Software UI/UX Criticism

The cluster focuses on criticisms of poor user interfaces and experiences created by developers, debates on the need for professional UI/UX designers, and why software projects—especially hacker tools, system software, and open source—prioritize functionality over polished design.

➡️ Stable 0.5x Open Source
4,342
Comments
20
Years Active
5
Top Authors
#7606
Topic ID

Activity Over Time

2007
23
2008
65
2009
92
2010
127
2011
178
2012
155
2013
126
2014
119
2015
142
2016
209
2017
217
2018
275
2019
286
2020
368
2021
405
2022
388
2023
397
2024
355
2025
364
2026
53

Keywords

e.g AI UX OSS HCI LibreOffice ASAP PL API FAANG ui ux designers uis design designer ui design user ux ui software

Sample Comments

username90 May 2, 2021 View on HN

You need to redesign your code architecture to fit the UI or you wont get a world class UI. That isn't what happens though, instead they hook in UI interactions so it looks like the designs but doesn't really work as well as you'd wish. I've never seen a developer who gladly did the architectural redesigns needed to make UI truly great.

throwanem Mar 3, 2017 View on HN

Was there anything preventing the development of a less hacker-focused UI, save lack of reason to do so?

zhiyuany Jun 28, 2017 View on HN

System project tends to have bad UI because system programmers live in terminal.

giancarlostoro Feb 6, 2019 View on HN

More UI than UI/UX. I'd prefer a UX expert overall, it would at least imply a reasonably decent UI.

gbriel Dec 2, 2025 View on HN

Everyone is struggling to create AI tools. And just because you don't approve of how they spend time to make their UI look "fancy", doesn't really mean much. You are not a normal user/customer.

Valmar May 2, 2021 View on HN

It's a case of developer UI. Has nothing to being "allergic" to "good UI design".Being able to design something friendly to the average user, yet powerful enough to be friendly to power users, is a very difficult task to accomplish.Developers understand the latter quite well, I think, as they themselves are power user-types. The former... well, that requires having dedicated designers who know how the average user thinks, as well as perhaps guinea pigs in the form

kordlessagain Nov 16, 2023 View on HN

Why is writing a better UI a waste of time?

mrheosuper May 12, 2025 View on HN

the people that design UI/UX is not the same people that write software

phkahler Sep 19, 2025 View on HN

Programmers don't mind "programming", but most people don't want that UI.

jteo May 10, 2010 View on HN

UI development is not a democratic process.