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Comment by karlkloss | Hacker News Reader

There are a lot of very good apps out there that have low ratings. But when you actually read the ratings, you realize that the users are just too dumb to read.

There are users that complain that the app doesn't work, although the description clearly says that it works only on certain devices or with certain external hardware, that those idiots DON'T have. There are others that don't understand at all what the app ist supposed to do, so their comments are actually embarrassing themselves.

It pisses me off that the app developers aren't able to remove ratings from people that are obviously idiots.

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Have some respect, please.

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?

"Idiot" is needlessly offensive and the GP's tone isn't great, but all of those reasons are usually invalid reviews (unless the app markets to that demographic). If I'm reading reviews for an app seeing your review about misreading the description because english isn't your first language is unhelpful spam (assuming the app is english-only).

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.

I have the same issue with reviews like that. If an app isn't meant for you, uninstall it, get a refund, and move on. A review that basically says "I didn't have product X so this app that controls product X is garbage" are completely useless (except if the app says nowhere in the title or or description that it has additional requirements to function).

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.

I'd say a lot of those are perfectly valid reasons to give a bad review, as those are all actual human beings with mobile phones who may find and buy an app on the app store.

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.

A counter example:

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

Those, at least, are reportable and Amazon removes them. Interestingly, they'll also remove reviews that say positive things about shipping, if that's most of the review.

Yes all of these might happen, but you would be also pissed if you were in a rush and someone in front of you in, let's say, McD or Subway didn't know what or how to order. (Or you were their server)

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)

I would love to upvote your comment twice, so I'm replying instead.

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.

If someone decides to spend time writing a one star review before reading app description till the end he is an idiot with personal issues.

>too dumb to read

>idiots

>embarrassing themselves

>pisses me off

>obviously idiots

This attitude toward users - regardless of whether your assessment that the source of the problem is intelligence is correct - is poisonous noise that creates far more problems than it solves. Also, the hostility reduces the quality of discourse.

I agree that self-restraint in expressing opinions can prevent unnecessary stirring of emotions, but your comment's tone contradicts to this noble idea: it stirs emotions by using meaninglessly overloaded words like "poisonous noise", and vague warnings ("creates far more problems than it solves") which being contextually undefined just sounds patronizing.

I appreciate that notion, but I chose my words under two deliberations:

1. While aggressive, they do have meaning, and aren't meant only for their tone. E.g. "poisonous" is meant to confer that the attitude spreads, and harms discussion. "Noise" is meant in the sense of "signal vs noise". In "creates more problems than it solves", the problems we're trying to solve are the very subject of the comments, whatever they may be in each case, and the problems created are the fallout in discussion. I should have elaborated.

2. The tone they impart was chosen to be commensurate with the behavior they are criticizing and its practical consequences. If I were to be more polite, I could have used a tone like, "I think your choice of words distracts the conversation," but I don't think that communicates my opinion as clearly. Yes, there is a fine line between being honest and being insulting, and I am unhappy if it came across as patronizing, but sometimes it's hard to find that line.

I accept that it's a possibility that my words were uncalled-for (based only on your comment), but they also weren't just expressions of annoyance that I was reaching for arbitrarily. I feel like they aren't comparable to the tone of the post I was criticizing, neither in their severity nor in their meaning.

I didnt like his attitude neither

What is the point of reviews if the dev can just remove it if they don't like it? That will quickly give every app a five star rating.

And the reason users write "app doesn't work" instead of giving a complete description of the bug because app stores have a word limit on reviews. Even your rant here will cross the word limit of Google Play reviews.

And it's not like every dev behaves like they are intelligent either, most devs have a reply bot that tells people with negative reviews to check their internet.

My general policy is to give a 1-star rating to any app that nags me and prevents me from using it until I dismiss a screen asking me for a review. Especially if I've already rated it.

I had an app that was free, but was solely a client for a paid service. Despite putting this in capital latters at the top of the description, it still got loads of negative reviews saying that it was misleading and wasn't really free. It was exasperating as I was never pretending it was anything but that, but I consoled myself with the fact that the people who actually needed it would be coming from the site and were already paying users.

Well, we all can be idiots with various things. However, the problem you mention is real: ratings can be very skewed just because non-target audience may come and try something they don't need/understand. You can't solve it by just letting to delete ratings though - it's too easy to abuse.

This is a way to filter for underserved markets. If your UI is trash and your description is unclear to "idiots," there's a market available for other people with the talent to do what you couldn't. Alternately, if people hate your app because they imagine that it's something that it isn't, that means that there's a demand for that app available for someone willing to provide it.

Part of creating something is describing it and communicating it to the right people.

Absolute ratings don’t matter as much as inter-industry ratings anyways.

> their comments are actually embarrassing themselves

Your comment is one of those

You're not a very nice person are you? In a world where you sell products to customers, customers are who you should design for. Customers are who you should listen to. If your customers are making it clear as day to you that your app is too complex to use, make it simpler. Maybe you make apps for power-users who are extremely witty and can decrypt any level of complexity with no issue, but most people (including me) can't.

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