Making it Suck | Hacker News Reader

Making it Suck

cooper.com

63 pointsmgunes31 comments

This technique is also used in software engineering. Apple "makes it suck" when "it" should not be done regularly. Resetting an iPod requires an extremely unintuitive key sequence [0]. Apple doesn't want the user to know an iPod can be reset - resetting is something your PC does when it doesn't work anymore. But occasionally an iPod actually freezes, so they added a complicated sequence to reset the device. Even if you remembered the sequence, you wouldn't want to use it unless you needed it.

Elsewhere, Microsoft intentionally designed Vista's User Access Control dialogs to be irritating [1]. Microsoft wanted applications to stop using Administrator rights for no reason, so every privilege escalation painfully obvious: The screen fades to gray, and an extra dialog appears. Application developers get the same dialogs, and can trim unnecessary escalations out of their code.

[0] http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1320?viewlocale=en_us&loca...

[1] http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/blogs/on_software/1445...

That is a fairly risky move on Microsoft's part but I applaud them for taking it, especially if it works. Every average Windows user I knows notices and complains about the constant UAC popups. What's funny to me is that since 7 has come out, I've heard this a lot less. I believe since 7 got the connotation of being the "good" Windows and Vista the abject failure, people may be cherry picking their complaints to support their assertions that 7 is much better and Windows XP is too old to be a viable alternative.

Microsoft also removed the UAC prompts in some cases in Windows 7: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/02/the-curious-ta...

Windows XP has a broken security model. Age has very little to do with it (aside from the fact that support ends in 2012, so it's only worth using for another couple years.)

Those examples also contains a great warning message:

Making your software suck makes the user hate you (unless you have a reality disorder field).

Making stuff suck to make it better is a pretty brilliant way of looking at things.

Sure, most of us then don't consider the result to suck, but it actually does. And we do this a lot.

Some more examples from the top of my head:

- making landing suck for fun --> skydiving

- making sitting suck --> for better posture

- making reading in light suck [iPad/etc] --> for better contrast

- making privacy suck --> to get 500M users

- making security suck --> to gain a monopoly

Yep, pretty brilliant. Let's all start making things that suck! It's obviously working.

Making music suck --> alternative rock

I think this is related to the "ugly for authenticity" point in the article.

There is a story about German discounter supermarket Aldi: supposedly they use wooden shelves in their markets even though they are more expensive than metal shelves. But the wooden shelves look cheaper, adding to the bargain image of the supermarket. (It could have been vice versa, I don't remember if wood or metal looks cheaper).

Aldi in The Netherlands uses metal shelving, some of it even wire shelving. The place looks like a dump, but the quality of the food and items is generally really good and the price is really low.

Costco and Sam's Club both use exposed plywood at their checkouts where it probably would have been cheaper and easier to use plastic or metal signs.

Noticing that some public seating sucks has opened my eyes to how my municipality regards its residents.

While the sucky seating prevents the behaviour (sleeping) right there, it doesn't address the need/problem at all.

People don't want to sleep in airports, they'd much rather sleep at home, but their connections suck or delays made them miss their connection etc.

So sleeping will happen, but on the floor beside the seats.

Sleeping is a lot easier on a comfy padded bench than it is on the floor, so it happens a lot less than it otherwise would. Preventing sleeping isn't just to the advantage of the people who want to sit down without having a sleeping man taking up four seats, it's also to the advantage of the people who would otherwise be tempted to take a nap that they know they shouldn't (because they need to catch their next flight).

Oh, and some people do want to sleep in airports -- cheapskates who don't want to pay for hotel rooms. Check out "The Budget Traveller's Guide To Sleeping In Airports":

http://www.sleepinginairports.net/

for far more information than you ever wanted about the best places to sleep at airports all around the world.

I'd also imagine more people would avoid sleeping on the floor for cultural reasons too. We perceive someone sleeping on an airport waiting bench to be a weary traveler. Seeing someone sleep on the floor in a very busy place communicates vagrancy.

In terms of design ethics, the airport seats are different from the other examples. "The suck" is forced upon people without choice.

Also means more shopping at Hudson News, Auntie Anne's, and Au Bon Pain.

And less missed flights from oversleeping.

Yeah, I don't think this works.

For example, near where I live, someone recently posted a flier for her house cleaning service. It was on green construction paper and written with a red marker.

My initial thought was 'maybe she'll be cheap' and then 'do I want someone in my house that thinks magic marker is the proper way to make a sign for their business?'

Another example: I buy a LOT of things online. But I only buy from sites that I feel I can trust. That means they don't -look- like a scam, and they look like they know what they're doing. When I go to a site that looks like it came from 1990, I might check prices, but I -never- buy. Instead, I go back to somewhere 'safe' like Amazon and pay a little more.

Most of the examples (shoes, chairs, tables) were designed to prevent or force certain behaviors. They don't 'suck', they 'work' for exactly what they were intended.

I think you miss the point a bit. If making a design look cheap takes away from basic usability, or reflects badly on the company's core competency (your example of the red marker cleaning lady), it's a miss of course. But consider more subtle touches that may seem random to the web site visitor, but make him feel that he's not dealing with a infallible behemoth of a company. I think that definitely can help in establishing some trust when selling something that's differentiated by low price and simplified features, and competing with big brand name alternatives.

I don't think he's missing the point. "Suck" is relative to the user. If your product does exactly what the user and the owner want, it doesn't suck - it rocks. It's an awesome design. Whether it uses Comic Sans and gets snotty designers up in arms is completely irrelevant to its suckage or lack thereof.

Conveying the right expectations is a part of good design. If looking cheap is a selling point, a design that looks expensive is a failure. It's the "nice and clean" design which sucks.

Not that I disagree with the article, but the point of "making something suck" is totally lost if the goal isn't accomplished. His first example is with the Shape-Ups: they don't work. I can't find the specific article for the Skechers shoes but here's one for Nike: http://naturalbias.com/dont-let-reebok-fool-you-shoes-wont-t...

jakevoytko also brought up Vista's UAC dialogs, which I agree is a Good Thing. In my experience though(especially with my younger cousins despite my repeated yelling), they simply log in as admin and bypass the whole thing.

This is a very interesting article and maybe a perfect follow up on this post on Apple's design hegemony: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1762682

The truth is that design is as much for ease and comfort, as it is for differentiation and in that department, there is only one slot for the perfect web site, the rest of us have to stand out!

I like the principle of "making things more difficult" in exercise. It's a major principle of training in martial arts: you spend a lot of time training to do things in ways that are a little more difficult than when you really do them so that you find it easier when you really need to do it.

dude, the point is not to make your design awful. It's to address a specific needs, while ignore what it's not suppose to address. This is the point of good design: focus.

catchy headline, though. :)

Being awful in specific ways can be useful - if your park benches discourage the homeless from sleeping on them, the park as a whole can be more pleasant for the non-homeless visitors.

(Exactly what happens to the homeless is not discussed.)

Are you saying the headline sucked but did a great job at attracting eyes? =)

No, the purpose of the silly silo is to rotate you so quickly that the floor can drop from under you and you stay stuck to the wall. It is AWESOME. :P

Well, that explains why the majority of vendor support systems suck. It certainly discourages me from using them.

He's practising as he preaches by using that font setup.

Can somebody explain to me why fcnfhdn got -3 points here? it's his/her opinion about the article's look which to me is his/her prerogative. it is feedback to the writer about one of the aesthetic element of the piece so it is relevant to the discussion. I'm puzzled at this seemingly random negativity. thanks.

Doesn't contribute anything useful to the discussion. If his intent was actually to provide valuable feedback, he could send the author an email instead of leaving snarky comments on another website.

So the trick is to make it suck by design. But, that opens opportunity for people to make it suck less, right, even if making it suck less is the wrong thing to do?

I think anything sucking is bad. You can have a site that is well-designed to elicit a local flavor, which might mean "suck" to some, but it doesn't suck.

You can have an airport with bad chairs, but a built-in hotel. That wouldn't suck.

I could have worded what I said differently and it would have remained one point.

I guess that in fact proves the point that something can suck and still suck. I guess the problem was that it didn't suck by design.

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