Tell HN: I hate contemporary "predictive tile" UI design so much
6 comments
All 3 of your examples are ad-driven free platforms for finding content that the platform didn't produce. Free platforms are incentivized to overwhelm you with options, forcing you to look at everything, including ads. Like a grocery store or Ikea, they don't want you to make a quick in-and-out visit. They want you to look at everything they have in hopes that you'll be impulsive.
You want pretty much the opposite: a tool. Tools let you quickly and efficiently accomplish a task. No distractions. When you're done, you're done.
The paths to salvation that I see:
- Pay for tools that work well when they're available. I can't speak for them myself, but I know people who swear by <https://kagi.com/> for ad-free web searches.*
- Put time and effort into your own tools. For example, you can setup and run your own search engine. Although, if you're willing to put in that effort you might put effort into hijacking and cleaning up the interfaces of free platforms instead.
- Vote and campaign for interoperability laws to enable others to put effort into hijacking and cleaning up bad interfaces.
*Surprisingly, interfaces don't get much better when you pay for video and music streaming services. I think that comes down to how most people use them. Most people don't open Netflix knowing what they want to watch. They open Netflix knowing that they're going want to watch something, and hoping to find something entertaining.
You want pretty much the opposite: a tool. Tools let you quickly and efficiently accomplish a task. No distractions. When you're done, you're done.
The paths to salvation that I see:
- Pay for tools that work well when they're available. I can't speak for them myself, but I know people who swear by <https://kagi.com/> for ad-free web searches.*
- Put time and effort into your own tools. For example, you can setup and run your own search engine. Although, if you're willing to put in that effort you might put effort into hijacking and cleaning up the interfaces of free platforms instead.
- Vote and campaign for interoperability laws to enable others to put effort into hijacking and cleaning up bad interfaces.
*Surprisingly, interfaces don't get much better when you pay for video and music streaming services. I think that comes down to how most people use them. Most people don't open Netflix knowing what they want to watch. They open Netflix knowing that they're going want to watch something, and hoping to find something entertaining.
Every text editor from emacs to IntelliJ idea has an idea about the next tab I want to go to which always seems to be 100% wrong. For instance if I have 10 files open in IntelliJ and space for 9 tabs at the top it seems every single time the file I want to access is the hidden one.
Since the algorithm seems to be 100% wrong, a 100% right algorithm doesn't seem that hard.
Since the algorithm seems to be 100% wrong, a 100% right algorithm doesn't seem that hard.
A lot of popular services available today are built on the idea that you have to turn normal people into addicts.
It seems to work. So there's nothing to be done currently. The paradigm shift will take a lot of time.
Or the paradigm won't change and ppl like you and me will just stay away from such services as far as possible.
It seems to work. So there's nothing to be done currently. The paradigm shift will take a lot of time.
Or the paradigm won't change and ppl like you and me will just stay away from such services as far as possible.
For YouTube in particular, try turning off history: it currently presents me with a left-hand menu pane (which I ignore) and a search box (which is what I want — all that I want) ... and a nag panel to turn my history back on.
In general I agree with gogurt2000: use tools, not services.
(In particular, for HN-style entertainment, I make extensive use of newsboat so I get feeds in chronological order and [usually] see feed items at most once)
In general I agree with gogurt2000: use tools, not services.
(In particular, for HN-style entertainment, I make extensive use of newsboat so I get feeds in chronological order and [usually] see feed items at most once)
> But this is something new. Software isn't "designed" any more, it re-renders itself to try and predict how I want to use it. It's like if my car rearranged the dashboard based on my driving behavior. "Well, you didn't use the windshield wipers for a while, so I put the wiper button button in the space where the radio usually goes." Yes, but now it's raining. Where is the wiper button?
Consider that for "UI designers" to justify to their employer their continued salary, they need to "produce" something (because if they produce nothing, their employer rightfully can ask "why am I continuing to pay you a salary?").
Therefore, "UI designers", in order to justify their continued employment, must make changes to the UI, with the result that 99.99% of the changes seem to exist for no other reason than "to change it".
Consider that for "UI designers" to justify to their employer their continued salary, they need to "produce" something (because if they produce nothing, their employer rightfully can ask "why am I continuing to pay you a salary?").
Therefore, "UI designers", in order to justify their continued employment, must make changes to the UI, with the result that 99.99% of the changes seem to exist for no other reason than "to change it".
Pretty much everything I have encountered that tries to guess what I want is wrong, often wildly so. Software needs to stop trying to do this, or at least provide a setting to disable it.
I open Google Search. One day many moons ago, it was a tool for searching for online content. Now I'm not sure what it is. It presents me with five advertisements, and then above the advertisements it presents me with a random number of tiles running off of my phone screen. A link to "Images" used to be right above the search results, and pressing it always did the same thing. Now some of the tiles appear to be different queries I could search for instead of my query. Some of the tiles are auto-harvesting information out of a random website, which I did not ask for. Every time I make a Google search the tiles are arranged in a different order.
I open YouTube. One day many moons ago, it was a tool for locating videos. Now I'm not sure what it is. It presents me with six tiles, all unlabeled...
Every new software design trend in my lifetime has been met with a wave of resistance. People like what they're used to, and I understand that contemporary tastes won't always match up with my preferred software design methodology. (My preferences happen to line up with the UI conventions used right around the time I became proficient with computers. No doubt I have objectively perfect taste.)
But this is something new. Software isn't "designed" any more, it re-renders itself to try and predict how I want to use it. It's like if my car automatically rearranged the dashboard based on my driving behavior. "Well, you didn't use the windshield wipers for a while, so I put the wiper button button in the space where the radio usually goes." Yes, but now it's raining. Where is the wiper button?
Apparently widescale software proficiency peaked in early Gen Y. Reports now say that Gen Z and Gen A children are worse with computers than their predecessors. Many apparently have little understanding of what "files" are or what it means to download software. I'm not surprised. Software tools are no longer tools, they're lifestyle platforms that try to redesign themselves to meet the predicted behavior of the user. Every button click is reported back to HQ to help set up a promotion for some godless product manager.
Can anything be done about this garbage?