News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Is Firefox lying to users about viruses in downloads? by deathanatos on Wednesday July 04, 2018 @12:10PM (#17457989)
> And if only developers understood UX.

I've upvoted you, since I think your point is good, I'd just add that as a developer, I've found myself on more than one occasion pushing for the type of UX being advocated here, and getting pushback from designers/PMs. Typically, the issue I run into is a desire for the UX to be "simple", sometimes simpler than the system underlying it actually is (or is even capable of being), and so instead of clear and correct messaging, you get simplified and incorrect messaging.

(My current example of this would be ZIP codes. People like to simplify them to a geographic area in their heads, and then think of them as polygons, and then from there, think you can ask "is this lat/lng inside this ZIP?"; ZIP aren't polygons (they're defined as segments of roads) so answering that question requires approximations; those approximations are sometimes wrong.)

Re:Is Firefox lying to users about viruses in downloads? by ryandrake on Wednesday July 04, 2018 @12:58PM (#17458243)
Yea, that s happens all the time in software. It’s the developer’s job to push back and explain the probability distribution of the results to the designers/PM so they understand the algorithm’s limitations, and everyone’s job to fight for the user. It needs to be a conversation, not a contract.

Designer: This label is required to say what store the user is at given his location.

Developer: the location sensor is imprecise. We could have 20m of precision or worse. The store location data is also known to be inaccurate and incomplete. We can provide top 10 candidate stores with their probabilities. The “top” one we return could be 95% likely or 35% likely. Your move!

Bad Designer: Too much numbers for my brain. We’ll just show the top result. YOLO!

Better designer: We could only show a result if it’s above a certain threshold. Or we could show top 3. Or maybe we need to talk about changing the requirement.

Better developer: There may be other signals and inputs we could use to help make the results more confident...

Re:Is Firefox lying to users about viruses in downloads? by xg15 on Wednesday July 04, 2018 @04:50PM (#17459394)
I generally agree, though in this case, I'd agree with the yolo designer.

If I consulted Google Maps and it told me I'm with 48.25% likelihood at address A, with 39.81% likelihood at address B and with 11.94% at another location, what exactly am I to do with this information?

I think Google Maps actually shows a good design to communicate the uncertanity: They show the uncertanity as a blue circle of varying size. It's visual but (more importantly) gives you as a user the ability to reduce the uncertanity with their own information. E.g., if you know you're at an intersection and the circle covers only one, you now have a precise location.

In general, I'd say, it's important to know which context the information is used.

Re:Is Firefox lying to users about viruses in downloads? by ssivark on Wednesday July 04, 2018 @12:22PM (#17458046)
IMHO, the most reasonable solution is to have a link for “More details” for the interested/advanced users to dig into. It’s hostile for software to fail because of incorrect assumptions and then give them no way for the sensible user to handle the collateral damage.