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Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
Sometimes we take Web and user interface design for granted—that's the point of User Inyerface, a hilariously and deliberately difficult-to-use website created to show just how much we rely on past habits and design conventions to interact with the Web and our digital devices.
According to design firm Bagaar's blog:
Over the past decennium, users have grown accustomed to certain design patterns: positions, colors, icons... Rather than looking at a UI, users tend to act instinctively and take 90% of an interface for granted.
... But what happens if we poke all good practice with a stick and stir it up? What if we don't respect our self-created rules and expectations and do everything the other way around?
The resulting website is a gauntlet of nearly impossible-to-parse interactions that are as funny as they are infuriating. In one case, the colors for the male and female selection options in a personal info form are reversed compared to expectations: the white-backgrounded one is the selection, while the blue-highlighted one is the one you're not picking—and there's no non-binary option, either, of course.
The linked web site requires Javascript, or you can just look at the pictures and captions on Ars Technica to get a feel for the ghastly gauntlet in all its "glory".
For more viewing "pleasure", please see Web Pages That Suck and Mystery Meat Navigation.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by NPC-131072 on Sunday July 07 2019, @02:44PM (1 child)
We don't discuss web sites that suck without mentioning this one [donaldjtrump.com]
(Score: 2) by CZB on Monday July 08 2019, @04:18AM
That sure is a bad design. Needs to have his "latest tweets" at the top.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 07 2019, @02:52PM
I've been daydreaming about starting a YouTube channel where I post clips of me interacting with web sites designed by the UX Antichrist and his followers, with running commentary about which human interaction principles known for half a lifetime they are doing the opposite of.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Nerdfest on Sunday July 07 2019, @02:54PM (9 children)
Still better than Lotus Notes.
(Score: 5, Informative) by melikamp on Sunday July 07 2019, @04:40PM (6 children)
(Score: 2) by Mer on Sunday July 07 2019, @05:17PM (1 child)
I'll take a site that's just a js app over a site that's just flash any day.
Shut up!, he explained.
(Score: 3, Informative) by kazzie on Sunday July 07 2019, @06:01PM
Unless it's homestarruner.com - that one is fine in Flash.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Sunday July 07 2019, @08:02PM
Well, not quite, js isn't the whole story, css is a big chunk. I often (usually?) browse with Old Opera (not chrome, people, Presto - v12.18) with js OFF. Initially it comes up blank blue, but change "view" to "user mode" (turns off css) and you get some stuff, but equally messy.
They're pulling in these 3 style sheets:
1) https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Poppins:900 [googleapis.com]
2) https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Nunito:300,300i,400,400i,600,600i,700,700i [googleapis.com]
3) https://userinyerface.com/app.css [userinyerface.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by Joe Desertrat on Sunday July 07 2019, @10:18PM
It just appears as a blank blue screen to me. Is it hosted on a Windows server?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday July 08 2019, @07:10AM (1 child)
I don't know about your browser, but mine doesn't show it completely blank. It shows a big red bar on the top with the word "Yes" in its center, below that a hyperlink to a Google Analytics JavaScript file, and at the bottom left a logo link.
Also, what do you complain? It is an intentionally badly designed web page, and what is the hallmark of bad design, if not a site that only works properly if you have JavaScript enabled?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday July 09 2019, @04:55AM
Here, I get what you see until I enable JavaScript, then it is just a blue screen. Slightly older version of SeaMonkey
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Sunday July 07 2019, @04:50PM (1 child)
Yep, back in the old days when we had the now defunct iarchitect.com hall of shame they had an entire section on Notes because it was so bad. I used to think that was as bad as it got, and was thankful I never had to use Notes for a living. Then we got switched to SAP for admin. That is a whole 'nother circle of interface hell.
I don't know what happened to the iarchitect.com guys, possibly they just gave up on life when "the Web" took over UIs - but there are mirrors of the site in various places.
(Score: 2) by Chocolate on Monday July 08 2019, @04:35AM
http://hallofshame.gp.co.at/shame.htm [gp.co.at]
Try a mirror?
Bit-choco-coin anyone?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Sunday July 07 2019, @03:35PM (12 children)
They forgot a couple, or I didn't see them.
- Using slider switches like: (0 ) to set option with NO indication which way is on or off, except perhaps changing to random colors.
- An ever present and totally useless "Feedback" tab that floats on the right edge, in addition to the "talk to a live person" window.
- Full motion auto-playing video.
- Piles of logos for social media web sides, that are really advertising, but oddly they don't get paid for them.
- Embedded twitter feed
- Popovers to sign up for newsletters
- Moar popovers to ask if you want to take a survey
- Asking to disable ad blockers, virus scanners, and removing my pants for an ass raping.
- Munging the layout in to an unusable mess if the browser window is 1024*768 or less. Not everyone is an idiot that runs things full screen.
- Complaining about browser compatiblity
- Blocking me as a potential D.O.S. attack for not using the latest browser or one of the big three.
Interestingly, some of the images on the CAPTCHA page didn't load for me. Not sure if that was intentional, but that is the sort of thing that happens all the time to me. Some single element of all 9,000,000 they load at once fails to load for whatever reason, rendering a page completely unusable.
The sad thing is that somewhere there are a pile of web designers that are thinking to themselves "I am not being seeing anything wrong with this page".
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Sunday July 07 2019, @04:09PM (2 children)
We keep telling you: STOP. USING. WINDOWS.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday July 07 2019, @04:48PM (1 child)
I'm sure many folks have seen this before, but this image [wp.com] comparing Windows, Linux, and OS X is apropos to parent's comment.
(If anyone knows the original source of this image, I'd be curious to know where it came from...)
(Score: 3, Funny) by Nerdfest on Monday July 08 2019, @03:34AM
My favourite has always been this [pinimg.com] one.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by looorg on Sunday July 07 2019, @04:54PM (1 child)
Not enough blinking GIF-animations.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday July 09 2019, @02:05AM
In case you're feeling blinking GIF deprived [lingscars.com].
(Score: 2, Touché) by hendrikboom on Sunday July 07 2019, @05:17PM (2 children)
I've never encountered a web page that asked me to disable removing my pants.
-- hendrik
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday July 07 2019, @09:07PM
Please disable removing your pants.
ur welcome.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 07 2019, @11:18PM
You have not been to enough file sharing sites. With the crap some of them try to push on to your computer, you know they would reach out through the screen and rape you if they could.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday July 07 2019, @09:06PM
And the javascript confirmation dialog with confusing choices. Unless they put it already, I am not gonna inflict on myself another bad UX voluntarily, you see.
"You opted to cancel the submission."
[cancel] [go back]
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by toddestan on Monday July 08 2019, @12:14AM
The point of their website is to create something that purposely doesn't follow the conventions commonly used on the modern web.
Everything you list is crap that every other mainstream website seems to do nowadays.
Of course, they could have also accomplished their goal by creating a simple, clean, functional website with the information clearly laid out, using a minimum of Javascript and CSS. But that would not have been infuriating to use.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 08 2019, @04:30AM (1 child)
Yes, I run Palemoon.
No it's not Firefox.
No. It's not out of date.
Yes, disabling your site functionality due to a browser version check blows. I am looking at you, DynaTrace.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 08 2019, @10:27AM
> Yes, I run Palemoon.
> Yes, I run Pale Moon.
FTFY.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by KritonK on Sunday July 07 2019, @03:47PM
We end up with a modern web page: having to scroll past useless images interspersed with equally useless sparsely written text in a large font, hoping to get to the useful links at the bottom, text written in a color barely darker than the page background, and buttons that don't look like buttons, so that you have to guess where to press.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday July 07 2019, @03:47PM (2 children)
Basically a marketing stunt for the people behind this, but funny.
I quit after I downloaded avatar.png on page 2. Apparently it takes 8-10 minutes to complete the whole thing.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 07 2019, @04:54PM
Marketing home run baby!
they’ Now been featured on several tech oriented sites including that green one.
Unfortunately tech drones are probably not the target market , managers are.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Mer on Sunday July 07 2019, @05:08PM
I finished it in 6 minutes.
The interface is actually surprisingly user friendly. The useless chat window and cookie banner keep popping back up but they never overlap with the actual interface.
The email address form doesn't use a whitelist system to check for valid domains and fuck you over if you put something else than gmail/outlook/wanadoo.
The meatspace address doesn't require you to load a ressource intensive frame with an interactive map, force you to input the address formatted like it's in the database by having to click on the suggestions from what you type (with simply hitting enter not picking the top suggestion), and doesn't have half the suggestions for another country even though the step is for a local pizza place to check if you're in the delivery area.
There's a tricky "uncheck all" button in the choose 3 interests, but there's also a merciful uncheck all.
You don't have to start the whole process back from scratch if you mess up something, the fields don't even reset on the step you're on.
You don't have to put your phone number in there and wait for a text.
It uses javascript but only two first party scripts. It only has one third party domain (google analytics) and the site function is not impacted in the slightest if you block that.
It's sad to say but even with the intentional crappyness, it's a better experience than a lot of other sites I've had the displeasure to use.
Shut up!, he explained.
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 07 2019, @06:27PM (2 children)
There are only two genders!!!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 07 2019, @07:29PM (1 child)
Bbbut, the voices in my head are telling me that today I identify as an attack helicopter!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 07 2019, @11:56PM
but an attack copter does not have healing hands :(
(Score: 4, Interesting) by istartedi on Sunday July 07 2019, @06:58PM (3 children)
It feels more like an innocent little "dead" site to me. If you really want bad, you need to copy some of the online news sites. One of our local ones actually has ads that cause the text to jump every two seconds. God forbid you're actually interested in reading something there. I recently was, and worked around it by ctrl-C, ctrl-V, Notepad. It was so nice to read text that flowed in Notepad, with no blinking! Top that.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 4, Informative) by sshelton76 on Sunday July 07 2019, @09:24PM (2 children)
I wrote an extension for chrome to deal with exactly that situation.
It's called PJ Web or Plain Jane web. You can get the code from github
https://github.com/aviv-official/pjweb [github.com]
One click and it replaces the page contents with the text content of the page. It keeps links in tact, but removes all the JS, CSS and other non-sense.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 07 2019, @11:23PM (1 child)
Thanks!
I'm collecting as many workarounds as I can for this problem.
It seems modern executive types are doing their darndest to frustrate anyone who stumbles on to their website.
But then, I know I am just a customer. I rank nowhere near the importance of a marketing seminar leader. we have a in
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 08 2019, @04:24AM
You are just a customer. You rank nowhere near the importance of an investor.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 07 2019, @10:32PM (2 children)
If you want to see the true monstrosity in UX, look for school or academic systems for student management. For a significant money, they are just masterpiece of poorly coding, UI problems and field for ambiguous data inpus. They usually don't use fancy controls, but these supplied by browser, so it looks even worse. The worst thing I found was the puzzle - like this from old point-and-click games - which had to be solved to send message to student. The form looks like this:
Message Type | E-mail | SMS
E-mail [ ] | (o) | ( )
S.M.S. [ ] | ( ) | (o)
Where [ ] is checkbox, ( ) is radio button. Good luck solving this!
But the system has been beautifully screwed up internally too. Let's look at the internals of database. After 5 years of tortu.... USAGE, all new courses in all years got one additional student, let's call him Mr. Imadick. Generally similar hilarious and unprobable name. This student got "not present" grade all time, but was there, as the additional one. Finally someone started to ask questions and team had to respond. It has been shown that Mr. Imadick was "the gateway". What happened? Some "architect" decided to optimize database structures. Great, let's rewrite half of routines and make ID maximum of 65535, WCGW?
The system works perfectly in smaller universities, in larger after 5 years it just got an ID overflow. The patch was to use the additional data in a record, which used its unused Student's pass number field as expansion for ID, however, the last working ID was Mr. Imadick. This way, the system shown this "virtual" attendant all times.
(Score: 2) by sshelton76 on Monday July 08 2019, @05:56AM
Wrong site... You're looking for this one.
https://thedailywtf.com/ [thedailywtf.com]
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday July 08 2019, @07:25AM
I for one prefer browser-supplied controls to fancy controls written in JavaScript.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Monday July 08 2019, @01:50AM
To be clear, for the one person that doesn't understand satire, that this is not an instructional website.