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Comment by ceol | Hacker News Reader

I don't think we have enough comments complaining about its web design. We probably need a few hundred more!

I get that moaning about its design lets you feel smart by participating in the discussion without actually contributing anything meaningful, but at least just upvote a single person for it instead of posting the same damn comment over and over again.

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I like that it seems as open and adaptable as they could possibly make it while also keeping it simple. It would be interesting to see just how rugged it is. I'd also like to see how this could be used in an environment that requires a little less "ruggedness", like a coffee shop or a community board room.

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|I don't think we have enough comments complaining about its web design

I think the issue here, and we definitely saw this a ton with that Sailfish OS or whatever phone recently (probably fitting that I can't remember what it's called) is with some of these product launches, there is an extremely vague title submitted to HN that gets voted up to the top. There is something alluring about seeing that the community has voted this new thing, whatever it is, as the most important item of the moment. And when we get to the website, we are disappointed and/or annoyed when we can't figure out what exactly this thing is or why it was voted to the top of HN. So we talk about our experience on the website itself, as if it had been presented as a design critique.

It was pretty easy to figure out exactly what this was. It just wasn't handed to you like the majority of HN wants. All of the information was there, though. It just required you to gasp click something.

The problem with all of those "design critiques" (if they could even be called that) is they derail any discussion about the product itself. As of this comment, three of the top four comments are complaining about the design or structure of the website, with the fourth being mine. You have to scroll halfway down the page to get to anyone talking about the actual product. That's shameful.

Honestly, I would complain about the web design, because until I came here and read the comments, I couldn't figure out what a BRCK actually was, or did.

Yeah, while we probably don't need a multitude of threads, the complaining is warranted. I spent 20s there until deciding to check the comments so someone can tell me what it is.

complaining about its web design

Are you ruling out constructive feedback? The difference between subtle, obscure, and obtuse design is not always evident to the designers (or creative teams directing them). Think of what horrors people used to do in the (low-bandwidth) Flash era.

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