User Experience

Why does PayPal suck so bad? I tried to set up a Venmo for donations and I failed. PayPal’s UI is awful.

ChatGPT Speaks:

You’re definitely not alone in finding PayPal frustrating—many users vent similar frustrations online. Here’s a breakdown of the most common pain points, especially relating to UI (user interface) and the headaches with setting up Venmo for donations:

Why PayPal Can Feel Clunky

1. Terrible Navigation & Overly Nested Menus

Users frequently report that the PayPal UI buries features deep within nested menus, making it hard to find what you need:

“I agree with you that this interface is terrible. It has a form of design that is obviously intended to hide your information… finding a sub category … you will have to dig back and forth until you find the button.” [PayPal Community

2. Poor Readability & Excessive White Space

The redesign with larger fonts and spacing makes scrolling a chore and reduces visibility:

“The new Transaction page uses big font … You can see a whole 8 transactions and then I have to hit the more button and scroll…” PayPal Community

3. Inconsistent Layouts & Confusing Checkout

The checkout process is overly complex, full of fields and confusing flows, even for experienced users:

“So why is the checkout SO COMPLICATED??? … I literally couldn’t understand what’s going on. So many instructions. So many fields to fill.” Reddit

4. Clumsy Authentication & Timeouts

Frequent logouts and multi-click login processes erode usability:

“PayPal times out… logging back in requires three clicks … click the log in prompt… log in button… ignore the promotional message… and click ‘go to my account.’ … design is annoying as all get?out.” PayPal Community

5. Dark UX Patterns & Hidden Defaults

Some design choices seem intentionally deceptive—like defaulting to paid options even after selecting free ones:

“It had defaulted to the ‘transfer now’ choice, so it cost me $6. … What a horrible thing to do.” Reddit

6. Glitches When Adding Bank Accounts

Many users struggle to link bank accounts due to awkward UI behavior:

“Try to add Fidelity as a bank account… No path forward… Workaround: type a bunch of garbage, and it will show you a button that will let you manually enter account details.” Reddit

7. Slow Performance & Looping Login Screens

Frequent re-authentication and laggy pages make the experience feel sluggish:

“Every step needs so much loading time. Every 1?minute I need to re?login. The dashboard and the activity feed is so confusing.”
Reddit

Setup Nightmares with Venmo Charity Profiles

If you’re trying to set up donations through Venmo via PayPal (especially for nonprofits), that introduces an extra layer of complexity.

Common Issues From the Trenches:

• Loops and endless redirects between platforms:
  “It takes me to Venmo Charity Profiles… then says ‘already verified’ and takes me back to PayPal. I’m getting so frustrated!”
  PayPal Community
• Renowned for being flaky and unresponsive support:
  “I’ve been struggling for two months… get the same error message… Venmo’s support folks are stumped… they open a tech ticket and nothing happens.” Reddit
• Account freezing or merging with personal profiles:
  “It was a nightmare… The account was frozen upon creation… multiple chats… have led to nothing.” Reddit
• Discomfort with linking a personal account to the charity:
  “They require it to be linked to a personal Venmo account… I don’t want my personal account linked to the charity I volunteer for part?time.” Reddit

Official Requirements That Make It Tough:

• You must verify charity status via PayPal.
• The same person must own both the PayPal and Venmo accounts—ownership is non-transferable. Venmo Help Center
• Venmo will reject setups if info doesn’t match or there’s a mismatch in phone number, ownership, or account status. Venmo Help Center+1
• Additional errors like “we can’t confirm your info,” “this link isn’t shareable,” or “timeout” are common blockers. Venmo Help Center

Summary Table

What You Can Do Next

• For UI frustration: Consider providing feedback directly via the PayPal Community, or exploring third-party integrations (like DonorBox or Stripe) for smoother UX.
• For Venmo setup:
  • Make sure the charity owner matches across accounts.
  • Use unique phone numbers and avoid account overlap.
  • Address any “good standing” issues with IRS or regulatory bodies first.
  • Be prepared to navigate redirects and reach out persistently to support.

Recently my tech developer friends were discussing replacing their M-series Apple computers with non-Apple hardware. They told me that Apple had decided to weld the hard drive, battery and chips to the motherboard, preventing the ability to upgrade their equipment.

I discovered that the limitations of upgrading Apple’s M-chip computers is a significant issue. A sentiment of frustration among developers and programmers is quite strong. As developers work with LLMs, video and other sophisticated software and programming needs they are starting to rebel and abandon Apple products.

Here’s a breakdown of the issue:

The Soldered Components:

RAM (Unified Memory): Apple’s M-series chips (M1, M2, M3, etc.) use a “Unified Memory Architecture” (UMA). This means the RAM is integrated directly onto the chip or logic board, very close to the CPU and GPU. This design allows for incredibly fast data transfer between the CPU, GPU, and memory, which is a major performance benefit. However, the downside is that RAM cannot be upgraded after purchase. You have to decide how much RAM you need at the time of purchase, and you’re stuck with it for the life of the machine.

SSD (Storage):

Similarly, the SSD storage in most M-chip Macs is also soldered to the logic board. While there have been some rare instances of engineers managing to desolder and replace SSD chips (a highly risky and complex process that voids warranties), for the vast majority of users, internal storage is not upgradeable.

Other Components:

The CPU, GPU, and other core components are all integrated into the M-series “System on a Chip” (SoC), meaning they are not modular and cannot be replaced or upgraded independently. Batteries can be replaced by Apple or authorized service providers, but not easily by users.

Why Apple Does This (and the Developer Perspective):

Performance:

The primary technical reason for integrating RAM and other components is performance. UMA significantly reduces latency and increases bandwidth, making M-chip Macs incredibly efficient and powerful for their size and power consumption.
Miniaturization and Design: Soldering allows for thinner, lighter, and more compact designs, which is a key aspect of Apple’s product philosophy.

Control and Profit:

This is where much of the developer and user frustration comes from. By making components non-upgradeable, Apple effectively forces users to buy a new machine if they need more RAM or storage, rather than simply upgrading existing hardware. This leads to higher costs for consumers and, some argue, contributes to e-waste. The premium Apple charges for RAM and storage upgrades at the time of purchase is often significantly higher than the market cost of those components.
Prevalence of Sentiment Among Developers and Programmers:

The sentiment among developers and programmers is widely critical of Apple’s non-upgradable hardware. Here’s why:

Resource Demands:

Developers often work with demanding applications, large codebases, virtual machines, and multiple tools running simultaneously. These tasks can quickly consume significant amounts of RAM and storage. Being locked into a fixed configuration means they might find their machines underpowered sooner than they’d like.

Cost of Ownership:

The inability to upgrade makes the total cost of ownership higher. If a developer needs more RAM a couple of years down the line, their only official option is to buy a completely new, expensive machine.

“Right to Repair” Concerns:

This issue feeds into the broader “right to repair” movement. Many developers and tech enthusiasts believe that consumers should have the right to repair and upgrade their own devices, and Apple’s practices are seen as directly opposing this.

Longevity and Sustainability:

From an environmental perspective, forcing users to replace entire machines instead of upgrading components contributes to electronic waste.

Exceptions and Workarounds:

While official upgrades are impossible, some users resort to external SSDs for additional storage. For RAM, there’s no practical external solution, although some highly skilled engineers in places like Shenzhen have demonstrated extremely risky and difficult methods of desoldering and replacing RAM chips. These are not viable options for the average user or even most professional developers.

In summary:

While Apple’s integrated design offers performance benefits, the inability to upgrade RAM and internal storage on M-chip Macs is a major point of contention for developers and programmers. It forces them to either over-spec their machines at the time of purchase (leading to higher upfront costs) or face the prospect of buying a new computer when their current one no longer meets their needs. This contributes to a strong negative sentiment regarding Apple’s hardware longevity and repairability.

Last week I participated in multiple events with the Astoria Tech Meetup. I have attended Astoria Tech Meetup for most of 2024 and this year too.

Astoria Tech meets weekly Thursday mornings for coffee at a local shop and holds a monthly event at night at a bar with short presentations and a chance to network. Astoria Tech has also started to have a monthly hacker session on Saturday afternoons where people can share what they are working on. People pair and work together. Last week I did all three events.

I had an opportunity to give a presentation at the Wednesday night meetup event, held at Klatch Bar in Astoria Queens. Astoria Tech Meetup sets a 10 minute limit for presentations to keep them fun.

I gave a presentation about loading variable fonts on a local server. Variable fonts are easy to install but there are a few pitfalls to know about. They need a conversion and I have a collection of converted fonts on my Github to give away. I made a brief slide deck and aced my presentation in just nine minutes.

I enjoy meeting friends at the Thursday coffee Meetup. We chat about how we are doing and share tips. I always come away with new suggestions and websites on my phone from other members. It is great to learn cool new things.

This Saturday I came to the Astoria Tech Hacker Event held at Klatch Bar. I have a JavaScript project that I have worked on for a long time and I brought that to work on.

We paired together for three 5-minute rounds to see each other’s projects and then we switched partners. Some members are working on very advanced applications.

One member suggested that I try using Claude AI with part of my project. I tried Claude with middling success. Meanwhile another participant built a partial replica of my application using the D3 JavaScript library. I came away with parts of programs and code that I can study and move forward with my project.

I am very glad to have a local Meetup where I can meet fine people and learn about programming. There are so many avenues to explore. Everyone is on their own journey but at least we get to touch grass together over coffee.

I am struck by how some design agencies pack animation into websites. I see if I can discern a particular WordPress theme, or animation library that is behind the visual noise.

Cookie-cutter website animations consist of a combination of lazy-loading, fade-ins and easing techniques. These animation devices are sometimes also combined with parallax scrolling.

Too much animation is distracting. Especially when every element is animated in some way. No particular bit of content has priority. Constant distractions make it hard to focus on the content. Assembling websites with common Bootstrap layout patterns make them look cheap.

The “gee-whiz” factor quickly fades as users struggle to comprehend content through the fog of motion overload.

Now with automated systems and libraries this visual disease will become more ubiquitous. Managers will plop animated components into websites and every widget will jiggle about.

Excessive animation can trigger issues for people with certain disabilities. Users are now offered a preference function to limit website movement on browsers. The necessity of this preference setting is a clear sign of the hazards of animation overuse.

I like content-driven animation. Storytelling is a proper use for content-focused animation. Short animated clips offer content and meaning.

Programs like GreenSock and Three.js do amazing things. D3 information display JavaScripts help to make information transparent and easy to understand.

But animations should not be landing page gatekeepers. Don’t make users wait each time they visit a website. Users who come to fulfill a task grow tired of having to sit through the same sequence again and again.

Animation as an affordance can be useful to inform the user. Affordances tell users they have successfully started a function or completed a task. Animation affordances can be subtle. They do not have to be on every element. Limit affordance animations to assisting users to find destinations.

Contexts for good animation application

1. Animation used as a navigational affordance or user aid
2. Information-driven storytelling featured as a focal piece of content

I published a series of pages on my website showing examples of live prototypes I made. The Live Prototypes page links to a series of “story pages” that feature various design quests. Each story features important design elements and my journey to resolve common web design issues.

The purpose is to show my design-thinking and problem-solving skills to Creative Directors. My ability to design in code, to focus on function, and resolve design issues is a crucial web development skill.

My design stories are displayed within a “Prototype Theater”. The Prototype Theater is an iframe container displaying live HTML links.

The Prototype Theater format is itself a prototype. Here is the story of my Prototype Theater.

Functions and Features of the Prototype Theater format

The purpose of the Prototype Theater is to display prototype examples on the page. Selecting a link shows a HTML page within the iframe.

However, many of the prototypes are about responsive design. Responsive prototypes are best seen in full desktop view.

So opening the links in new tabs is the best way to view and appreciate the work. The iframe window next to a sidebar cannot be a full desktop width but it provides a quick look to garner interest.

A note above the links suggests that viewers can open links in new browser tabs to view. It will be interesting to learn how users will embrace the iframe display interface.

Resolving mobile layout challenges

The best way for Creative Directors to see my portfolio and understand my work is on a desktop device. But viewers will also look at my portfolio on mobile devices.

Making the iframe theater work on mobile devices required overcoming a layout limitation. My website layout is designed so that the website sidebar falls below the main content on mobile.

Due to my website layout, the links menu appeared below the theater container.

My website layout uses floats and negative margins. The main content is first in markup for SEO. Floats and negative margins pull the sidebar to appear on the left for desktop views.

As a result, on mobile devices the Prototype Links Menu fell below the iframe container. Users could not see what to do. Viewers had to scroll up and down to select links and see a result.

Core web page redesign

I redesigned the core web page layout for the theater pages by splitting the sidebar into two parts. For mobile devices, the Prototype Links Menu must be first in the markup to display above the iframe content container. The other sidebar section links to other pages and appears below.

I conducted a series of explorations to discover the right layout mechanism to split the sidebar content.

First I tried using floats and margins to control the layout. I also experimented using CSS Flexbox and CSS Grid layout techniques. The CSS Grid technique turned out to work best to achieve a layout that best serves the content. Afterwards I matched the website style of my other pages.

Research, custom code and templating for production

Building the theater interface included research about iframes. I used datasets to embed titles and captions within prototype links. I wrote javascript functions to add the titles and captions above each prototype example.

I converted my Prototype Theater layout to a series of template components using Gulp and Handlebars.js. A custom CSS stylesheet keeps the CSS separate from my global styles.

Final Thoughts

I limited my prototype examples to “stories” that follow a progression and explore important elements of web design.

The prototypes show my design thinking, my problem-solving skills, and illustrate my values. I am hoping to reach and speak to creative design managers or business owners who value code design.

Last week I had an appointment in Manhattan and I used this appointment as an excuse to buy art toys and visit Blick’s Art Supply and Kremer’s Pigments.

This year of pandemic I have made three journeys into Manhattan to buy art supplies. Most stores were closed in the first few months but in July the art supply stores began to open. I called ahead and mapped out a journey from SoHo to Herald Square.

I have used my pandemic quarantine time to paint and draw. The media I work with are sumi ink, pencil drawing and egg tempera. Each has their place in my expression. Egg tempera is special for the chemistry of it and the vibrancy of color.

Over the past few years I have made occasional trips to Kremer’s Pigments on 29th St. to buy powdered pigments. The powdered pigments come in baggies and look like the baggies of marijuana one might have bought in the 1970’s. The pigments come in all colors and some are also sold in jars.

Kremer’s sells various types of chemistry to mix with the pigments, paint brushes and other art tools.

I started by purchasing just a few color pigments to use with my sumi ink paintings. Sumi ink provides a strong black and a zillion shades of grey. One light bright color such as yellow ochre can offset the monochromatic color scheme with a complimentary eye-catching pop.

I also picked up various earth pigments, starting with a limited palette. My artist training focused on printmaking so working with a limited palette appeals to me.

It did not taken long before I embarked on supplying myself with a full spectrum of color pigments.

Most of the pigments come in baggies. At home, I transfer the pigments into plastic spice jars and carefully peel the sticker labels from the baggies and paste them to my jars.

In addition to the earth pigments such as umber, ocher and earth greens, I have acquired many cobalt and cadmium-based colors – intense reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues and violets. The earth pigments are not hard to handle but many pigments are toxic and I have to work carefully with them.

Because the pigments are the straight stuff, I can add them to various types of binders to create all sorts of painting mediums. Kremer’s supplies items such as gum arabic to make watercolors, additives for egg tempera, oil paint or inks such as ox gall and walnut oil, linseed oil, waxes, shellacs, and crystallized gums to make varnish.

The store sales assistants are a little shy because of Covid-19 but they are really quite helpful and knowledgeable about different types of chemistry that artists might use.

It is quite an experience to come in person into the store and see the pigments on the shelf in baggies. I like to come and see. Kremer’s offered classes in the spring on how to make stuff or do certain art tasks but I don’t think classes are available at this time.

Because of having to close at the start of the pandemic and the vagaries of supply and demand, some supplies are often out and on reorder. Kremer’s also has a website where pigments can be ordered over the Internet.

Working with dry pigments is a taste and experience that is not for everyone but for those of us who really delve into the chemistry and science of making art, Kremer’s in New York City is a real joy.

Recently two different people spoke to me about building websites using Squarespace. It’s been awhile since anyone has mentioned the subscription CMS platform and it was surprising to be asked about the product on two occasions.

Squarespace gained market share and popularity by advertising on NPR and public radio stations like WNYC*.

Working to design within the Squarespace platform is like trying to paint a bedroom through the door keyhole. The CSS can only be accessed through Squarespace’s proprietary user interface. The proprietary user interface is kept locked away because Squarespace charges subscription-based fees and the way to charge the fee is to insert a roadblock to thwart web development.

Many Internet-based services such as Squarespace are designed to insert themselves into the service in order to extract money from the transaction or work. A common example of that business model is LinkedIn, where users upload their personal contacts. LinkedIn’s business model is to make it difficult for users to access their own data unless a fee is paid. Trolls build bridges and extract payment to cross. Working with Squarespace is a little like that.

The first person needed to publish sales content for a third party startup. Using an off-the-shelf Squarespace template might be good enough for this purpose. Editing the front-end design or maintaining the website are not concerns. The website will probably not need to exist in six months.

The second person who asked about Squarespace already has a mammoth website built using WordPress. The WordPress website is the primary marketing hub for the client’s entire business.

The WordPress website, built over a fifteen year period, has rambling content, a lack of cohesive brand development and an unplanned site architecture. None of these faults require a technical solution.

The website utilizes multiple custom plugins and consists of many different types of content. It is hard to imagine porting the existing content successfully to Squarespace.

WordPress is utilized for some 25% of websites worldwide. WordPress has a wide and deep technical ecosystem; most of it is public sourced (free to use). WordPress website maintainers are able to access the website from within the user interface and from without, as long as access to the site host location is available.

If there is a strong need to redevelop the website, there are many much better options to use than Squarespace. What the second client really needs is to invest in knowledgable web developers to maintain and develop the website. Lacking that, switching to Squarespace will not solve problems. It will increase them.

* Here’s a little marketing secret: If you have a mediocre Internet technology that you want to foist onto consumers be sure to advertise on public radio. Public radio stations are advertising hungry and will promote anything, without question or testing for quality; and listeners will suck it up, also without any further investigation.

A new version of WordPress has come out and it provided an impetus to clean off the cobwebs and update. The old version was not secure. I have a long list of assholes who have registered on my blog for no good reason. I will find an appropriate use for that list.

Re-install was not so hard once I got into it. The hardest part was backing up my files via my web hosting service provider Powweb.

Now my Webblog is the same in the front end but better in the backend. I am excited to get into new stuff.

The first thing to fix is the pages on Webblog. The theme used here has not module for pages. That needs to be fixed. The pages are now just hovering over the header. Looks bad.

If you have valid advise how to fix that I’d like to hear from you. Also, I would like some tips on how to bling up my WordPress.

I spoke to another developer last week about his work. I learned that he uses templates to design his web pages. He said something about “why bother trying to reinvent the wheel”.

Something about the conversation struck me. As a designer, I think that it is important for me to know the code. So I embarked on re-working on the website. I’m glad that I did.

My intention was to create some new content. Instead, I got involved with attempting to manage my most recent slew of bookmarks, and I started re-reading material about Blueprint.

I found a page that has an AJAX tool that allows people to re-program their blueprint code. I played with the tool, punched numbers on a calculator, and came up with something that I like. The new iteration of my website (the front end) is built with it.

Not many people still measure in picas but I sure do. My history reaches back to line-o-type and hand paste-up. I like a design that can divide, as easily into thirds as in half, so I like my numbers to count in twelve’s, sixes, threes and twos.

The page layout that I came up with 888px wide, 30 18px columns and 12px wide gutters. One thing about picas over inches is picas are smaller units and therefore more accurate. 18px wide columns give me much more flexibility than Blueprint’s default 30px. I like my 12px gutters as well. They provide a little more white space.

I spent a day and a half on building the first page. I did 12 more today and posted them. The content is the same as before – I am re-arraigning the chairs on the Titanic – but it is necessary to have the structure flat. There is a lot of “fudging” going on right now. I don’t believe in having “the site is down for reconstruction,” signs go up on my site.

Now, I can work on content development with clarity of the parameters of the site.

Just like most designers, I rarely get time (make time) to work on my own website. This past Thanksgiving I holed up in my cave and worked on a major revision of my style sheet.

It has been a year since I last made a major effort at redesign and I have been chomping at the bit for months to do it – writing little notes to myself about what I want to do.

I find my inspiration from working on my client’s projects, and from my seemingly endless search for a job. Most of my recent job search has been conducted on LinkedIn.com, and as I go I Google terms and phrases which I don’t know or somehow hook me.

This is an inexpensive way to get an education and I’m learning quite a lot. I know way more than is indicated by my work and credentials.

One example of a “find” occurred when applying for a Presentation Layer Architect position at Avenue A | Razorfish (no they never called). Well, what is a Presentation Layer Architect?

With more Googling I figured out that a Presentation Layer Architect designs websites at the code level, and that this design structure is critical for desirable traits such incorporating flexibility, expandability, Progressive enhancement, usability, graceful degradation, search optimization, semantic design and so forth. The list of programming code that Razorfish required was massive. *I hope they call me anyway*. I want to work for a company that thinks about things like this. I want to BE a company who thinks about things like this.

I heard somewhere that the difference between Google and Microsoft is that the leadership of Google is all engineers, while the leadership of Microsoft is MBAs. I want to be a Creative that is informed. I want to know the code.

What I am doing to my code in this go-round is restructuring the CSS design to direct its energy toward standard HTML elements. In my previous CSS version, I created code that targeted classes. So the intent of this redesign is that if I isolate the HTML page from the CSS, the page will still work. It may be butt-ugly, but it will work.

Theoretically, the flip-side benefit will be that my website will be easier to expand or update or restyle. It will also be simple and user-friendly and handicapped accessible.

There are other considerations that I have in mind as I perform this redesign. Cross-browser compatibility ought also be a benefit of this redesign. Somewhere I stumbled across the phrase “browser reset” while trying to hack code for MicroSuck.

My redesign started by integrating reset style sheets from five or more sources, including the CSS of my Xeiro blog template. My resources are the Base style sheet from RichInStyle.com, the Base style sheet from nealgrosskopf.com, Base style sheet suggestions from tantek.com, and of course the Base style sheet from meyerweb.com/eric/tools/css/reset/ .

This witches-brew of reset was picked through to create my own Swiss-army knife of all things reset – my MO is to use all of the crayons. I will test it out with use and eliminate stuff later. Right now, EVERY element seems to be at least listed in my CSS.

Along my job-search way, I discovered Blueprint Google code. I added bits of their reset and implemented the Blueprint structure, which I have tested and decided to modify. Already, I have been creating bits of classes, which I modify within one tag. CSS code .ml20, .tleft, and .tinytext becomes XHTML

[Note that the p tag element is the focus of the styling].

.tinytext = font structure and color
.ml20 = margin left 20px;
tleft = text-align:left;

Cool, I think. The thing is, old printer that I am, I like to design in twelve’s [divisible by either two or three] and Blueprint’s code is 30px columns +10px margins x number of columns – last 10px – and that does not divide by both two and three – so I’m fudging the column widths and using classes like .w201 instead. Other than that I recommend it OK.

What else? I suppose that I ought to speak of intent. My website started as a portfolio of my graphic design. The portfolio will continue to persist, but it is about to drop into the background of my website.

The entire “I want a job” mentality of the website will be superseded by and new focus on content. I want to be more like ivillage.com (yes I applied there too – call me, OK?) – more like a news magazine. I want to be a PR site. a Brand.

Recruiters are always asking me “what [one single thing] do you really want to be?” I distrust that question. It is a stupid question. I want to use all of the crayons. That is my MO.

This CSS code redesign is preparing the way for integration of all that new programming stuff – Drupal, JQuery, Smarty Php MVC Frameworks, MooTools, Script.aculo.us, ajax CRUD and Google code!