It is HN's go-to recommendation for the case that programming environments should give instant feedback, and it appears in nearly every thread on live coding, visual programming or developer tools.
Topics › Design, Graphics & Visual Media
The best ux & ui design videos, according to Hacker News
72 videos about ux & ui design that Hacker News commenters keep pointing each other to, ranked by how many separate months they were recommended. Part of Design, Graphics & Visual Media.
HN regulars send freelancers and consultants to it whenever clients don't pay or contracts come up.
Recommended as the most entertaining serious critique of a software interface, and a crash course in UX mistakes.
HN commenters repeatedly share it because it is an eye-opening look at screen-reader use, and because at about 6:30 it addresses how inaccessible Hacker News itself is.
Repeatedly recommended as the definitive, well-made explanation of why attempts to reinvent music notation fail and what tradeoffs the current system makes.
Repeatedly cited in car touchscreen debates as an elegant, sensible alternative to distracting automotive UIs.
HN treats it as a foundational Bret Victor talk that reshaped how people think about software and interfaces, often cited alongside Dynamicland.
Recommended to freelancers and consultants as practical advice on contracts and getting paid.
Seen as the origin of the IMGUI idea that inspired Dear ImGui, recommended to anyone curious about immediate-mode UI design.
Regarded as the seminal talk on Dasher, recommended in threads on accessible and alternative text input.
Often the first thing suggested to HN programmers asking about posture and back pain.
Cited as a funny, informative teardown of bad interface design, and for the story that MuseScore hired him as head of design afterward.
HN links it whenever menu hover problems or nearest-to-pointer selection come up, and as proof algorithms matter in front-end work.
Linked in Windows 8 threads as a funny but accurate summary of its usability problems.
HN uses it to illustrate learned literacy in game and software UX, and how unfamiliar conventions confuse newcomers.
HN recommends it to show what on-device accessibility features can do and how blind users actually use an iPhone.
Recommended as a thought-provoking critique that makes people notice how poor everyday GUIs are.
HN points to it whenever analog versus digital clocks come up, as an idea that changed how commenters think about time perception.
Recommended as a candid, in-depth look at hard UX redesign work and the limits of MIDI for notation.
Cited whenever backup beepers and noise come up, as a clear explanation of the white-noise alternative.
HN commenters recommend it as a thoughtful take on doing gamification and game design well.
HN recommends it, especially to developers losing their sight, as a concrete demonstration of coding with text-to-speech.
HN commenters recommend it as a fresh perspective on layout and styling in CSS discussions.
HN points to it as a lost example of intuitive low-code tooling, and as inspiration for newer products.
Used as the go-to visual demonstration of A-pillar blind spots and badly designed junctions.
HN people share it in Windows 11 backlash threads as an even-handed insider's view of what is wrong with Windows.
HN links it in spreadsheet-reinvention threads as the clearest look at what Improv did differently, with a distinctive NeXTstep aesthetic.
HN commenters cite it whenever input latency comes up, as the demonstration that people can perceive touch delay down to 1 ms.
HN recommends it as an accessible explanation of how Intuit's lobbying and deceptive design undermine free tax filing.
HN treats it as a gold-standard concept demo and a what-might-have-been for dual-screen and digital notebook devices.
HN commenters who used it remember it as an unusually fast and accurate touchscreen text input method and a fascinating alternative to QWERTY.
Praised as a lesson in explaining technology to non-technical people and as a window into early Mac design.
Referenced in debates over Chrome hiding URLs as a compelling case for why full URLs are hard even for experts.
HN recommends it for its in-depth view of a major UI redesign process driven by user data.
HN cites it as the famous example of how over-clever smart-home devices can fail at something as basic as a smoke alarm.
Commenters cite it to explain expert blindness and the difficulty of solving problems from inside your own cultural context.
Brought up as an early example of context-aware touch sensing and as part of Disney Research's wider interaction prototypes.
HN commenters recommend it as a companion to Steve Krug's usability advice and as a talk on minimal interface design.
HN recommends it as a rigorous, entertaining example of interface design review and notes the author later became head of design at MuseScore.
Cited as evidence that ordinary users often don't understand basic technology like browsers, as a reminder for designers and developers.
HN uses it as the short, canonical explainer of Norman doors and affordances, linked in design and UX discussions.
HN points to it as the example of the weird, artistic, animation-heavy web UIs of the Flash era.
HN commenters say it convinced them to drop other layout approaches and embrace Grid, and cite its advice on fallbacks for older browsers.
Commenters cite it as a rare, pointed grilling of Apple executives over why Siri fell behind.
HN commenters cite it when discussing stagnating desktop UX, Apple's design decline, and open source's chance to experiment with new interaction models.
Cited as an example of how hard it is to reconcile UX views in open source communities, and as the start of a redesign discussion.
HN recommends it during the Muse Group acquisition controversy for its funny, pragmatic take on usability and open source stewardship.
HN points to it to explain the design rationale behind the Ribbon and why the older menu and toolbar interface had accumulated too much cruft.
Seen as an inflection point in how Blender's UI was perceived, and as helping kick off the 2.8 redesign.
HN cites it in threads on touchscreens versus physical buttons in cars, as an example of an enthusiast's critique of VW's UX.
HN points to it to explain how steer-by-wire is implemented and why variable steering ratio is its benefit.
Cited to contrast Microsoft's ambitious Longhorn vision with the Vista that actually shipped.
Linked repeatedly as clear evidence of the iOS keyboard bug when people complain about typos.
HN cites it in threads about Teslas trapping occupants to show how the manual release is located and used.
Cited as an example of corporate future-concept videos, sometimes appreciated for its ideas and sometimes used as a cautionary comparison.
HN uses it as the go-to example of how blind developers work, including the very fast screen reader speech.
Cited as an example of effective alarm and voice-alert design and in discussions of reactions to female voices.
Used in UI debates as evidence that wiper control on the touchscreen is awkward, or alternatively that it is just two touches.
Cited as a vivid example that experienced pilots can ignore loud alarms, in threads on alarm design and gear-up landings.
Used as a joke reference in threads about confusing error messages and printers.
HN mentions it as a joke when Apple's own security prompts or Gatekeeper restrictions annoy users.
HN commenters link it as nostalgic proof of how inventive and formative the Flash-era web was.
HN cites it as proof that tactile morphing touchscreens existed years ago, in discussions of car touchscreens and tactile on-screen keyboards.
It is invoked as a joke whenever a product forces users through dumbed-down or unhelpful interfaces and automated support.
Cited in discussions of sci-fi interfaces and whether ideas like pinch-to-zoom were prior art.
HN mentions it as the polished design-team vision that Android's actual implementation fell short of.
HN uses it as evidence that Apple's Touch Bar idea was not new, and that Lenovo had already tried and dropped it.
HN cites it as proof that voice coding works and lists it among resources for programmers who can't type.
Cited as a humorous, somewhat contrived example of children and technology dependence.
HN cites it, with schadenfreude, as evidence that Apple Music on desktop is poorly built.
Cited critically, as evidence that Windows 8 would frustrate ordinary users, especially without a start button.
Cited as a companion to articles on Japanese web design and as an example of clustering websites by appearance.
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