Hey IT Guys ... KNOCK IT OFF!!!!!

Nov 17, 2019
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I don't care about your job security changes for the sake of changes to show off your fancy new tricks. I don't care if you learned a new code gimmick. STOP changing stuff that works!!!!

Proton Mail for one has changed stuff about six times in the last year. Banks keep changing stuff. I got forced onto a new bank for one CC. Their site is in the middle of a formatting transition and every page looks completely different as far as fonts, logos and other basic formatting. FedGov sites keep changing stuff. The VA site started a log in change , then stopped it mid stroke for some reason.

No wonder people keep getting their IDs stolen, they have no idea what any given website is supposed to look like from day to day. Log in one day and it looks and works fine. Log in the next day and it's all different and half the stuff doesn't work. How are they supposed to know if they're even on the right site?
 

pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
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I woudln't mind nearly so much if they just put the same amount of effort into fixing long-standing bugs as they do into completely revamping the aesthetics of sites and apps. Time-and-again, though, software writers will do a massive update and change the look and location of everything, but leave the same annoying bugs people have been complaining about for years entirely unchanged.
 
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Greenman

Lifer
Oct 15, 1999
20,282
5,054
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If were having a bitchfest, lets do Android as well. First, LEAVE MY GODDAMN PHONE ALONE! I get never ending "upgrades" that are nothing more than different colors and rearranging the furniture. Now and then they add some dumbass crap that a thirteen year old might find exciting, but just pisses me off. After the last update I had "bubbles" on my phone, and had to figure out how to get rid of the new "features".
If I could get my hands on the clown that comes up with this garbage, as God is my witness I'd choke the life right out of him.

Also, see post above.
 
Nov 17, 2019
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^^ Yeah, the color of the on screen dialer buttons on my phone changed overnight a couple of weeks back. No idea why.
 

Captante

Lifer
Oct 20, 2003
30,244
10,748
136
If were having a bitchfest, lets do Android as well. First, LEAVE MY GODDAMN PHONE ALONE!

Nova Launcher: The premier custom launcher for Android

Takes a little bit of effort to get it configured exactly the way you like it to look but then you're done with dumb/pointless changes. (security/OS updates are unaffected only the GUI)

All you'll occasionally need to do is re-enable it in "settings" when some patch resets the launcher to "default".
 
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Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
67,196
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www.anyf.ca
I agree with this. I hate change just for the sake of change. Sometimes you have to accept that something just works good and needs to simply be maintained instead of changed just for fun of it. Improve it under the hood but keep the user experience the same.

I also hate the anti user features that seem to be in everything these days. Requiring an app/smartphone, requiring an account, inability to customize basic things, data mining, being tied to the cloud, etc.
 
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brianmanahan

Lifer
Sep 2, 2006
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believe me, there's bugs i have wanted to fix for years

but the product owners say "nope we got more important random features to add"

or "nope you gotta switch our whole app to this slick new UI even though the old one worked fine"

it already takes me 50 hours a week to keep up with their planned work, and they get mad if i do stuff that's not planned

now they just unexpectedly moved up a deadline by a year - i'll be trying to do 12 months worth of work in 6 months

goodbye 2022 for me - gonna be 70 hour weeks for months, and not allowed to take vacation until the very end of the year
 
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Greenman

Lifer
Oct 15, 1999
20,282
5,054
136
Nova Launcher: The premier custom launcher for Android

Takes a little bit of effort to get it configured exactly the way you like it to look but then you're done with dumb/pointless changes. (security/OS updates are unaffected only the GUI)

All you'll occasionally need to do is re-enable it in "settings" when some patch resets the launcher to "default".
Thanks, I'll give it a shot. Though I'm going to miss the bitching.
 
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Scarpozzi

Lifer
Jun 13, 2000
26,389
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They're still not through pussifying cars by taking the fossil fuels out of them. The future isn't looking good my friends.
 

Exterous

Super Moderator
Jun 20, 2006
20,348
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I do get it though. Sorry, we try. We're usually hamstrung by some asshole above us.
believe me, there's bugs i have wanted to fix for years

but the product owners say "nope we got more important random features to add"

or "nope you gotta switch our whole app to this slick new UI even though the old one worked fine"

it already takes me 50 hours a week to keep up with their planned work, and they get mad if i do stuff that's not planned

Yep. It's usually some higher up mandate to deploy something new rather than fix issues. Most of the time there is a huge list of items we want to fix but leadership doesn't give the time, resources or money to do that. And I say that as someone in leadership - any technical voices in the room are often drowned out by whatever hot new initiative is popular
 
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Nov 17, 2019
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One of my biggest gripes is the mobilification/minification of sites. I can't count the number of sites that have gone from full width pages to about a third of my screen width.

I mean, OKFine, people are using things with tiny screens, but why cripple function for those of us with 20" or larger monitors? Adapt to both, even if it means two separate sites.

But hey, the mobile/mini sites catering to little teeney screens don't work fully. How may times have I clicked on something on a gizmo, only to be told I have to open a full browser? Or menu options don't even appear on gizmos. Call CS and get told 'that only works on the full site'.

But the replies above are indicative of the greater ill of the corporatocracy. Screw what the customers want, obey the suits. Except they don't wear suits any more. They wear Vans, $500 jeans and $250 t-shirts.
 
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dainthomas

Lifer
Dec 7, 2004
14,572
3,401
136
I don't care about your job security changes for the sake of changes to show off your fancy new tricks. I don't care if you learned a new code gimmick. STOP changing stuff that works!!!!

Proton Mail for one has changed stuff about six times in the last year. Banks keep changing stuff. I got forced onto a new bank for one CC. Their site is in the middle of a formatting transition and every page looks completely different as far as fonts, logos and other basic formatting. FedGov sites keep changing stuff. The VA site started a log in change , then stopped it mid stroke for some reason.

Yeah I remember trying to use the VA app for about a month to refill my medications, and the "refill" button sent me to the wrong webpage and I'd have to find my own way to the correct one. Couldn't believe it went on for so long with no one fixing the link.
 

Captante

Lifer
Oct 20, 2003
30,244
10,748
136
Classic design issue.... a LOT of the time the people who come up with the constant changes NEVER actually use whatever system is being "changed". (this behavior goes way beyond software)

If a website/app is simplistic enough to work effectively on a 5.5 inch smartphone touch-screen there's ZERO excuse to not have it work perfectly on a 32 inch desktop display.
 
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Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
67,196
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www.anyf.ca
Classic design issue.... a LOT of the time the people who come up with the constant changes NEVER actually use whatever system is being "changed". (this behavior goes way beyond software)

If a website/app is simplistic enough to work effectively on a 5.5 inch smartphone touch-screen there's ZERO excuse to not have it work perfectly on a 32 inch desktop display.

I've seen this at my work too many times. They come up with a new ticket or alarm monitoring system, and it's super unintuitive and goes against workflow. Someone actually asked once "do you guys even test this with users before deploying?" and the answer was actually no! Remember the healthcare.gov fiasco? The company that originally made the site is also the company that codes stuff at my work. The quality of their products sucks, but they can sell anything to upper management, so that's how they get contracts, at least that's my guess.

One of the latest changes at my work, not related to that company at all but think it's actually internal, is a new alarming system that they are trying to move everything to. The problem with this system is that you do not see analog values. You just get an alarm, with no value display. You get 30 sites with no power (assuming the alarm even shows up... but that's another story) and you need to dial up each one manually to check the voltage. Same with temperature etc. You can easily spend 10 minutes on one because sometimes the connection is unstable or you have to change the baud rate etc.
 

Torn Mind

Lifer
Nov 25, 2012
11,567
2,626
136
I've seen this at my work too many times. They come up with a new ticket or alarm monitoring system, and it's super unintuitive and goes against workflow. Someone actually asked once "do you guys even test this with users before deploying?" and the answer was actually no! Remember the healthcare.gov fiasco? The company that originally made the site is also the company that codes stuff at my work. The quality of their products sucks, but they can sell anything to upper management, so that's how they get contracts, at least that's my guess.

One of the latest changes at my work, not related to that company at all but think it's actually internal, is a new alarming system that they are trying to move everything to. The problem with this system is that you do not see analog values. You just get an alarm, with no value display. You get 30 sites with no power (assuming the alarm even shows up... but that's another story) and you need to dial up each one manually to check the voltage. Same with temperature etc. You can easily spend 10 minutes on one because sometimes the connection is unstable or you have to change the baud rate etc.
The people who can sell the appearance of competency are often the most capable of not living up to their image but rather benefit themselves to the maximum extent possible at the expense of the hirer. HOAs and property management companies are especially prone to that. The art of hitting social cues is a different matter from actually doing a good job. The likes of Marc Bergevin and the pathetic Dwayne Haskins are also examples of such people. They're the ones that interview so great they always get a second job AND people feel sympathetic towards them.
 
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Nov 17, 2019
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The page format on US News just changed completely in the last couple of hours. Totally different with no apparent enhancements.
 

IndyColtsFan

Lifer
Sep 22, 2007
33,656
687
126
I wish more people would complain to the likes of Microsoft (as an example). The rate of change and constant feature additions are really ridiculous and many of my enterprise customers are also frustrated by it.
 

Captante

Lifer
Oct 20, 2003
30,244
10,748
136
I wish more people would complain to the likes of Microsoft (as an example). The rate of change and constant feature additions are really ridiculous and many of my enterprise customers are also frustrated by it.

Windows 11 is a perfect example of this stupidity. :confused:

For example who the fvck decided it was good design to bury frequently used drop-down menu selections like "delete" two or three clicks deep instead of one and WHY the hell would I want the "start" button in the center of the damn taskbar ?!?
 
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Nov 17, 2019
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I used Everbank for quite a while. Their site wasn't the greatest and some things could have been better organized, but everything worked.

Then something called TIAA took over and it all went to crap. The most pathetic pale yellow and blue mess you ever saw and centered with a ton of white space. I compared it to third grade coloring book project. All sorts of spinny things whenever you tried to do something. Bill pay turned into a multi-page encounter ... select payment account >> new page >> select payee >> new page >> enter amount >> new page >> select date >> new page >> review the above >> new page >> confirm >> new page ....

Previously you could enter all of that on one page, then review and confirm.

I griped about it several times, but they never took any steps to undo the mess, so I bailed out of there.
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
67,196
12,025
126
www.anyf.ca
Speaking of bad sites, it seems lot of major retail sites are horrible. So much heavy javascript. Canadian Tire's site is one of the worst. That site won't even run on my work PC, it uses too much resources. A site that it's sole purpose is to show a picture, specs, price, and ability to add to cart should not require such heavy javascript. It seems people forgot how to do normal coding these days and rely on huge frameworks. Try to google on how to do something in javascript and the first thing is "download this framework...". I'm not putting 20MB worth of scripts on my site so I can do 1 thing. But a lot of sites seem to do just that.
 
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Reactions: Ken g6
Nov 17, 2019
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What y'all need to do it develop a button we can press that would initiate a feedback loop to the origin point of a spammer and blow their PCs into millions of little tiny bits.