Ask HN: Why is the Internet becoming less usable?

8 pointsby TuxPirate15 anni fa2 comments

Probabilities tell me you've seen it too;

Usability is slowly disappearing, mailing-lists are being replaced by web based forums who don't support threaded conversations very well and many of their users are not so relevant. These end up out-ranking mailing-lists' web logs threads in Google and make it harder to find valuable technical information for many topics.

Google is become less usable, its default instant feature is annoying and really, it's nothing more than eye candy to normal end-users, who know nothing else but to adapt to programs' behaviors.

Heck, even my keyboard stops responding normally when I'm browsing Google's search results: they bound my arrow keys to some obscure "select-next-search-result" function who selects the next search result in list.

I never asked for this. I still believe mailing-lists are superior to web based forums.

How is the web going to change and will we all, be able to adapt?

2 comments

pbhjpbhj15 anni fa

>I still believe mailing-lists are superior to web based forums.

I disagree - a combination is better whereby one can access the same content through the web as through your MUA.

Tyranny of the masses seems like the reason (for small values of tyranny).

pkamb15 anni fa

Look at the new Gizmodo/Gawker redesign: the 'tabletification' of some websites is ridiculous. I've completely stopped using their entire network of blogs because of how unusable the sites are on a normal PC.

Another thing I hate: Middle-Click Hijack. If I left-click on a link/picture, fine, you can do whatever you want. Fancy javascript, lightboxes, the whole jazz. But if I middle-click that same link, by god it better be opening in a new tab in the background. No exceptions.