Interesting how this is a great example for on boarding users to a new software, or suck them into completing tougher and tougher tasks.
Start with simple questions and tasks and let the user build confidence. Once they answer / complete a few tasks, their ego will push them to take on the next few tasks!
I'm thinking this is more of an example of what NOT to do; it's inconsistent and destroys confidence, which in turn makes the user mistrust the author through repeated mistakes and eventually quit. I would argue that far, far more people have fallen to that than some author-instilled urge to continue on due to confidence and ego.
For example:
"2 + 1 = ?": you are expected to answer with a number to complete the equation. The question mark is a good cue -- you know to answer with a number and not, for example, "addition".
"5 x 7 = ?": the same formula as before. You now safely assume that math -- especially math with a "?" after an equals sign -- should be answered with a number.
After that, it degenerates into vague riddles where you're left to guess at the intentions of the author, quite literally. The first place this becomes immediately frustrating is: "2,3,5,7,11,13,17 What are they called?"
Early versions of this game omitted the second line, leading people to guess "19" as a continuation of the prime sequence.
Other popular answers are "prime" or "primes", but the ONLY acceptable answer is "prime numbers." There is no clue leading to the acceptable answer and the only possible way to get it is trial and error or sheer luck.
Primed by that, we face the next problem: "3.14159265..."
Given past history, we can guess that the author either wants us to continue the sequence (unlikely, given the lack of _ or ? cues) or name the sequence. This would be much clearer with the addition of the words "What is" at the beginning -- this is frustrating BY DESIGN, not clever BECAUSE OF design.
A great example of this is the VERY NEXT problem: "1+2+3+...+999+1000"
Given the previous cues (? or _ to show a numerical answer is required, ... to show a sequence to be named), the expectation is that this should be named... however, the author really wants the sum of integers 1-1000. Again, this could have been solved easily with a simple, CONSISTENT cue.
Imagine trying to onboard users and you just say "a date box" without any indication of what they're supposed to use it for or what the consequences of it are.
This game does not build any confidence and should not be likened to good UX design at all.
Imagine trying to onboard users and you just say "a date box" without any indication of what they're supposed to use it for or what the consequences of it are.
While the context of the question changes and it can be disconcerting the first couple of times, but as you go ahead, you quickly adjust to the fact that the answer can be anything. I found it pretty intuitive.
Also my point was that the goal of the first few tasks was not to test your intelligence or resourcefulness, but just to get you accustomed to the environment, the screen etc. I would compare it to "small talk" you would do with someone you meet the first time, so that you get familiar with the mannerisms of that person. It is merely polite.
And yet everybody loves this game. This is like some of the complaints against Facebook's website: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15368054 which ultimately amounts to "as a user, I am clueless about the decision tree being offered."
Good. Snapchat didn't explain anything, people figured it out. It adds to their curiosity. It doesn't need to be consistent to be successful, and it's not just survivorship bias.
All that matters is that the software solves a problem or taps into a user's need. In this case, this game taps into the need to satisfy curiosity.
EDIT: Ah right, people just want to complain. Go for it! Let's ignore the success that Snapchat represents with its inconsistent UI, or the fact that Facebook has ~2B users and an inconsistent decision tree, or that Git is the most popular version control software by far yet has an inconsistent interface. Ditto for Unix.
Ultimately, when we complain about things that are proven not to matter, it becomes hard to take the complaints seriously. If you can reach 2B users without a consistent decision tree, I think it's pretty safe to say that consistency simply is not an issue, no matter how much our cat-like desire for order and perfection believes otherwise.
The thread we're in is both a counterexample and rebuttal to every one of your points. The game is near the top of HN. Everyone loves it. I get that you're trying to argue against the idea that it represents good UX, and yet UX is an integral component of gameplay. This game was successful because it's fun and it had a good experience, just like HN.
> Everyone loves it. I get that you're trying to argue against the idea that it represents good UX, and yet UX is an integral component of gameplay.
I think the game has terrible UX but I also think it has compelling points (competition, bragging ["never completed"], brain teasers, a need to overcome frustration, etc.) that override the terrible UX.
I don't think I ever mentioned that the game would or should fail due to UX -- my primary point is that it doesn't represent a good user onboarding experience. The very things that make it a compelling game would make it a terrible onboarding experience.
I'm guessing you already know this since you brought up this specific game/version, but it seems to accept any answer with a subsequence matching its list of synonyms, which can be abused for tomfoolery:
BAHAHA completely coincidental!
Thanks for the link. My wife and I just tried to play this game on a Pi a few weeks back and I remember being surprised by the fact that the game would accept my answers.
My attempts to solve #24 sent me down a really interesting rabbit hole:
I was Googling for substrings and found this truly bizarre site that appears to be the WordPress equivalent of a numbers station, likely by someone Russian speaking.
I actually want to see a timeline of how long it took for each question. The 4chan posts all have timestamps for when the answers were posted so this shouldn't be too hard to do.
I watched it live during the last ten or so. Each question was solved within about fifteen minutes. I tried to contribute to the process, but every time I found a clue, someone beat me to posting about it by a minute or so. The power of collective intelligence is amazing.
Base 64 encoded gzip,
Expanded gives a set of directions (Left Down Right Up)
Drawn gives 5138
Flipped upside down gives 2138
2=B 1=A 3=C 8=H, BACH
Answer: johann sebastian
No, simply because HN doesn't have the culture of "Here's a problem, let's collaborate on it". We're much more likely to discuss the problem itself and discuss the pros and cons of different approaches.
If you ask for help with a specific problem you'll probably get it, but I don't think there's the same viewpoint that if a puzzle is posted we need to solve it as a collective as quickly as possible.
If you post on HN about a problem, you'll likely get 1 useful answer and 6 answers pointing out that your problem is symptomatic of a wrongheaded approach and you should be doing something else instead :)
I can see the pattern: count successive powers of 2, dropping the digit that would occurred. So the next part of the sequence is 123456789012345678901234567891... etc.
But I have no idea how much of the sequence they want me to type in. Very frustrating!
No idea for the above. Reference to the t29 heavy tank? "Black" T in 1929? Nothing is coming up. Black Tuesday/Black Thursday of 1929 wasn't it either.
The letters represent locations on a QWERTY keyboard. If you draw out one "word" at a time, you get patterns that look (... if you squint a little) like T X C C.
The numbers are each in pairs and each pair doesn't exceed 26 (the number of letters in the alphabet). a = 01, z = 26. Convert the number pairs to letters, you get
The answer they're looking for is Moon, despite the moon not being a night-specific phenomenon. Other things that lighten the night, that they aren't looking for, include stars, light pollution, lighting, love and laughter.
