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Comment by vezycash | Hacker News Reader

Bless you. When I was started using the PC around Win 95, 98 era, tutorials weren't needed to figure out how to use programs. All I had to do was slow down every few seconds to read tool tips. And that was the time when intuitive icons were use.

Now I need tutorials to figure out simple programs - even web apps - frustrating.

And while we're at it, "Tips of the day" on opening a software dripped important knowledge.

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The latest design trend of featureless, flat buttons that don't even have tool-tips is immensely frustrating.

How is anyone supposed to figure this stuff out?

It was hard to write the software, so it must be hard to use it!

What frustrates me to no end is when people have multiple "settings" pages for a single app. One is under a gear, the other one is under three little bullets on a secondary page, another is under your own profile image if you click on it. It's infuriating.

That’s because some settings are commonly changed, whereas others rarely. Cramming every single thing that can be construed as a “setting” into a single page results in a mess.

Also, like anything else in the app, settings are context-dependent. Some are system-wise, whereas others might be user-specific. Therefore, it makes sense to segregate them, IMHO.

> That’s because some settings are commonly changed, whereas others rarely. Cramming every single thing that can be construed as a “setting” into a single page results in a mess.

^apple's iOS

Put all of the settings in the same area, and then segregate them by type in that area. Like how Firefox broadly does it. Every setting should be accessible from one central hub, and you can also make it accessible somewhere else if convenient.

Then within Settings, there should be "advanced settings" or "more..."

Also within Settings, there should be a tab for "system" and "user".

Doesn't mean they can't be logically grouped and presented using different tabs or even links, such as "Global settings", "User settings", etc. They may have different contexts, but they all fall under the purpose/concept of "customization". Discoverable doesn't have to imply unorganized.

Even the HTML level is totally cryptic with framework-generated class attributes, no IDs, no directly event handlers (often all global, using bubbling events), no href= attribute on links. It's a step backwards on all levels.

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