allow collection of more data for advertising:
https://thewirecutter.com/blog/your-privacy-your-devices-and...
Windows 10: its update process is broken it randomly cuts of in the middle of doing my work. Then it spends hours rebooting, doing its update etc, all the time, the pc remains unusable.
This is configurable.
And in the most recent version, it appeared to install more of an update behind the scenes, so there was less waiting if a reboot was required. As to why it’s more visible than Apple updates, I blame the lack of good, settled power management strategies for overnight wake-from-sleep use cases that Apple can specifically include parts and driver tuning for but that Microsoft seems to have a hard time with... oh and they refused to break legacy apps by introducing new APIs that restore app state after a reboot, which Apple introduced back in 10.7 Lion if I recall correctly.
My vehicle's infotainment system.
Agreed... I know I have 39.5% oil life but I have no clue how many remaining miles of gas I have left. Thank you to Honda for messing up their trip computer in 2016... oh and the disappearing USB ports, dc ports and cup holders vs the prior gen Honda’s.
Are you aren't just on the wrong screen? I have a current gen civic and oil life is one of the info screens, you can use a button on the left side of the steering wheel to cycle through them (stacked pages with an "i"). The mpg page also shows remaining miles on current tank.
Yes there is a screen for mpg/remaining but oil life is always displayed by default. If it were me I would have maybe implemented a timer on oil life so maybe you see it at startup but then it rolls to fuel stat later. But ask me why I can’t see the bottom of the analog fuel gauge... that’s where my wife stacks a bunch of crap. So it’s a combo of user error and rigid design! :)
1.
BMW infotainment screen/menus.
3,500+ variations of menus and multiple ways to accomplish the same thing via combinations of push-button and turn-knobs. This is becoming such a nonsense.
I ended up using my phone as GPS device and ignoring BMW anything-navigation wise.
While mechanically almost perfect car - my next car is going to be another brand just because of this bad design decisions.
2. BMW steering wheel. With weird bulges on sides and no space to rest the hand at it's lowest point.
3,500+ variations of menus and multiple ways to accomplish the same thing via combinations of push-button and turn-knobs. This is becoming such a nonsense.
I ended up using my phone as GPS device and ignoring BMW anything-navigation wise.
While mechanically almost perfect car - my next car is going to be another brand just because of this bad design decisions.
2. BMW steering wheel. With weird bulges on sides and no space to rest the hand at it's lowest point.
Facebook.
I use it as a blog that targets people who live in my geographical area and are likely to know me.
It's full of problems. It ruthlessly violates privacy, it's slow and a memory hog. It's designed to be addictive. It rewards and spreads unpopular opinion.
But the privacy thing is the worst. If there was a duckduckgo version of Facebook, that would be great.
I use it as a blog that targets people who live in my geographical area and are likely to know me.
It's full of problems. It ruthlessly violates privacy, it's slow and a memory hog. It's designed to be addictive. It rewards and spreads unpopular opinion.
But the privacy thing is the worst. If there was a duckduckgo version of Facebook, that would be great.
Every. Single. Thing.
It would be more meaningful to get a list of the two or three things that don't suck.
Bananas. LEDs. Maybe cats, on a good day.
It would be more meaningful to get a list of the two or three things that don't suck.
Bananas. LEDs. Maybe cats, on a good day.
With you on the bananas but I’ve had to put darkeners on all the superbright LEDs in the house :/
Not the fault of the LEDs themselves I guess.
Not the fault of the LEDs themselves I guess.
Apple iCloud.
* Sharing photos is super difficult, much more so than it should be.
* We have multiple devices spread across multiple family members and its not clear what belongs to whom.
* Pricing seems to be a bit out of line: 3/month for 200GB; 10/month for 2TB.As someone who uses iCloud Photo Library extensively, sharing an album of photos is horrible.
You can’t just instantly share an existing photo album, you have to select the contents of the album, then share it to a shared album. Even worse is that the photos will then have a copy uploaded into the shared album, even if the album was already on iCloud Photo Library.
You can’t just instantly share an existing photo album, you have to select the contents of the album, then share it to a shared album. Even worse is that the photos will then have a copy uploaded into the shared album, even if the album was already on iCloud Photo Library.
Podcasts app from apple. So many complains but still better than any other competitor. Recently I tried Spotify for podcasts but I could not switch to it. I guess a super simple interface of the native Podcasts app and a few core options there make me stick around.
TurboTax.
The Kindle touch UI. I want everything about the Kindle, except I want physical buttons to turn pages.
The Kindle touch UI. I want everything about the Kindle, except I want physical buttons to turn pages.
The Kindle Oasis has two physical page turn buttons, and the option to disable the touch screen. You put it to sleep and wake it up to reenable touch.
I got one recently and think it's a great design.
I got one recently and think it's a great design.
God, that's almost worth the extra $100 for me. I'll have to consider that.
Well, I often use Mobirise web page creator. It's quite decent but has a lot of glitches. For example with the gallery during the sorting. When you choose some certain sorting option, the outcome isn't correct.
I think ,win 10 is the only product,which sucks,but have to use it.
Macbook Pro 13" nTB 2016
Sucks, but for me the alternatives suck even more.
Sucks, but for me the alternatives suck even more.
LastPass. Often unstable, horrible client with bad UX but works well enough most of the time for the customer not to consider switching to an alternative.
Interesting.
Have you tried 1Password?
Have you tried 1Password?
Do not use LastPass. Change it ASAP
Would you mind expanding on this? Quite curious as a LastPass user.
Not open-source, and has been hacked before.
Amazon Seller Central
It’s actually painful to think of how all the sellers have gone through their interface over and over again
Thunderbirds Calendar
Bound to by company or cost of switching: Jira, Conflunece, Exchange/Outlook, Windows.
Bound to by company or cost of switching: Jira, Conflunece, Exchange/Outlook, Windows.
Bound to Confluence because of work? There's a lot of alternatives
Yes, there are. Notion for example looks sweet. But there is a lot of friction involved:
- migrating content
- marketing just now grasped or bothered to use confluence
- product thinks auto-linking stories are the shit
Only me and the devs are in agony when yet another nested list from markdown just won't migrate nicely to confluence (let alone back).
- migrating content
- marketing just now grasped or bothered to use confluence
- product thinks auto-linking stories are the shit
Only me and the devs are in agony when yet another nested list from markdown just won't migrate nicely to confluence (let alone back).
* Email clients
* Password managers
* Podcast apps
Probably all of them could be improved
Probably all of them could be improved
Asana.
Switched to Quire but since they dont have the Gantt chart, still need to use Asana.
Switched to Quire but since they dont have the Gantt chart, still need to use Asana.
Android.
Atom. Still crashing after all these years!
Hacker news.
jk ;)
jk ;)
The web.
Bluetooth.
Outlook
What are products you use frequently but still hate/they suck? What are products you use frequently but think they could be done better?