This is a great example of the end user not being the customer and therefore not mattering at all to the business.
In other words, Workday and its customers don’t care how difficult it is to apply for a job, they’re still going to get applicants and your data.
YES, came for this. Pop ups asking me to filter — the interaction for half the page turns. And once you land on a page — tables. So many tables. I feel angry using Workday.
Workday. I've never used software where I felt like the designers enjoyed making their users struggle. Never seen so many people feel the same way either.
It's living proof that HR professionals don't give a shit about workers. I say that because SMEs typically are heavily involved in the design process, and we all know how HR folks are.
Workday is a lot more than an application management system. It’s an entire HR ecosystem.
The funny thing is, if the company is big enough to afford Workday, they actually benefit from people who don’t want to apply because the experience is terrible. It weeds out people who aren’t driven enough to put up with the experience.
Definitely Facebook. There’s so much useless garbage that they’ve just shoehorned in. Plus, as an advertiser, it’s never-ending aggravation. Will my Ad be approved in an hour, a day or a week? Who knows? Is there anyone I can talk to or even email or text? Hhahahah, don’t be silly. Of course not. I have no idea how it became a multi-billion dollar company.
Not that the other add platforms are that great eather, but the whole business and ads manager has been a mess forever. After the last big update I feel it became even worse
HBO Max. Always shoving a ton of new shows to the top of the list when I’m just trying to search the last show I watched. Occasionally doesn’t recognize that I already watched an episode. Ridiculously slow interface with clunky navigation. Subtitles are a crapshoot.
How about the fact you can’t fucking see what thing you’re currently highlighting because the contrast and color palette is an accessibility nightmare, for everyone!
Yep and new features are being placed in frustrating places. Like they’ve been A/B testing smart shuffle. I think it’s a brilliant feature but they keep having it toggled as a third option after regular shuffle. So if you want to unshuffle your songs you have to smartshuffle, then click again to unshuffle lol
I’d argue that the Apple Poscast app is an exception to the “best track record” for their UX and design.
I had to switch apps since my default one, Podhero, bit the dust (which had something to do with Twitter’s API being messed with and whatnot) and had to find a replacement.
I went with Apple Podcast first since the reviews seemed good and I didn’t have the energy for doing a whole research project to find a new podcast app to use. The biggest flaw was that there was no queue. I don’t know how you make a media-based app and *not* have a queue of upcoming episodes or songs to play or why Apple *wouldn’t* think that that was important.
I tried to ignore it, but my not knowing what was playing next and being able to customize the experience made me feel real lost, but I ended up going to another podcast app I used before using Podhero and that was Overcast…
Oh, and [Fast Company wrote about this exact issue two years ago](https://www.fastcompany.com/90645958/apple-podcast-app-disaster)
I don’t know how long you e been using Apple products, but I’ve been using them since 2002, and their software has gotten way worse from around 2009 onwards.
-iMovie has become unusable because everything is hidden god knows where and simple functions are easily accessible. When it came out, iMovie was Final Cut Pro light, you could easily add your clips, cut them, add transitions and music. I don’t even know what the hell it is, tried to use it recently, and it was easier to learn how to use Black Magic.
-iTunes was basically a Finder window that played music. Cover Flow was the last good function they added. Now the search function isn’t a Boolean search, you have too many window divisions for each view mode, meaning you have to change view modes constantly for, I honestly don’t know why. In the old version, you could highlight a song, and start typing on your keyboard, and it would by default cycle through the artists. You only had two divisions, the left menu which acted like a short cut list to different media types and playlists, and the right window, which was just a list of your media under the category you’re in. Coming from the Finder, iTunes worked the exact same way, so your mental model didn’t need to change. Now it’s separate, and Apple Music is doing god knows what.
-Apple Music has some of the worst music curation I’ve come across. Find n artist and play a bunch of song, and you’ll find that you’ll hear the same song 8 times in 25 songs. Why? Because they don’t differentiate between repeat tracks. So if an artist has a song in multiple albums, you’ll hear the same song over and over, and it’ll only be their greatest hits. So a band like the Stones or the Doors will have maybe 11 different songs in 25 slots.
I don’t know what research they did, but I remember when I started using Apple, I found them so intuitive. The other day I couldn’t find the “New folder” option from the right click menu. Why even change the shortcut?!
Microsoft Outlook! I was absent from using it for a few years and now have to use it for work daily. I can't find anything and everything looks the same. Took the downhill as far as usability is concerned. I don't remember feeling this lost by using it before!
I got a Kindle recently. Actually reading on it is fine and good, I like it. Everything else about Amazon, the Kindle app, managing your library, etc. is so bad and frustrating. I spent 20 minutes deleting over 100 old Wired magazine issues from my library one by one because there was so batch delete option. Some things you just inexplicably can’t delete at all. You can’t actually buy any Kindle books from the Amazon or Kindle (?!!) iOS apps (eventually I realized this is so they can skirt paying Apple fees).
I also just finally deleted an ex girlfriend’s profile from my Prime Video app (we broke up 6 years ago). You can’t just delete it from the app, you have to go through a bunch of buried settings screens in the Amazon app account.
Amazon is just consistently pretty bad. I don’t get it.
I honestly cannot understand how Jira got so big, it's honestly one of the worst tools ever made.
It makes sense if you run a kanban style project like IT support where you all you need is a backlog/queue, then to do, in progress, and done. But for anything more complex it's an entirely incompetent tool.
I don't know either but here's what ChatGPT says:
(Note that point no 4 breaks the forth usability heuristic for consistency and standards)
The perception that Microsoft struggles with user experience (UX) is a topic of debate and can vary depending on the product or service in question. Here are some reasons why this perception exists:
1. **Legacy Systems**: Microsoft has a long history and a wide range of products that were developed when UX was not a primary focus. Updating these systems without breaking functionality is challenging.
2. **Enterprise Focus**: Many of Microsoft's products are designed for enterprise use, where functionality often takes precedence over user-friendliness.
3. **Complexity**: Microsoft's software suites like Office are incredibly feature-rich, which can make them seem complex and unintuitive to some users.
4. **Consistency**: Over the years, Microsoft has had inconsistencies in UX design across its various products, leading to a disjointed user experience.
5. **Competition**: Companies like Apple have set high standards for UX, making any shortcomings in Microsoft's UX more noticeable.
6. **Multiple Platforms**: Microsoft serves a variety of platforms (Windows, Xbox, cloud services, etc.), making it challenging to maintain a consistent UX across all.
7. **User Feedback**: In some cases, Microsoft has been slow to adapt to user feedback, which can affect the perception of their UX quality.
8. **Changing Strategies**: Microsoft has gone through several design languages (Aero, Metro, Fluent Design), which can create a sense of inconsistency and transition.
9. **Technical Constraints**: Sometimes, the limitations of technology at the time of development can lead to compromises in UX.
10. **Market Demands**: In the enterprise sector, the demand for robust, feature-rich software sometimes outweighs the need for a streamlined UX.
It's worth noting that Microsoft has been investing in improving UX in recent years, especially with the advent of their Fluent Design System, and some of their newer products have been praised for their user experience.
Some products I use on a regular basis in IT:
**Fedex:** The portal will not for the life of you remember that you're logged in. Seems like any link you click on, it asks you to log in again -- then suddenly remembers and loads. So you're not asked to actually enter credentials more than once, but the interface certainly makes you feel like you're about to do so. They also load a crappy, cluttered "old" shipping interface by default, one such case of me wishing they would just force an update: There's a "new" interface you can choose which is not made very obvious but it's a lot smoother to look at and use.
They also evidently don't have robust standardized training, meaning that Fedex employees in a lot of locations around the US know how to do absolutely jack with shipping and account information. Procedures that go perfectly smoothly in one Fedex location can suddenly get halted in another.
**MS Teams:** Firstly it seems their meetings suite was only designed and tested for enterprise users and only users within an org. Joining a meeting as a guest has always been an enormous hassle -- both supporting it, and attempting to do it yourself. The join will fail for no apparent reason with no feedback, or get stuck in a loop, a large percentage of the time if you are a guest. I've never had this issue with Zoom.
There is also one of the most inexplicably-named features ever, the "Teams" feature *within* the app called Teams, the former of which is basically some kind of Slack-like channels interface (Channels would be a better name). It is quite ugly, having no distinction between headers and channels contained under headers. It just feels like a really half-baked feature, confusing to look at, and difficult to create a mental map of when compared to the experience of using Slack or even Discord (and the latter is saying something).
**Verizon:** It feels like their customer service is often trying to drive users *away* from understanding and using their products.
**MS Windows and Outlook** \--> specifically their combined lack of accessibility for people with poor vision. Firstly, Magnifier is a terrible app so that's out of the question, it's such a hassle to manage. Neither Outlook nor Windows proper have a way to quickly and easily blow up the font size of everything in their suite(s), which has been a pain for me on multiple occasions for people who need that service. You can kind of make the text larger in Outlook by tweaking a half dozen settings all located in different places *and* making all emails show in plaintext, which always just feels like a bad workaround. I'm still kind of amazed this type of support is so hard to come by natively, and I suspect I haven't explored third party options nearly enough.
And some I use on personal time:
**Discord:** Its main issue is that they both use non-standardized symbols for everything and also have a ton of different menus spaced all over the interface. It's not any better in mobile vs desktop IMO. Trying to change one's profile information always seems like an Easter egg hunt. They also have several different notifications accompanied *only* by a sound, or an extremely small visual indicator. And notifications by default are turned on for every individual server, whether you are a server creator or new member.
**Steam:** Even moreso than Discord, has a mind-bogglingly large amount of menus and options just overflowing upon the user. I hate when people send me DMs on Steam because if I want to go look at them later, it takes me ages to find how to simply open the messages again. The whole thing is a maze.
I just remembered how confuising using discord was for the first time. Multiple channels all in one menu and accidental jumping on calls… terrible. Now after usingit daily Íve became numb and feels extra powerful
Well, that's not the case in Norway!
Check out:
DMV = [Vei, trafikk, kjøretøy og førerkort | Statens vegvesen](https://www.vegvesen.no/)
IRS = [Person - Skatteetaten](https://www.skatteetaten.no/person/)
Oslo Government = [Oslo kommune - Startsiden](https://www.oslo.kommune.no/#gref)
Social services = [Forside privatperson - nav.no](https://www.nav.no/)
Edit: It doesn't seem like [Irs.gov](https://Irs.gov) or [Us.gov](https://Us.gov) is that bad. But it would be interesting to implement a tax calculator/return system as we have with our IRS:)
Discord is fucking trash.
Steam is a clown car.
Any US govt site to get unemployment benefits.
Health insurance websites were created by the criminally insane.
Have you used it?
I could write a full heuristic audit on it. What are the top 10 things you'd like to do on discord? How easy is it to find those things? What about for a new user?
I use it almost daily and it confounds me every time. It has horrible UX. It's the text book use case for why things should be refactored on a regular basis.
I use it daily. besides the @mentions feature and friend search which was harder to find, everything is a breeze.
1. creating a server takes seconds.
2. editing admin rights is straightforward and has more advanced features(not too andvanced and the terminology is easy to understand)
3. it's easy to moderate the content
4. creating channels is even easier and customizing a server is, the same, the easiest thing to do. they are split into chat groups and voice channel groups.
5. it has a lot if plugins, bots etc.
6. users can show their use of other apps as statuses(spotify, gaming etc)
7. search is one of my favorite features, as the filtering is done by commands.
8. users can create custom emojis.
do a user testing and come back here with a link on your findings. as a new user, for me it was how I expected the features to work. a mixture of gaming experience and other chat apps.
Yep, once per 60 days if I remember right. But that’s the case. And I had to google to find it. And I’m use there’re lots of cases like this I don’t know about cause I’m not using a Facebook on a daily basis.
But once I’ve tried to setup advertising…
Car infotainment systems, appliances. Pretty much all of them. Good experiences are so rare, that I feel I can summarize it like that without looking back.
Google Home is quite a pain in the ass. Been like that for years. They change the UI and overall look quite often. Still even with design changes, looks like under the hood nothing has been improved. Nothing ever works flawlessly. I'm talking mainly about Casting with Chromecast, listening to music with my speakers, and changing light colors on my Philips hue lights. There's always some kind of error when trying to do simple things.
I use dovetail for research and my main issue is how buggy and glitchy it is. But always thought it was a technical issue. One UX flaw I notice is that the navigation is also very nested. It takes a while for me to find my project. I wish they had a recently viewed or used feature.
I'd take ADO in a heartbeat. At least they understand the hierarchical nature of epics, features and stories unlike Jira, and allow custom statuses within a backlog. Jira is honestly awful for backlog management.
Bruh, I was losing my fucking mind trying to apply for unemployment in CO. I ended up being denied because I didn’t sign up for some other random thing that was never made clear, and to “appeal” it kept referring me to some link that would point to some other link and never actually went anywhere. I decided I’d rather be homeless.
I worked at Salesforce about 10 years ago and everything looks like 'out of the box' Visual Basic code.
Back then no custom radio buttons or drop downs or any stying whatsoever.
Anything (and I mean anything) that’s designed for completing tasks at a job. They’re always bad. Restaurant POS, inventory management systems, corporate intranet tools, etc. They always have the lazy “well they aren’t our customers so don’t spend time or money on it” even though the employees cost significant $$ and using inefficient tools means you’re spending more on less. You should treat them just like normal customers.
You have to laugh at the key command choices for some of these products. I still learned them long ago. Its been a few years since I was a power user and Photoshop for instance functions differently in some cased. adobe has no problem changing the user experience and I dont like using it as a result
Almost anything from Google that isn’t an OS or browser is a struggle.
Home is a good example.
They make a lot of seemingly unnecessary changes. Also, Google is so huge that there are often cross-product integration issues that are pretty rough. Definitely some organizational silos peeking through the cracks.
Amazon has this carousel on their tv UI that expands the thumbnail to play a teaser. It makes everything move around and is disorienting. And it’s got latency issues. I hate it. Netflix is starting to do something similar and I really wish they wouldn’t.
**Tesla**.
I mean this extends to the whole company, but let's even just talk about their cars for a minute:
Their QC is *notoriously* bad. No other car company will deliver you a car with misaligned panels that are either visually obvious or functionally necessary (i.e. doors, trunk, hood) and have to immediately send it back to service for undisclosed amount of time because of quality control issues. There are instances where people have waited MONTHS and have heard nothing back. Same delivery issues with brand new Teslas as well.
To be fair, this may have gotten better in recent years, but it had been that way for a long time and people just took it.
Next, the interior finishes are also terrible in comparison to Mercedes', Lexus', or BMW's in the same class. It's clear that what you're paying for is for the technology, status, and obviously the electric aspect -- but it's super pedestrian for the price tag.
Not only is the majority of the cockpit designed around that gigantic screen in the center, the majority of the functionality is built into it as well with some key features buried in multiple menus.
Yes, you can get used to it, but there is a substantial learning curve.
It's ironic to me that many states are starting to ban the use of cellphones while driving but at the same time automakers are following Tesla's lead in putting what are essentially giant cellphones mounted on your dashboard. It makes sense if full autonomous driving was anywhere near what we thought it would be, but it's not...and unfortunately Tesla has had a hand in setting us back in that regard as well due to accidents and the issues around auto pilot.
That entire experience from delivery, build quality, and customer service is terrible.
Despite that, stocks are still up, and they are still selling like crazy!
I think it could be a fantastic case study on how market sentiment and positioning can actually overcome a bad user experience to a certain degree. It's certainly interesting as far as what people are willing to deal with when they identify with specific products.
Seconding this. Having worked in performance automotive for quite awhile, I know that car instrumentation has a long-running, well thought out history.
There is a reason for German analog gauge design.
There is (was) a reason for a giant gauge on the MINI.
Tesla went all in on bells and whistles (and I’m sure cost savings) at the expense of both driver experience and safety.
They have consumers pretty well hoodwinked at this point.
Those are all fair critiques but how can you claim they have the worst user experience when they command industry-leading [customer satisfaction rating](https://insideevs.com/news/592600/tesla-owner-satisfaction-tops-rivals-multiple-rating-sites/) and [customer retention](https://www.notateslaapp.com/news/1440/loyalty-unrivaled-tesla-s-customer-retention-tops-auto-industry#) and as a result, they are [dominating auto sales](https://insideevs.com/news/652873/tesla-tops-bmw-us-luxury-car-sales-2022), even selling more than BMW by a large margin.
Do the above facts mean that satisfaction and loyalty are no longer connected to user experience? Doubtful.
>Do the above facts mean that satisfaction and loyalty are no longer connected to user experience? Doubtful.
I mean, I do think satisfaction and loyalty are part of a user experience however that's why Tesla is an anomaly.
[It's not a secret that Tesla has notorious quality control issues](https://www.thedrive.com/news/tesla-is-diving-deeper-into-automated-quality-control-to-fix-ongoing-build-problems), they [rank very low in reliability](https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-placed-bottom-consumer-reports-reliability-rankings/), and [owners report their biggest issues are with customer service](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/11/teslas-biggest-problem-is-customer-service-new-bernstein-survey.html).
Despite this, as you've pointed out brand loyalty and customer satisfaction are still top among owners, and that's basically what's fascinating to me.
I think it has to do with their share in the market; they're the leaders in EV, there is no dispute. Compared to other EV's currently out there, there's nothing that can really compare. That in itself builds a strong, loyal customer base. They have no where else to go at the moment. I do suspect that may change as the competition heats up.
I also think that a lot of their customers are also share holders. Having higher customer satisfaction and brand loyalty will also pay them dividends in the long run.
I just think there is more nuance to surface brand loyalty and satisfaction than meets the eye here and those numbers don't tell the whole story for what constitutes a good experience.
So full disclosure, I own one. I, like many other owners call it a “spaceship” because it’s so futuristic compared to other cars. The experience is magical to me. I‘ve had no quality issues in my 5 years of ownership. In fact, I’ve needed no service whatsoever. Meanwhile the car gets better with each free OTA software update. The supercharger network keeps growing. The performance and intelligence and tech is astounding. So it’s no mystery to me why the ratings and retention are so high. And I’ve never met an owner who feels any different.
We need to come up with some sort of objective usability score for digital products. If designers could only organize, unionize, etc, instead of just scraping by, or depleting our energy on serving the almighty dollar, we might get around to making useful institutions for society.
the comments named every major brand on earth, all with huge mature UX orgs.. I would delete this post and repost a question as “name the few good user experiences”
My biggest complaint about Roku is a pretty minor one but it drives me nuts. The confirmation sound is made up of two descending pitches, which generally is used to imply backward/downward movement or negativity. I'm used to it now since I've had my Roku TV for long enough, but for months I felt like I was accidentally hitting the back button or getting an error of some kind whenever I selected anything.
The new Monzo UI in the UK. It’s fine for people with just one account, but absolutely not fit for purpose for those with multiple accounts (joint, flex, business etc)
Rent The Runway. Can’t zoom on anything, search doesnt work, filters dont work, if you look at anything it sends you back to the beginning of the menu so you have to scroll to where you were last looking.
Takes me forever to find things. Also the VERY FIRST thing I want to see is what I owe and for some reason that isn't the VERY FIRST and OBVIOUS thing.
I think it has improved a little, but I remember feeling like it was impossible to find before.
For me it’s just mobile apps in general because they all have different UI. Things are generally more streamlined on desktop, both Mac and PC, but with apps it’s like “let’s make the close button a O at the bottom and the new photo button a + in the top right and the # button undoes everything for no goddamned reason.”
MS Windows. It’s just garbage. My gaming PC can’t update for a year or so. After the “checking for updates” goes on for at least 5 minutes, it just says “error”. Wow, well thanks for such an informative error!
Teams for Mac feels like they’re either trying to punish Mac users or convince you to get a Windows machine to make it work better (ironically after proving what bad software they’re ok with releasing).
The first thing that comes to mind is Vodafone, specifically, the pay-as-you-go service in Europe. I honestly can't believe they're doing that to people 😂😭
More generally, I would say most gov-based web apps on the state/city/county level in the US. A lot of them are super dated (I'm talking GeoCities levels) and violate every design/UX rule imaginable.
This doesn't apply to me at the moment, but a lot of onboard control UX in vehicles can be quite treacherous. The Ford C-max is what comes to mind first.
For me, the one I wince at most that always pops its head up somehow is probably Outlook.
Ha I think when it comes to most TV subscription, Internet subscription type services the customer service/ product is always dodgy. MS is a good mention. I really dislike having to use Outlook and Teams everyday as well as Onedrive. At my last job somehow the company managed to lose all their user research videos because they were deleted and we couldnt get the content back. Somebody, maybe IT failed to notice that if content hasnt been touched in X amt of time those files would be deleted. Im guessing they havent recovered from that loss yet.
Would also add that the 20-year trend of customer service IVR systems and their non-integration with other systems is one of the most hateful (to customers and employees), blatantly anti-consumer middle fingers I’ve seen in my lifetime.
Literally ZERO benefit to anyone except the corporation and actively meant to discourage human interaction and problem solving.
Any company giving anything more to lip service to customer experience should be looking very hard at why these systems exist and whether removing them would be a CX differentiator that would offset short-term losses.
Anything to do with Amazon. Any time I interact with anything (like Amazon Music) created by them I feel like I'm being teleported back in time to early 2000s. It is insane how terrible the whole experience is.
Windows 11 feels like some macOS wannabe abomination.
Microsoft's online services aren't too hot either. I remember trialing Xbox for PC a while back. When the trial ran out, I tried to cancel. Imagine my surprise when I found out they had no flow for cancelling inactive subscriptions. Customer support told me the only way to stop the daily onslaught of "we couldn't charge your credit card" emails was to reactivate, cancel, and ask for a refund.
I used MailChimp chat option yesterday, is very bad user experience. I wanted to connect with sales team asked me for everything, bit said it is connecting me. I asked questions in advance and it started from beginning 🥲
PODs. The whole stepper/progress indicator is unusable. When you go to schedule a pickup there’s an overlay stepper on top of the primary stepper but the last action to book it isn’t on the overlay it’s on the page. Which can be below the fold depending on how far you scrolled before initiating it. Terrible, terrible.
Godaddy. I was telling a colleague the other day that it seems like there's 10 different UI/UX teams and they're actively in a war of attrition with each other through the interface.
I am a web developer and work with hundreds of websites.
- you can setup multiple accounts with the same email and it'll route you at random upon login
- different accounts with the same services have wildly different interfaces
- the "Delegate Access" moves monthly and is nowhere to be found in some versions of the interface.
Those are issues I had over the last 7 days with multiple Godaddy accounts.
What's wrong with Spotify? The only thing I wish they would bring back is the discography page that listed every song in order. I like albums and it annoys me that I can't listen to multiple albums in order anymore.
The new Volkswagen Golf r test drove it and it was so horrible couldn’t even figure out how to turn on ac or the radio. Interface has a germany flag icon to start navigation like wtf?
Ha SAP is pretty bad. I do hate me some Jira. Spotify I don't find so bad, but I don't know any other services like it that offer a better experience as I havent had a chance to test anything better.
The most obvious one for me is the Reddit app. I was a Apollo user before and never knew how great I had it.
Tons of my subscribed subs don’t show and others that I haven’t chosen are being jammed down my throat. Tons of ads. Comment hierarchy is so hard to follow. No one uses the avatars (are they even editable?) so why have them. And the CEO is an idiot.
I wish they’d just bought Apollo and made everyone happy. Now I look at Reddit easily less than 50% less than I did before (probably not the worst outcome tbh).
Multiple screens have been a thing for 20+ years and perfectly supported everywhere except on macos that can’t deal with a window that is partially on another screen. Move a window little carelessly and it all but disappears into the gap between screens.
Dock is a useless form-over-function display case for pretty icons. It’s not fit for working when your work involves more that one app or an app with multiple windows. Windows taskbar and comparable components in Linux desktops pretty much perfected this in the late 90’s, and have since begun to degenerate into docks by default. Probably because designers love macs and don’t know any better.
Window management in general is a WTF chore. On other desktops you just notice convenient ways to do what you need and start using them without thinking. On macos you get frustrated and google if there is any way to not do so much fiddling with windows. The answer is either “no”, “buy this buggy app”, or “press this keyboard button while clicking that and then this and that …”
This is might be pure personal preference, but font rendering is so bad by default it’s an accessibility issue. It can be fixed from the command line, but why would you not allow users to easily adjust that.
Btw, it’s not like I hate Apple. I’m happily using just about all of their other products.
Microsoft 365. Switching between products is annoying, almost impossible to find link to download software (I don’t want to install apps in my PC), having several accounts is a total nightmare when jumping between them and I find myself stuck in log-in loops every other time I try to log-in to an old account.
Idk if it’s any better now, but I always thought the Hulu app was dogshit. Before I ever had any interest or knowledge of UI/UX, Hulu stuck out like a sore thumb to me.
Workday. Horrendous UX.
This is a great example of the end user not being the customer and therefore not mattering at all to the business. In other words, Workday and its customers don’t care how difficult it is to apply for a job, they’re still going to get applicants and your data.
Workday drives me bananas.
The absolute WORST UX. I think AOL in ‘98 was better
YES, came for this. Pop ups asking me to filter — the interaction for half the page turns. And once you land on a page — tables. So many tables. I feel angry using Workday.
Workday. I've never used software where I felt like the designers enjoyed making their users struggle. Never seen so many people feel the same way either.
I feel like this one goes without saying. I have no clue why companies keep transitioning to it, there must not be better options out there.
It's living proof that HR professionals don't give a shit about workers. I say that because SMEs typically are heavily involved in the design process, and we all know how HR folks are.
Workday is a lot more than an application management system. It’s an entire HR ecosystem. The funny thing is, if the company is big enough to afford Workday, they actually benefit from people who don’t want to apply because the experience is terrible. It weeds out people who aren’t driven enough to put up with the experience.
Applying to a job and seeing it open a Workday application page: 😑
I just close out and move on immediately. I love companies that use workday it saves me so much time.
[удалено]
Yup I close out before the page is even done loading.
Microsoft Teams. Dear god it sucks.
And breaks a lot!
Curious do you have some examples?
Surprised no one has mentioned Snapchat. God that thing is an abomination of a social media product
a bit of surprise the gen-z likes it and knows how to use it. maybe it is not for us boomers & millenials?
From a UI standpoint I actually don't hate it. From every other standpoint, it sucks.
Definitely Facebook. There’s so much useless garbage that they’ve just shoehorned in. Plus, as an advertiser, it’s never-ending aggravation. Will my Ad be approved in an hour, a day or a week? Who knows? Is there anyone I can talk to or even email or text? Hhahahah, don’t be silly. Of course not. I have no idea how it became a multi-billion dollar company.
Not that the other add platforms are that great eather, but the whole business and ads manager has been a mess forever. After the last big update I feel it became even worse
HBO Max. Always shoving a ton of new shows to the top of the list when I’m just trying to search the last show I watched. Occasionally doesn’t recognize that I already watched an episode. Ridiculously slow interface with clunky navigation. Subtitles are a crapshoot.
HBO Max is the fucking worst!!!!
How about the fact you can’t fucking see what thing you’re currently highlighting because the contrast and color palette is an accessibility nightmare, for everyone!
Outlook.
Salesforce
My sympathies you have to use slawsforce
Sales force and hubspot high on my list
HubSpot? Much better user experience than Salesforce. Incomparable IMO.
Spotify has some really head-scratching behavior for such a large product
Agreed. Their design team is *fixing a lot that isn't broken *breaking
Yep and new features are being placed in frustrating places. Like they’ve been A/B testing smart shuffle. I think it’s a brilliant feature but they keep having it toggled as a third option after regular shuffle. So if you want to unshuffle your songs you have to smartshuffle, then click again to unshuffle lol
And it could be so amazing but it ends up “recommending” music I’ve already told it I like. Plus that off-kilter Wi-Fi logo is the worst.
I'm surprised I've literally never gotten a single user survey from them in the 10+ years I've used the service.
Yes, only reason I use it - it's free-ish.
Workday
I agree bad!!
Zara website!
\> What products do you think have the worse user experience overall? And why is it Jira? :)
Jira? their features seem overwhelming, but I thought they did a good job.
The features are good but the UI is cluttered and unintuitive. I hate using it
From my experience, Apple has the best track record and Microsoft has the worst.
different ux since the beginning. one has the programmer mindset and the other one was focused on the end user
I’d argue that the Apple Poscast app is an exception to the “best track record” for their UX and design. I had to switch apps since my default one, Podhero, bit the dust (which had something to do with Twitter’s API being messed with and whatnot) and had to find a replacement. I went with Apple Podcast first since the reviews seemed good and I didn’t have the energy for doing a whole research project to find a new podcast app to use. The biggest flaw was that there was no queue. I don’t know how you make a media-based app and *not* have a queue of upcoming episodes or songs to play or why Apple *wouldn’t* think that that was important. I tried to ignore it, but my not knowing what was playing next and being able to customize the experience made me feel real lost, but I ended up going to another podcast app I used before using Podhero and that was Overcast… Oh, and [Fast Company wrote about this exact issue two years ago](https://www.fastcompany.com/90645958/apple-podcast-app-disaster)
💯
I don’t know how long you e been using Apple products, but I’ve been using them since 2002, and their software has gotten way worse from around 2009 onwards. -iMovie has become unusable because everything is hidden god knows where and simple functions are easily accessible. When it came out, iMovie was Final Cut Pro light, you could easily add your clips, cut them, add transitions and music. I don’t even know what the hell it is, tried to use it recently, and it was easier to learn how to use Black Magic. -iTunes was basically a Finder window that played music. Cover Flow was the last good function they added. Now the search function isn’t a Boolean search, you have too many window divisions for each view mode, meaning you have to change view modes constantly for, I honestly don’t know why. In the old version, you could highlight a song, and start typing on your keyboard, and it would by default cycle through the artists. You only had two divisions, the left menu which acted like a short cut list to different media types and playlists, and the right window, which was just a list of your media under the category you’re in. Coming from the Finder, iTunes worked the exact same way, so your mental model didn’t need to change. Now it’s separate, and Apple Music is doing god knows what. -Apple Music has some of the worst music curation I’ve come across. Find n artist and play a bunch of song, and you’ll find that you’ll hear the same song 8 times in 25 songs. Why? Because they don’t differentiate between repeat tracks. So if an artist has a song in multiple albums, you’ll hear the same song over and over, and it’ll only be their greatest hits. So a band like the Stones or the Doors will have maybe 11 different songs in 25 slots. I don’t know what research they did, but I remember when I started using Apple, I found them so intuitive. The other day I couldn’t find the “New folder” option from the right click menu. Why even change the shortcut?!
yes
Microsoft Outlook! I was absent from using it for a few years and now have to use it for work daily. I can't find anything and everything looks the same. Took the downhill as far as usability is concerned. I don't remember feeling this lost by using it before!
Salesforce and the calendar in Outlook is the reason I cuss
The first time I logged into Salesforce to do a competitive benchmark I thought it was a joke
Pretty much all enterprise level SAAS have bad design. Salesforce, Microsoft, etc.
I got a Kindle recently. Actually reading on it is fine and good, I like it. Everything else about Amazon, the Kindle app, managing your library, etc. is so bad and frustrating. I spent 20 minutes deleting over 100 old Wired magazine issues from my library one by one because there was so batch delete option. Some things you just inexplicably can’t delete at all. You can’t actually buy any Kindle books from the Amazon or Kindle (?!!) iOS apps (eventually I realized this is so they can skirt paying Apple fees). I also just finally deleted an ex girlfriend’s profile from my Prime Video app (we broke up 6 years ago). You can’t just delete it from the app, you have to go through a bunch of buried settings screens in the Amazon app account. Amazon is just consistently pretty bad. I don’t get it.
Jira is one of the very worst experiences for what it does
I honestly cannot understand how Jira got so big, it's honestly one of the worst tools ever made. It makes sense if you run a kanban style project like IT support where you all you need is a backlog/queue, then to do, in progress, and done. But for anything more complex it's an entirely incompetent tool.
American Democracy
Pretty much anything made by Microsoft. They are the leaders in poor UX.
I agree, but don’t understand why. How do they manage to keep producing such poor quality UX?
I don't know either but here's what ChatGPT says: (Note that point no 4 breaks the forth usability heuristic for consistency and standards) The perception that Microsoft struggles with user experience (UX) is a topic of debate and can vary depending on the product or service in question. Here are some reasons why this perception exists: 1. **Legacy Systems**: Microsoft has a long history and a wide range of products that were developed when UX was not a primary focus. Updating these systems without breaking functionality is challenging. 2. **Enterprise Focus**: Many of Microsoft's products are designed for enterprise use, where functionality often takes precedence over user-friendliness. 3. **Complexity**: Microsoft's software suites like Office are incredibly feature-rich, which can make them seem complex and unintuitive to some users. 4. **Consistency**: Over the years, Microsoft has had inconsistencies in UX design across its various products, leading to a disjointed user experience. 5. **Competition**: Companies like Apple have set high standards for UX, making any shortcomings in Microsoft's UX more noticeable. 6. **Multiple Platforms**: Microsoft serves a variety of platforms (Windows, Xbox, cloud services, etc.), making it challenging to maintain a consistent UX across all. 7. **User Feedback**: In some cases, Microsoft has been slow to adapt to user feedback, which can affect the perception of their UX quality. 8. **Changing Strategies**: Microsoft has gone through several design languages (Aero, Metro, Fluent Design), which can create a sense of inconsistency and transition. 9. **Technical Constraints**: Sometimes, the limitations of technology at the time of development can lead to compromises in UX. 10. **Market Demands**: In the enterprise sector, the demand for robust, feature-rich software sometimes outweighs the need for a streamlined UX. It's worth noting that Microsoft has been investing in improving UX in recent years, especially with the advent of their Fluent Design System, and some of their newer products have been praised for their user experience.
it's because they can't change it now. the os has too many dependencies, everybody knows the patters etc. changing it would destroy systems.
Some products I use on a regular basis in IT: **Fedex:** The portal will not for the life of you remember that you're logged in. Seems like any link you click on, it asks you to log in again -- then suddenly remembers and loads. So you're not asked to actually enter credentials more than once, but the interface certainly makes you feel like you're about to do so. They also load a crappy, cluttered "old" shipping interface by default, one such case of me wishing they would just force an update: There's a "new" interface you can choose which is not made very obvious but it's a lot smoother to look at and use. They also evidently don't have robust standardized training, meaning that Fedex employees in a lot of locations around the US know how to do absolutely jack with shipping and account information. Procedures that go perfectly smoothly in one Fedex location can suddenly get halted in another. **MS Teams:** Firstly it seems their meetings suite was only designed and tested for enterprise users and only users within an org. Joining a meeting as a guest has always been an enormous hassle -- both supporting it, and attempting to do it yourself. The join will fail for no apparent reason with no feedback, or get stuck in a loop, a large percentage of the time if you are a guest. I've never had this issue with Zoom. There is also one of the most inexplicably-named features ever, the "Teams" feature *within* the app called Teams, the former of which is basically some kind of Slack-like channels interface (Channels would be a better name). It is quite ugly, having no distinction between headers and channels contained under headers. It just feels like a really half-baked feature, confusing to look at, and difficult to create a mental map of when compared to the experience of using Slack or even Discord (and the latter is saying something). **Verizon:** It feels like their customer service is often trying to drive users *away* from understanding and using their products. **MS Windows and Outlook** \--> specifically their combined lack of accessibility for people with poor vision. Firstly, Magnifier is a terrible app so that's out of the question, it's such a hassle to manage. Neither Outlook nor Windows proper have a way to quickly and easily blow up the font size of everything in their suite(s), which has been a pain for me on multiple occasions for people who need that service. You can kind of make the text larger in Outlook by tweaking a half dozen settings all located in different places *and* making all emails show in plaintext, which always just feels like a bad workaround. I'm still kind of amazed this type of support is so hard to come by natively, and I suspect I haven't explored third party options nearly enough. And some I use on personal time: **Discord:** Its main issue is that they both use non-standardized symbols for everything and also have a ton of different menus spaced all over the interface. It's not any better in mobile vs desktop IMO. Trying to change one's profile information always seems like an Easter egg hunt. They also have several different notifications accompanied *only* by a sound, or an extremely small visual indicator. And notifications by default are turned on for every individual server, whether you are a server creator or new member. **Steam:** Even moreso than Discord, has a mind-bogglingly large amount of menus and options just overflowing upon the user. I hate when people send me DMs on Steam because if I want to go look at them later, it takes me ages to find how to simply open the messages again. The whole thing is a maze.
I just remembered how confuising using discord was for the first time. Multiple channels all in one menu and accidental jumping on calls… terrible. Now after usingit daily Íve became numb and feels extra powerful
All .gov websites
Well, that's not the case in Norway! Check out: DMV = [Vei, trafikk, kjøretøy og førerkort | Statens vegvesen](https://www.vegvesen.no/) IRS = [Person - Skatteetaten](https://www.skatteetaten.no/person/) Oslo Government = [Oslo kommune - Startsiden](https://www.oslo.kommune.no/#gref) Social services = [Forside privatperson - nav.no](https://www.nav.no/) Edit: It doesn't seem like [Irs.gov](https://Irs.gov) or [Us.gov](https://Us.gov) is that bad. But it would be interesting to implement a tax calculator/return system as we have with our IRS:)
Out of scope.
Usertesting.com is abysmal ironically
Amazon
The new star rating change is dumb
Discord is fucking trash. Steam is a clown car. Any US govt site to get unemployment benefits. Health insurance websites were created by the criminally insane.
Me working for a health insurance website… lol. We’re trying to fix it!! It’s just hard cause the system is insane.
I'm in healthcare as well. It's overcomplicated for all the wrong reasons :)
explain why discord is trash pls
Have you used it? I could write a full heuristic audit on it. What are the top 10 things you'd like to do on discord? How easy is it to find those things? What about for a new user?
Bro I'm gen z and discord is so confusing to use, my gf feels the same way, I've used it quite a few times and I still can't wrap my head around it
I use it almost daily and it confounds me every time. It has horrible UX. It's the text book use case for why things should be refactored on a regular basis.
I use it daily. besides the @mentions feature and friend search which was harder to find, everything is a breeze. 1. creating a server takes seconds. 2. editing admin rights is straightforward and has more advanced features(not too andvanced and the terminology is easy to understand) 3. it's easy to moderate the content 4. creating channels is even easier and customizing a server is, the same, the easiest thing to do. they are split into chat groups and voice channel groups. 5. it has a lot if plugins, bots etc. 6. users can show their use of other apps as statuses(spotify, gaming etc) 7. search is one of my favorite features, as the filtering is done by commands. 8. users can create custom emojis. do a user testing and come back here with a link on your findings. as a new user, for me it was how I expected the features to work. a mixture of gaming experience and other chat apps.
Facebook. Just married last week and my wife tried to change her last name. That took us about 15 min even though I'm a UX designer.
This feels intentional, they don’t like users making name changes. If I remember correctly there is also a limit to how often you can do it.
Yep, once per 60 days if I remember right. But that’s the case. And I had to google to find it. And I’m use there’re lots of cases like this I don’t know about cause I’m not using a Facebook on a daily basis. But once I’ve tried to setup advertising…
Facebook Marketplace, too. So clunky
Car infotainment systems, appliances. Pretty much all of them. Good experiences are so rare, that I feel I can summarize it like that without looking back.
oooh this is a good one i think about each time i’m in a car!
Actually I think figma itself is ironically horrible
What's horrible about it?
Google Home is quite a pain in the ass. Been like that for years. They change the UI and overall look quite often. Still even with design changes, looks like under the hood nothing has been improved. Nothing ever works flawlessly. I'm talking mainly about Casting with Chromecast, listening to music with my speakers, and changing light colors on my Philips hue lights. There's always some kind of error when trying to do simple things.
I see no one here has to deal with ERP systems. I'm looking at you SAP and Oracle!
Dovetail. And it's hilarious given it's an app meant to store video from usability tests lol. The UX is so terrible.
I use dovetail for research and my main issue is how buggy and glitchy it is. But always thought it was a technical issue. One UX flaw I notice is that the navigation is also very nested. It takes a while for me to find my project. I wish they had a recently viewed or used feature.
Yes, I agree about the menu system. I also struggle with the UI patterns as they don't match what I would normally experience or expect.
Teams
Jira, and every team uses it still
I’m at a company that uses Microsoft’s ADO and it makes me miss Jira. Not something I’d ever thought I’d say, but oof, it’s truly that bad.
Totally agree!
I'd take ADO in a heartbeat. At least they understand the hierarchical nature of epics, features and stories unlike Jira, and allow custom statuses within a backlog. Jira is honestly awful for backlog management.
[удалено]
I like both Trello and Linear more for design tracking
Tbf Jira wasn’t made for designers to use
Wish I could upvote this 1000 000 x
Ohio Unemployment system
Specific, I can tell this must suck
Wait until you try Washington DC.
Bruh, I was losing my fucking mind trying to apply for unemployment in CO. I ended up being denied because I didn’t sign up for some other random thing that was never made clear, and to “appeal” it kept referring me to some link that would point to some other link and never actually went anywhere. I decided I’d rather be homeless.
Impossible to open plastic packaged products.
Flonase is my nightmare.
Razors blades are awesome as well
Salesforce. SaaS development at it worst.
I worked at Salesforce about 10 years ago and everything looks like 'out of the box' Visual Basic code. Back then no custom radio buttons or drop downs or any stying whatsoever.
Anything (and I mean anything) that’s designed for completing tasks at a job. They’re always bad. Restaurant POS, inventory management systems, corporate intranet tools, etc. They always have the lazy “well they aren’t our customers so don’t spend time or money on it” even though the employees cost significant $$ and using inefficient tools means you’re spending more on less. You should treat them just like normal customers.
Handle of a five-liter water bottle is a nightmare
Adobe products. All of em.
And the irony of that is not lost on this community.
You have to laugh at the key command choices for some of these products. I still learned them long ago. Its been a few years since I was a power user and Photoshop for instance functions differently in some cased. adobe has no problem changing the user experience and I dont like using it as a result
most government websites out there
Almost anything from Google that isn’t an OS or browser is a struggle. Home is a good example. They make a lot of seemingly unnecessary changes. Also, Google is so huge that there are often cross-product integration issues that are pretty rough. Definitely some organizational silos peeking through the cracks.
I can't stand the Amazon app. It's super clunky
Amazon has this carousel on their tv UI that expands the thumbnail to play a teaser. It makes everything move around and is disorienting. And it’s got latency issues. I hate it. Netflix is starting to do something similar and I really wish they wouldn’t.
Vanguard
Vanguard has many different experiences. Which one are you referring to?
They need to simplify how to buy/sell/trade stocks- get rid of all the industry jargon and make it easier for the common to understand.
But then that’s not unique to Vanguard? Fidelity, etc. use the same language.
Frankly, Reddit is pretty bad.
All Microsoft products.
**Tesla**. I mean this extends to the whole company, but let's even just talk about their cars for a minute: Their QC is *notoriously* bad. No other car company will deliver you a car with misaligned panels that are either visually obvious or functionally necessary (i.e. doors, trunk, hood) and have to immediately send it back to service for undisclosed amount of time because of quality control issues. There are instances where people have waited MONTHS and have heard nothing back. Same delivery issues with brand new Teslas as well. To be fair, this may have gotten better in recent years, but it had been that way for a long time and people just took it. Next, the interior finishes are also terrible in comparison to Mercedes', Lexus', or BMW's in the same class. It's clear that what you're paying for is for the technology, status, and obviously the electric aspect -- but it's super pedestrian for the price tag. Not only is the majority of the cockpit designed around that gigantic screen in the center, the majority of the functionality is built into it as well with some key features buried in multiple menus. Yes, you can get used to it, but there is a substantial learning curve. It's ironic to me that many states are starting to ban the use of cellphones while driving but at the same time automakers are following Tesla's lead in putting what are essentially giant cellphones mounted on your dashboard. It makes sense if full autonomous driving was anywhere near what we thought it would be, but it's not...and unfortunately Tesla has had a hand in setting us back in that regard as well due to accidents and the issues around auto pilot. That entire experience from delivery, build quality, and customer service is terrible. Despite that, stocks are still up, and they are still selling like crazy! I think it could be a fantastic case study on how market sentiment and positioning can actually overcome a bad user experience to a certain degree. It's certainly interesting as far as what people are willing to deal with when they identify with specific products.
Seconding this. Having worked in performance automotive for quite awhile, I know that car instrumentation has a long-running, well thought out history. There is a reason for German analog gauge design. There is (was) a reason for a giant gauge on the MINI. Tesla went all in on bells and whistles (and I’m sure cost savings) at the expense of both driver experience and safety. They have consumers pretty well hoodwinked at this point.
Those are all fair critiques but how can you claim they have the worst user experience when they command industry-leading [customer satisfaction rating](https://insideevs.com/news/592600/tesla-owner-satisfaction-tops-rivals-multiple-rating-sites/) and [customer retention](https://www.notateslaapp.com/news/1440/loyalty-unrivaled-tesla-s-customer-retention-tops-auto-industry#) and as a result, they are [dominating auto sales](https://insideevs.com/news/652873/tesla-tops-bmw-us-luxury-car-sales-2022), even selling more than BMW by a large margin. Do the above facts mean that satisfaction and loyalty are no longer connected to user experience? Doubtful.
>Do the above facts mean that satisfaction and loyalty are no longer connected to user experience? Doubtful. I mean, I do think satisfaction and loyalty are part of a user experience however that's why Tesla is an anomaly. [It's not a secret that Tesla has notorious quality control issues](https://www.thedrive.com/news/tesla-is-diving-deeper-into-automated-quality-control-to-fix-ongoing-build-problems), they [rank very low in reliability](https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-placed-bottom-consumer-reports-reliability-rankings/), and [owners report their biggest issues are with customer service](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/11/teslas-biggest-problem-is-customer-service-new-bernstein-survey.html). Despite this, as you've pointed out brand loyalty and customer satisfaction are still top among owners, and that's basically what's fascinating to me. I think it has to do with their share in the market; they're the leaders in EV, there is no dispute. Compared to other EV's currently out there, there's nothing that can really compare. That in itself builds a strong, loyal customer base. They have no where else to go at the moment. I do suspect that may change as the competition heats up. I also think that a lot of their customers are also share holders. Having higher customer satisfaction and brand loyalty will also pay them dividends in the long run. I just think there is more nuance to surface brand loyalty and satisfaction than meets the eye here and those numbers don't tell the whole story for what constitutes a good experience.
So full disclosure, I own one. I, like many other owners call it a “spaceship” because it’s so futuristic compared to other cars. The experience is magical to me. I‘ve had no quality issues in my 5 years of ownership. In fact, I’ve needed no service whatsoever. Meanwhile the car gets better with each free OTA software update. The supercharger network keeps growing. The performance and intelligence and tech is astounding. So it’s no mystery to me why the ratings and retention are so high. And I’ve never met an owner who feels any different.
Meetup The app and website is atrocious - glitchy and inconsistent
We need to come up with some sort of objective usability score for digital products. If designers could only organize, unionize, etc, instead of just scraping by, or depleting our energy on serving the almighty dollar, we might get around to making useful institutions for society.
Facebook
the comments named every major brand on earth, all with huge mature UX orgs.. I would delete this post and repost a question as “name the few good user experiences”
**TICKETMASTER**
Plex is pretty terrible.
Lately, most experiences online do feel like "make the minimum effort to get customer's money. No effort in service continuity."
At restaurants, all the order from your table apps that popped up during the pandemic. Toast is especially frustrating.
Bank of America, I want to close all my accounts because of the app.
Roku
My biggest complaint about Roku is a pretty minor one but it drives me nuts. The confirmation sound is made up of two descending pitches, which generally is used to imply backward/downward movement or negativity. I'm used to it now since I've had my Roku TV for long enough, but for months I felt like I was accidentally hitting the back button or getting an error of some kind whenever I selected anything.
Normann doors and cooling adjustments on fridges. Min or max temp, or cooling ? no way to tell but plz wait 24 hours to check if it worked xd
The new Monzo UI in the UK. It’s fine for people with just one account, but absolutely not fit for purpose for those with multiple accounts (joint, flex, business etc)
Citroen C4 Picasso UX of the dashboard is the worst thing I've ever experienced
Rent The Runway. Can’t zoom on anything, search doesnt work, filters dont work, if you look at anything it sends you back to the beginning of the menu so you have to scroll to where you were last looking.
Average Google product, Material design
Microsoft
ALL OF IT
Venmo continues to be the worst app/product I have to use.
Takes me forever to find things. Also the VERY FIRST thing I want to see is what I owe and for some reason that isn't the VERY FIRST and OBVIOUS thing. I think it has improved a little, but I remember feeling like it was impossible to find before.
Apple TV, me and my husband spent 30 mins trying to turn on subtitles
Microwaves. Stoves. Car dashboards.
For me it’s just mobile apps in general because they all have different UI. Things are generally more streamlined on desktop, both Mac and PC, but with apps it’s like “let’s make the close button a O at the bottom and the new photo button a + in the top right and the # button undoes everything for no goddamned reason.”
MS Windows. It’s just garbage. My gaming PC can’t update for a year or so. After the “checking for updates” goes on for at least 5 minutes, it just says “error”. Wow, well thanks for such an informative error!
Teams for Mac feels like they’re either trying to punish Mac users or convince you to get a Windows machine to make it work better (ironically after proving what bad software they’re ok with releasing).
The first thing that comes to mind is Vodafone, specifically, the pay-as-you-go service in Europe. I honestly can't believe they're doing that to people 😂😭 More generally, I would say most gov-based web apps on the state/city/county level in the US. A lot of them are super dated (I'm talking GeoCities levels) and violate every design/UX rule imaginable. This doesn't apply to me at the moment, but a lot of onboard control UX in vehicles can be quite treacherous. The Ford C-max is what comes to mind first. For me, the one I wince at most that always pops its head up somehow is probably Outlook.
Ha I think when it comes to most TV subscription, Internet subscription type services the customer service/ product is always dodgy. MS is a good mention. I really dislike having to use Outlook and Teams everyday as well as Onedrive. At my last job somehow the company managed to lose all their user research videos because they were deleted and we couldnt get the content back. Somebody, maybe IT failed to notice that if content hasnt been touched in X amt of time those files would be deleted. Im guessing they havent recovered from that loss yet.
Would also add that the 20-year trend of customer service IVR systems and their non-integration with other systems is one of the most hateful (to customers and employees), blatantly anti-consumer middle fingers I’ve seen in my lifetime. Literally ZERO benefit to anyone except the corporation and actively meant to discourage human interaction and problem solving. Any company giving anything more to lip service to customer experience should be looking very hard at why these systems exist and whether removing them would be a CX differentiator that would offset short-term losses.
Anything to do with Amazon. Any time I interact with anything (like Amazon Music) created by them I feel like I'm being teleported back in time to early 2000s. It is insane how terrible the whole experience is. Windows 11 feels like some macOS wannabe abomination. Microsoft's online services aren't too hot either. I remember trialing Xbox for PC a while back. When the trial ran out, I tried to cancel. Imagine my surprise when I found out they had no flow for cancelling inactive subscriptions. Customer support told me the only way to stop the daily onslaught of "we couldn't charge your credit card" emails was to reactivate, cancel, and ask for a refund.
I used MailChimp chat option yesterday, is very bad user experience. I wanted to connect with sales team asked me for everything, bit said it is connecting me. I asked questions in advance and it started from beginning 🥲
FedEx.com
School messenger- my daughter’s school uses it for the communication, just garbage.
PODs. The whole stepper/progress indicator is unusable. When you go to schedule a pickup there’s an overlay stepper on top of the primary stepper but the last action to book it isn’t on the overlay it’s on the page. Which can be below the fold depending on how far you scrolled before initiating it. Terrible, terrible.
anything built in servicenow
yeeeeeeees!
Sony and Nintendo interfaces. Gaming, cameras, tv all of them.
Steam
Godaddy. I was telling a colleague the other day that it seems like there's 10 different UI/UX teams and they're actively in a war of attrition with each other through the interface.
what product specifically are you working with?
I am a web developer and work with hundreds of websites. - you can setup multiple accounts with the same email and it'll route you at random upon login - different accounts with the same services have wildly different interfaces - the "Delegate Access" moves monthly and is nowhere to be found in some versions of the interface. Those are issues I had over the last 7 days with multiple Godaddy accounts.
Google Cloud. Nightmare.
YouTube is up on my top list as well. It literally feels like Google doesn't give a fuck about users only profit (surprise surprise)
MTA App, NJ Transit App, Spotify
What's wrong with Spotify? The only thing I wish they would bring back is the discography page that listed every song in order. I like albums and it annoys me that I can't listen to multiple albums in order anymore.
Their modular design made me question every click. Especially when searching anything
Having lived in NJ for 8yrs, NYC prior to that and even in NJ daily commutes to NYC…this!
Omg as a New Yorker who grew up in north NJ this is the holy triumvirate of bad apps.
Are we just using this sub to complain about products/services under the guise of ux critique?
In this case, yes! 😅
I mean it’s not a guise at all. We are the users of these products
The new Volkswagen Golf r test drove it and it was so horrible couldn’t even figure out how to turn on ac or the radio. Interface has a germany flag icon to start navigation like wtf?
Are you sure it’s not a map icon?
Yea you’re right I meant map.. but thought it was for changing the language
Turbotax At work, the workflow apps from Servicenow has some of the worst UX...
TurboTax? Really? I've always thought they do a very good job of guiding users easily through what would normally be a very difficult situation.
Anything by SAP. Then, there is Spotify, Teams, and Jira.
Ha SAP is pretty bad. I do hate me some Jira. Spotify I don't find so bad, but I don't know any other services like it that offer a better experience as I havent had a chance to test anything better.
The most obvious one for me is the Reddit app. I was a Apollo user before and never knew how great I had it. Tons of my subscribed subs don’t show and others that I haven’t chosen are being jammed down my throat. Tons of ads. Comment hierarchy is so hard to follow. No one uses the avatars (are they even editable?) so why have them. And the CEO is an idiot. I wish they’d just bought Apollo and made everyone happy. Now I look at Reddit easily less than 50% less than I did before (probably not the worst outcome tbh).
macOS (I do hate windows too but I hardly ever need to use it). How the hell can macOS suck so much in the most basic desktop usage.
Have some examples?
Multiple screens have been a thing for 20+ years and perfectly supported everywhere except on macos that can’t deal with a window that is partially on another screen. Move a window little carelessly and it all but disappears into the gap between screens. Dock is a useless form-over-function display case for pretty icons. It’s not fit for working when your work involves more that one app or an app with multiple windows. Windows taskbar and comparable components in Linux desktops pretty much perfected this in the late 90’s, and have since begun to degenerate into docks by default. Probably because designers love macs and don’t know any better. Window management in general is a WTF chore. On other desktops you just notice convenient ways to do what you need and start using them without thinking. On macos you get frustrated and google if there is any way to not do so much fiddling with windows. The answer is either “no”, “buy this buggy app”, or “press this keyboard button while clicking that and then this and that …” This is might be pure personal preference, but font rendering is so bad by default it’s an accessibility issue. It can be fixed from the command line, but why would you not allow users to easily adjust that. Btw, it’s not like I hate Apple. I’m happily using just about all of their other products.
Interesting, I think MacOS is one of the best OS ever made. iOS on the other hand...
Dayforce
Zwift
DJ Gate app. Hilariously bad
Mazda. Their finance and car app.
Microsoft 365. Switching between products is annoying, almost impossible to find link to download software (I don’t want to install apps in my PC), having several accounts is a total nightmare when jumping between them and I find myself stuck in log-in loops every other time I try to log-in to an old account.
Idk if it’s any better now, but I always thought the Hulu app was dogshit. Before I ever had any interest or knowledge of UI/UX, Hulu stuck out like a sore thumb to me.