Microblog Memes

Isn't it amazing when text is also not selectable? Like its rendered behind some other shit?

I fucking hate websites ❤️

My absolute biggest gripe about the failings of proper UI design is icons with no text attached.

Floppy, okay surely the save button. Some book looking thing, no fucking clue. An eye in the middle of a square, what the fuck are you people doing???

Having to hover over a weird looking icon to MAYBE gleam some sort of information on it takes so much longer than just having the fucking text below the God damn icon. Sometimes they don’t even have hover text! Thats GREAT UI skills there, Junior! Maybe you’ll get there eventually!

Fucking idiots.

UI designer/developer here. One who works on features that facilitate reading.

Based on their writing style and the text highlighting habit, this person is likely dyslexic. I've helped create functions that facilitate this behavior, which is better suited as a mode that can be enabled manually. There are browser extensions that can do this sort of thing for you. I've worked on a lot of assistive reading features.

If this was set as a default behavior, most users would fucking riot. Most of them are using text highlighting for what this person doesn't want to do.

Edit - I think I need to emphasize that this is based on real data. A shit ton of it. These decisions aren't made based on vibes. If the user base is performing a specific action repeatedly, we're going to facilitate it. We can see what you all are doing. UI's aren't built around a bunch of conflicting edge cases based on anecdotes. If something performs a certain way, at least major applications, it's usually because a lot of direct observations and metrics have strongly indicated that this is the preferred approach.

Admittedly, sometimes business goals get in the way of that. But if those business goals we have to push get in the way of conversions, they get abandoned pretty quickly.

Come to Japan where they like to make everything images instead. Can't select it, can't copy it, can't translate it without a camera, can't preview the text of something, is bad for accessibility, etc.

Hard agree. I'm not dyslexic, but I also occasionally mark text to keep progress, especially if it's a long piece. And if I really want to copy that text, I will, sometimes just out of spite that you're trying to outsmart me, and I'm more likely to leave your site sooner too.

Also, while we're at it, can you please leave scrolling behaviour alone and not override it? I have a nice mouse that lets me scroll as fast or as slow as I want to. In some rare cases with a fancy UI where one wheel notch scrolls a whole page I agree that overriding the behaviour is warranted. In all other cases just FUCKING LEAVE SCROLLING AS IS (as handled by the OS and the browser) and don't try to be fancy; if you try to be fancy for no particular reason, I'm more likely to leave your site ASAP rather than prefer it over other sites.

I do this. It’s just a stimming thing while reading web articles and I hate being sent to Twitter or whatever for it.

Totally do this. Thought it was just me.

Teams is the worst offender. It constantly wants me to call any number. Social? Phone? Whatever. I don't want to call anyone, and I sure as hell don't want to do it via Teams.

We went from using no punctuation to using too much. I struggled while reading this.

This is what you sound like: Xkcd Workflow

Nonsense. AI adds rich features like these that no one wanted so VCs can become rich. The only thing missing on modern computers is blindingly-bright nuclear explosion white LEDs that shine directly into your optic nerve, all the time.

I have a protocol for this.

1. go to website
2. if UX is offensive exit website
3. add website to pihole blacklist and description of why
4. never visit website again

I know it doesn't mean much to them, but I refuse to accept a shitty online experience when a product team actively circumvents standard internet experiences like highlighting, copy/paste, or browser jacking (looking at you Microsoft).

For PC, extra functions should be in the context menu in my opinion. For mobile, that's a little tougher, but maybe tapping on the selected text should bring up the options? Selecting on mobile is a tough thing anyway, and any solution is probably going to be a problem for someone else.

Actually, that's probably true for any UI design choices. There are some that are generally a good idea (like defining a reasonable navigation order for your elements or making design respond to viewport sizes to ensure that everything actually fits), but interaction options can get really muddy.

I do it, too. I rarely read any text without subconsciously marking the text while reading it. Might be a tool for me (ADHD) to make it easier not to lose track - I don't know.

But regardless of why people do it and while I agree that it's probably something very specific not a lot of users do, I refuse to believe that anyone actually uses those select->popup-> share features, ever. Often the little pop-up even blocks the text above it which is just insanely bad UX imo.

Sites should never mess with core functionality without asking (scrolling, selection, tab/keyboard navigation, hijacking common shortcuts/right click, clipboard, history, etc).

I believe someone came up with that idea a decade+ ago and people just want it on their site to add value without actually checking if anyone uses it.

I hear you! It sounds like you want user-select: none on all text, because you want the site to feel more like a real newspaper, and having too many features like text selection is distracting you.

Also please stop using light colored text on light colored backgrounds, it's a stupid idea. Thanks for your attention.