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pkulak • today at 3:45 PM • 3 replies • view on HN

> I don't know why anybody would.

Well, there's really two things going on here: consumer vs professional. Does an electrician need to "discover" the modes on her multimeter? Naw. Do I need to discover where the wiper controls are on the car I just rented? Absolutely! But I'm not a huge fan of UI fluff that helps me discover things on my work machine.


Replies

necovek • today at 7:15 PM

All the multimeters I've seen had pretty bog standard markings for AC and DC resistance, voltage and current. While not an electrician myself, I think one would be pretty annoyed if a "designer" invented new graphics for alternating current or resistance. They might even gotten hurt or damaged some equipment.

So when consistent UX is applied, both a professional and amateur alike can learn and trust that what they learned carries over.

Loquebantur • today at 4:34 PM

The idea of "one size fits all" was never true.

Weirdly, there is some kind of power play happening with OS UI: "MBA finally in position of influence wants to force their taste on everybody" appears to be a thing.

Uncle_Brumpus • today at 4:47 PM

Your rental car comment reminds me of the time I looked like an idiot trying to open the fuel door on a rented Kia K5 for almost 20 minutes. I don't have a smartphone and didn't have my laptop so had no way to look anything up. Ended up finding this video on the gas station employee's phone (she came out to see if everything was okay. It was not okay.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e7lZmbjtNo

If you have to release a tutorial video to open your fuel filler door, and that video includes the one easy piece of user interface to do the thing getting thanos-snapped out of existence, I think you did something wrong.

The cause of my problem was I opened the driver's door before turning off the car. The rental didn't have push-to-start like my personal vehicle, and I don't have "turn and remove key" on the mind when exiting a vehicle. Even locking and unlocking the door didn't unlock the fuel door, I had to turn the car back on, lock the doors, turn the car off, then unlock the doors. Why is opening the fuel door so complicated? There doesn't seem to be any way to do it mechanically, so good luck when the solenoid dies.

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