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Rant: Big-name software developers are idiots

Calemeyr

By Calemeyr,
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Calemeyr Newbie

Calemeyr

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I'm no programmer, but a lot of the crap that's been shoveled out of Microsoft, Google, and Apple is downright terrible. Chrome, any new Microsoft software, website layouts, iTunes...what the hell is wrong with these people? They throw in features nobody uses, make usability a nightmare and design atrocious, it's as if the stuff is there just for them to have something to work on later when it breaks or when people complain about the ugly layout. Is it just to please investors? Do new features and redesigns cause stock upticks that gain the investors money?

Flickr is another one. Crap. Yahoo is crap. Everything is targeted toward the pea-brained selfie generation which only cares about or remember the most recent things.

Yes, you google/apple/microsoft/yahoo/whatever nerds may be smart with your coding, but a lot of you are anti-social cretins with no understanding of usability, aesthetic, or efficiency....basically no theory of mind. I'm no "arteest" either, but man, you'd think someone as intelligent as these people would know how to make something at least halfway presentable.

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Calemeyr Newbie

Calemeyr

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Is this you?

(fatfuck brony)

I'm not a neckbeard, and I don't own a fedora or Trilby, so no. Unlike most internet people, I don't wear geek t-shirts, either, and I'm in pretty healthy shape, too. But nice try. gb2FA

But you know it's true. A lot of the recent design updates to popular sites have been updated for mobile use first. Flickr used to have pages, but then was convered into a scrolling, expanding tileset, which eats up your computer's memory if you go too far down. iTunes has always been shit, but it's got even worse. And Youtube, well, it's not too bad, at least it has pages. It's a smart business move for those who want to make a fast buck, but damn, if you want to go a little further but aren't a computer nerd like the guy in the picture, you're stuck.

The fat fuck in the picture would be too busy coding custom plugins to notice most of the software issues. "oh, I use Linux, not your proprietary BS. I code in C++ and I took CSIII".

If stuff like this keeps going on, I'm going to start reporting people. The one thing bad about FAF was the amount of shitposting. This isn't 4chan, and some people would like to be able to find useful information without having to wade through the junk. It's what will keep the population of  these forums small and drive people away. Stop trying to inflate your post count with low-content posts.

Anyway...back on topic. I find it ironic that MIT's websites are really badly designed. In fact...most engineering websites (especially CS dept sites) at universities have pretty bad web design from what I've noticed.

Edited by Calemeyr
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Calemeyr Newbie

Calemeyr

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I've never had an issue with Chrome's navigation honestly.

Crhome is pretty good when it comes to design and navigation. But for some reason, it uses a lot of memory on my computer, and it seems to have a lot of interesting bugs that come with it. For the longest while, one build of chrome wouldn't play certain youtube videos. It was completely random, and there was nothing I could do to fix it but wait. Now chrome won't let me embed in these forums, and it occasionally fails to load certain webpages for extended periods of time.

The only real issue I've had with google chrome is that it devours resources alive. Other than that, its fairly simple and clean it's the way that it's making me feel tonight. It's hard to let it go.

Same here. I really like the aesthetic of chrome and it's general usability, but like a new-release Bethesda game, there's always some weird bug somewhere that ruins the fun. And I have no idea why there needs to be so many processes of chrome running for a single open tab.

Edited by Calemeyr
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Tsuujou Newbie

Tsuujou

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Crhome is pretty good when it comes to design and navigation. But for some reason, it uses a lot of memory on my computer, and it seems to have a lot of interesting bugs that come with it. For the longest while, one build of chrome wouldn't play certain youtube videos. It was completely random, and there was nothing I could do to fix it but wait. Now chrome won't let me embed in these forums, and it occasionally fails to load certain webpages for extended periods of time.

Ah, yeah that can be an issue. It's not...as bad...as Skype. Which I am getting the fuck off my PC as soon as I can get all of my contacts to move to Discord. Or as many as I can before I uninstall in November. 

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Calemeyr Newbie

Calemeyr

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Ah, yeah that can be an issue. It's not...as bad...as Skype. Which I am getting the fuck off my PC as soon as I can get all of my contacts to move to Discord. Or as many as I can before I uninstall in November. 

Damn skype. That shit is terrible. The auto update is the worst. I've only recently heard of discord, is it as good as I've been hearing around here?

Edited by Calemeyr
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Maug Newbie

Maug

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The only real issue I've had with google chrome is that it devours resources alive. Other than that, its fairly simple and clean it's the way that it's making me feel tonight. It's hard to let it go.

Where you been Toshabi?! Welcome to the age of the phx!

Crome is pretty good. Cromebooks on the other hand..

 

 

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Toshabi Newbie

Toshabi

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Where you been Toshabi?! Welcome to the age of the phx!

Crome is pretty good. Cromebooks on the other hand..

 

 

I've had a lot of IRL stuff to manage. Mainly getting the Toshabi household up and running, new classes and clearing out some more boxes. THIS IS MY FIRST WEEKEND TO MYSELF SINCE I'VE MOVED TO MY NEW CONDO BTW.

 

 

 

Anyways, back on topic; Skype is horrible. I've never had a more resource hogging chat program in my life since window's live messenger. 

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Maug Newbie

Maug

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I've had a lot of IRL stuff to manage. Mainly getting the Toshabi household up and running, new classes and clearing out some more boxes. THIS IS MY FIRST WEEKEND TO MYSELF SINCE I'VE MOVED TO MY NEW CONDO BTW.

Anyways, back on topic; Skype is horrible. I've never had a more resource hogging chat program in my life since window's live messenger. 

Moving can be stressful. Anyways, Welcome back :)

I avoid skype as well, I have issues with it crashing of all things.

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Calemeyr Newbie

Calemeyr

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You seem to be complaining that everything is 'bad' without giving any reasons why you feel that they are bad from your perspective.

Huh...thought I did. But generally, what I've seen is either bad web design (hard to find features, features removed in later versions, bad aesthetics, etc) or lots of bugs. Chrome has good design, but it's been glitchy for me for a while, and I said earlier in this thread why I feel this way. For the design, iTunes is pretty hard to navigate at times. Same with the new Windows stuff. I really don't like the windows 8 aesthetic. When you are too minimalist, it becomes harder to find the features you use for productivity. Like windows 8 has you move your cursor to the upper right corner to close things. Pretty unintuitive. I think windows 10 will be better, but I'm sure there will be more problems with the design.

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Socks the Fox Newbie

Socks the Fox

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My biggest complaint about software stuff is there is SO MUCH OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE WITH SHIT UI. Case in point: Blender. Pretty != good. And yet they will do nothing about it because it's to the point where it's a point of pride to have such a shitty UI. The fact that none of the main window systems for Linux have a standardized UI Guideline doesn't help. 75% of software just does it's own thing, so beyond a few keyboard shortcuts that everyone expects (and sometimes not even then) you just kind of have to poke around until you finally figure out how to do what you want in this program. These UIs are designed by programmers, and it shows. These projects need to hire a professional UI designer to fix their shit.

And the standard response, because it's open source, is "just fork it and make it how you want it." Thanks. Because having a usable UI is too much to have for the core software.

/rant

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Kalmor Newbie

Kalmor

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My biggest complaint about software stuff is there is SO MUCH OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE WITH SHIT UI. Case in point: Blender. Pretty != good. And yet they will do nothing about it because it's to the point where it's a point of pride to have such a shitty UI. The fact that none of the main window systems for Linux have a standardized UI Guideline doesn't help. 75% of software just does it's own thing, so beyond a few keyboard shortcuts that everyone expects (and sometimes not even then) you just kind of have to poke around until you finally figure out how to do what you want in this program. These UIs are designed by programmers, and it shows. These projects need to hire a professional UI designer to fix their shit.

And the standard response, because it's open source, is "just fork it and make it how you want it." Thanks. Because having a usable UI is too much to have for the core software.

/rant

UI designers cost money, and open source projects don't have a lot of money. It would require a UI designer doing it for free and that's just as likely to happen as a good artist doing a very detailed commission for someone for free. 

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RTDragon Newbie

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That still doesn't cover the issue that any attempt to suggest a better UI considered almost an insult. Add to that the "it's how it's always been, and changing it will confuse users" excuse and it's almost impossible to get something changed for the better of all.

Also you have to remember it takes a lot of time to get used to various programs Blender actually has a high difficulty curve to get used to make 3D objects and Google Sketchup . There's not much you can do with Free Software with bad ui design but to try and get used to the interface. For example it took me a good while to get used to various drawing software programs mainly GIMP,  AZDrawing, and AZPainter. Even though they're drawing software each one has unique features standing out from one another.

 

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Calemeyr Newbie

Calemeyr

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That still doesn't cover the issue that any attempt to suggest a better UI considered almost an insult. Add to that the "it's how it's always been, and changing it will confuse users" excuse and it's almost impossible to get something changed for the better of all.

What gets me is it seems that the big companies like to update their UIs just cause. Everything is shuffled around, you can't find what you're looking for, and it's full of bugs. Case in point: iTunes. I think it's just a thing for the investors.

Decent UI design can be quite expensive, though. Same with web design.

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Sar Newbie

Sar

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Put your fedora away.

A lot of the features that are shipped out by software companies are usually put through a small panel of testers, despite what impressions give off. Some features don't show up their problems until they have been sent out on the field to be tested. By purposely setting out broken or buggy products - they can receive feedback in order to find out how to build it in a way that users expect to use it. The same deal applies to UI/UX redesigns. They need regular feedback in order for them to be effective.

As for a lot of newer websites, they tend to be built on a "mobile first" approach. This means that mobile users are the main priority in their UX design. It goes with the thinking that if a mobile user can navigate the website, then using responsive java-script - they don't need to build a separate website for desktop users. Let java-script handle the agent change.

Contrary to belief, those sites do have people dedicated to UX and UI design in teams. But some things require feedback from users and investors in order to improve the quality of their product. The concern should really be on the privacy they invade in order to get such feedback.

Edited by Sar
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