[Dwolb]

A note on methodology: typically in experimental surveys you don’t want to prime your subjects with words or phrasing that could lead to positive or negative bias.

Additionally, negatively-biased phrasing on a public survey could also attract mostly those with negative views. This would skew your sample even further than solely priming.

With that said, I have no idea what any of those icons are.

[revel]

I'd agree with you if the point of the survey was to collect information, but I think the structure of the survey makes it pretty clear that this isn't the intent.

Just from my own experience, I have used the overwhelming majority of these services and even worked at Amazon for several years and I could not answer more than a couple of those questions. The icons are so divorced from any real world meaning that when I make systems diagrams in Lucid Charts I use the AWS icons to represent abstract systems rather than the real AWS-specific meaning.

[oblio]

I think the whole quiz is a joke, to prove a point.

[alexvoda]

I am not a AWS user but I am familiar with what several of the AWS services do. I looked over the quiz and I could not answer even a single question.

I also think the quiz is to prove a point. Those icons are not helpful at all. The opposite of the MS Office icons which are so recognizable all other office suites copied the color scheme.

[oblio]

I'm an AWS user, I've been using their service for almost 5 years now. I also had a hard time with many of their questions. I agree completely with your assessment.

Amazon badly needs some serious UX power...

[Cthulhu_]

They've been tweaking the UI of the AWS console recently at least, but, they still have a loooong way to go.

[xur17]

I was happy that they finally added a simple search tool for their tools on their homepage.

It wouldn't be a very sustainable business, but you could make good money selling a chrome extension that cleans up AWS similar to what Reddit Enhancement Suite does.

[Something1234]

That might just be the most dangerous extension ever, or at least one that could get very messy very quickly if it was hacked. Or someone would be willing to pay big money to have it subverted, looking at you cryptonuts.

[hondadriver]

The quiz is called AWS Icon Quiz. "AWS has terrible icons" is only the title of the Hacker News post.

[ryanianian]

It's still priming the responses. If the interest is in drawing a truly 'scientific' result, the hypothesis/wanted-conclusion shouldn't be in the prompt used on participants.

[birdtime]

I think the point was that the fault may lie in the poster on HN and not the author of the survey, provided they're separate individuals.

[Slippery_John]

The questions and candidate answers themselves are also heavily biased. The survey is clearly not intended to be an unbiased scientific poll.

[ryanianian]

Sure - either way it's not a "fair" survey. If I were making this survey trying to be scientific and somebody posted it to HN with this title I would be quite upset at them for priming a large number of my participants.

[jonthepirate]

Even if the title was "AWS icons are awesome" my results would have been the same

[arghwhat]

But you might not have taken it, then.

Also, presenting options such as "dried arterial blood red" and "slightly but not too radioactive green" might also make you less likely to put in effort to select the real one, rather than just picking randomly.

[Jare]

I am terrible with colors but I thought "slightly but not too radioactive green" was a perfect description.

[crispyambulance]

Well, I for one, think the icons ARE AWESOME.

Admittedly, I can't use them to identify any specific services, but they're cool looking.

[castlecrasher2]

At first I agreed with you but taking the quiz I admit the title didn't really influence how I already felt about AWS icons. At least I remember AWS' service names like Firehose and Kinesis; GCP's are hard to remember when they don't use mnemonic devices for most of their products.

[thestoicattack]

If the icons were good, the quiz wouldn't need to exist, right? So the mere fact that there is a quiz already biases the result.

[loblollyboy]

Dammit dwolb you missed the point!

[18nleung]

I agree with both points.