Seeing Theory: A Visual Introduction to Probability and Statistics - <AUTHOR> http://students.brown.edu/seeing-theory/?vt=4 <comment><USER2> Very nice on all fronts: design, usability, and content. Source is here: [https://github.com/danielkunin/Seeing- Theory](https://github.com/danielkunin/Seeing-Theory) (Apache licensed)

Seeing projects like these makes me optimistic about EdTech. Such "math toys" and visualizations can really make otherwise dry STEM subjects come to life. See also [http://immersivemath.com/ila/index.html](http://immersivemath.com/ila/index.html) which is linear algebra book with very good visualizations.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is excellent, thank you! I think one thing that would make it better is a reset button for each visualization. It's always nice to go back to the default without having to reload.

</comment><comment><USER4> Beautiful, and looks thoughtfully-designed. I'm looking forward to seeing this develop. One bug: In "Distributions", when you add several different values, they are graphed in lexical order, not numerical order: -5, 104, 12, 8.

</comment><comment><USER5> I love the distribution charts (especially the beta). I'll send it off to my old stats professor. it might be a good add in to his lectures

<comment><USER6> I made this [1] not so long back to visualize a bunch of statistical distributions. [1]: [https://jeffreyjose.com/stats/dist/](https://jeffreyjose.com/stats/dist/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I clicked on a couple of sections and they seem to be stubs.

Writing a book, even a new and revolutionary book, is a lot of work, much of it not fun.

</comment><comment><USER8> <broken image>

"Please do not use a mobile device!"

why?

<comment><USER9> Hi, I am the creator of Seeing Theory. That message comes up for any touch screen or mobile device. Unfortunately not all my visualizations are fully functional on mobile or touch screen devices, so I decided to post that message and hide the content. I realize that is a bad design choice. I just changed it to post a pop up message alerting the user that the visualizations might not be fully functional, but now you should still be able to view all the content. I will hopefully make it mobile friendly at a later date. Thanks for the feedback!

<comment><USER10> Really nice work. I spent a long time studying probability in grad school and use it daily at work, but I still enjoy seeing simple demos like the ones you have made.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I was hoping examples with real world stories and emotional hooks, that's was 'seeing' means to me. This is great effort nevertheless, love this format compared to traditional book formats.

</comment><comment><USER12> Extremely impressive, enjoyed poking through it.

</comment><comment><USER13> Beautiful and informative, thank you.

</comment><comment><USER14> Outstanding work by an undergraduate

</comment><comment><USER15> Awesome, thanks!</comment>


FBI director says antifa is an ideology, not an organization, in testimony - <AUTHOR> https://www.oregonlive.com/nation/2020/09/fbi-director-says-antifa-is-an-ideology-not-an-organization-in-testimony-on-homeland-security.html <comment><USER2> Low-effort comment, but still true: Duh.</comment>


I'm done with building Technology solutions for Church - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@davidbwire/im-done-building-technology-solutions-for-church-cb6f60d77617#.pie0967ip <comment><USER2> Agree.

Churches are terrible markets.

My own had a problem with the software they used for projection. Sometimes the copyright wouldn't show up, and transitions between song sections could take between 1 and 2 seconds, meaning that the projectionist had to be pre-emptive, but worship leaders often change what they're doing on the spot.

I dug into the product, and found that the bottleneck/inconsistencies was the database - a Borland database.

I interviewed and sat through the same crap meeting schedule and many, many last minute cancellations, but got a product that was faster, kept the legal requirements better, and was easier for the projectionists to use.

But, the Church refused to buy it for more than a single $5 fee.

They had spent $20 on the old software 10 years ago.

I was told that there wasn't room in the budget for the $50 I was asking, despite quoting that when I started working on it with them a year before.

I was so annoyed that I did something I've never done before: I deleted the code I wrote.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's terrible of them to do such things. Sometimes I wonder if they truly care about their members.

<comment><USER3> Not sure if this is sarcasm or not.

The church I attend livestreams and records sermons, which are then available via their website. They also have a acoustics engineer in their employment, and an electronic badging system to ensure the security of the kids in their daycare program. This is probably not representative of most churches, but there are some out there that are doing great things with technology.</comment></comment></comment>


The benefits of being a boring developer - <AUTHOR> https://www.parkersoftware.com/blog/the-benefits-of-being-a-boring-developer/ <comment><USER2> Thanks. I think this kind of "boring" specialists always has key roles in any field.</comment>


Back in time to what the Internet was built for... - <AUTHOR> http://synapse.ucsf.edu/articles/2013/02/20/startup-ucsf-journal-lab-could-transforms-scientific-publishing

<comment><AUTHOR> The biggest complaint in the sciences is "why is it so hard to interact with other research facilities". I know it has been trie before and given up on, but why are we seeing one small group doing this? Wouldn't this be one of those things that everyone in academia jump at when they realize that the current system is suffering? This is actually a business that has real world value, not just for those in the industry, but this has value for entire industries.

<comment><USER2> Agreed, seems like solving this problem could have a broad impact on the way that science works. I wonder why these sort of problems in scientific communication aren't getting more attention.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's what we complained about the most while in uni. Finding that those blokes across the river were working on a similar project (some of their solutions would have changed how we thought about our own problems). cheers</comment>


Should developers stop estimating their tickets? - <AUTHOR> https://firstname.lastname@example.com/should-developers-stop-estimating-their-tickets-88508650fb69 <comment><USER2> Pointing stories/tickets/units-of-work should not be tied to time estimates [0]. It should be a tool to break down useful deliverables into the smallest useful deliverable, leading to less unknowns. Example: a task of "move application from vm to kubernetes" could be reduced to smaller parts that give the business greater insight into its progress. Maybe you have to get it working in docker first, maybe update the integration test environment, update the build pipeline, and maybe have a roll out strategy. Maybe any of those need to be finer grain. The pointing of the original story might show that the story is large and it can lead a discussion on breaking it down. Again, this is all to provide visibility to the business side. It gives them more confidence in you and your team compared to "we are still working on it."

[0]: if your team trends to a consistent velocity of points, it can be tempting to start equating points to time. Avoid this.

<comment><USER3> This reminds me of Evidence Based Scheduling: [https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2007/10/26/evidence-based- sch...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2007/10/26/evidence-based-scheduling/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The reality is the business needs estimates for a couple of reasons. Prioritization (which features do we work on), resource planning (if I want to get x done in the next 6 months how many devs do I need), client communication (when will very important feature X be delivered). And no amount of organizational dysfunction will change that.

One of the biggest issues is that commitment dates and probably take this long i.e. prioritization times get muddled. And the possible solutions are buffer your prioritization times to turn them into commitment times or be explicit with the business about that.

</comment><comment><USER5> I wrote this tool for uncertain estimations: [https://uncertain.io/](https://uncertain.io/)</comment>


Show HN: a Yelp for iOS developers - <AUTHOR> I came up with this idea "a Yelp for developers" when talking with my colleagues.
My hypothesis is that, it would be very helpful if we know more about a library before choosing to use it. It's similar to
 that we want to know more about a restaurant by checking Yelp before visiting it.
For example, there're a lot of videos on Youtube advocating how great AsyncDisplayKit (an performant UI library for iOS) is. But it's hard to tell how prod-ready it is. Instead of investing in time to try it out, it would be awesome if I can know about how other people feel about using it.
Following this hypothesis, I put together a prototype to showcase the idea:
http://branchtip.com/
As an iOS engineer by day, it's currently only for iOS, just so that I can contribute some reviews to it.
What do you think of this idea? Feedback would be really appreciated.
Cheers, - Kenny <comment><USER2> Generally "how good the library is?" is decided at our firm by number of stars/forks etc, frequency at which developers are responding to open bugs etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't think this is a bad idea. I usually go to Github, perform a search and sort by stars or NPM popularity. This would be another alternative.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is exactly how I currently do it.

I found how inefficient this is when I talked about AsyncDisplayKit with my friends. My friends literally told me the anecdotes he heard from Pinterest and convinced me that it is not production-ready our project, even if it gets a lot of stars on github.

I figure that knowledge like this could be very helpful for a broad audience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Cool idea !</comment>


Ethereum founder warns cryptocurrencies 'could drop to near zero at any time' - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/ethereum-founder-warns-cryptocurrencies-could-drop-to-near-zero-at-any-time-2018-2 <comment><USER2> The headline makes it sound like Vitalik is warning that the entire industry could collapse soon, when the actual thing he said was just that if you invest all your money in a cryptocurrency you need to realize that it is possible for it to drop all the way to 0, so don't do that and instead invest responsibility with money you can afford to lose, which is a statement that I think everyone would agree with without thinking it is going to induce panic. (Essentially: this article is horrible clickbait.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Check out the scams going on in the twitter thread below. I am quite impressed by how convincing it looks; it's very likely that people are falling for it.

[https://twitter.com/vitalikbuterin/status/964838207215955969](https://twitter.com/vitalikbuterin/status/964838207215955969)

<comment><USER4> You can see how many people are falling for it by looking at the wallet address: [https://etherscan.io/address/0x358EF89B4D37f16002cc4A853B321...](https://etherscan.io/address/0x358EF89B4D37f16002cc4A853B321dAEeE423519)

<comment><USER3> Well, someone is educating the crypto-masses, and charging a reasonable fee for it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Think he's trying to give a cautious warning but end up going binary 1 or zero. infinity or zero. Most people who got into the market at good times in 2017 have not seen how insane the market has behaved in percentage term. Bitcoin went from $30 to zero before back then.

Another note, it looks like these days currencies rarely go to zero. last i checked the infamous bitconnect that has collapsed [https://www.coingecko.com/en/price_charts/bitconnect/usd](https://www.coingecko.com/en/price_charts/bitconnect/usd) is still trading and has value

i starting to think of it like physical coins that goes out of circulation. wanna buy an old franc or roman coin, its worthless but people are trading it for its rarity; or it becomes cheap enough to be speculated again.

</comment><comment><USER6> This isn't newsworthy enough to get posted on HN. If you follow smart people on crypto Twitter, this is a routine reminder.

</comment><comment><USER7> Whilst the reminder of not investing more than you are willing and able to lose cannot be repeated enough times, I do reckon it is important to put things into perspective: A very significant majority of traditional start-ups eventually fail, e.g. these articles from Forbes listing 90% ([https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilpatel/2015/01/16/90-of- star...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilpatel/2015/01/16/90-of-startups- will-fail-heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-10/)) and 80% ([https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericwagner/2013/09/12/five- reas...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericwagner/2013/09/12/five- reasons-8-out-of-10-businesses-fail/)), respectively. I consequently do not think a statement like this should be viewed as anything other than a simple and healthy reminder of how failure is inherent to entrepreneurship - something which naturally carries a risk for any investor. It is, however, also worth stressing how this, still largely unregulated, world attracts fraudsters. It is therefore not entirely unreasonable to assume an even greater percentage of projects will eventually hit 0 compared to traditional start-ups, and that investors thus ought to pay even closer attention to what they buy.

EDIT: Downvotes, why?

</comment><comment><USER8> That usually only happens to scamcoins, especially when there's some sort of exit scam (see Monero Gold). So let's hope he's not talking about Ethereum..

<comment><USER9> He draws no distinction, and I believe that's his point.

"Reminder: cryptocurrencies are still a new and hyper-volatile asset class, and could drop to near-zero at any time. Don't put in more money than you can afford to lose. If you're trying to figure out where to store your life savings, traditional assets are still your safest bet."

He's not saying everything but the "real" cryptocurrencies. He's speaking to the industry, not just scams. Pretty clear he's including BTC, ETH, etc in his statement.

<comment><USER8> That's unfortunate. Because the people behind Bitcoin and Monero most definitely do not consider them comparable to or tantamount to shitcoins. Quite the opposite. They recognize that they are securing people's actual livelihoods and in some cases their very lives (privacy->safety).

To be honest, I actually already knew Vitalik was of that opinion. The fact people do not perceive what he (and other hypocrites) said as it is, is something I have also witnessed repeatedly. I wonder if that's why some of the greater philosophers in history mentioned that people see things exactly backwards.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What's he playing at here? The founder of a cryptocurrency should now full well the power they have saying words like this; I know he's young, and I know there's validity to the "don't invest more than you can afford to lose" but a statement like 'could drop to near zero' is almost BEGGING the market to go bearish when you're the founder of a currency.

Buy the rumor, sell the news has never been more apt than it is right now.

<comment><USER11> > What's he playing at here?

Right now there are two major known risks overhanging the market:

\- The Tether situation ([https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/7xae98/unde...](https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/7xae98/understanding_tether_why_it_accounts_for_a/))

\- SEC / CFTC action against ICOs

Either of those scenarios could send the markets down 85% within minutes or hours. In addition there are the usual systemic risks of 51% attacks, core infrastructure getting pwned, etc.

<comment><USER12> and 51% attacks do not require you to have 51% of all nodes on the network. Just 51% of all Active nodes on the network.

If someone finds a zero day exploit and manages to crash a large number of ethereum nodes they could do a 51% attack with a relatively small number of nodes.

<comment><USER13> That's incorrect. A 51% attack means an adversary having 51% or more of the hashing power (calculated as hashes generated per second) and using it to disrupt the normal operation of the blockchain.

A party with 51% of hashing power can single handedly create a blockchain that other nodes will accept over any competing chain, meaning they can rewrite history, or prevent any new transactions from being confirmed.

If consensus were based on number of nodes, the network could be easily Sybil attacked, given the cost of running what appears to be a node is next to nothing. It would also be difficult to make such a consensus protocol usable, as there's no efficient way to poll a large number of network nodes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> In other news the sky is blue

</comment><comment><USER15> At this point, saying crypto will go to zero is like saying the internet will go to zero, meaning no one will use it. Yes, crypto can drop wildly but the only way they go to zero is if the energy they use for mining stops. Government intervention is not a threat since there are countries that are actively supporting it. The network effect is hard to overcome. Bitcoin and Ethereum are two that will weather just about everything. Also, both bitcoin and ethereum are development platforms which gives them staying power. The price might collapse but they will be around as long as people are willing to join the network to mine it and use it.

<comment><USER16> No- crypto has no intrinsic value. Energy used for mining doesn't give it value. It only has perceived value. If the crypto hype dies, it will drop to 0, even if plenty of people are mining still.

<comment><USER17> How do you determine value? Ethereum has smart contracts and a large volume of real-life transactions. How do you justify "no intrinsic value"?

<comment><USER18> No one is using it to do anything other than hoard it hoping that the price goes higher than what they bought it at. That means it has no value outside of generating some hope that the price rises, which is very shallow and hardly valuable.

<comment><USER19> But that is not true. I end up using crypto to buy things online because some vendors I use give 25%+ discounts for buying using crypto. Saying "no one" uses it for commerce is just wrong.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Legal pot in 100 days? New Jersey's next governor aims for national first - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/legal-pot-in-100-days-new-jerseys-next-governor-aims-for-national-first/article/2640125 <comment><USER2> It looks very unlikely the anti-drug brigade is going to be able to stop the spread of this nationally at this point. I think NJ will make nine legal states, more will legalize at a faster clip. The Trump Administration appears to be coasting (neither helping nor meaningfully hindering) as far as legalization is concerned, and the Republicans look set to drop the Senate (even despite the up-for-election imbalance).

It's going to accomplish a ton of things simultaneously.

\- Substantially reduce arrests, prison sentences, and our general prison / jail population over time.

\- Provide another good option for pain management to millions of people. Something we desperately need right now.

\- Reduce general crime.

\- Weaken the cartels.

\- Increase tax revenue and employment by normalizing an industry worth tens of billions annually. The US should eventually become a major marijuana exporter as many other countries gradually legalize.

\- Break the back of the war on drugs and change the culture more broadly (this is already well underway, as so many middle class voters are seeing the vast destruction of the opioid crisis, which is educating people on needing to treat addiction as a health problem while simultaneously demonstrating how relatively safe marijuana is by comparison).

<comment><USER3> Interesting points, especially about the culture change. I really hope that with the legalization, there is going to be a push for better education about marijuana. Right now broadly speaking it's pretty binary, "pot is a gateway drug, etc" and "weed can do no harm". I'm a regular user myself, and have some understanding of the associated risks. So I think we might see a small but non trivial increase psychiatric disorders in young men in particular after legalization. Cannabis is already considered a risk factor if you have schizophrenia in your family [0].

The other thing I'm concerned about, besides the psychoactive effects, is lung health. Anecdotally the smoke doesn't seem as bad as cigarette, but regular (non oral) use can't be great for your lungs, pulmonary disorders are nothing to mess with.

Either way legalization should be lead us to a better world - I just can't wait for research to become easier so we can get some more concrete answers.

0\. [https://academic.oup.com/hmg/article- abstract/26/13/2462/357...](https://academic.oup.com/hmg/article- abstract/26/13/2462/3574683?redirectedFrom=fulltext)

<comment><USER4> > Right now broadly speaking it's pretty binary, "pot is a gateway drug, etc" > and "weed can do no harm".

My retired police officer/taxi-driver friend once commented on smelling some "really good weed" on some of his passengers. I replied about how in his former life he used to fight in the war on that plant.

"They told me it was a gateway drug, _and I believed them._ Now it seems the plant actually has health benefits."

That post was titled _Ordinary Rendition:_ [http://www.taxiwars.org/2017/10/ordinary-rendition-public- se...](http://www.taxiwars.org/2017/10/ordinary-rendition-public- servants.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I hope the bill that gets passed allows for home cultivation. Previous versions did not, and it would be a shame if business interests were able to monopolize the supply chain in the state.

<comment> murph-almighty NJ resident and I believe that's still the case. I'm planning on writing my assemblypeople and the governor's office come January.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> But then we'll likely wind up with people using less opioids and 25% fewer deaths due to opioid overdose like we've seen elsewhere and won't someone think of the poor pharmaceutical companies? /s

<comment><USER7> Has there been any studies on this?

I'm under the impression that opoids are much stronger than cannabis, would people who take them be able to wean off them onto cannabis based products?

<comment><USER8> Opioids are absolutely stronger. Marijuana provides a previously unavailable mid-tier level of pain control where a lot of people who didn't want to be taking opioids now have a better option.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If they can make it happen might as well raise toll rates too. I could see a lot of "day visitors" streaming in from NYC and Philadelphia

<comment><USER10> Yup. Raise the tolls. Make some high priced toll only lanes while you're at it. God forbid people prefer to sit in traffic on a bridge in order to spend their money in your state. Regressive taxation is always a net win for society.

(the massive amount of sarcasm should be obvious)

Seriously, other than a few extra dollars in the short term and making the roads less crowded for those who have the money to justify their value proposition what is the befit of raising tolls?

I can understand if you want to basically levy a tax on tourism but levying a tax on people showing up to buy stuff doesn't seem smart.

<comment><USER11> >I can understand if you want to basically levy a tax on tourism but levying a tax on people showing up to buy stuff doesn't seem smart.

You mean, like a sales tax?

<comment><USER12> Yes, like a sales tax. That is an extremely regressive tax and should be removed.

<comment><USER11> I think whether or not it is regressive depends on the context.

A flat tax (perhaps an even steeper on than generally exists currently) on goods purchased might help to curb consumption/consumerism that is destroying our environment. That's one context. How should a government tasked with regulating commerce seek to fund such endeavors otherwise? I'm not baiting; I really don't know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As a NJ resident, I've been curious to see what the next Governor would do to fix the broke state's budget. Interesting this article doesn't discuss the economic benefit that would result from it. Right now state & local taxes are just being raised each year instead.

<comment><USER14> There are probably diminishing returns to legalization + taxation as novelty wears off and neighboring states follow suit.

<comment><USER15> How would neighboring states' follow-on legalization diminish tax returns over time? Washington has posted $280 million in tax revenues so far, and Oregon $85 million. Neither seems to threaten the other -- demand is pretty much ubiquitous.

<comment><USER16> If NJ doesn't require a NJ ID in order to buy in-state, the differences are huge. NJ is in a much denser area than Washington, Oregon, or Colorado.

Boston, DC, Philadelphia, and Baltimore are all reasonable drives away and NYC is right next door.

<comment><USER17> _Boston, DC, Philadelphia, and Baltimore are all reasonable drives away and NYC is right next door._

not to nitpick, but Philadelphia is just as close as NYC (maybe even closer) I routinely joke that Philadelphia and NYC are part of New Jersey, usually to upset citizens of said cities. Then I point out that the culture in those cities is much more like NJ than the rest of their own states.

<comment><USER18> I grew up in NJ - I'd do the same thing to rile people up, but deep down I knew: South Jersey is part of Philly, and anything north of Mercer Co is basically NY. Except for the shore counties - they hate all of us equally. So I consider them to be New Yorkers out of spite.

<comment><USER17> Most of the "hate" is just as superficial as programmers teasing people that use other languages, or sysadmins trash talking other operating systems. I can see the Walt Whitman bridge from the end of my road, and I have made friends with plenty of people from North, and Central Jersey.

...Another fun one is to pretend that Central Jersey doesn't exist, or to claim to be a proud Shoobie (or Benny) to the shore people :-)

<comment><USER18> Totally. Jersey Pride is actually a unifying force. Kind of like how we all pretend to not like Seaside and Wildwood.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Normally this is where I'd expect to see "HN is turning into reddit", but hackers have always been interested in pot, so...

(reminds me of _Pirates of Silicon Valley_ )

</comment><comment><USER20> This will definitely force New York and Penn to look for legalization. New York if followed would be the biggest city ever to legalize.

<comment><USER21> I wonder if the five boroughs would (or could) move before the state. My sense is that the state is holding out because of strong police and corrections lobbies, and Cuomo is trying to not rock the boat. But NYC may have different motivations to decriminalize/legalize sooner. And if NJ legalizes, NYC becomes full of marijuana very quickly.

<comment><USER22> NYC is already very full of marijuana

<comment><USER23> Sure, but there's a huge perceptual leap between getting weed surreptitiously delivered by some dude with a backpack you contact on Signal with an entire illegal supply chain stretching down the corridor to Florida and ultimately funding god only knows what sorts of unsavory enterprise up the line and asking your coworker to pick up an eighth for you on his way in commuting on the NJ transit train.

Both routes are illegal, but in one you're clearly acting shifty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > his Tuesday win makes a Democrat-packed statehouse the only obstacle.

They aren't an obstacle. They wanted it done and Christie was the obstacle.</comment>


Amazon Uses a Twitter Army of Employees to Fight Criticism of Warehouses - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/15/style/amazon-fc-ambassadors.html <comment><USER2> Related: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20704138](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20704138)

</comment><comment><USER3> I believe this article was triggered by this tweet: [https://twitter.com/rulesobeyer/status/1161820065773182976?s...](https://twitter.com/rulesobeyer/status/1161820065773182976?s=21)

<comment><USER4> That's like a god damned parody. A new response every time from a happy smiling human face. It's ok, Diana, we just want the truth to be heard, Diana, why don't you believe us Diana, I am treated well at work Diana, I am not beaten when I misbehave.

Join us Diana. Join us and be free.

Edit: oh my God. I made up the beatings comment on the spot. But one of the borg _actually said something like this_ [https://twitter.com/antipoetry/status/1162028572929855488?s=...](https://twitter.com/antipoetry/status/1162028572929855488?s=20)

Edit2: oh whew obvious parody. Hilarious, nearly fell for it!

<comment><USER5> His account is violating Twitter's impersonation policy. [https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter- imper...](https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter- impersonation-policy)

> The profile clearly states it is not affiliated with or connected to any > similarly-named individuals or brands.

<comment><USER6> What's Twitter's policy on using fake accounts with stock picture avatars for openly astroturfing?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Whenever I see a news story about Amazon workers and robots, I'm reminded of Amazon's "workers in a cage" patent [1]. It has spawned a bunch of funny (or sad?) "Amazon Wagie Cage" memes as a result [2][3]... and even an art exhibit of a real-sized patent drawing [4].

Needless to say, I shop a lot less on Amazon these days and try to buy from other shops whenever possible.

[1] [https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-has- pate...](https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-has-patented-a- system-that-would-put-workers-in-a-cage-on-top-of-a-robot/)

[2] [https://i.imgur.com/QGeNley.png](https://i.imgur.com/QGeNley.png)

[3] [https://i.imgur.com/LuEpNL4.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/LuEpNL4.jpg)

[4] [https://i.imgur.com/EhoEHqG.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/EhoEHqG.jpg)

<comment><USER8> _Amazon 's "workers in a cage" patent_

You do realize that the cage is there to protect the worker, right?

If you think "worker in a cage, on top of a robot" is terrible, have you ever seen a construction crane? It is literally a robot with a cage in which a worker sits -- and just like the (never implemented!) patent from Amazon, the point of the cage is to protect the worker.

<comment><USER9> Having a comfy chair instead of a metal bench and glass instead of wire net makes cranes look a lot nicer than that concept art.

<comment><USER8> Aren't patent drawings supposed to show only the essential _functional_ elements?

<comment><USER9> Maybe. I personally think it's silly. Still, that's where I think the critique comes from.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think this article from bellingcat earlier today is better overall: [https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2019/08/15/amazons-...](https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2019/08/15/amazons- online-bezos-brigade-unleashed-on-twitter/)

Here's the list of account names using Sprinklr that was mentioned in the NYT article: [https://twitter.com/AlexBNewhouse/status/1162036960027742209](https://twitter.com/AlexBNewhouse/status/1162036960027742209)

</comment><comment><USER11> Nearly all entities in products and politics astroturf heavily. In the end it is a massive critical thinking lesson and adds much needed skepticism to the populace.

The truth is the internet is teaching the biggest lesson ever in critical thinking and getting your information from many sources across spectrums, individuals, companies, countries, divides and more.

Let's hope that people see it as a lesson and not somewhere they can bask in their confirmation bias all day, or make decisions based on fear, in those cases the populace is easy to manipulate.

<comment><USER12> It's great to talk about lessons in critical thinking for sophisticated first- world countries, but in third-world, poorly educated countries, people with poor literacy are being exposed to a firehose of propaganda.

The critical thinking lessons you mention are likely to come at the price of a massive loss of human life.

<comment><USER13> Whereas in developed intelligent countries you're all immune to this effect. Pretty cool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was waiting to see how long it will take for media to find the tweet thread and publish as news. Man what a world we live in.

</comment><comment><USER15> There's a bit to go through here - and I agree Amazon employees are largely treated poorly (I work at amazon and lament the fact more or less daily) but this is linking to some parody accounts. Let's talk about real issues, like how Bezos could end hunger in the US and still be the richest man in the world.

Or keep focusing on the weird customer-antagonistic inferior chinese trash importing campaign that's been ongoing for the last few years.

This looks like a bunch of joke tweeters that got caught in each others' schticks.

<comment><USER16> >This looks like a bunch of joke tweeters that got caught in each others' schticks.

Amazon PR email to bellingcat.com confirms that the ambassador program is real:

[https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2019/08/15/amazons-...](https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2019/08/15/amazons- online-bezos-brigade-unleashed-on-twitter/)

<comment><USER15> I mean, yeah it's real - that's not under suspicion. Is Jordan - Amazon FC Ambassador (with a free stock photo as his avatar) real?

Replying to "I also am required to enjoy things. I like laughing and having fun. It is agreeable to me." with "I like smiling!"

Or "Post literally anything from this account if you're being forced to do so against your will by your boss." with

"My boss is awesome! He's great. I asked him if I could do this and he said sure!"

all seems really tongue-firmly-in-cheek.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Do we know if this is a corporate social media team, or actual employees who volunteered? Many of the accounts claim to be warehouse workers. It's rare for a major corporation to lie about something like that so blatantly.

I imagine that amazon employees didn't like the bad rep their company was getting for working conditions, and volunteered to respond on social media in an organized way. IF this is the case, then media organizations probably shouldn't be attacking them

<comment><USER18> So you _really_ imagine a bunch of lowest paid blue collar workers came together, out of the goodness of their hearts, to help the richest man alive improve his company's public image?

<comment><USER19> I can. There are a lot of Amazon employees. Many are probably happy with their job and unhappy to be constantly told that they shouldn't be. I think that I would personally be annoyed by all the think pieces unilaterally claiming that the job I chose was a sucker's game and I'm too dumb to realize, especially since Amazon is distinctly better than average as warehouse jobs go

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> There's this tweet that I find strange. One side effect of the oversold mindfulness-stoicism outlook is that people do not raise genuine concerns and instead say "the problem is within me, I just need to breathe right":

[https://twitter.com/AmazonFCHannah/status/116191039733676851...](https://twitter.com/AmazonFCHannah/status/1161910397336768512)

<comment><USER21> It reminds me of a favorite quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." -- Upton Sinclair

A genre I used to read a lot of is the cult escapee autobiography. Humans are incredibly good at believing whatever they need to believe to get by. And, presumably as with Amazon, there's a strong selection bias. The people who won't blame themselves like this don't work at Amazon for long, and if they do, they don't get selected to be "ambassadors". The first step for which is surely a "thank you sir may I have another" relationship [1] with their boss.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdFLPn30dvQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdFLPn30dvQ)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Companies have been doing this for at least the last 8 years, just based on my own experience working for a company that provided a solution in this space. Amazon isn't unique or even remotely the first. They're just using one of those social media reputation dashboards to manage complaints and support issues before they go viral online.

<comment><USER23> Indeed, solutions for all needs. For example, presidential elections. Tweetattackspro, buyaccs.com anti-captcha.com

[https://www.thedailybeast.com/i-bought-a-russian-bot-army- fo...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/i-bought-a-russian-bot-army-for-under- dollar100)

Anyone can start this up. Just get some bitcoin ready.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I don't really see the issue.

These appear to be real humans.

I see so many fake accounts, sock puppets etc. just about any place I look, that I just accept that to not be an idiot myself I need to spend time thinking through everything.

I don't understand writing that seems to assume that anybody, or their analysis, can be automatically believed.

</comment><comment><USER25> most of these Twitter accounts are parody accounts, Amazon has the embassador program but don't believe in every thing you read on Twitter

<comment><USER26> The parody accounts are pretty obvious. The really disturbing stuff comes from the real ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I've seen Amazon's sponsored tweets on Twitter. Didn't realize they are going so hard to work on their public image.

</comment><comment><USER28> I'm wondering how this even makes sense from a PR prospective.

Workers (?) that are paid for talking good about their employer? What's the interesting bit here?

</comment><comment><USER29> "Amazon FC Ambassadors" seriously?

Reminds me of the missionaries carrying bibles, in this case spreading the Lord Bezos word.

</comment><comment><USER30> Reading the Amazon employees' responses in the Twitter thread made me feel physically ill.

It's pure propaganda, straight out of Russia's 2016 playbook.

If companies like Amazon will dominate in the future I don't want to have kids.

<comment><USER31> I seriously doubt there's anything remotely grassroots about this. I find it unlikely that Amazon is lying about the fact that the employees running these twitter accounts are low level, but I also find it hard to believe that they wouldn't be instantly taken off for going off script.

Also notice that each tweet is sent out by sprinklr.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> The NYT sure writes a lot of anti-Amazon stuff. I guess the Washington Post is their main competitor and it's owned by Jeff Bezos so it makes sense.

<comment><USER16> Do you think NYT's article is inaccurate in some way?

<comment><USER33> You can be biased without being inaccurate.

<comment><USER34> You can also be biased without it being a bad thing.

<comment><USER35> I am biased towards hot chocolate and duvet nests and against TV programs presented by people with sunglasses on the top of their head. Am I a monster?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I recently watched a Danish documentary about Israel, it's a whole series on the Middle East, and one of the things they talked about in it was how Israel is never in the Danish media for anything positive. That same day I read an article about the youngest Dane to visit every country in the world, something he finished recently, talk about how there is peace and security in every country if you go to the right places. Now this is anecdotal of course, but it does seem extremely rare to see a positive story about Israel, and positive stories about minor countries around the world don't exist. Small countries only make the news when some warlord does something horrendous, there is an outbreak of some terrible disease or climate change is sinking their country.

You may be wondering what my point is, but maybe the media brought this on themselves? I'm as appalled as you are by Amazon workers wearing diapers, and I personally think the way they utilise the gig-economy to avoid giving workers rights is bordering wage-slavery (I'm a socialist Dane, so I hope you'll forgive me for that), but Amazon is a huge company and I'm betting a lot of people there are genuinely happy.

Imagine being those people. I work in public sector digitalisation, I think I know a thing or two about how it feels when everyone has a negative opinion on what you do. I makes you want to post like these Amazon employees, especially because onlookers almost never have a clue about actually what's going on because the world is way too complicated to fit into a few 3-6 paragraph articles on the web.

<comment><USER37> I think you've been downvoted here because there isn't really a clear point to your comment. Perfectly written but having read I don't know what you are actually saying.

<comment><USER36> I was trying to say, that maybe the media is seeing this backlash, not because of some Amazon marketing army, but instead because a lot of people are genuinely happy working for Amazon.</comment></comment></comment>


Why Google will buy RIM - <AUTHOR> http://crackberry.com/10-reasons-why-google-will-buy-research-motion

<comment><USER2> I got to the number #1 point of why they should buy RIM ... OMG, no way was that written by anyone with even a basic understanding of the matter.

Epic fail. Author has zero - absolutely zero - credibility.</comment>


UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time - <AUTHOR> https://debugandrelease.blogspot.com/2019/03/ui-redesigns-are-mostly-waste-of-time.html <comment><USER2> > To preface the article, I primarily work on, and prefer, back-end code. I've > been involved in both web and software development for over 4 years now

Cool, cool. To preface this comment, I'm a user experience designer, and I've been doing web software development and design for over 20 years.

In reality, your conjecture turns out to be largely untrue. Visual design quality does have an impact.

Main principle you want to look up: the Aesthetic Usability Effect. Basically, users perceive your product to be more usable if it's aesthetically pleasing.

> Summary: Users are more tolerant of minor usability issues when they find an > interface visually appealing. This aesthetic-usability effect can mask UI > problems and can prevent issue discovery during usability testing. Identify > instances of the aesthetic-usability effect in your user research by > watching what your users do, as well as listening to what they say.

From [https://www.nngroup.com/articles/aesthetic-usability- effect/](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/aesthetic-usability-effect/)

See also: [https://www.nngroup.com/articles/perceived- value/](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/perceived-value/) (other ways users perceive value based on the UI)

Of course, this has limits. A rebrand or redesign that, all other things equal, is mostly the same quality as before probably won't get much benefit. I've seen many redesigns and that tends not to be something people do—there's usually a good bump in visual quality in the process.

So, regardless of whether you, personally notice the different functionality, many redesigns are actually a success at improving the perceived value, perceived usability, and overall evaluation of the brand, company, and product.

People aren't idiots. They don't do this work for no reason. Try to understand and respect the work outside your own department and specialty. Building respect across those boundaries is a rare and valuable thing.

<comment><USER3> >People aren't idiots. They don't do this work for no reason.

Citation absolutely needed. In my experience people are frequently idiots, and work gets done for no reason after someone with authority is convinced that it's a good idea by someone aching to do that sort of work.

If it happens in so many other cases, it does happen in UI/UX as well.

<comment><USER2> I'll concede "most people are of average idiocy" and cite core principles of statistics and the meanings of average and most.

But yes, you're right, happens all the time. Less so with most of the large scale more popular redesigns people tend to think of when writing articles like this about tools they actually use; the team at Atlassian, for example, is not made of idiots, neither at Slack, Google, Twitter, or other large companies with mostly significant design experience.

Smaller operations where we all likely work—yep, hit or miss.

<comment><USER4> I and almost everyone from my team loathes the new jira released a year+ ago. The menu drives me nuts still and makes no sense.

It's my understanding the use of the word "idiot" in this context implies someone who is primarily responsible for a significant amount of rework on anything that bears no real fruit, ui redesigns being one potential example. Pretty sure big companies make those mistakes just as much as small. Though I don't think its fair to call someone an idiot for this reason--I think its very challenging to do well.

<comment><USER5> An idiot, in the original sense of the word, is someone who focuses on themselves, showing no interest in the common cause/politics. It's a bit heavy, but reapplied here it could mean someone who focuses completely on visual quality, while not putting their time into other important aspects of the product (almost all of which are more important that visual quality, at least according to OP).

<comment><USER6> This is how I would describe the noun of _idiotic design_ if it existed.

<comment><USER7> Well, if it didn't exist before, you just created it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've noticed that it's a commonly accepted fact in most other areas of software development that mass rewriting of large and extensively-used pieces of code is a bad idea precisely because it'll probably introduce plenty of _new_ bugs that were either never a problem in the existing code, or was noticed and already fixed there in the past. Yet when it comes to UI, those introduced bugs --- breakages of users' existing workflows --- are often dismissed with "sorry, you can't do that anymore" or "here's a (longer and more cumbersome) workaround to do it".

 _I 'm sorry, but besides fixing the UI where it impacts the usability of your application, no one is raving about how a redesign makes the application any better._

This brings up a great point: if you examine user's comments on redesigns that didn't really fix things, you'll find that the positive ones are all about how it _looks_ or _feels_ and tend to be vague, while the negative ones will almost all be very specific criticisms about precisely which part of their workflows got broken. In any other context the latter would be treated as bug reports --- very clear ones at that --- to be investigated and fixed; but it seems a lot of designers are inclined to simply "close"/ignore them all as "they don't like/understand what I did, maybe they just hate me."

<comment><USER6> Many creative professionals (that includes programmers) will go and do the thing they like instead of doing the thing that is needed. For architects that could be a ron of glass and open spaces while the people who use this space would rather have a space with lots of cosy private corners and spots, for programmers it is insisting on certain frameworks, languages or patterns despite hurting the project. For sounddesigners it is usign to most ober the top emotional sonic sledgehammer they find. For designers it can be worshipping the latest style, wrongly understood minimalism etc.

All of these things usually mean the person at hand might be able to produce _something_ , but they are essentially the wrong person for the wrong job.

And let's face it: these kind of redesigns are often something the new CEO wants to sbow to everybody how much change he embodies. The designer is underpaid and unfamilsr with the product, the project not well organized and the deadline soon.

Any designer worth their money should be able to redesign a UI while improving it. Understanding the value of what is already there and how it maps to user tasks, daily routines and understanding the relevant assumptions, is the main part of the job.

So whst you describe is not good design it is bad design or design that never got the chance to be good.

<comment><USER9> On the flip side, you could see a person selling their labour as having some right/stake in doing something which interests them.

These outcomes are then compromises which give something to the producer, as well as to the customer.

<comment><USER6> I completely agree. This is exactly why I said, if this happens you didn't choose the right person for the job.

The same person who butchers your UI might be very good for creating print designs that above all need to sell the company CI.

For critical redesigns you need a designer who is mostly about analyzing and rethinking the user experience behind it. Better even, split it in two: one entity should only do the analytical part and guide the direction, the other should implement it with a little bit of wiggle room. Make sure there is some overlap between the two

<comment><USER10> I think I agree with you, but how are you supposed to assess designers to choose the right person?

The main difference I've found between bad/good designers is flexibility and willingness to ask for help. There's typically a lot of organizational knowledge about where pain points are. If a designer addresses those, then people are generally happy.

Maybe splitting the job is a good idea, but it seems like you shouldn't need a split if the designer is listening to the whole team.

Also, sometimes the designer is fine, but they've been explicitly told by management what to do, so no designer would have been able to fill the position and do a good job. Even on my failed projects, I really couldn't tell you if it was the management or the designer that caused the resulting design issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Predictably, the title alone is crack to HNers. If only stakeholders and designers would ask our opinion first, we'd save them the trouble!

Between the author patting himself on the back for coming up with "don't do things for no reason" and "don't make things worse," he provides this criteria:

> The only time a UI should be updated is if it impacts the ability of a user > to actually use your application.

This criteria can be rewritten "only change to make improvements," but this is an eternal challenge with anything.

The previous UI wasn't handed down by god. It, too, was designed, and the only thing it has going for it compared to the global optimum is that it at least exists. And like any other system, it was built under different requirements with different unknowns. It accumulates debt and falls into the same traps of any other rewrite. Most importantly, it has to interface with actual humans.

I can sympathize with their rant over grating redesigns, but it's too easy to lambast things that go wrong and then plant your flag of "Yep, don't do this. You're welcome." It contributes to the toxic cynicism rife in our field.

<comment><USER12> I think that's a deliberately uncharitable interpretation.

If you're admitting there are problems in the previous redesign (and you are), then why not fix those pieces rather than redesigning the colors, icons, and entire rest of the interface?

It's not so different from an engineer who rewrites a whole service because it has 3 bugs. Almost never worth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> > You don't use Google maps because it looks nice, you use it because it tells > you where to go to get good tacos. You don't use Facebook because the UI is > nice, you use it to talk to your friends and share photos.

I actually _don 't_ use Google Maps -- because it's a crazy mess of buttons and menus that get in my way of trying to navigate. I actually _don 't_ use Facebook -- because it's a horrible dog's breakfast of inscrutable icons and I can't figure out its mental model to save my life. And there are many more sites/apps that frustrate me so much that I abandon them for better-designed choices, or even for nothing at all, because at least doing nothing doesn't make me angry.

This function-over-form attitude bugs the hell out of me. People (especially designers) who think that design doesn't really matter as long as the function is okay may not notice the mass of former users who simply throw up their hands and refuse to use their product at all.

<comment><USER14> I mean... I get what you are saying, but you are going to have to offer an alternative. Preferrably one that isn't complete garbage.

What do you use over Google Maps and Facebook?

For Maps, I really don't know of any alternative. And I now make some mapbox- gl applications for the office. There just doesn't seem to be any real alternative.

For Facebook? I can actually almost completely unplug. That said, it is the easiest way to get pictures of the kids to family. I could setup a website, but I can't imagine it would be as easy or as effective. With the emphasis on effective.

edit:s/primarily/preferrably/

<comment><USER13> I have an iPhone, so Apple Maps is right there as an alternative (and better, since it's more integrated into things like the Contacts app and auto- recognized addresses). I find its design to be much calmer and smoother, which makes me happier. And it doesn't keep asking me to login to the Googleverse...

There are many reasons I don't use Facebook, most of which are enumerated in countless HN posts, but a big reason is that I get totally frustrated with the interface. I don't know how to say this strongly enough, but the UI literally disgusts me, to the point where I just give up and close it down. True!

Maybe I'm weird this way. But I've been computing since about 1976, and using the web since '93, and I've got no patience anymore for crappy sites/apps.

<comment><USER15> With all respect, people over age 50 are not the target demographic for general purpose mass market products. Even simple things like supporting large fonts or color contrast for weaker eyes is beyond the capability of tech giants (in large part because of the tyranny of pixel perfect UI designers over simple auto-flow/layout algorithms

<comment><USER13> No disrespect taken. Thanks for raising this point — one that I'm often frustrated by. (Yes, I'm over 50.) I've resorted to using Safari's Reader mode on the vast majority of the sites I visit because the respective designer's idea of type face, size, and contrast is so unreadable to me. Obviously this doesn't work for interactive sites like maps, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> What some people will think:

"Improving your UI is a waste of time"

"UI is pointless"

What the author is actually saying (imo): "UI redesigns create costs that should warrant them. There are a lot of times when a website makes radical redesigns for comparatively marginal improvements. These improvements are not always worth it for reasons like existing userbase having to relearn the new ui."

This is a fair point and I think a lot of times places rebrand because they want to look like they're doing something even if it comes at the cost of overall usability.

<comment><USER17> Yes there is an echo chamber of design, that leads to a lot of "FOMO" and "Keeping up with the Joneses". Of course you can have a perfectly functional social network, for instance, running on vanilla Bootstrap. Nothing _wrong_ with that, but you'll never attract more customers than the cool company with the slick design.

Of course that's how it always has been.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I hate UI redesigns, absolutely hate them; From the end user point of view, and from 15+ years of webdesign, if its working why the hell are we fixing it?

Well I'll tell you why, since i asked; And its neither for the end user or designers benefit. Its for the non-user, or the not-yet-user, the people who were put off by the old design. We are like fish, that have been caught, wondering why the fisherman is throwing nets into other parts of the sea..

Michelangelo's David; Trying not to read too much into the cropping, it may be innocent enough.. Though sometimes i think we've reverted back to the dark ages _catholic cleansing_ (chopping off of stone penises) mentality about such things.

</comment><comment><USER19> I was a bit of that mindset until I worked close to a team that worked on such a redesign for a consumer product with hundreds of millions of users.

The really amazing thing to me was that even though the redesign didn't add any new functionality, and there weren't really any glaring usability problems with the previous one, users would still blog about some cool "new feature of the redesign" that had in fact been in product for years.

Basically, changing the skin of the product caused users to poke about and try new things.

Now the flip side of this is the design upset their routines, and there was certainly an element of that, but it was managed ok by giving people the option to switch back to the old design for a while.

On the whole, the redesign caused increased feature awareness and usage, which definitely wouldn't have been my guess going in.

</comment><comment><USER12> Entirely on-point.

When I think of the major apps I use today that I do like and ask What new UI do they need, the answer is none (gmail, hn, venmo). In fact, some UIs would do well to hide the noise and look more like HN than Yahoo (e.g. github)

When I think of the major apps I use today but dislike, the reason is usually performance, not pretty icons (slack, uber). Sometimes the redesign itself is an obstacle (reddit).

When I think of apps that COULD be redesigned (e.g. AWS) I'd want it to happen once, be engineer-focused, and entirely about logical layout rather than graphics.

<comment><USER20> This is a good point to make. I think the author has just had bad experiences with designers, as have I. Gmail, venmo, etc. don't need a redesign because they were thoughtfully designed through a good process in the first place.

To speak to your AWS example; right now I'm in the process of redesigning an incredibly complex product from the ground up because is was so poorly designed the first time around. The users complain all day, the field engineers complain every day. A total redesign is our only hope to make it as a company longer-term.

The original engineers chose Material as the component style, which is terrible for a data-dense app. So as a part of all this, we're transitioning to a new design system that increases data density, readability, and has more component options to make actions absolutely clear and make space usage more efficient. We're also including in-app terminal support for those that prefer to use it that way. Also, certain parts of the FE will be metadata driven, where it makes sense for business logic.

TL;DR - This is a very broad topic that the author covers very superficially from their limited experience, but I absolutely loathe bad designers and poorly thought out redesigns.

<comment><USER21> > Gmail, venmo, etc. don't need a redesign because they were thoughtfully > designed through a good process in the first place.

Eh. Gmail is redesigned from time to time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Completely disagree with the OP.

I have enough scar tissue to believe bad UI or even the one that's not pleasing or inspiring receives lot lower engagement from users than having a clean, snappy and beautiful UI.

The OP's claims can be easily disproved by contradiction. If UI improvements didn't make a difference, A/B testing on designs wouldn't have resulted in massive improvements.

Making design more accessible, and attractive often helps beat the asymptotes in user consumption of a lot of products.

<comment><AUTHOR> UI improvements are good, and fixes when the UI is lacking is encouraged. What I am championing against is redesigns, total redesigns. I feel that improvements should be made in incremental changes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think the article misses the point that many design modifications are micro- optimizations. The entire goal is that the user doesn't notice (cognitively) but is modified in their behavior none the less. These sorts of micro- optimizations frequently made Travelocity hundreds of thousands of dollars when I was their A/B test developer. Adding a phone number to one page added an estimated $3 million in revenue.

<comment><USER24> I don't think that really qualifies as a redesign on the scale the article describes. It sounds like the author is describing a total UI overhaul, not simply modifying one element on one page of the design.

<comment><USER25> The way I read the article, it said that none of this stuff was worth doing -- just get it barely usable and then stop making changes. But it clearly is worth doing based on A/B testing and real, measured results. When millions of people are using your site, even micro-optimizations are worth doing.

<comment><USER26> They specifically mention repositioning the logout button to make it more accessible. That sounds like a micro-optimization.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I think the author is mostly saying that, unless you site is horridly designed, that incremental updates where required can have just as much impact on the bottom line as complete sitewide redesigns, especially when the point of new design is often misguided, i.e. simply trying to keep up with the latest design trends.

</comment><comment><USER28> Couldn't agree more. Jira, bitbucket, outlook, gmail and the list goes on and on. The really jarring redesigns are literally maddening and make me angry. They are so shitty. The other designs are basically the same design with more whitespace. Either way, the app doesn't benefit and at best, you're angering users. If I could stop using jira or Bitbucket, I would just for their shitty UIs. Things that used to be one click or two now take many clicks or are simply no longer doable. The UIs are not intuitive. The shitty designers never design things properly so when I have two windows side by side, they still put two or three menu bars on the left side, leaving no space for the actual content. The redesigns are shit and clearly, they are done too appeal to some dumb ass hipster aesthetic of the designers who clearly don't understand anything about user experience or usability. Just fucking stop before all your users leave.

<comment><USER8> All the ones you named are websites, and user stylesheets are a thing, so if you're sufficiently incensed by a site you're forced to use, you can apply your own CSS to fix what can be fixed relatively easily; increasing contrast, changing colours, and adding borders/delimiting lines is what I most often use it for.

Chances are you're not the only one hating the changes, so sharing your CSS with coworkers (or even the Internet if it's a public site) is also a good idea. I've "converted"/educated a few coworkers just by them noticing "how did you get it to look like that?"

(Sending my CSS back to the original site's owners has resulted in everything from threats of legal action to some actual changes in the right direction.)

<comment><USER28> CSS will bring back the missing buttons? It'll magically show the information that was there before? What is this CSS you speak of? The user experience can't be fixed by CSS. Maybe I can hide that annoying menu, true. Then I can't do any of the common activities within it. I'm not sure you understand what user experience is or the limitations of CSS.

<comment><USER8> I did imply not everything could be fixed by CSS, but it is very useful for adjusting font sizes, spacing, and colours to something more sane.

<comment><USER28> None of those things are actual UX problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> yoz-y My main objection would be to the 95% number which was pulled out of nowhere. Redesigns for a redesigns case are bad (Dropbox), sometimes they are done not- so-well but for very good reasons (Slack) and sometimes they are pretty much necessary to keep people in (Apple Watch UI between 1.0 and 3.0).

> People use applications because of their purpose, not because it is pleasing > to the eye.

Maaybe? But people will definitely avoid your application if it is too ugly. Many Mac users will generally avoid applications that are not well integrated in the OS. Personally I spent quite some time finding alternatives to applications that were very useful that I did not find pleasing to the eye (Audacity, PS3 Media Server, GIMP). If you need to work with something a lot, you absolutely prefer for it to be pleasing to look at.

</comment><comment><USER29> I tend to agree. Google supposedly has an army of good designers, with their constant redesigns, my first thoughts are always that I wish the redesign never happens, but later because I stick to it, I get used to it so that I dislike it a little less until next redesign happens.

Let's face it. People aren't really that welcoming towards redesign, if given a choice, they probably would choose to have the business as usual. And aesthetics matters only to certain degree, and if it stands out it becomes distracting. I wish people consider that familiarity should be an important factor in considering whether to change UI or not, UI can be good if they choose to look unimpressive, for utilities it might be better that way.

And real world appliance really changes the design so dracstically as software, a micro-oven looks like a micro-oven, a Coca-Cola can looks like the same like forever. A car always has 4 wheels. Why on earth software just changes the information flow randomly just because they can? This doesn't make sense.

<comment><USER30> This happened to me with the recent change with Gmail. I was quite sad to see the loss of UI simplicity when they tweaked the layout and aesthetics.

I loved their previous iteration because things moved quickly. I'm surprised with the redesign since, when you log in, there's a bit of a loading delay. But what am I going to do? I reminisce about the old version and adapt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> > UI redesigns, in my opinion, are a waste of time 95% of the time.

Probably 90% of everything is a waste of time, the trick is knowing in advance which 10% won't be. I don't really disagree with the overall premise of the article though.

</comment><comment><USER32> The OP article is criticism-lite, but the topic is never more important with multi-platform phone, tablet, and web development. I believe we're post App- Gold-Rush era. You're not so excited anymore to run off and join a startup and leave a good paying job at a steady corporate gig. In that setting who's going to rock the boat? Who's going to stand up and question, Is this really the right direction? Everyone is getting paid.

Currently my own whipping post example is the smart phone app, Transit [1]. A redesign last fall hobbled several key features,

\- transit line on-time status only shows when there is a problem, but it's reassuring to see the status has updated and is OK.

\- map scrolling is key for wayfinding, now only half of the screen real estate is scrollable before you accidentally cancel your line selection, and exit the screen.

These fracking UI changes are worse than useless, and just the few that come to mind. What they should have done was tackle real issues,

\- Chaining transfers--How long is the wait for my next connection at a future destination? Currently, the future destination shows the connection clock from _now_, and now when I get there. I can think of at least 3 reasons why this is important.

\- In a loop line, you can't see the next bus when you're at the start/end. During commute times on the busiest lines delays have a ripple effect. The schedule is blown. How long is the wait? Can I do something else while I wait?

I was an avid evangelist for Transit. Now, I just wish a competitor would hit the scene and bury that turd.

[1]: [https://transitapp.com/](https://transitapp.com/)

<comment><USER33> Do you think they prioritized the newest users/prospects versus power users?

<comment><USER32> I don't imagine excuses for bad business decisions--There's really no point to adding a layer of rationality on top of an all too common failure.

This isn't a "game". I don't believe there are different levels of 'user'. This platform brings together your real-time geo-position, published maps, published transit schedules, multiple transit systems, and real-time system updates together. It's all there and all useful for every user from the very start.

The failure in the redesign is to leave the 'page' or 'modal' UX behind in favor of this hybrid/gesture controlled marble on maze UX.

They hit a home run from the beginning, and fracked it up. What's the 'nature' of a map? It's to be as big as possible, and yet they've layerd the schedule and took 50% of the screen away from the map.

If there's a difference among users, it's found when you live in a transit- rich community, like I do in NYC Metro (and you need a good app like Transit was). If you live in the sticks and there's only one line, then you open the app, check the schedule and you're done.

This is why I believe this _criticism_ is so important. I think we need to have a way to articulate these choices. Maybe a critical voice asking _Should we make this UX change at all?_, _Are we staring at our navel?_ Which is to say, in our own little bubble? Are these changes going to improve the software? Or, are we only showing off so we can justify our employment?

If they wanted to do such a radical redesign, why not fork the project? They could capture 'new users' with the Transit Marble Maze app.

<comment><USER33> I wasn't trying to excuse their choices, but learn a bit about this case.

> If there's a difference among users, it's found when you live in a transit- > rich community, like I do in NYC Metro

Thanks, this is the context I was interested in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> UI - or any other design is _not_ primarily about aesthetics. Where the author says, "You don't use Google maps because it looks nice, you use it because it tells you where to go", he's right, but it took good design to make you be able to use maps and to get value from the increasing amount and level of complexity of info therein.

That all said, I agree with him that many UI redesigns are pointless and expensive. Those tend to be the ones that don't bring new value to the user - just try to do the same old thing in a "modern" or (yikes - I hate this word) " _fresh_ " way.

Good design of anything is hard, UI's are no exception. When you go beyond UI to uX, you enter the world of motivation, intent, expectations, and other emotional fuzziness. The design job gets harder by 10 or 100x. But it's there that you find the good reasons to consider a UI redesign.

</comment><comment><USER35> > ... no one is raving about how a redesign makes the application any better.

Let's invert that then. Go and grab a ten year old copy of Gmail, Google maps or Facebook from the Wayback machine and tell users that's what they are going to get. All of a sudden they will be really appreciative of those incremental design changes.

<comment><USER36> Those three choices are interesting because I would absolutely take the designs of those sites from 10 years ago over the current ones.

<comment><USER37> Google Maps I can't agree with you on...but Gmail and Facebook, certainly.

<comment><USER35> If Facebook shipped this [1] tomorrow, you don't think people would be up in arms?

1: [https://encrypted- tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcSNUb...](https://encrypted- tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcSNUbSjo1hpdamQyyNjENMEUY1Au8y7yZe5D4v9HNG-8XI9Mk3L)

<comment><USER38> ... which one's supposed to be bad? If the website'd[0] had a UI similar to the left back when I briefly tried it in ~2010, I might've stuck around. I stopped using it after a couple weeks because I couldn't figure out where anything was, or where anything I posted was going to "go".

In terms of mobile UI, left looks like it'd let me answer the question "why's my badge have a number on it?" very efficiently, and to prioritize badge- number-dropping activities by category, which is great.

[EDIT] [0] Yes I know this is a mobile UI, not the desktop website, I'm saying left is clearer than the website was and, from what I see of it on other people's screens, is.

[EDIT AGAIN] I'd buy the argument that right has higher "engagement", though.

[ONE MORE TIME] man I shouldn't post pre-coffee. I initially took this to be old-left-new-right which is obviously wrong. Basic point stands, I don't get what's wrong with this _as a user_ though it may well _make metrics worse_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> This reminds me of the old cliché about advertising. 95% of advertising doesn't work, but the problem is knowing _which_ 95%…

Similarly, even granting the author's point that most UI redesigns are misguided, the fact remains that we do want the products we use to somehow improve over time…

</comment><comment><USER40> Something that I've been thinking about, perhaps because I'm a long time Reddit user, is how often when it comes to redesigns the motivations of those people funding and making the decisions do not actually have the interests of the existing users as their focus.

</comment><comment><USER41> this reads like someone who hasn't done a lot of front end work, which to his credit, he admits upfront. design should be like all other forms of code development: iterative and agile.

<comment><AUTHOR> I try not to stir trouble and be honest as I write :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Despite my negative comment in another top level post, I actually resonate really well with this. I just got the "try the new twitter" icon. It immediately made me groan. Amusingly, if they hadn't asked, I probably wouldn't have really noticed.

Which is kind of the point. If you notice the modernization of something under you, it will annoy you. We have grown to not trust things that change. To the point that the appearance of stability is actually hugely important.

</comment><comment><USER42> Great UI is extremely valuable. The challenge is that one of the qualities of a great UI is that it's stable.

The UI is the interface between your app and the customer. It's like an API. No one arbitrarily changes APIs and expects it to go well. But, perhaps because people are slightly more adaptable than code, UI gets changed without warning or choice all the time. This is a unilateral break in the implicit contract that we make with users. Of course people complain!

<comment><USER42> When considering UI changes, it's worth thinking how people use your app. Some apps are used only occasionally, so that effectively everyone is a beginner every time. In this case, there's room for rapid UI evolution and improvement.

Other apps are deeper and more feature rich and will be used by a given person for hours each day. You'll have to be very careful in changing these apps if you don't want irate users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> gimp has a horrible UI. If someone tweaks it to act more like Photoshop, I would use it as a PS replacement.

The blur filter in GIMP is almost indistinguishable from the blur filter in PS.

<comment><USER44> I started with Gimp and then moved on to other programs. I was actually mad when Gimp 2.x came out, as it changed the UI and most importantly all the keybindings in incompatible ways.

For me it's exactly the opposite, and I get pissed every time I hear that. Want PS? Keep using it.

I actually found Photoshop one of the worst UIs I ever tried circa ~2005 (I no longer do a lot of photo editing).

It reminds me so much of Autodesk's "Autocad" popularity and market penetration it's saddening (hint: autocad is shit too).

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> A redesign should be never about yourself but about your users only. The raison d'être of the UI is not representation.

If you're still eager to do a periodical redesign, keep it to your error pages. So did I, just today [0]. This way, the web may also stay a fun place, full of potential discoveries.

[0] [https://www.masswerk.at/404](https://www.masswerk.at/404)

</comment><comment><USER46> > _The people who use your application, don 't like change. They like to go on > autopilot after they've learned something, it's just plain easier for them._

This oft repeated quote. The thing is if this was the case we wouldn't have moved beyond command line interface. That was hands down the most performant user interface design for the people who were in the know.

But not so for new users and when new commands needed to be introduced.

</comment><comment><USER47> Redesigns usually improve the "wow"-factor - great for sales demos. They are often detrimental to actual use of N hours per week.

</comment><comment><USER48> It does seem like most of the UI books I read (I'm UI tone deaf) seem to suggest that I should always assume my users are 10x stupider than I think they are. I think "Don't make me think" had a lot of that. Then there are articles about how flat design is awful and we should all stick to what users already know and make sure that when they see a button they know it's a button and stuff.

This seems counter to my experience, which is that a redesign is usually like christmas morning. designs just get so stale after awhile, and good UX is literally like art you can touch (virtually). I find myself wanting to go to websites and use products simply because they have good UIs. That's one reason why I HATE AWS. They have the worst UI (and it's gotten a LOT better since I started using it). Google's consistent material design is so clean and fresh. Digital Ocean's is like next level for me.

<comment><USER49> Ironic that you mention material design and DO as prime examples of good UI when any UX designer who has to deal with the blunders of those two things will tell you that both are examples of horrible UX/UI.

I call this me-ism. Because I think it's good, it must be good. Because the company I like is doing it, it must be doing it right. What most people who gripe about design & UI do not seem to understand is that those decisions were made for a reason - usually to bring some sort of value to the table not for the sake of making things look clean and fresh.

Another comment here shows some ignorance too by saying that "I was lead to believe that its best to assume users are dumb, but my experience is on the contrary". This comment completely misses the point that users of one app/website will behave differently from users of another app/website and what works for one may not work for the other. At the end of the day there is a business being ran and money being made - the design decisions they make typically impacts their bottom line (for the better) or the design would have been reverted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Worst thing is coupling UI redesign with changing the set of features.

First, you lose a familiar interface and you don't know where to find even the existing features. Then you realise that the feature you're looking for is no longer there. Maybe it will be brought back online later or will be replaced by another, "better", feature later.

UI redesigns are sometimes just plain unavoidable but they should be done separately from other changes. Much like you want to commit the code reformatting change separate from functional changes so you know you're just changing whitespace basically and there's nothing that should break your codebase.

As a user I can only absorb a certain amount of change at a time: I can learn a new UI if I know I'll find the familiar pieces somewhere in there. And I can accept new features or old ones being changed to different ones if I know the UI will still be the same.

</comment><comment><USER51> There's so much this article misses: \- most large companies a/b test their redesigns. If your company isn't big enough (for the tools or traffic needed to a/b test), then yeah, you're left to judgment calls. Really good a/b tests will actually capture things like "existing users initially hate it but eventually end up using the product more" \- a lot of UI redesigns are driven by effect on new users, which might be more important to the company. Think about it, if you're already using the product, you probably don't care what it looks like too much (and might be annoyed if it changes). For new users, anesthetics leave a lasting first impression.

Yes, at many small companies without data, redesigns can be a waste of time and even harmful. But that doesn't mean they should always be avoided.

</comment><comment><USER52> Most redesigns make things worse because anything re-designed in the last 10 years has been redesigned for computer interfaces that are small, have bad mechanical user interfaces, and can't even hold open a TCP connection. If it isn't clear, I'm talking about smart phones.

</comment><comment><USER53> I don't think Instagram, one of the most used software user interfaces think redesigns are a waste of time, they redesigned to be similar to Snapchat and was able to create a new user experience that engaged users and was able to be monetized efficiently through advertisements

</comment><comment><USER54> I have some sympathy with this article. I work in enterprise systems, and nice looking UI helps people learn the first time... Then they really want it to stay exactly the same for years in end. Same tab order, same menus, exactly the same.

</comment><comment><USER55> Maybe they're a waste of time with apps, as the screen/window is small (ie, what's there to change?). On the other hand, people become bored by stale/outdated interfaces and move on. Also, times/trends change and there's usually a need to keep up. Enterprise software and other gluts of sh*t may not need the same updates and are usually terrible from the beginning.

If a redesign is done without attention to what's necessary, then it could also be a waste of time. It's especially bad if the newer design is worse and/or more alienating, as that tends to results in a loss of users.

</comment><comment><USER56> Most redesigns have a goal. More ads, more cross-selling, better engagement are common metrics. Redesigns are very rarely done just to make a site "look better", they're done with some other goal in mind.

</comment><comment><USER57> Redesign is not just about visuals. If you change a few gradients/hues and add/remove rounded corners depending on the latest web fashion, then definitely you're wasting time and money - unfortunately, that's very common patter with companies, specially larger brands. However improving usability of the UI based on some actual metrics and research is definitely never a waste of time. In my experience absolutely every new app needs at least a few UX upgrades after some time, since it's impossible to get every detail of the UI design right from the first go.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm in favor of UX upgrades as you say, but not total redesigns. Incremental improvements are best in my opinion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Bad design choices are a waste of time. Good ones are necessary. from an article about TOR as a great example:

Tor needs a lot of users to create anonymity, if Tor was hard to use new users wouldn't adopt it so quickly. Because new users won't adopt it, Tor becomes less anonymous. By this reasoning it is easy to see that usability isn't just a design choice of Tor but a security requirement to make Tor more secure. [https://skerritt.blog/how-does-tor-really-work/](https://skerritt.blog/how- does-tor-really-work/)

</comment><comment><USER58> I don't know about the designers, they are surely a big waste of my time as a user. Google is particularly guilty of this (or i just use their products more). Every new UI feels slower, and i m particularly aggravated by the sloppily animated "cards" and esp. the progress bars that are not even progressing, they re just looping. Adsense is much much worse than it used to be, buttons are not even responsive (because wait, animations haven't finished yet). I don't know why everybody is doing it, but it seems like a casualty of an echo chamber .

</comment><comment><USER59> If you think that design/redesign is a waste of time, a good exercise would be to try and understand why fashion constantly evolves, ie why you no longer see people in bellbottoms and corsets.

<comment><AUTHOR> I value design, like I pointed out earlier. What I find lacking in value are total redesigns where there isn't concrete reasons why the redesign should take place. For what basis is the redesign on? It "feels" better?

I'd be more comfortable with a more complete reason.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> I think the 80/20 rule applies when it comes to mature products. 20% of redesign is useful and make products better. 80% are neutral at best, and breaking at worst.

If it's not broken, don't fix it.

[https://www.alexkras.com/death-by-redesign/](https://www.alexkras.com/death- by-redesign/)

</comment><comment><USER61> Kept waiting to see where the data would come in and it never did. This is entirely data-free conjecture. This is the engineering equivalent of an article calling out a particular medicine as being ineffective purely on the basis of "I feel like it doesn't do anything so people should stop taking it".

<comment><AUTHOR> It is completely my opinion yes, and since I primarily work (and enjoy back- end work), this is a view from the other side of the office.

I do feel there are valid points but no, I didn't collect any data on this post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> A lot of the debate in this thread seems to be conflating UI redesigns with UX redesigns.

A pure UI redesign inherently should not change the overall user experience. So yes, one could argue it _is_ a waste of time, because it has no impact on the user's experience of the product.

UI is superficial, by design (heh).

</comment><comment><USER63> Redesigns are not just about a fresh look and feel. Features get added, some get removed. New user cohorts join in. Improvements in devices enable new capabilities. Changes in system software enable new ways of interaction. Of course, over time, a redesign becomes necessary.

</comment><comment><USER64> One of the best articles ever on HN. I agree with you 100%! I've often thought this with web pages or apps with a new design. Most of the time the new one has only 80% of the functionality the old design had. I stopped updating most apps on my phone because of that.

</comment><comment><USER65> I think UI's are the main factor in the average user's perception of quality. While re-designs may be annoying to old users, they're necessary to avoid potential new users thinking the product is outdated. The UI should always look brand new.

</comment><comment><USER66> There is a difference between UI and UX. The UI can stay static if the UX does the job. But if the UX isn't good, then you absolutely need a re-design. UI often comes with that re-design, but if that is all you notice, you are missing the point.

</comment><comment><USER67> +1 ..I've been buying coffee recently from 7-11 in the morning, and I noticed there credit card swiper UI. When I use my debit card, ive always used 'credit' not debit, and im sure a huge % of people do the same, and here are the steps... Swipe card Is this a debit card? Y/N I Click No Do you want cash back? Y/N I Click No Then you must click cancel to run to bring up credit option ( but no instructions to do so) Then click credit, then click okay to the amount. Then its finally completes the purchase.. now each step takes a few seconds after each click, and you must use there stylus because just usingyour fingers wont work! I know this is a random comment, but UI related and ivd just noticed this recently, every 711 here on long island has the same machines! It doesnt seem like alot of steps but i bet the lines would move alot faster if they tweaked the UI a tiny bit!

</comment><comment><USER68> It depends. Pick an old movie and see what the actors wore. They wore the same style of suit but they didn't wore the same style of casual wear.

Google search page doesn't change much, but online bank UI has improved a lots.

</comment><comment><USER69> Well, look at all of the UI redesigns on HN, and that site is good! Oh, wait...

</comment><comment><USER70> It's funny he used the BMO website redesign as an example because I find that to be one of the best redesigns I have seen in a while, both from a UI and UX perspective. Their old one was absolutely awful

<comment><AUTHOR> I did not like how I had to re-learn where everything was! :(

Your brain is more nimble than mine, cheers to you! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> 99% of the time, yes, except when no. [http://tonsky.me/blog/github- redesign/](http://tonsky.me/blog/github-redesign/)

</comment><comment><USER72> The entire article can be summarized in one line.

> The only time a UI should be updated is if it impacts the ability of a user > to actually use your application.

Amen. Words that could never be more true.

</comment><comment><USER73> I am working in a startup and can definitely say that aesthetically better and modern designs help attract better talent (specifically techies). People judge by the looks.

</comment><comment><USER74> Most UI redesigns I've seen happened because people (usually leaders) get tired of the old design and want visible progress (two really bad reasons for a redesign)

</comment><comment><USER75> The new Google Calendar is pretty sweet though, especially the day view when you have multiple calendars displayed

</comment><comment><USER76> something has changed with the HN ranking algorithm lately, no? this is not an interesting article.

<comment><USER77> I'd agree that it's not a good article. But it is "interesting" in that the topic of UX redesign is very relevant to the software field.

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> I backend guy talking about frontend.

<comment><AUTHOR> It helps at the very least to learn another's perspective. Again I'm not calling out front-end designers, nor do I feel their work is not valuable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> What are you basing your assertion off of?

Because I've got mountains of A/B tests that validate the UX improvements.

</comment><comment><USER80> Gotta increase GDP somehow.

</comment><comment><USER81> I find the best UI designs to be a blank canvas that you can do whatever you like within, in the way that you would like to do it, going three decades back and three decades forward.

Whether it was the Classic Macintosh, or Plan 9, your favorite Lisp machine, or a UNIX Workstation, or the Creative Cloud suite: the best and most productive UI is part of an integrated heuristic system intentionally designed to _enable_ new capabilities while maintaining an honest commitment to its own design traditions.

I think in UNIX culture, you can call it the Principle of Least Surprise, or maybe that was the Macintosh? Either way, any good System is going to follow that principle to some degree.

If you are a writer, there are many different ways you can go about writing as a profession. You can go for the old pen and paper, a UI that has served writers for millennia. You can opt for a typewriter, and typewriters are still around and _work_. You can customize your emacs environment to the Nth degree and probably port it forward to every new laptop you buy until the day you die. Maybe you have a PC from the 80s you run WordStar on and pump out best selling novels about once or twice a decade. Or you can hop onto this invite- only hype train called Writely and get to work there, and wakeup one morning to find it is now called Google Docs, everything changed and nothing makes sense. Maybe tomorrow Google Docs will be something else. Or if you have it there _anyway_ , you might even opt to write in Mathematica or Microsoft Excel or OmniOutliner or Notepad, rather than install yet another application, this one styling itself as a "word processor". All you need is a place to put words where you can change them.

It isn't the _system_ that is special. It isn't the _tool_ that is cool. All that matters is the one using the tool, and all the mind behind the matter manipulating the tool really wants to do is whatever _thing_ they were originally using it to do in the first place.

Does that mean software shouldn't have new capabilities? Absolutely they should! So long as they are there to serve the users, and you don't plan to yank the rug out from under them. That means capabilities should be added judiciously and with intent. Improvements made where there is room for improvement. UI changes made to accommodate the addition of these new capabilities, within a metaphorical structure that the user can mentally place it within.

"Less is more". Applied judiciously, and conscientiously with empathy towards your users, those three words might save you and them a lot of bother. Applied without constraint or concern for your users, those three words are just a curse as you take away from your users and hand wave their concerns because you launched a feature too soon or in a slipshod manner and you suddenly have commitment issues.

This perhaps turned into something of a rant. I often find the software I am most delighted to use is the kind that looks the same as it did 10 years ago, give or take some minute differences. The software I am never delighted to use is the kind that changed how it worked because some designer got their hands on it in the last 10 years and broke a usage pattern they didn't think was important, _my_ usage pattern incidentally, and most of those changes were not so much driven by technological changes, but by whatever flavor of the day weed was making its way through the UI/UX world that month. My only defense against their whims seems to be to use tools I have the source for and if it doesn't exist in that form yet, make it myself.

</comment><comment><USER82> THANK YOU

#sent from my vim

</comment><comment><USER83> Ui redesigns usually throw away user experience. Users who do not recognize your software and its workflow anymore can easily converted to another more traditional product. So a ui redesign is a gift for competitors.

But sometimes, there is no real ui, just a slum of drop down options where all the options are crammed into - alphabetical or sorted by a bad Fridays mood.

Those that will tell you that these uis are okay, are usually power users who do not use the ui but hotkeys. Usually those powerusers do not use other products but recommend their own mess. (blender/gimp)

This is what ui designers are here for, if you're a developer, you are not there audience and most of the time you might even be a bad influence, due to your lack of knowledge on the ui conventions of the rest of the world.

</comment><comment><USER84> This is especially super-double-extra true if your name is Microsoft. Because everything that company has redesigned has become harder to use every time they touch it. Remember what happened after MS acquired Skype and Skype became unusable? Or how people in the business world routinely have to pay for expensive training courses to learn where Microsoft put all the functionality in the latest twisting of Office? Good heavens, please, stop. (Dishonorable mention to Google re: Gmail.)

<comment><USER85> All I will say is I like their current reboot of office365 Outlook webmail

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> We've been building out a lot of the foundational technology on EOS. It's part of our roadmap for 2019 to hire some Kotlin/Android developers.

If you're interested in EOS/Blockchain/Cryptography/Mobile, we should have a chat.

[https://get-scatter.com/careers](https://get-scatter.com/careers)</comment>


Eavesdropping on GSM Calls - <AUTHOR> http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/01/eavesdropping_o_5.html <comment><USER2> Other articles about GSM encryption being cracked haven't made it clear that the attack is essentially a known-plaintext one, which had me scratching my head about how you could construct a rainbow table for a stream cipher. Okay, not curious enough to do follow-up research, but still.

I assume the "hash" chain for the tables is generated by picking a random key to seed the cipher, advancing it to the position of the known plaintext, XORing with said plaintext, and using the ciphertext as the next element's key. (or at least using it to derive the next key) Unless I've missed something, the fact that it's a stream cipher seems to make it easier to target specific known bits, not necessarily whole bytes.

</comment><comment> mike-cardwell US Android users can try out the free RedPhone app from Whisper Systems for end-to-end encrypted phone calls:

<http://whispersys.com/>

Check out TextSecure whilst you're there if you want to protect your SMS storage and transmission with public key encryption.

<comment><USER3> Is this open source? How do we know it's encrypted?

<comment> mike-cardwell They say they're going to make the source available soon:

<http://www.whispersys.com/support.html#8>

Moxie Marlinspike is the guy behind it, and he has a pretty good reputation. But yeah, you might want to wait until the source is available and compile your own.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> From a comment on his blog:

      Wasn't that long ago (j10 years?) that only governments and large businesses could do that.
      Which sort of implies that some of them probably were.

Painful to see that kind of logic applied.

<comment><USER5> Governments can just take control of the ground stations - much easier that way.

<comment><USER6> In their own country, they can.

To eavesdrop in a foreign country, they'll have to purchase the commercial GSM sniffing equipment.</comment></comment></comment>