DesignWhine collects twenty five user experience design fails that everyone of us go through everyday but none of us complaint about in this special report.
- Player-in-player videos on Youtube
When you press the back button on some videos, they minimize yet continue to play in PIP mode. This is true for videos that are part of playlists, but there is no indication that a particular video is part of a playlist, therefore it will continue to play in PIP. Well, so much for the “don’t make me think” mantra!
- Amazon Filter Checkboxes
We’re all aware of Amazon’s interface and the loads of filters they offer on the left side of the screen on the web. While there are options to filter by various options depending on the product by using checkboxes for each criterion, the checkboxes do not let the user select multiple criterion at once. The page refreshes to load the first checkbox and then allows more checkboxes to be selected. Isn’t that annoying?! We’d want the power to select one or more checkboxes and then hit a button to load the results based on the multiple selected checkboxes. How hard is it to do that?
- Elevator Buttons
Elevators all across the globe feature two conspicuous buttons: the up and down arrows. While most of us understand that the up arrow must be pushed to go up and the down arrow must be pressed to go down, there are still some users who believe the elevator must be summoned to their current position. Instead of the ambiguous arrows, we recommend plain “I want to go UP” and “I want to go DOWN” labelled buttons.
- Instagram Comments Written Date
We don’t see why an interface would want its users to answer riddles instead of providing information in plain English. Why are the dates in the comments usually given in weeks rather than the actual date?
- Whatsapp Status
While WhatsApp statuses are great for brief, transient updates, adding the option to rewind or advance a video status wouldn’t harm and would increase usability.
- 6. Twitter Reply Icon
A callout indicator for responses appears below a tweet on Twitter, along with a number indicating the number of replies to that tweet. However, when a user clicks on the icon in an effort to read those answers, it opens a textbox for the user to type a reply! To view other people’s comments, you must first click on the tweet and then navigate to a new screen to read the replies. This problem might have been handled with a simple usability test of how people interact with the symbol. Duh!
- 7. Pinterest Save Button
We don’t like Pinterest’s design, and the masonry grid layout gives us a headache. The moving red circle on the Save button, on the other hand, is intrusive and unpleasant to say the least!
- 8. Auto Refresh on Pinterest and Facebook
This is a problem that both Pinterest and Facebook have. Here’s the scenario: You’re scrolling through these websites on your smartphone or laptop, visiting other browser tabs in the meantime, and when you return, the position you were on has vanished, and you’re back at the beginning. You scurry to locate the posts you wanted to read, but good luck!
- 9. LinkedIn Send Invite
For company pages, LinkedIn has a feature that allows admins to send invitations to their connections to follow their company page. The feature is neat and well intended however there is no option to filter out the connection who you’ve already sent an invite. Each time you want to send invites you must manually exclude the ones you’ve sent an invite to from the same common list of connections. C’mon, LinkedIn, this one’s pretty basic!
- 10. Like Button Placement on Facebook Messenger
Choosing a location that has historically been ruled by the “Send” or “Enter” buttons is insane! How many times have you accidentally pressed the “Like” button when all you wanted to do was send a message?
- 11. Google Maps – To Flyover or Not to Flyover?!
This usability issue has been pointed out by a lot of users on social media and has cost all of us lots of time and money just because Google didn’t specify loud and clear whether or not to take that approaching flyover while driving!
- 12. Cookie Consent Popups
Problem – Websites install cookies without alerting users, which may be a privacy breach. Solution – Inundate them with unpleasant “consent” pop ups until they get blinded by them and robotically click accept to get rid of them.
The issue has been resolved!
- 13. Youtube Reply Notification
When you respond to one of the comments on a YouTube video and someone responds, you receive a notification but no link to the location of the actual remark. This becomes quite confusing when there are thousands of responses on a comment.
- 14. Zoom From Browser
When you try to accept a Zoom invitation by clicking on the link, you get a window asking you to run the app, but if you cancel it, it sheepishly provides you the option to join from the browser. Why not present both alternatives up front and let the user choose?
- 15. Google Maps First Screen
When you’re driving and want to use Google Maps to discover a route, it first displays an inconvenient screen with pointless options like “Explore,” “Contribute,” and so on, and you have to click “Go” to get to the far more helpful “Starting Point” and “Destination” page. Isn’t it one of the most common things people do using Google Maps? What’s the point of hiding it within a click?
- 16. Facebook “Most Relevant”
The comments on Facebook posts feature a sort drop down menu with options like “Most Relevant,” “Newest,” and “All Comments,” with “Most Relevant” being the default pick. Sometimes if there are zero “relevant” comments, however, the user has to switch to “All comments” from the drop down to read which is way at the top of all the other comments. Huh?!
- 17. Google Drive Storage
The storage indicator on Google Drive includes the space taken up by your gmail, google photos and every other google service associated with your account.However, there is no easy way to see what’s using up your space without resorting to odd ways such as going to Google Photos, clicking on settings, and then managing storage. Google, you’re rather nasty!
- 18. File Sharing in Slack
Show us an easy, intuitive way on how to share and search for files on Slack without looking it up on the internet and we’ll reward you. Honestly, it’s a nightmare.
- 19. Add Members To A Slack Channel
For a company as insanely popular as slack, it’s interface is rather confusing. How many times have you wanted to create a new channel only to realize you have to add all members in it one by one! Apparently there’s no method to add multiple members in a channel at once or copy members from a different channel. All it gives is an option to add members to a channel one by one. That’s ridiculous! Cut us some slack, slack!
- 20. Facebook Auto-playing Videos
We won’t remark on how awful autoplaying videos are when browsing through your Facebook newsfeed since Facebook has provided a feature to silence them by default, making them less bothersome. However, when you click on the video to pause it, which is the industry standard interface for all video players, Facebook, much to your disgust, unmutes it!
- 21. Instagram Feed
While scrolling through our Instagram feed recently, we noticed that there is no option to mute or unmute a video unless you open that post independently. Huh?!
- 22. Zoom Disappearing Video Consent Box
For all it’s popularity, Zoom has a ton of usability issues. Sometimes when you enter a meeting it gives a popup with your video preview and an option to join the video with or without your video turned on. At other times, the same popup magically never appears and Zoom kicks you into the meeting with your video turned on!
- 23. File Saved On Android Phones
Always be wary of downloading a file or a document from the net or whatsapp on your Android phone for you may never be able to locate it in a million years!
- 24. Whatsapp and LinkedIn – Deleted Messages
It defeats the purpose when you accidentally post a message and then delete it only to have the receiver know that you deleted something! We’d rather there was no delete “feature” in the first place as this always leads to awkwardness between the sender and the receiver of the deleted message!
- 25. LinkedIn Hide Job Recommendations
Linkedin job recommendations has an ambiguous “eye” icon besides which when pressed deletes the job recommendation with the message “We’ll show you fewer jobs like this”. However, there is no undo in case you accidently press the icon or clicked on it out of curiosity!
