#10. Fruxtration – a community and a word

Subreddit for constructive criticism of frustrating user experiences

There are two kinds of people in this world – those who care about good user experience and those who don’t. And I think the two cups in the photo below can illustrate this difference.

People of the 1st kind will say that the cup on the left is clearly better. The presence of the handle makes it more usable and versatile in certain situations:

1. you can comfortably hold it filled with hot tea without burning your hands;

2. if you spill it, there is less chance of getting your hands wet;

3. as you only need 2-3 fingers to hold it, you can hold another object with the same hand (like a pen, a notebook or a phone).

And it still leaves roughly 95% of the cup’s circumference to hold it in exactly the same way as the one on the right, for example to warm your hands.

People of the 2nd kind will say that the cup on the right is perfectly fine, and that the handle is a useless overhyped feature. They would provide a counter-argument for every advantage from the list above:

1. if the tea is too hot for your hands then you shouldn’t drink it anyway;

2. just don’t fill your cup to the edges so that it doesn’t spill;

3. people invented bags for carrying pens, notebooks and phones.

This divide is what fuels endless battles on the internet between haters and lovers of different products that are claimed to be user friendly. Quite often such battles do make sense when that user-friendliness comes at the expense of either premium price or reduced functionality, which is something that people of the 1st kind could rightfully complain about. Some of these people might even be unaware that there is a better way, but as soon as you show them – they will agree.

But sometimes you can encounter people of the 2nd kind, who genuinely don’t see the value in good user experience, caring solely about functionality. Even when a more user-friendly or inclusive solution requires absolutely zero compromises, they won’t see the point.

This reminds me of the line by Sheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory (S3E13) about Windows 7: 🙂
“Windows 7 is much more user-friendly than Windows Vista. I don’t like that.“

Why FRUXTRATION

I definitely belong to the 1st kind – I care deeply about good user experience and I notice lots of details around me that could be improved. I think that growing up in post-soviet Ukraine in the 90-th contributed significantly to my craving for user-friendly products and services. I’ve touched upon this in my other article.

To channel my frustration with suboptimal user experiences and to bring together people who care, I’ve created a new Reddit community – r/fruxtration.

fruxtration [fɹʌksˈtɹeɪ.ʃən] – from the combination of two English terms:

• frustration – resistance to the fulfillment of an individual's will or goal;

• ux – common abbreviation for user experience.

This decision was a combined result of 3 factors:

1. Ife Kuku Thomas made me realise that I care about user experience (of both myself and others) way more than an average person;

2. Olena Bomko brought my attention to the rising popularity of Reddit in the world of social media and marketing;

3. I’ve heard the introduction of the book Tribes by seth godin, talking about the power of communities with shared values.

As the list of my topics for this blog has been growing, I was getting convinced more and more that my criticism of bad designs doesn’t really fit in there. So I needed a separate place for my UX rants, and I realised that Reddit is a perfect place for that. Instead of documenting in my blog all the frustrating design details that I notice, I can create something bigger and hopefully more influential.

There are plenty of resources on the internet about UX design, explaining the philosophy of good design, its fundamental rules and best practices. Yet applying them in any specific case is not that simple, since there is always an infinite number of ways to implement every single detail. That’s why having clear examples of what not to do within those guidelines helps to dramatically reduce the number of options that one would consider. Talking about bad examples can be useful no less than talking about good examples.

What is the PURPOSE

My vision for this community includes the following three goals:

1. expose and document poorly designed features of products and services that ruin someone’s experience;

2. motivate people in charge to fix those issues and to not repeat them in the future;

3. educate future designers and builders on what mistakes to avoid, by showing the real-world examples of frustration they may cause.

Especially now, when the AI-race is putting so much emphasis on being faster and more efficient, the balance between quantity and quality is tipping in favour of quantity (see my other article on AI degrading quality). I want this community to keep reminding the corporate world that there are humans on the other end, whose feelings and experiences matter no less than crude numbers from the performance reports.

How is it DIFFERENT

There are several existing communities that to some extent overlap with r/fruxtration in their primary topic, but none of them matches its exact purpose. Below I’m listing the 4 biggest subreddits (including their average weekly visitors):

• r/mildlyinfuriating (10M)

• r/CrappyDesign (556K)

• r/assholedesign (190K)

• r/BadDesigns (38K)

Screenshots of the most popular subreddits with similar topics

As you can see from the screenshots of these communities, their whole vibe is more about ranting and making fun of bad designs rather than providing constructive criticism. In the case of r/mildlyinfuriating the scope goes even beyond just designs, including any kinds of experiences that feel obnoxious, as illustrated by this flow-chart¹ from one of the communities. Regardless of the specifics, their primary goal is entertainment.

Flowchart from the r/assholedesign community rules

The RULES

To ensure that posts are constructive and serve the primary purpose of r/fruxtration, there are several rules to be followed when publishing a post. The main goal is not to entertain but to be clear.

1. Concise TITLE

Title is the first part of a post that a user sees, both on Reddit and in previews outside of the platform. Considering that it can’t be changed after posting, it is crucial to get the title right. It should be concise enough (less than 15 words), and specify exactly what it is about – not the emotion, but what has caused that emotion.

Whenever it is about a specific place, product or brand, its [name] should be mentioned in square brackets at the beginning of the title.

Here are a few examples of good titles:

• Potentially confusing water level in the espresso machine

• [BOSCH] Round touch-screen makes this microwave a nightmare to use

• [GTT] English interface incomplete and useless

• [Substack] Acceptance of cookies reloads the whole page

This allows anyone to immediately understand if the topic or the brand described in the post are worth of their attention.

2. Details in the BODY

The body of the post is where the whole story behind the issue should be included – the more the better. This is where you can express your frustration to the fullest, mentioning every detail that has contributed to the bad user experience. As long as it’s relatable and makes it clear how a specific feature of the design had resulted in a specific bad user experience, it’s useful.

The only two things to keep in mind are:

• mention the relevant details that would prevent confusion with another product or service;

• don’t be rude against individual people, since the point of posting is to criticize the design and its implementation, not the designers themselves. We never know the exact reason and motivation behind.

3. IMAGES & VIDEO for illustration

A picture is worth a thousand words. If you’re able to provide a set of pictures, screenshots or a video, clearly demonstrating the issue or some of its parts, please include them in the post. It greatly reduces ambiguity of the description and makes it more relatable.

Keep in mind that currently Reddit only allows a single video or multiple images in one post, but not a combination of the two. Therefore, decide in advance whether the issue is better illustrated by a single video or by several photos/screenshots.

The DESIGN

To differentiate from the comic style of the other subreddits, I’ve used minimalistic styling for r/fruxtration, sharing the base theme color with this blog.

The logo features two letters (UX – for user experience) with a skewed underline, resembling a frustrated face 😕

I’ve also asked opinion from other designers in the r/logodesign community, whose feedback was mostly positive and consistent with my intention to keep its meaning simple and not too obvious. Hopefully it does the job.

The STATS

It has now been 1 month since r/fruxtration went live, during which it has grown to 80 members and generated 4K views. These are still quite small numbers, but I hope it’s just the beginning of an exponentially growing curve.

Statistics from the 1st month of the r/fruxtration subreddit

So far these have been generated almost exclusively by my own posts about things that I personally am frustrated about. I’m sure I can continue like this for another month.

Once the critical mass is reached and enough like-minded people join the community, I expect that the majority of its content and discussions will be driven by other people, who care about user experience no less than me. The shared goal of this community is to keep focus on good experience for humans.

If you’re one of those people, please JOIN r/fruxtration TODAY!

1. Flow chart from the r/assholedesign community rules explaining the topic division between different related subreddits, Reddit