Unfortunately, these type of reviews where people post completely irrelevant complaints are quite common (see the number of people reviewing their local post office in Amazon reviews), but I do wish platforms would remove them.
They don't bother me as much as the Amazon ones you bring up though. I swear the majority of negative reviews I see on there are people complaining that the product never shipped or that the shipping service damaged it. There's so many of them that on Amazon that it can be nearly impossible to find reviews that actually say negatives about the product. Tends to end up being better to find a trusted professional reviewer and if they haven't reviewed what you're looking at, just skip it in favor of something they have reviewed.
It reminds me of when I did tech support in college. Everybody who walked in or called was a real person trying to get real things done. If they knew as much about computers as me, they wouldn't have been walking in. So I learned to accept them as they were and do my best to help them. I didn't get to choose who walked in.
I think it's the same deal with putting an app in an app store. Well over 80% of America has a smartphone at this point. If a dev really wants to restrict their market to some narrow demographic, it's on them to do the work of countering the context, which sets the entry criteria somewhere around "has at least one eye and one finger". That means very clear marketing, design, and interface choices to make it clear to people they're in the wrong place before they've invested enough time that they feel writing a review is merited.
There are lots of bad reviews on Amazon, because of shipping. People leave one star reviews only (I know because they say so, in the review) because their stuff came a day later than they expected. How is the product creator responsible for shipping delays by the carrier or by the Amazon warehouse?
The reality is that online shoppers are impatient, have unrealistic expectations and do not read the product description. Not all, but enough to be a concern and enough to affect a product's ratings. There are lots of bad products on Amazon. But there are also lots of bad behavior from shoppers too. I don't know if this is true with other online stores, but with Amazon I have seen this often
Yes, UX is important, yes be patient with people who might not get it at the first time, but I see situations like:
- Your app is very specific and it shouldn't be used by people outside a certain domain field. Then some idiot downloads it and gives 1 star because he can't figure it out. This is the kind of person that calls traditional sphygmomanometers "dumb".
- If you build a more idiot proof system the world comes up with a better idiot. I've seen reviews on Amazon complaining that a certain size of item was "small". Conveniently the review indicated the chosen size and guess which one was it between multiple sizes? (The smallest one of course)
Amen to all this. People need to stop being elitists, and assuming that other people love and care about technology as much as them, or even that everyone is always capable (as you mentioned, low IQ or mental health can be a real problem for some users).
I recently saw a comment on other thread: What people need to understand about good design: If you need to explain to people how to use your product the "right" way, it’s probably a badly designed product.
Idiot or a frustrated 70 year old coming into contact with a smartphone for the first time?
Idiot, or a person with ADHD who has trouble focusing on the instructions and just wants to use the app intuitively?
Idiot, or person whose first language isn't English?
Idiot, or person with an IQ of 85. Yes, you might call someone like that an "idiot", but that's first of all nasty to say, and is that justified if they're part of your target audience? You have to design for these people.
Idiot, or person who's completely stressed the fuck out who just wants to use your app for what it's meant for and not spend a single second more?
Idiot, or drunk person who wants to order food/have fun/order stuff online because it is incredibly important to order that right now?
Idiot, or someone who just isn't very interested in techonology whatsoever and just uses a phone to keep up-to-date with friends and does some banking? You'd be surprised at how many people don't know what a zip file is, who don't know what USB is, who don't know if a GB is larger than a KB or not?