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Comment by yakshaving_jgt | Hacker News Reader

Computer nerds are a special breed, aren't they? I mean, who has the audacity to begin a comment with “Your wife is stupid.” ?!?!?!

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I hear comments like that from a lot of people who aren't "computer nerds." I mean, you did just call a whole class of millions of people "special," and I am pretty sure you didn't mean it positively.

To clarify: I am also a computer nerd.

So am I, and it sounded positive to me.

Subtlety isn't their strong suit but they have a sort-of point. Perhaps he should have just shown her how to use that generic UI element: "click the outer ring to select the colour, click the triangle to select the tone".

By fixing it instead his wife will now be frustrated with every other colour wheel that uses the de facto standard behaviour.

Also, it should only jump/slide to a higher saturation if the saturation is 0, otherwise moving around the colours with a fixed but non-zero saturation wouldn't be possible.

Let's say that, as you say, his wife is now frustrated with every other color wheel that uses the standard behavior. She now feels that his program is distinctly better, at least in regard to color picker behavior than other programs that use what is now considered the standard. This is what I would call a competitive advantage.

If enough users feel the same way as his wife, his competitive advantage will be so much bigger.

This is why some programs are considered easier to use, or even "better" than others. It's the sum of these tiny little behavior differences that add up to a better user experience.

Over time, some of them end up being standard. This is evolution at work.

Except unless most of those users are like his wife, they'll already be familiar with the standard colour wheel. And so if his works differently, they'll be annoyed by it, because goddamnit people we have standard widgets for a reason. And then by pandering to the few, you annoy the many.

Of course, if he can find an unobtrusive tweak (as it seems he did) which maintains the standard behaviour while eliminating a failure mode, then good on him and it deserves to become part of the standard.

If she's going to start using a lot of colour wheels, then she's going to upskill in her domain knowledge[1], and it won't be a problem anymore

[1] never use a big word where a diminutive one shall suffice!

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