

The bad case of Hacker News authentication usability design - punjsingh
http://arvinderkang.com/2012/05/11/The-bad-case-of-Hacker-News-authentication-usability-design/

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citricsquid
> Before I unintentionally start a flame war

This statement would be needed if anyone thought HN was an example of good
design and usability, I don't think I've ever seen a comment here claim that,
it seems everyone acknowledges that HN was built to work (as in, do the very
minimum it can to exist) and nothing more. The lack of polish with HN is part
of the charm really.

~~~
pooriaazimi
I like HN the way it is, only if I could _vote_ on iPad (or worse, on iPhone)
without having to zoom 600% in first. Those up/down arrows being _so_ close to
each other drives me crazy.

~~~
mambodog
Have you tried <http://ihackernews.com/> ?

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pooriaazimi
No, I have no knowledge of its existence. It looks good - I'll try it for a
few days.

It might be good to submit it as a new link... I'm sure it's been posted
before (though I'd never seen it), I'm sure there are _many_ HNers who don't
know about it and it might be useful for them (for iOS, there are a few nice
applications; but on other platforms, I think there might be none and this web
app could be a life-saver for many!)

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eps
Ironically, the linked site is _unusable_ on iPhone. The page width is twice
the size of the screen AND it cannot be zoomed out. Lovely stuff, can't wait
to read what the author has to say on usability of other's people work.

~~~
NathanKP
I came here to say exactly this. The site design is horrible on iPhone. I had
to use the Mobile Safari reader to even be able to read the content.

~~~
punjsingh
And I started seem to have the flame war! Here are my two cents if they make
anyone feel better: First it is a recommendation from a user not lecture from
a UI expert. Second as a developer I'm flattered that compared my crappy blog
whose audience is me and probably one other person- its usability expectations
with HN. Third your point well taken, I need to work on responsive CSS when I
get to my machine later in the day. Thanks to your comments, I just fixed
viewport scaling issues.

But my post is not about me. It is about an issue in HN which I thought others
would be facing too.

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mratzloff
Speaking of usability... your site doesn't scale on my iPhone, so I only see
about 30% of the screen width and have to do a lot of scrolling to read
anything.

~~~
punjsingh
Thanks for pointing that out. Responsive CSS pending.

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Sidnicious
It would be OK without responsive CSS as long as you didn't include that <meta
name="viewport" …> tag to disable scaling.

~~~
punjsingh
Thanks Sidnicious. Fixed now.

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MaxGabriel
By the way, you cannot zoom in or out on your website using an iPhone. This
makes it very hard to read.

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willvarfar
Hmm, posting on a Saturday is not the best tactical time to get someone at HN
to read this post... it'll have disappeared off the front-page long before
Monday

~~~
citricsquid
If he replies to this post (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=363>) with it
then it should get noticed, that post seems to be checked every now and again.

~~~
punjsingh
Thanks for pointing that out. Cross-posted the link to the url in your post.
Thanks

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raldi
Mmm, a lecture on usability from a site that can't be read on an iPhone.

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elteto
And that is relevant because ...? Sorry if I am not too hip for you, but
readability on an iPhone screen is far from being the ultimate usability test,
especially if the site is _not_ a mobile site.

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tptacek
"Support staff". Heh.

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punjsingh
And I started seem to have the flame war! Here are my two cents if they make
anyone feel better: First it is a recommendation from a user not lecture from
a UI expert. Second as a developer i'm flattered that compared my crappy blog
which mostly I read to boost my alter ego ;)- its usability expectations with
HN. Third your point well taken, I need to work on responsive CSS when I get
to my machine later in the day. In the meantime you can use Safari reader if
you really want to read the article on iPhone. Sorry for the inconvenience to
iPhone users. Thanks.

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sparknlaunch12
I don't like the user management functionality on HN. It is a little basic for
what it could be.

One issue... For some strange reason I cannot login through my Android browser
but can through Opera. I am sure username and password are correct.

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rmATinnovafy
I can zoom in fine in android 2.2.

Why don't the YC people open up the site code and put it on github so we can
contribute into making a better site?

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dwynings
Little known fact: the source code is available.

<http://arclanguage.org/install>

~~~
rmATinnovafy
I did not know that. Thanks for the link. I shall go and dust off my LISP.

Now, if any fix is written, where is it to be submitted?

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dwynings
I'm not sure... you may have to email pg

~~~
rmATinnovafy
That's the reason to have the code up on github. I don't want to bother PG
over this stuff.

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temphn
The other thing is that the login page is http rather than https.

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ohgodthecat
It does support https, such as if you use https-everywhere which now works on
chrome.

~~~
k33l0r
If you don't want to install a third party extension, you can also manually
add domains to the HSTS* set via chrome://net-internals/#hsts

* HTTPS Strict Transport Security <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Strict_Transport_Security>

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j45
I don't really come to hacker news for usability or design. Mainly for
content.

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recoiledsnake
Why not just create a new account and move on? Unless I am missing something.

~~~
punjsingh
Because I have an invitation associated with the old account that I needed to
RSVP.

~~~
tuananh
While I agree with your post, you definitely need a password manager app.

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kmfrk
I use LastPass, I've still managed to lose a HN password. Shit happens now and
then, and it's silly that you'd lose your account over it.

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batista
> _The bad case of Hacker News authentication usability design_

What design? It was just thrown together.

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kingkawn
call?

