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Comment by nycdatasci | Hacker News Reader

Who else is missing the forest for the trees? It turns out you have to focus on the merit of the contribution instead of inconsequential UI design optimization.

Didn’t know a simple demo (with disclaimers) from someone who is clearly doing something novel could be commented on this badly.

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I'd argue that if it confuses the user it's not inconsequential. And also, something can be both innovative and at the same time have room for improvement. Companies are literally chasing down user feedback.

A user's feedback is one of the best things that can ever happen to your program, the worst is to never ever get used by anyone, and the second worse is to have the users walk away with no idea why.

>inconsequential UI design optimization

I certainly was confused and had a hard time starting it. If a significant amount of people can't even figure out how to start the game, the problem isn't inconsequential.

I agree with you, but this is distracting from the merits of the demo. Also, this is currently #2 on the front page so clearly many people are able to navigate the demo UI, even if it is suboptimal.

I decided to leave only a secondary comment at the bottom of the thread for the same reason as yours and still got 14 ups (i.e. thanks) in a short time before this branch bubbled up. People definitely get confused and that's worth talking about before the merits of the demo, cause you have to run it somehow. I almost left too thinking it's broken, hugged or something. It is distracting and we'll live through it :)

maybe the bots won't know either

I couldn't get it started for a while because I clicked start to start like it says on the tin

There is bad ui and then there is such bad ui that you lose focus on the actual thing and just wonder how an ui can be so bad. This is the latter.

> inconsequential UI design optimization

I tapped "click to start" on my phone a few times, saw nothing happened and assumed it didn't work on mobile and tapped back to come read the comments. I am neuroatypical, though, maybe I don't count as human.

> I tapped "click to start" on my phone a few times, saw nothing happened and assumed it didn't work on mobile

Same reaction here.

Agreed, I really like this demo, seems like a fun concept that adds some sparkle to a typically mundane thing.

Getting so pedantic about a minor point seems like it does more to stifle creativity and innovation and that it does to help.

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