Stupid Developer Tricks

Posts calling out the results of stupid things software developers do. This page lists all posts in the category, in reverse chronological order.

• Note: An AI Generated pill displayed in the list below indicates that the post description displayed on the page was generated from the post content using Generative AI (GenAI). The post content itself was written by a human (me).

• Axios Account Profile Edit Failure

  Posted December 11, 2023  in Miscellaneous, Stupid Developer Tricks
  

  I can't think of any worse way to implement account profile editing than Axios does in their site today.

• American Airlines Poor Unsupported Browser Implementation

  Posted September 23, 2023  in Stupid Developer Tricks
  

  In the typical Stupid Developer Tricks approach, the American Airlines iPad app doesn't support rendering video content in Chrome, but still offers a Play button even though it knows it won't work. Sigh.

• What Happened to Commas in Numbers

  Posted December 11, 2018  in Stupid Developer Tricks
  

  That's pretty much it, what ever happened to them? Nobody seems to use them anymore in software products. I've noticed this at work where people make dashboards showing big numbers, but don't show thousands separators when displaying them on a page or in a screen.

• NC Lottery App

  Posted December 11, 2018  in Stupid Developer Tricks
  

  Highlighting some of the many flaws in the North Carolina Lottery mobile app.

• Another Ridiculous Input Form

  Posted April 3, 2017  in Stupid Developer Tricks
  

  Describes a stupid input form I encountered.

• Ridiculous IBM Password Form

  Posted March 25, 2017  in Stupid Developer Tricks
  

  I needed to make some changes to my IBM newsletter subscription recently, so I clicked the ubiquitous Update Your Subscription link on the bottom of one of the newsletters. It had been a while since I logged in, so I had to go through the password reset process to get in. No worries, IBM had that covered, right? Yep, they sure did.

• Withings – Useless Input form

  Posted August 22, 2016  in Stupid Developer Tricks
  

  I use the Withings (https://www.withings.com/us/en/) app to track my blood pressure and weight. I dropped a bunch of weight a few years ago and it helps me stay on track when I track it. My blood pressure has been wonky, so tracking that is a good thing as well. I'd like to get one of those scales and a Sphygmomanometer that automatically updates the app, but for now I'm doing it manually.

• Doing Account Creation Right

  Posted July 28, 2016  in Stupid Developer Tricks
  

  As I strive to pick up new technologies and start new projects, I'm regularly finding myself registering for new services, accounts or access to specific websites or forums. As part of this process, I've noticed two things:

• Poorly Designed Notification

  Posted May 2, 2016  in Stupid Developer Tricks
  

  I really enjoy analyzing apps, notification emails and other technological implementations looking for ways that developers have failed their audience. I like this not because I like to pick on others, but because it helps me learn what not to do in my own app implementations.

• Stupid Web Forms

  Posted April 27, 2015  in Stupid Developer Tricks
  

  I'm constantly reminded of how web application designers don't pay attention to the impact their decisions have on their application users. I've written here before about this, but I think it's time to bring it up again.

• Poorly Designed Web Sites

  Posted September 16, 2014  in Stupid Developer Tricks
  

  As look at the world around me, I'm surprised that in the world of the connected, mobile user, that companies are still not thinking of mobile-first users. There are millions or billions of mobile devices sold every year, but companies with public facing web sites still don't seem to notice, and I'm really surprised by that.

Header image: Photo by Raspopova Marina on Unsplash.