Built for Mars
builtformars.com · Company blog · on HN since 2020
Built for Mars publishes UX case studies and critiques of products like Spotify, Trello, Reddit, and airline booking flows.
What HN saysHN commenters recommend it for UX case studies, citing its entertaining Reddit analysis alongside Nielsen Norman Group and Steve Krug's books.
20HN people shared it
3linked it in comments
30stories submitted
292story points
6 months agolast shared
2020people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Creating a Signal account2 people · 99 points · first shared 2021 · 102 comments on HN
- 2The (not so) subtle reason you hate chatbots2 people · 5 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
- 3Airlines get 91% cart abandonments (UX analysis)2 people · 4 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
- 4Finding Conversations on Clubhouse2 people · 3 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 5Everything wrong with Spotify's new feature: 'Group Sessions'2 people · 2 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 6YouTube Shorts vs TikTok1 people · 85 points · first shared 2021 · 72 comments on HN
- 7The UX of Paid Journalism1 people · 58 points · first shared 2022 · 25 comments on HN
- 8What happened to Trello and when did it become so bloated?1 people · 5 points · first shared 2024 · 2 comments on HN
- 9How the Twitter experience may change under Elon Musk1 people · 4 points · first shared 2022 · 2 comments on HN
- 10UX Analysis of Apple AirTags1 people · 3 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 11Will Visa kill Square? This benchmarking says no1 people · 3 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 12Twitch uses psychology to increase donations, obviously (analysis)1 people · 3 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 13Robinhood's awful UX exacerbated the GameStop crisis1 people · 2 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 14Google is Hollowing out Waze, and that's a Problem for Apple1 people · 2 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 15Required quality of life changes to Among Us1 people · 2 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
andrei_says_ · 2022-12-27
Some other recommendations:
Don’t Make me Think and Rocket Surgery Made Easy by Steve Krug
https://builtformars.com/ UX case studies
https://www.nngroup.com/ UX analyses and articles
Coursera has some UX courses you can audit for free
hiidrew · 2023-09-14
Other Reddit enshittification is their pushiness to use the mobile app. Great UX case study here, this guy makes them very entertaining - https://builtformars.com/case-studies/reddit
Also related, Cory Doctorow's essay on this where he labeled it 'enshittification' - https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys
crossroadsguy · 2021-01-22
For the last few years I have always rooted (or rather I hoped) for Matrix/Riot->Element. So much that for my recreational and token FOSS IM usage (because for mainstream conversation in my country it all has moved to WhatsApp) with select friends I made it a point to request/convince them to use Matrix.
But when this WhatsApp T&C thingie happened I had to make a choice and ask all my friends and important IM contacts to move to Signal because let's face it Matrix is simply not usable for the average user as of now and I guess they will take forever to figure out Signal/WhatsApp and Slack/IRC/Zoom are not two different types of animals but are aliens to each other, especially from an end user's UX expectation point of view. So yeah it had to be Signal because no one was going to move to Wire or Threema.
Telegram is perfect for casual groups like the ones which form off places like subreddits — e.g. my country's book/lit subreddit. Besides their apps are a couple of hundred kilometres ahead of others including WhatsApp.
So as of now I am going to use Signal. Come 6-7 Feb, and I am deleting my WhatsApp account. Because I am pissed and as someone who deleted Fb, Instagram 6-7 years ago, I just don't want to accept that T&C even though I know Fb may get my data or would track me by using other means anyway. It'd be my personal tiny F.Y. to Zuck.
Having said that Signal does and have always made me very uncomfortable:
— It's headed literally by a benevolent dictator, and boy…