ElisabethOct 25
Cory Doctorow
The fact that hotels have started hiring escape room designers to hide their light switches seems related to the fact that UI designers turned scrollbars into the world's shittiest video games/hand-eye coordination tests.
Oct 25 at 3:34pmWeb
Show threadMoos-a-dee 🫎Oct 25

@pluralistic we're all mad about the scrollbars. :)

https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@Moosader/112684444742380925

Rachel Wil Singh ~ Moos-a-dee (@[email protected])

I want fat scrollbars. Stop making scrollbars so thin. >:(

Gamedev Mastodon
Show threadPino CarafaOct 25
@Moosader @pluralistic Thin scrollbars? LUXURY. They now have scrollbars that disappear without a trace. The person who came up with that deserves to be subjected to Country Music for eternity.
Show threadMoos-a-dee 🫎Oct 25

@rozeboosje
I hate the rise of invisible UI elements that you have to hover your mouse over to see.

It is so annoying to try to tell students how to use VS Code's source control panel when the "..." button doesn't show up until you're over the Source Control bar - not that bar, the other Source Control bar.

Show threadBroken TrolandOct 26

@Moosader @rozeboosje The worst in VS Code is when I misclick near the line numbers and trigger an invisible button that expands a line-by-line git blame or something that takes up half the screen. Because trying to click there again does nothing and then I have to remember which of the dozen toolbar buttons turns it back off.

This may be part of the GitLens extension, but I know I’m not the only one to have triggered it accidentally and don’t know why.

Show threadrastinzaOct 26

@Moosader @rozeboosje
Vscode source control panel is one of the worst UI things I have to use from time to time. (Just after the whole office365 suite)

Everything is under the ... Menu. I still did not understand how to add a remote. Rebase, cherry pick, stash, fixup... Good luck doing those without messing up something.

To my students I show them the interface and explain how to commit. And I'm then like, I'm sorry and can't really explain much more. I'll show you how to do things in the terminal, if you figure out how to do the same things with the UI you sure can do that.

I know, it is me, I should learn how to use it before I teach it. But really, it gets way too annoying that I much rather open up the terminal than have to go through all those submenus.

Show threadAcin ☆Oct 26

@Moosader @pluralistic

Scrollbars are the women's pockets for digital environments— except everyone's expected to wear women's style pants.

Show threadBill SeitzOct 26
@shadowfals @Moosader @pluralistic "If you play 'where did the ball go?' with your dog over and over, you may be a designer."
Show threadtessaraktOct 25
@pluralistic I don't remember which hotel (chain) this was, but I _once_ had a switch next to the bed for turning all lights off. That was bliss.
Show threadSarcastiCanadianOct 25
@tessarakt @pluralistic The hotel in the Vancouver airport (Fairmont? Delta? Don't remember) has this feature. Bliss.
Show threadSpeed demon 🇪🇺 🇳🇴🇺🇦🇵🇸Oct 25

@tessarakt
1) Bring a flashlight for all travel
2) Remove key-card from slot near door, -- go to bed in complete darkness.

* Now, you have to remember where the flashlight is when you get up to pee.

@pluralistic

Show threadTed MielczarekOct 25
@tessarakt @pluralistic I've seen this in a few hotels lately, most recently in Spain. It's a nice development!
Show threadConnor CadellinOct 25
@pluralistic BREAKING: Apple unveils the thinnest and lightest scroll bars in the industry.
Show threadMarijke LuttekesOct 25
@cadellin @pluralistic Update: “Sir Jony, despite not having worked on this design, drools over the floor in excitement.”
Show threadBrian GordonOct 25

@pluralistic

Remember when corporations were going to adapt their products for an aging population with poorer eyesight, etc? It sounded good, anyway.

"The fact that hotels have started hiring escape room designers to hide their light switches seems related to the fact that UI designers turned scrollbars into the world's shittiest video games/hand-eye coordination tests."

Show threadBen CurthoysOct 25
@pluralistic hands up who else, half way through a long article on a touch device, has to drag screen up and down a bit and wiggle it until the scroll bar becomes visible, just in order to find out how much more there is to read.
Show threadAaron Lord Oct 25
@bencurthoys @pluralistic ✋
Show threadBodhipaksaOct 26
@bencurthoys @pluralistic ✋🏻
Show threadDr Andrew A. Adams #FBPE 🔶Oct 26
@bencurthoys 🙋‍♂️
Show threadFlaming CheetoOct 25
@pluralistic 🎶Knock three times on the ceiling if you...want to read🎶
Show threadFoolishOwlOct 25

@pluralistic There's some discussion how "management", as in MBA programs, is taught as a set of skills abstracted from any concrete application, and this has led to managers who see their job as telling people who know the concrete specific details that they're wrong.

I wonder if something similar is happening with designers.

Show threadInfrapink (he/his/him)Oct 25
@foolishowl @pluralistic I work on an assembly line and I've recently been doing a course where I have to interact with office workers. They talk a lot about how all managers start on the line and work their way up, but there really seems to be a process of inculturation whereby people lose sight of the trees for the forest.
Show threadInfrapink (he/his/him)Oct 25

@foolishowl @pluralistic Case in point: we're taught how to measure improvements in efficiency. I like efficiency! But their reasoning is that, if you save n hours making k units, that's a saving of (w×n) where w is the worker's hourly wage. It never occurs to them that they're still paying the workers the same amount regardless of what they're doing.

Also the higher managers explicitly told us we should be using CoPilot. I recently got to explain at length how that (doesn't) work.

Show threadCassandraVertOct 25

@Infrapink
Yeah, a better formulation would be
O/k vs
O-n = E/k

Where O is the original number of hours and E is the more efficient time. But their point is after you hit E, yes you are still paying them, but you are paying them for new output. It doesn't mean you send them home.

Show threadInfrapink (he/his/him)Oct 25

@CassandraVert More or less my own thoughts. We have to give a presentation the week after next on a real proposal one of us submitted. I'm going to give the orthodox "savings" because it's expected, but I'll also show the number of extra units the workers can make in a[n idealised] month with the time savings, since that's a real, measureable improvement.

(Also we should really used 4-weekly periods instead of Gregorian months, but for some reason managers prefer months).

Show threadCassandraVertOct 25
@Infrapink
The government and other entities measure by months. I think there are psychological aspects too. When the pandemic started, we had just had our best January and February. February ended with the week, so the next Monday was March, and from that first Monday, March fell off the chart.
Show threadAdmiral SnackbärOct 25

@CassandraVert @Infrapink

No, it's just simpler. There's no big sociological research necessary.

In meteorology, seasons are also aligned to months, not equinoxes or the like, simply because it's easier to calculate.

Don't forget that especially in business, laziness is almost always the right answer.

Show threadTodd KnarrOct 25

@Infrapink @foolishowl @pluralistic I find it informative that when Google designed an AI tool specifically for coding (converting their codebase to a different hardware architecture), they only managed a 30% success rate. That's with a tool designed solely for that job. I'd imagine CoPilot would be at maybe a third of that.

https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/22/google_multi_arch_x86_arm_port/

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.14928

Google porting all internal workloads to Arm, with help from GenAI

: YouTube and Gmail already running on both x86 and homebrew Axion silicon, 70,000 more apps in the conversion queue

The Register
Show threadDubi is here Oct 25
@Infrapink @foolishowl @pluralistic but then you can produce k+v units, or, alternatively, reduce your workforce by the equivalent of n hours.
Show threadBensondynamicsOct 25

@Infrapink @foolishowl @pluralistic Working on a floor I remember a management fixation with keeping labor maximally productive.

Too bad we were constantly late because we minimized inventory costs and didn't keep material for odd jobs in an industry where the customer will pay top dollar for short lead times.

Too bad we occasionally had machines that made $500/hr down because we didn't have a $20/hr operator on hand.

I blame everyone treating manufacturing like a mom & pop restaurant.

Show threadSarahATXOct 25
@foolishowl @pluralistic
As someone who has done a lot of work with UX designers.... It's not the designers (typically). All those demands for what are basically dark patterns come from non-designer product people and c-level jerks who think they know better. And there is only so much fighting the designers can do (like how many hills can a person die on, you know?)
Show threadDawn AhukannaOct 26
@purplelotus13 @foolishowl @pluralistic
Yes! UX Design assets (abstract blueprints) like software architecture diagrams are inputs to inform/guide, not decide the code written by developers & shipped.
Human-focused UX (Intuitive, accessible, configurable, customizable, etc) is more expensive than 1 default as it caters for more subsets of needs e.g. Apple Liquid Glass effect no-one asked for & cannot make accessible, configure (remove it) & only partially customize based on negative feedback.
Show threadDJ Sexy FreshOct 25
@foolishowl @pluralistic "I have a Masters' Degree in Leadership" - people in Washington DC, unironically
Show threadHabrokOct 25
@pluralistic In many years, I had one hotel room where the light switches next to the bed were labeled to indicate which lights they are for. I found that much better than the usual trial and error.
Show threadploumOct 25
@pluralistic : can we discuss hotel’s shower taps ?
Show threadAnand ROct 25

@pluralistic On Whatsapp if you try to scroll past the last message in a group chat (for instance, if you were trying to ensure that you were in fact at the last message), the group chat turns into a group call! Transmitting all ambient sounds in your room to the group.

My mom kept accusing my aged dad of not knowing what he was doing on his phone and group calling all their relatives.

Turns out there are whole reddit threads about old people doing this by mistake, and who can blame them?

Show threadstephenwottonOct 25
@anand that's incredibly poor even by this threads standard. I have no idea how I haven't done this yet!!
Show threadUkeleleEricOct 25
@pluralistic the light switches in this hotel are large and obvious. But, not in logical position or arrangement - when we got here, it took us nearly 5 minutes to work out where the light switch for the en-suite was. Illogical position, not that near the door, and not visible from outside the en-suite when you have the door open because the door is in the way (and yes, it's not inside the en-suite, either, so, it could be turned off by the other occupant of the room whilst you're inside).
Show threadmike805Oct 25

@UkeleleEric @pluralistic Also not an improvement: super bright white LED lighting. If you get up at night and turn one of those on, you're up for the day, like it or not.

Bring a small red LED flashlight. Red light doesn't wake you up.

Show threadUkeleleEricOct 25
@mike805 @pluralistic yeah, might be an idea. At home, if I get up at night for the toilet (still a rarity for me, despite coming up to 60), I know the exact way, and don't switch any lights on, but there is always a bit of light through the frosted-glass window. Strange hotel rooms have all sorts of night trip and shin hazards.
Show threadmike805Oct 26
@UkeleleEric @pluralistic I gave these as a gift. Bright red LED lights with motion activation. Last over a week and recharge from a power bank with USB-C. They do not wake you up at night. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CNH29XSG
ZOCIFINER Red Motion Sensor Night Lights, Rechargeable Battery Operated Night Light, Stick On Magnetic Red Light Night Lights for Bathroom, Bedroom, Sleep Aid, Stair, Hallway, 4Pack - Amazon.com

ZOCIFINER Red Motion Sensor Night Lights, Rechargeable Battery Operated Night Light, Stick On Magnetic Red Light Night Lights for Bathroom, Bedroom, Sleep Aid, Stair, Hallway, 4Pack - Amazon.com

Show threadWinter TrabexOct 25

@pluralistic

The corporate repudiation is coming. I can't wait until it does.

Show threadRiverOct 25
@pluralistic Is there a reason why hotels would do this? Doesn't seem like there would be any obvious incentive for that lol. Or am I missing some context on this?
Show threadSOwOphie ⠬⠆Oct 25
@pluralistic My conspiracy theory: scroll bars are incompatible with infinite scrolling, and that is vital to keeping users "engaged".
Show threadNikuNashiOct 26

@sowophie @pluralistic

or "enraged".

Hard to say, they seem to be equivalent these days.

Multiple scrollbars stacked on top of each other instead of next to what's scrolling is another pain in the 🫏. I think the idea is that it's "cleaner", but it's completely shit functionality.

Show threadDaNannerOct 26
@sowophie it’s not a conspiracy theory though. There’s plenty of published studies around the dopamine hits and infinite scroll.
Show threadLinnèa the Library MonsterOct 26
@pluralistic 😂 https://youtube.com/shorts/ge6okowN_Qc?si=BaHVD_aHJ8SRS1uU
PART 1 | I think I am unbelievable at turning lights off | Nate Bargatze #shorts

YouTube
Show threadScott JensonOct 26
@pluralistic don't forget that iPhone's cubic decay scrolling makes "fling scrolling" fun. Remember when you first used an iPhone and had that "Wheeeeeee!" feeling? That's a subtle part of the addiction (and why scroll bars "aren't needed" 🙄)
Show threadTim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPEOct 26

@pluralistic The other is that they hide, or even don't provide at all, ways of turning off the various sources of noise in a hotel room.

The point of renting a hotel room is so that you can SLEEP, no?

So you don't want some fan turning on in the middle of the night and waking you up, and you certainly don't want a bedside clock going BANG once every minute as it moves the hands on and stopping you going to sleep in the first place.