The User Is Drunk | Hacker News Reader

The User Is Drunk

theuserisdrunk.com

448 pointsrichardlitt210 comments

Love it -

How about this as an alternative: The user is stuck in a very (corporate/government/sluggish) environment. I will review your site/app from a major bank's / federal government's offices and report back!

Or maybe this: The user is a 65 year old dad whose son doesn't come around often enough to ensure his father hasn't installed countless malware that he blames "internet" on. I will go to my dad's house and use his computer to browse your site/app and report back!

This list really should get longer, HN, I turn to you.

The user is a woman: standard UX testing, only you're forced to confront your own preconceptions for having assumed it would be otherwise.

Citation needed.

> The user is a woman

Nothing changes.

Downvoters are sexist.

The user in a 3rd World country and speaks (reads) very limited English. With 3rd World internet and an $80 computer.

There was a poster a few weeks back on here offering to test your web app on all the major ISPs/carriers in Dar es Salaam: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9133792

Product/service reviews by not-so-tech-oriented parents or retirees could be quite entertaining.

You can't complain when they send you a .docx file.

My school counselor send scholarships in those.

Few years ago asked my mom to send me a few photos from the family christmas - they showed up in my email inserted into a word doc.

This is how some of my clients send me screenshots. :(

This calls for a Clippy comeback. "I see you're trying to put your wedding photos into a document. Do you want me to show you how to use your e-mail client?".

I have one pair of clients who send me wireframes produced in Excel, sometimes with screenshots of LinkedIn (which serves as the inspiration for most of their ideas) pasted in. I find it quite amusing and genuinely like the clients as people, if not really as clients, so I don't have the heart to tell them how silly it is. (I did once try and get them to use Balsamiq, but it didn't end well.)

> I have one pair of clients who send me wireframes produced in Excel

There are no limits to Excel.

I've been sent floor plans in Excel where the spreadsheet has been zoomed out really really far, each square representing less than a square meter in a 20000+ square meter building.

Or banking applications where the terminal input screen (the backend is in COBOL) and batch reports are designed in (and print to) perfect square cell Excel files, one character per cell.

This goes through a very traditional corporate waterfall testing process, and everyone finds it normal.

I've had screenshots inserted into PowerPoint presentations before. That was a low point.

Sadly, I've had that a number of times too. People can be quite inventive, and painful.

The user has cats: what your site looks like just on the corners of the screen (or maybe even one or two corners) while random keys are being pressed by paws.

The classic "How does your site perform if your cat is standing on the F11 key" test

With the standard, classic result: "poorly".

Lately my 3 year old's favourite passtime is to come sit on my lap while I'm trying to work (or surfing HN or whatever) and ask, "Can I press this key?" (Shift? "Uh, ya, sure.") "Can I press this key?" (Ctrl? "Sure.") Some of them make you think though. (F2? What will that do in this context?)

It's not among my most productive times, but it's fun. :)

Your cat is talking at 3 years old? Very advanced!

I told my 2 and a half year old that the "S" key is the snake key, so now he always asks "can i press snake?". He's also found a second snake (the 5 key).

When he finds the '@', he's gonna be delighted!

I let my 3 year old play with my laptop at times, by giving her a full screen xterm running bash in a separate tab on my tiling window manager. She mostly likes to type the letters she knows (her initial, my initial, uncle's initial etc) but it's surprising how often she manages to Ctrl-R or Windows-Shift-3 or some other combo that makes things go haywire.

I hope she's not called Rebecca Mary-Rachel Ford ...

And has a cousin named Star.

Haha! Fortunately, her initials are not all in ASCII, so it's not gone wrong yet. But true, I should set her up with a user account that doesn't have write access on anything.

Install sl(1) and teach your 3 year old to type s l ENTER :-)

Boy, am I going to regret installing this in about an hour.

AWS failed this test hard for me a couple weeks ago. A cat walking across my keyboard terminated an EC2 instance. Lesson learned: no cats on the desk when logged into mission critical software :)

The user is not there - I will review your website as if I had never seen it before and don't intend to

Similar to "The User is Drunk ... with friends, at a bar, not at home on the couch alone on the internet."

How about, user is using a screen reader or some other accessibility aid.

Can you make it more hilarious?

Twitch Plays Navigate This Website Via A Screen Reader?

There was a Twitch Plays Internet Explorer once....

User found you on Google. He intends to visit another 100 sites like yours to find what he wants, and therefore will only spend 3 to 10 seconds on your site.

Funnily enough, this is the least realistic of all these suggestions :)

Same for StumbleUpon, except the visit time is between 0.3 and 1.0 seconds.

The user is drunk and high.

I want cannabis-inspired feedback.

The user is tripping balls on LSD. Will report back on how scary it was, how unexpectedly it worked, how tedious and unappealing the actions to do were, and how the colours sounded like.

The user is a bored developer working in a dead end job, they will either - look at it for 1 second and say "meh", close it and go back to reddit or if they like the colours say "cool" click around a bit for 5 seconds, close it and go back to reddit.

Nah, that one already exists: http://fivesecondtest.com/

( I may be making assumptions about the user base, but I think "bored developer" is a reasonably safe bet...)

My first thought was "this already exists, it's called HN/reddit/producthunt/etc" then I realised most of the times I upvote items just because they have a lot of upvotes/comments.

Side project idea: HN/PH where the ratings are hidden. This way you still get the curation bit, but people are free to make up their own minds about your website.

Reddit already supports this for upvotes; some subs hide the upvote/downvote numbers to prevent exactly this kind of thoughtless pile-on. I wish more did. I think it's usually "for the first <duration> after posting", but I presume it could be made permanent.

There is no user.

The user reviews your site and writes HN-like comments about it.

The user skipped his ADHD meds today.

The comments are suggesting that this is niche. I don't think it's niche at all. On products I've worked on, I've frequently declared that all usability testing should be done when you're exhausted and grumpy. You don't tolerate

    * pointless process,
    * extraneous fields,
    * improperly labeled things,
    * poor ordering,
    * sloppy UX flow,
    * excessively accurate controls, 
    * super-tiny buttons, 
    * things when you're like that.

In a similar way, when you're drunk, you can't /do/ process like that.

I think it's a lovely idea and more systems should be designed with that in mind.

Drunk, I might be able to operate a computer as well as my grandmother; so, if it can support me drunk, it can support my grandmother.

Its also not niche because a lot of people compute and buy shit impulsively when drunk. So I hear...

> * super-tiny buttons,

He includes a link to his website, which has a very tiny and fairly condense header bar but plenty of white space. Perhaps he should hire himself?

Plus it works with 6 colors.

Don't think that this idea is that useful. It seems like more a awareness to the crazy toughs on the users mind. The videos should be fun, but let's face it, we gotta design for our users, not for drunk users that would/"should" represent the worst users we could get

"The User is Drunk" is explained better in video by Will Dayble of Squareweave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2CbbBLVaPk

Also, OP's post seems more like "The UX Consultant is Drunk".

Thanks for the link.

And you're right.

And the discussion of that video: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7655281

If you're concerned about your drinking habits, you should probably not check out aa.org. There is little solid evidence that AA is a particularly effective treatment for alcoholism. Various types of therapy with real trained and certified therapists have good success rates backed by actual scientific evidence, as do certain prescription drugs. Combining them likely has an even better success rate. Talk to your doctor.

http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/10/26/alcoholics-anonymous-mu...

Thanks. Noted, and updated.

I never could really commit to AA, the organization, but... I met some great people there. I ended up in AA, thinking my life was over, but when I heard what other people had been through (awful awful things), I was very humbled. The people and their shared experiences helped me gain perspective.

Although I mostly solved the drinking problem myself, outside of AA, AA still helped me.

I compare it to attending Church. I am not a fan of organized religion, nor am I religious, but I have met some great people there.

Definitely talk to your doctor.

It's not true to claim that there is no solid evidence suggesting that AA is not effective. There is a lot of shitty evidence both supporting and discrediting 12 step programs, and the author of the linked article has found plenty of shitty science to wave his hand at. Look through the dates of the studies referenced - 1967, 1981, 1985, 1996. The most recent paper there is almost 20 years old, with the exception of Project MATCH (2006), which the author appears to have not read very closely.

The Project MATCH paper which the author above dismisses as "showing everyone does the same with or without AA" actually shows that "12-step treatment had more than double the number of patients who were continuously abstinent at one year after treatment and about one third more at three years after treatment." That does not strike me as being "the same". The latter interpretation of the results comes from Harvard Medical School professors, the former from some random anonymous dick on the internet.

An article on the topic from the aforementioned Harvard Medical School professors (who are addressing a particularly well known "debunker" of AA, who also coincidentally has his own method he is trying to sell) can be read here - http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2014/04/defense-12-step-addicti.... It references many recent, randomized, controlled studies that directly contradict the assertion that AA has no effect.

My own personal experience is that AA, when stripped down, is very strongly reminiscent of CBT (which I have also been on the receiving end of), mixed in with a strong social support network. I also have seen that AA in practice varies wildly from place to place, so my own experience is likely not the same one that you'd have in the Bible Belt or elsewhere.

If you're struggling, by all means check out a meeting AND talk to your doctor. If you hate AA, don't go anymore.

I tried and failed repeatedly to get sober on my own and with medical treatment for about 8 years, from 26 to 34. Since I have started going to AA, I have been sober for the longest period of time since I was legal to drink (19).

If I had read that smug, halfassed article you posted, I probably wouldn't have gone, and I probably would be either drunk or quite possibly dead, given my intake and behaviour. Addiction is no joke. If you don't know what you're talking about, keep your ignorance to yourself.

I realize the above post may come off as rather angry. I'm already anticipating a few "cult member identified!" replies.

I'd like you to reflect on the fact that you are suggesting people avoid the primary form of treatment suggested by the National Institute of Health, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the American Psychiatric Association, the Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care System, and many other large organizations. You are recommending against a successful mode of treatment for people who have a problem that is potentially life-threatening, that destroys both their lives and that of their families.

I considered that before I posted, which is why I mentioned other treatment options that appear to have better evidence for their efficacy. It seems to me that's the most ethical thing to do when it comes to a life-threatening condition.

Fair enough. The evidence you present is outdated and incorrect.

For what it's worth I thought the post was fantastic until the last paragraph, which was a valuable anecdote (and obviously a very personally significant one), but very confrontational. Understandably so, but the tone probably makes it less likely that a person on the fence would come around to your point of view.

You're right, that last bit was a bit of uncalled-for ranting. I would edit it to remove it, but I think doing so would mess with some of the discussion that has gone on since my post.

Maybe the others are credible, but SAMHSA is staffed entirely with consumer/survivor-movement flunkies who believe psychiatrists are the enemy and consistently ignore the input from medical professionals on their advisory board. If they're right about a program, it's a stopped-clock-twice-a-day kind of right.

Looking at the studies linked by the article you've linked, their conclusions for high efficacy mostly seem to be of the form "AA increased the likelihood of abstinence". My understanding is that AA, more than other methods, places an emphasis on total abstinence.

It seems that one could support alternative goals (like "reduced incidence of harmful alcohol use") for which AA might not be so well suited.

Your thoughts?

Absolutely, there's room for harm reduction approaches as well. There's an approach called the Sinclair Method that uses counseling and a drug called Naltrexone with the goal of reducing episodes of heavy drinking, and I do know one person who has had success with that.

As an aside, I certainly don't mean to suggest that AA is the be-all end-all, just that it's a tool that is often the target of abuse from those who don't necessarily know better.

AA indeed does emphasize complete abstinence. Many people, myself included, reach a point where moderation ceases to be a viable path - such a person may moderate successfully for a short period of time, but their alcohol use typically escalates rapidly back to the level that got them into AA or beyond.

Some people might be able to go from alcoholic drinking patterns back to safe alcohol use, but the only way I know of to find out if an individual falls into that class is to let them drink and see what happens. The risk/reward ratio there does not favour drinking - if it works out, you can have a few beers with friends (and not feel any of the effects that makes an alcoholic want to drink). If it doesn't work out, it could end in homelessness, cirrhosis, imprisonment and so on.

The outcomes in the above risk/reward scenario is not hypothetical - I have met people with a lot of sobriety under their belt who returned to what they thought would be controlled drinking and who failed miserably. A good friend of mine reached 8 years sober and was suspended from his job for 18 months after falling off the wagon. 20 years sober, started drinking and got a divorce and wound up in a rehab facility for the indigent. 15+ (I forget exactly) years sober, lost his license to practice law and spent some time in prison. For myself, one of my returns to "controlled drinking" ended with me consuming 26 ounces of liquor in 90 minutes, picking a horrific argument with my wife, and going out to the bar by myself for at least 15 more standard drinks. As a fun side note, I punched that into a blood-alcohol calculator at one point and my BAC was around the LD50 mark. I have no idea how I was physically capable of walking, let alone ordering more.

Alcoholics obsess, in the real sense of the word, over finding a way to return to moderate alcohol use (or heavy alcohol use without negative consequences). I think helping people moderate is a reasonable goal, but I'd think you would need to have an accurate picture of their drinking to determine if it's a safe course of action, and addicts tend to lie about their substance abuse - as far as my doctor was concerned, I only drank moderately a few times a week. She only found out that was not the case when I made an appointment specifically to seek help.

I think this post is a bit self-contradictory in a way. I am all for harm reduction where it makes sense, but in my experience, when somebody reaches the point where they are clearly alcoholic, that door has already closed. I think the role of harm reduction for alcohol abuse might really be to stop people from getting to that point.

> The latter interpretation of the results comes from Harvard Medical School professors, the former from some random anonymous dick on the internet.

To be fair, said anonymous dick isn't the only person interpreting the results that way. For example, the only two references on the Wikipedia article about MATCH (that aren't dead links) agree [0] [1].

I'm curious what the actual data looks like that so many seemingly-smart people can draw nearly opposite conclusions, but I'm having trouble finding it.

[0] http://www.peele.net/lib/niaaa.html

[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1185549/

Your comment might not be precisely true. There is solid evidence that AA may help people with alcohol problems. Some people may not want to go to a doctor, but of course going to a qualified doctor is a good idea.

Kelly J. F., Magill M., Stout R. L. How do people recover from alcohol dependence? a systematic review of the research on mechanisms of behavior change in Alcoholics Anonymous. Addict Res Theory 2009; 17: 236–59.

J.B. Kingree, Martie Thompson, Participation in alcoholics anonymous and post-treatment abstinence from alcohol and other drugs, Addictive Behaviors, Volume 36, Issue 8, August 2011, Pages 882-885, ISSN 0306-4603, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2011.03.011.

I read an article only yesterday which said the success rate of AA is probably "just" 8% or so. AA themselves claim the success rate is "75% for anyone who really tries", which, if you think about it, doesn't mean anything at all.

The article was specifically about this issue that AA blames it on the participants if their method fails. Which is pretty absurd, again, if you think about it.

It's like claiming I have a cure for cancer that works in 99% of all cases, but only in cases where it works.

(Edit: this is the article, it was on HN after all http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/03/the-irra... )

I recommend reading Infinite Jest.

I tried to like Infinite Jest, but I just couldn't get into it. What am I missing?

(My original snarky thought: If you have the willpower to finish reading Infinite Jest, dealing with addiction will be no issue...)

While I think your intent and support is admirable I have doubts about the effectiveness and morals of AA.

Entheogens are far and above the most successful treatment for alcoholism. Also depression.

I think you should rephrase that to "you shouldn't solely rely on aa" rather than excluding it entirely. Maybe this just struck a personal chord, because AA helped save me from life-threatening alcoholism, but this seems like a highly irresponsible suggestion (which is why the author of the article you link is very careful not to make it).

If you are an alcoholic, you probably should check out AA in addition to checking in to a detox/rehab program where you will have a therapist and a psychiatrist. As a matter of fact, many "real trained and certified therapists" will suggest that you at least check out a few meetings.

What's important is to know that if it doesn't work out, it doesn't mean you've failed. But it's really, really hard to stop drinking when you are an alcoholic, and it would be foolish to exclude any safe solution that could potentially help you recover from a fatal condition.

When getting sober, there are worst things you could be doing with your time than socializing with other recovering alcoholics for an hour or two, even if you don't like the message.

I should add, I am an atheist and it was never an issue in all my time in AA.

> because AA helped save me from life-threatening alcoholism

Given that there's pretty good evidence at this point that AA doesn't work on average, either a) AA didn't actually help you (you would have done it on your own anyway) or b) AA did help you, but that is balanced by an equal amount of harm so that the average still comes out as "not effective".

In either case the conclusion is unescapable that AA should not be relied on at all. At best, you're going to get nothing out of it and you're wasting psychological resources you can't spare. At worst, you're gambling that you're the kind of person it helps, rather than the kind of person it makes things worse for.

I don't want to sound harsh here, but people who have both used AA and recovered from alcoholism seem to have a rationality blindspot around it. From an objective perspective, this is not all that different from a cancer survivor crediting their remission to the "energy crystals" their guru recommended.

I'm super glad for you that your cancer cleared up, but I'm going to keep telling people that those crystals are bullshit.

You start Speaking on average and then conclude that it did not work FOR HIM.

Does not compute, sorry.

Nope, I concluded that it either didn't work for him OR it works for some people, but causes enough harm to others that it balances out any good it does.

Well, it is a curious idea, and a very peculiar niche for a business! But... "Your website should be so simple, a drunk person could use it" is kind of arguable. For some sites (eg. hacker news...?) the desirable outcome is that a drunk person should probably not use it. Still, I suppose the tester can test for that as well.

I'm assuming this is just attention grabbing for this guy's personal brand.

Always interesting to see what kind of marketing stunts get you to the front page.

If this were to be taken seriously, a guy regularly getting drunk is just sad, as alcoholism is a real problem that this seems to be brushing aside.

As soon as I get a certain amount of clients, I'll cut this off. I'm not interested in drinking professionally.

Subcontract.

Live the dream!

So you're not interested in a sales job?

Nope.

Your last sentence/paragraph comes from a pretty myopic perspective. Some people enjoy getting drunk occasionally. It's like saying "getting high is just sad", "running marathons is just sad" or "eating high fat foods is just sad". They are all sacrificing something for a high.

Which is why I said "getting drunk regularly," which is the implied activity in a business built around a guy getting drunk.

Either way, amusing to see someone compare getting drunk to running a marathon.

Define "regularly". I get drunk fairly regularly (1-3 times a week), and I'm pretty happy with that for of fun, as well as the sober kind.

Same, I probably drink too drink to much and, yeah, have a drinking "problem". But I have fun, drink great craft beer, and never have an urge to get loaded before work(or instead of). It's all after-hours downtime fun(self medication?) for me.

I also do a lot of sober activities, including sports so... IDK. I'm a well-rounded drunk?

I used to get drunk once or twice a week, and I thought it was completely normal ("all of my friends do that too").

Looking back, I now know I had an alcohol problem. It affected my work (couldn't concentrate) and it affected my health (gained weight). I'm still young, so I hope there are no permanent effects from my drinking.

I guess it's different for everyone. I'm fine at work & I've actually been losing weight lately (intentionally).

I think there's a fine line between what's ok and what's not. If it actually becomes an addiction and you "need" it to survive the day-to-day, of course that's a problem. Obviously in many (most? all?) cases the individual is too close to the problem to accurately diagnose for themselves.

Who called the morality police? Sheesh.

He's a man in his prime, let him have some fun.

I just wanna give you props for how good this site looks on a vertical monitor. Full screen background images generally tend to break HARD, and sites are always either going into mobile mode or look ugly as hell. This looks like it was made for my monitor, though.

http://i.imgur.com/DZBvync.jpg

Thank you!

Is that i3 and surf?

i3wm and vimb

https://fanglingsu.github.io/vimb/

Instead of testing it myself, I will go to the clubbing district of Hong Kong, and pay drunk users to test your website. You can tell me how many users you want to test. Starts at 3USD/user.

P.S.: This way I stay away from alcoholism, too.

If you're going to be in Hong Kong this weekend, ping me. I'll be around. :)

I think there's also an opportunity here to crowdsource UX testing to our moms. They're the ultimate litmus test when it comes to being able to use technology.

This!!!

I call it the 'mum test'. My mum cannot use computers at all yet somehow she can buy stuff online.

My mum can't read that light grey text on a grey background in spider.ttf 10px!!!

My mum can't work that stupid menu you have.

My mum also has a 1366 x 768 'netbook' from a bygone era. The screen has a viewing angle designed for goldfish. Her broadband is rural flavoured.

My mum is also a bit of a snob. Any graphic chintz will be frowned on and ignored. My mum is entirely product and UX focused (in her own special way).

If she can buy from your site and get items delivered then you have passed my 'my mum' test.

Seriously though, the test on a regular 1366x768 Windows/Chrome OS laptop with high-glare screen, lame CPU, lame memory/disk is not something done early enough in most projects. Many, many people have such computers, not everyone has Apple/Android.

how about instead of 'mom' we use 'inexperienced user', and don't make a bad assumption?

It's not a bad assumption, you've never tried to explain how to use the iPad to my mom.

hacker news is now singlehandedly responsible for this guy being completely wasted for the next month.

well done, everyone.

the system works!

This is why it's immensely sad that Unix "won".

Unix's developers just didn't grok usability. At all. As a result, Unix is very sensitive to even small mistakes. It's like the OS was not intended to be operated by humans, with faulty memories and clumsy fingers.

VMS, on the other hand, was much more tolerant of drunk users, or just tired sysadmins who haven't had enough coffee. These considerations were baked in from the start, resulting in a far more robust command line environment.

well, i threw my $50 in. looking forwards to the results! (mathbreakers.com)

Thanks!

Hi Richard.

Please add paypal payment and I'm in.

Thanks.

Send me an email and I'll respond with an email that you can send money to. Not interested in adding paypal to the site at the moment, trying to keep this minimal.

I'm almost drunk right now, and I guarantee that I just can't see what's the point of your service

I clicked on the most obvious button, "Teachers click here", and then the most obvious button on that page, "Start Lobby Now", and got a "Page not found".

To be fair, I'm completely sober and you haven't paid me $50, so maybe that's why it didn't work.

LOL

Actually just a slight error with the last git push, it's fixed now. Thanks for the (free) heads up

If you have a window that is narrower than ~960px the window that says "Enter a realm where math is your superpower!" overlaps the image below it. I'm not sure if this bothers you, but I thought I'd let you know.

Same here, for http://transitfeeds.com

Why is "Sign in with GitHub" not a button? (Also, what value is there in doing that?)

Many of the features required sign-in previously, but now they don't. Some still do (e.g. API), but good point, it need to be better documented

> "An extensive collection of official public transit data from around the world, including GTFS, GTFS-RealTime and more. "

A drunk person is not going to want to read that many syllables per word, or think about weird acronyms.

Agreed, that's why I wanted to do it!

Small annoyance – footer links open in new tab.

Looks like the prize has gone up to $75.

And it looks like he forgot to update all instances of $50 on the page - I guess maybe he was drunk.

Freebie: this is broken... https://www.dropbox.com/s/wwlcyy559xpcxl7/Screenshot%202015-...

Hi there. Also sober, noticed you don't have any kind of security on a filesystem level. If someone visits https://mathbreakers.com/static/, they'll find a goldmine! It looks like you're storing the full version of your software behind no security, and one can only wonder what 1000gamecodes.txt is ;)

Well, that's what I have experienced for the past four years. I've been suffering from extreme brain fog due to very high copper and mercury levels which I'm getting detoxed, and that's more or less what I'm going through. It will be quite interesting to hear his thoughts.

I added a note about alcoholism. It is very serious.

Please check out AA if you or anyone you know relies on alcohol. aa.org.

AA has a bit of a reputation for spending more effort trying to get you to see God than to stop drinking.

I highly suggest Dharma Punx if you're in California. Have some friends who have gotten a lot out of it.

"I'll get very drunk, and then review your website. I'll send you a document outlining where I thought the website needed help"

When you are drunk, would you be actually in the state of mind where you can document the issues ?

Even if you record your observations, will you remember the thought process that was happening in your mind while you did the review? Which is the most critical part of Usability Review.

Assuming the core idea is to test when an intoxicated person has effects like problem with muscle co-ordination and lack in decision making...

Probably a nice marketing trick...

Let's find out! I doubt I'll remember the thought process.

Hilarious. :) In case you want to catch common usability problems on your site, before he tests it, use https://userium.com/

The user is left handed. As if there weren't enough left handed products websites should be too. Login/logout on the right side? Talk about equality. (It is a joke)

It is decided, all menus should be on the center!

haven't seen the similar Three Sheets Research mentioned yet: http://threesheetsresearch.com/

This is actually kind of funny IMO. Definitely don't try this at home, especially if you're worried about your liver. Some people who ought to be worried about their liver aren't. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/9602154/Middle-a...

Not a new idea. I used to follow: http://threesheetsresearch.com/

Unfortunately their last review dates from 2012 (ThreeSheets, if you hear me .. please come back !)

E.g., Check this hilarious Microsoft Surface drunk review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cMVKW-fR1M

I like that concept :).

I also like your `easy on the eye` site. I peeked at the code and found this little tiny typo:

    <meta property="og:url"content="http://theuserisdrunk.com/" />

A space is missing between url" and content.

Thanks! Fixed.

This would be safer with a set of alcohol impairment googles ... you can at least simulate the blurry vision part of the experience - http://www.lifeloc.com/goggles.aspx

http://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/42026/could-user-tests...

Been using this exact UX testing approach for years. Has served me well, no joke.

This is an awesome idea. The example I'm most passionate about of web design I hate is an online pizza ordering site, because when I was intoxicated it was super confusing to just order a pizza.

lol love this idea... but my target audience is teenage Asian girls who like anime. If OP's current thing is successful, will you be willing to do a theuserisajapaneseschoolgirl.com ?

Ugh... I'm not sure I'm qualified. ごめね！

my target audience is teenage Asian girls who like anime

I knew quite a few guys at uni shooting for that same target...

I know this is probably a joke but if it's not, what on earth is the site?

I like how I could't get anything out of this guy's personal website while drunk. Start to get your own stuff together before selling advices for other.

Rajesh Koothrappali can do it with better with Non-Alcoholic Beer.

https://youtu.be/aHtSD4oU2Ro?t=26s

Kidding.

Seems like a fantastic way to get someone to pass the bill on their drinking. Who knows if this will help any of their customers?

So what prevents me from saving $150 and getting some homeless guy at the shelter to do this same shit for the price of a bottle?

Well, the homeless guy probably isn't a trained UX guy, for one, so you're not getting the same value. And you're probably enabling the substance abuse problem of a person in real trouble, so I mean there's an added moral weight here.

The homeless guy probably doesn't know anything about UX, whereas this guy lists himself as a UX expert

Maybe you can get drunk with Baby Boomers and let them test the website. Hilarious idea though! I think I will try it out soon.

Interesting idea, but I think he should ask for at least 10 times what he does, given that he poisons himself for the job.

Wonder if the author dog-fooded his concept, that would provide some real life use cases to serve as reference.

I did. Wasn't an ideal real life case, though.

Love it! Here is the follow up? oneloveux.com Get your project reviewd buy stoned developers and creatives

The price seem to be going up at some rate. It was $75 earlier, and now it's $80.

Just trying to limit customers. I don't want to have to get drunk, if I can help it - here and there is better.

PEBCAB could be an issue.

Problem exists between chair and beer?

Ah, my people.

hey! thats crazy that matt took the photo - i work with him.

+1 for matt

Not surprisingly, TheUserIsHigh.com was registered today...

I'll do the screencast for the beer only. :)

Well, time for "theuserisonacid.com".

Getting paid to be drunk. Kudos to the idea!

Were you drunk when you created this?

AKGs are decent headphones. Those look like 701s maybe? Or the discontinued 272? They're comfortable at least.

271s, iirc. Lost them a couple of months ago, sadly.

oh, good! the k2xx series is really bad. I had k272s. they're overpriced with really disappointing frequency rolloff http://graphs.headphone.com/graphCompare.php?graphType=0&gra... also poor build quality / really plasticy / no detachable cable

I've been very thankful that I couldn't navigate some websites drunk in the past.

> Is this your only job? No. I have a full-time job changing the world.

dude, you do frontend development for a social network. how self-aggrandizing can you be. just say you work for a social network ffs.

Social Networks changed the world. Building one, even a small part can be rewarding. Maybe not everyone in the same position will feel the same way, but you should definitively not criticize him if he does.

Good for you, I also believe I'm changing the world, and I'm not here building rockets or anything like that.

I mean, by that broad definition, everyone is changing the world, it goes along with being a sentient being that exists in the world.

Although I can't tell if his "changing the world" comment was tongue-in-cheek or not, the tech industry does have a problem with self-importance... or at least, that's the broad perception of the industry, to the point that it gets parodied in media (see: HBO's Silicon Valley).

i just feel that saying "i'm changing the world" is a bit of an arrogant thing to say about yourself. but i was wrong about what he did for a living.

Where'd you read that? I should update it. That's not my current job.

I'm working on building a tool to help scientists share their insights.

oh, i went on your website and thought ideapod was your full-time job. sorry. well, that could be a legitimate changing the world thing, your wording just read as arrogant to me. eating humble pie now

No worries! I didn't want to link to it directly, trying to compartmentalize. :D

His public info shows he works with Nautilus Magazine.

See recent articles on reproductive health, biological evolution, deep-sea physics, and cognitive science.

http://nautil.us/

Whaaaa Where does it say that?

Claire Cameron, my old flatmate, does! Nautilus is amazing!

That seemed like some pretty obvious exaggerated humor/sarcasm to me, given the rest of the site.

If it wasn't then I agree, it comes on a little strong.

This is the lamest, most annoying cliche about the startup industry. Everyone building a picture sharing app that people will mostly use for dick pics is "changing the world".

Why not just post as show HN? If there's a nit, it'll be picked.

I don't hang out on HN much. Can I post to show HN?

Typically you prefix "Show HN:" in the title, if showing your own product. Maybe because this is a place for news, primarily, and so it's not humble to link your own product as a news, but you can ask for community feedback with the prefix.

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