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Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

I liked this article, but I thought the Delete button example with "maximum juice" was a very poor user experience. When you just click the button (without holding), it feels like it's broken - you just see a teeny bit of red border to the left but nothing happens. It's totally non-obvious that you're supposed to hold the delete button.

That's what kinda gets me about UX/UI design articles - often times I think it's good advice, but then the examples on the page just seem obviously bad to me. It reminded me of Jakob Nielsen's website from about a decade or so ago. Here was one of the most famous UX researchers in the world, and I often thought he gave great advice, but his personal website was just god-awful ugly. And not ugly in a "lacking ornamentations but providing great usability" way (I'd probably put HN's design in that bucket), but just in a "this site is really ugly" way.

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> I liked this article, but I thought the Delete button example with "maximum juice" was a very poor user experience.

This is a fair point, but I got the impression that the Delete button in question wasn't meant to say "here's how to make a Delete button better", but rather "here's what I'm talking about when I use this term that might be unfamiliar". The elevator music on the "max juice" setting was pretty clearly tongue-in-cheek.

Having examples that start at 0% usage of the concept and go all the way to 200% usage makes it more clear what it actually is.

Yes, I hate that in games. I'd rather have a second button show up that I can quickly click again. And just personal feeling but the time you need to hold it for is always too long.

The sounds is also too much. I don't want sound from every button I click. The sound from the mouse or touchpad is already enough.

I don't mind that when they do it right and have a thing pop-up that says "HOLD X" and then a bar fills in around the X button. The problem really becomes when they want you to "HOLD X" but they don't give any indication that you need to hold it.

I hate any design that forces me to wait any amount of time. I could be another step forward if convenient enough, but no... I had to wait the hardcoded seconds. There's never a valid amount of seconds to wait to indicate something that will make everyone happy. Just skip the wait, let the user decide its own pace to consume the ui.

Same! However, popular platforms also have to account for older or disabled users, who often are unable to click buttons fast enough. Or when they do, hold them down for too long with unpleasant results.

I think waiting can be used effectively for actions that are not common and you want the user to take a little time to consider the choice. I think it’s used badly more often that well, but it sometimes is used well. In games for example, a destructive action like refunding a point that’s earned and the refund costs earning time. Something you do sometimes, costs a little effort, but doesn’t warrant a confirmation button.

In Returnal game they had to add an option for disabling hold for item pickup. In game you can easily die (from laser traps) while holding button.

When you need to explain to the user how a UI element works with words, "hold to delete" in this particular example, you've already failed. Also, long-clicking isn't really a thing on desktop.

Usability and prettiness are largely orthogonal though. Sites like Craigslist have always been praised for their usability, despite not being pretty.

It also isn't very mobile friendly. Your finger covers the majority of effects and status changes.

On mobile you can also accidentally drag the button away when it's juiced. Be careful when you are juicing your buttons!

And the zero-juice still had juice: the button changes on click, which isn't strictly necessary.

I’m getting increasingly confused with these modern, flat UIs on touch screens with near zero levels of juice. Most recently, I’ve noticed the HBO Max app gives no indication that the play button has been pressed. When using a Chromecast, the wait to see if the button press registered is interminable (okay, ~10 seconds). It’s enough to make me pine for the consistent, discoverable, butt-ugly UIs of Windows 95.

Yea, and those toggles with icons that when you click the button turn from "filled in" to "maybe filled in?" and then you can't tell if your toggle is on or off. Alternately, the background of the icon is like dark blue, then the "ON" color for the icon foreground is off-white, and the "OFF" color for it is light-grey. I can't always tell which is on and which is off!

Just give me a thing that looks like an actual switch that moves left/right or up/down and turns a bright color when it's ON (color can vary for cultural representation of ON or whatever) and becomes dark grey and clearly OFF when it's untoggled.

the delete button example is clearly in jest as a way of exemplifying through exaggeration what they author meant

Absolutely agree with this.

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