Good product development really does seem to require some sort of leader who demands quality and smacks people when they don't deliver. Linux is nice because of Torvalds for example.

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Lio 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Completely agree.

I was given a small electric fan. It’s great in that it’s portable and I can use it in some of the crummy hotels I have to stay in.

Unfortunately, it has a bright blue LED on it so it’s a pain to use at night when you’re trying to sleep.

It’s so bright that even covered with tape it still shines through the thin plastic of the fan body.

What really gets me is why they bothered putting an operating light on it in the first place?

It’s a fan. The fact that it’s working tells you it’s working.

A Jobs or Torvalds type character would have pointed that out.

I suspect though that it’s often a case of people noticing these type of design flaws but not having the authority to fix them while those with the authority don’t care.

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Aurornis 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

I've worked in physical product development at some companies that include names you'd recognize.

More often than not, those annoying features are direct requests from the person up top who smacks people. They want that feature because they think it will sell, and it's no use trying to argue with them because you'll just get smacked again.

	▲	Lio 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah I think that was one of the unusual things about Jobs; he really cared about product design for its own sake and not just for profit. I think that is pretty unusual in large companies.

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netsharc 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Can't you improve this product with a screwdriver (to open it up) and wire-snipper (to cut off the LED)?

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Lio 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Oh yeah, it's definitely solvable if you can be bothered with it.

It was more just the observation that an unnecessary light had been included that degrades the performance of the product.

I find it intriguing how that comes to be. On paper it seems like adding the light wouldn't hurt the product even if not useful but no body actually used it it seems.

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psyonity 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

There is a chance the led is also used as a important diode in the circuit, plainly removing it can greatly reduce the lifespan of the device. (more common in cheaper products)

Adding a appropiate diode in it's place is advised.

	▲	rossant 4 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		What's the physical reason for this? (elec noob here)
	▲	immibis 4 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		that chance is very low

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seszett 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> I suspect though that it’s often a case of people noticing these type of design flaws but not having the authority to fix them while those with the authority don’t care.

Kinda related but also not really, my own pet peeve is the pouring spout in many products, coffee machine, water jugs, buckets... they might look effective but I find that more often than not, they are curved too much and drip all over when actually pouring.

And I always have to wonder, after serving coffee from one of those things, did the person who design it never even try it just once? Didn't they ever use such a thing, they never ever poured water from a pot?

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dmd 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

People in stores look towards bright lights. Objects with bright lights on them sell better.

	▲	seszett 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Do you have an actual study on this or is it just a belief held by some people who don't have any better idea to make others think they are useful?

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486sx33 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[dead]

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brabel 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I have to agree with that as a lead. Most developers claim to be done with a task without taking care of the small details that users will immediately notice. It’s a constant struggle to try to get them to care about what is actually the value of the feature they are implementing, let alone chase on their own initiative the small issues unless painfully listed in some requirements document.

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polishdude20 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

As a dev Im always noticing these little problems in my designs but my boss just wants the thing done asap without worrying too much about it being nice to use.

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MortyWaves 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Same here to the point when I do leave it’s going to be one of the reasons given.

One example is how this product manager type, because of company politics, isn’t really under the same department as the other software teams.

Because of his very very narrow horse blinkers approach, he doesn’t see or even comprehend why we’d want to align with literally anything in any other team and that includes visual UI stuff.

That’s why we have a bright neon pink “Back” button. Right in the literal center of the screen. It’s insane.

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DanielHB 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

It is the bottom and the top that appreciates the quality

the middle appreciate metrics and deliverables

	▲	polishdude20 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Oh in my case it's a small company and my boss is "the top"

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ponector 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There is a special role for that: Test Engineer. However, testing is a cost center and is underfunded in most companies.

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Phelinofist 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

For most things small details unfortunately do not really matter and thus are left out

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valiant55 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I was just thinking about Linux/Linus the other day. How will Linux fair when Linus is no longer with us?

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jdsnape 5 days ago | parent [-]

Fare, not fair

(I’m sorry, it doesn’t matter but I couldn’t help it in a discussion on quality)

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foundart 5 days ago | parent [-]

In comments on an article about spellchecking no less

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eru 5 days ago | parent [-]

In this case, both fair and fare are words in English. Which shows that spell checking needs to know a lot about grammar and context to work in general. Basically you need an LLM. Or if not a 'large language model', perhaps at least a small language model.

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jdsnape 5 days ago | parent [-]

I wonder how it does work, I remember MS Word having a fairly decent grammar checker when I was using it in school - which predated LLMs by many years!

I suspect an LLM wouldn’t be the most optimal choice

	▲	eru 5 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Depends on what you mean by 'optimal'. Ie what are you optimising over? In terms of 'can I run it locally on an early 2000s machine?' LLMs are definitely the wrong choice. In terms of 'what can I quickly hack together in 2025 regardless of variable cost?' LLMs might be the right choice. > I wonder how it does work, I remember MS Word having a fairly decent grammar checker [...] You can get pretty far with some lookup tables and some heuristics.
	▲	rossant 4 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		farely decent?