#terrible ux

[upmala]

updated tumblr app on ios and it’s impossible to zoom in on pictures now? also impossible to rotate the screen? how am i supposed to read comics now, with a fucking magnifying glass?

[inner-muse]

Tumblr app updated and the tag autosuggest is weird

My muscle memory for reblogging is all wrong now! It's not coming up with my common tags anymore! I used to be able to type "dr" and "dragon age" would be at the bottom of the list. Now it doesn't show up till I type "dragon a." Similar for all my Cullen tags, and the ones I use for beautiful screenshots/art/photos/etc... I'm so irrationally annoyed at this 😖

[fourangers]

Dear tumblr...

I know several excellent web designers who knows a lot of functionality, usability, good UI and UX.

Please stop making changes based on “Oh, this looks cool, let’s test it out” without having an ounce of design thinking while also choosing extra steps that hinders the user experience.

If this was the decision of your Designer’s team, for God sake’s, fire them. But if it was a decision from higher-ups, I feel very very sorry for you guys instead, ‘cuz there’s nothing more irritating than doing crappy things just ‘cuz the client wanted to do so.

Anyways...

FIX IT.

Regards,

A tumblr user.

[mwchase]

@PTC_Mathcad wanted me to air my grievances in a discussion post

Instead, I'm putting up a post on my tumblr, because I'm bad at following directions.

But seriously, I don't think there's much for me, as a user, to discuss with the community on this matter.  I used Mathcad 14 (unless the engineering department is even cheaper than that), and I had a terrible, terrible experience with it.  I am told (I have not bothered to verify) that Prime is a substantial improvement over 14.  If so, then whenever someone like me uses 14, instead of Prime, at the behest of their professor, that is a lost sale.  Not because such people aren't buying the latest version at that time (it's the university buying site licenses, anyway), but because they won't buy any version.  Ever.

So, students being taught Mathcad 14 are a threat to PTC's bottom line due to terrible (but apparently incrementally less terrible?) UX.  The obvious course of action is to encourage universities to upgrade, or, failing that, simply stop teaching 14.

The way I see it, any further discussion would center around forming an initiative, to come up with a strategy, work out promotions, do risk analysis, budget for losses, maybe set up a social campaign or two.  I won't discuss any of that without a salary.

Actually, that's not quite right.  There is one, potential, point, of contention.  Perhaps my experience isn't universal, and people like me represent a small portion of the marketplace, who'll pick at anything without being satisfied.  Aside from the fact that a discussion on the Mathcad discussion site couldn't possibly resolve that, howzabout I reiterate a few of my complaints?

(For the purposes of this paragraph "Mathcad" refers to Mathcad 14.) At a base level, I'm not sure that Mathcad is even suited for the kind of calculations we're learning with it, over in UMass ChE.  That aside... Mathcad is a wysiwyg formula editor, which means that it's difficult to replicate a symbol on a print-out if you don't already know what it is.  Mathcad, by default, recalculates on update, which wouldn't be a problem... if calculations didn't block input and have no obvious way to send an interrupt.  I have never, ever seen an error message that gave me more informational content than "something went wrong", which is crap if you're trying to figure out what went wrong.  I encountered many of these error messages attempting to replicate precisely a sheet given to me by a professor, which more often than not resulted in a complete breakdown of the system.  According to the professors trying to get us to use it, Mathcad will occasionally develop invisible chunks of formulae that can only be gotten rid of by recreating the sheet and hoping it doesn't happen again. *checks tweets from last May* OH YEAH.  It also tries to autocorrect my parentheses, or something.  I forget the precise details, and I honestly prefer it that way.  Also, sometimes the curves on graphs outright refuse to print.  My professors loved it when I told them that.

In conclusion, I want to say, I'm sorry I'm being a bad user, but it's a nigh-inevitable consequence of being forced (by the department, I should be clear) to use a bad product.