Grumpy Website

nikitonsky: Anonymous submission. This is worse than I could ever imagine. Original text follows:

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Your bank re-works their website. Here's what you have to do to log in:

- Use existing username + password: prompt “activate your account!”

- Enter name, birthdate, email, and... member number?

- Dig around files. Member number is not printed on card, not on checks.

- Login page has a button: “find member number” Fine, I'll use that.

- Button is JS that takes you to a new domain. No longer the bank's website!

- Url looks like <30 random chars>.my.site.com. Had to double-check—this looks malicious. It was not.

- Checkbox: “are you an individual”? Yes??? Continue.

- Enter: name, birthdate, email, FULL SSN (wtf?! remember, we are now on a third-party site)

- Do you get your member number now? Of course not!

- You get to meet ANA instead, and must ASK A CHATBOT to parrot your member number. (screenshots)

- Acquire member number, can finally log in.

I hope my SSN didn't make it into the chatbot's context.

#SignIn #Redesign #Bank #Chatbot #AI

nikitonsky: 1. I see a control (chevron in this case)

2. I start moving my mouse towards it, planning to use

3. I finally reach it. It was hard, because it is small

So why, at the moment when I finally there, would you replace it with an entirely different one? What do you think I was moving towards? How am I supposed to know?

Thanks Michaela for the video

#Dropdown #Hover #Zoom

nikitonsky: You are not allowed to close this popup until May 31

Thanks Fuchen for the video

#Google #GooglePhotos #Popup #Tooltip #Close

nikitonsky: Okay this deserves to be called out. Over a year ago? For both 2015, 2018 and 2021? How is this helpful???

JUST SHOW THE ACTUAL DATE!!!

What are you afraid of anyways? That users don’t know numbers?

Thanks Daniel for reporting this.

#StackOverflow #Dates

nikitonsky: I can finally articulate why I don’t like subscribe forms in the middle of an article: they invade the content space.

Yes, modern web is full of advertisements, self-promotion, branding, regulatory banners and other “product techniques”. Such is life. Most of them occupy their own space. Banners are on different layer. Marketing is usually before or after, or always visible on the side.

But inline subscribe forms are different. They live inside the text itself, and that pisses me off. You have no right! A person is talking to me, and you dare interrupt our dialogue? Get off our lawn!

#Medium #Subscribe

nikitonsky: Pro tip: instead of writing down a short sentence in full, make it appear on a marquee for dramatic effect

#marquee

nikitonsky: Only you WHAT? Have a name? Form fields need labels, not just values.

#LinkedIn #Form

nikitonsky: Although action vs state is a controversy in _buttons_, it’s not in toggles. Toggle icon should show current state! That’s the way it always worked in physical toggles

#Toggle

nikitonsky: The song is playing, but where’s pause? User can’t press the button they can’t see!

Image from t.me/turulin_log/168

#Hover #Yandex #YandexMusic

(you need to hover the artwork square)

nikitonsky: I tried to copy a link to a shopping list from Ikea web app. Of course, it’s an app, so links don’t work, you need app to “support” copying a link.

For some other reason, Ikea decided that just copying a link is boring, so they implemented system “Share” menu insted.

Now, Share menu would be cool if they had a Copy option. They don’t. You are allowed to send this link to an app but not to clipboard.

Okay, I thought. Let’s choose the least complex option. I choose Notes. Notes is an app for, well, notes. Presumably it should support copy & paste at the very least.

So I go launch Notes app (just to copy a link!). Find the note that was created (and that I will have to delete after I get the link). The link is there in the form of preview. There is no URL, and Copy action in context menu copies page title!

You can, of course, click on a link. That will open a browser, and that browser will load the page (whether you wanted that or not). Hopefully there are no redirects and you can grab the URL from the URL bar.

There were no redirects, so that’s the end of the story. How to copy a link to a page in 2026. Simple building blocks >>> ecosystem

#Apple #macOS #Share #Ikea #Link #Copy

nikitonsky: The fact the I plugged in a physical cable in my physical computer physically is a pretty good indicator that I kinda want to, no? Also that I’ve been using this device for about ten years?

#Apple #macOS #Popup

nikitonsky: There are many ways to illustrate that things belong together or are related to each other. They are commonly known as “gestalt principles” (top)

What happens when you ignore them all? You get a UI that is absolutely undecipherable (bottom). Just one hot mess of everything with no indication what applies to what.

Sometimes minimalism can be too much.

#Gestalt #Minimalism #Sapling #Meta

nikitonsky: Another problem with hover states: buttons are invisible until you hover over them. People can’t click on buttons they can’t see!

For example, here, they put most-used actions directly over each email. Presumably that should help you sort your mail faster, processing some letters without even opening them.

The problem is these buttons are invisible. You see an email that you already know what to do with, but you don’t see the button to do it! First, you have to hover, then locate where the button appears, and only then move again to click it. So it doesn’t help as much as you’d think.

Is it worth the visual noise and flickering that it produces? For me—no.

#Gmail #Hover

nikitonsky: You know what? I’ve had enough. Interactions on hover are fucked up. Being afraid to move my mouse is fucked up. Blocking content with stuff nobody asked for is fucked up. LET ME MOVE MY MOUSE WITHOUT FEAR!

If I’d want to see something I’ll click on it.

#Hover #Tooltip #Popup

nikitonsky: This date of birth calendar let you choose dates multiple years in the future. Just in case

#Calendar #DateOfBirth

nikitonsky: Accessibility as a toggle? Just make it accessible! Always!

Thanks Tony Mottaz for the picture

#accessibility #a11y

nikitonsky: I bought a teapot. It’s not a function of a teapot to show time. This one does, though—it has a computer.

It also completely misunderstands how analog clocks work. In a normal clock, the hour hand moves continuously: it starts at the current hour mark, sits halfway between marks at :30, and nearly reaches the next one by the end. Normally, a clock like this would read 11:53.

But not here! The hour hand stays fixed and only jumps when the time rolls from :59 to :00. So the time displayed here is actually 12:53! Which confuses the hell out of me.

The teapot looks great, though.

#Clock #Watch #Fellow