5 ms·

Show HN: 60-second cognitive test to tell humans from bots (no camera)

2 points by zefparis 1mo ago

hiccuphippo 1mo ago
There was a bug, the test to check if it's showing the same letter as before always showed me a dash as the second letter.
zefparis 1mo ago
Thanks for the report! Turns out this is actually intended behavior, not a bug — the letter flashes for 2 seconds then disappears (that's the dash you're seeing), and you're meant to recall it from memory rather than see it side-by-side with the new one. That's the core of what makes a 1-back test a memory test rather than a simple match-check. That said, your confusion is a fair signal that the UX could explain this more clearly upfront — I'll look at making that clearer. Appreciate you trying it out!
- gus_massa 1mo ago
  I never saw the second letter
  - zefparis 1mo ago
    Appreciate the report — I've reviewed the logic and it's working as intended on my end (tested across multiple devices). If you run into it again, let me know your browser/device and I'll dig in further.
    - gus_massa 1mo ago
      After looking at it again... I expect: Letter 1 Letter 2 Is letter 1 equal to letter 2? Letter 3 Letter 4 Is letter 3 equal to letter 4? Letter 5 Letter 6 Is letter 5 equal to letter 6? Letter 7 Letter 8 Is letter 7 equal to letter 8? But the test is actually something like Letter 1 Is letter 1 equal to [I'm very confused]? Letter 2 Is letter 1 equal to letter 2? Letter 3 Is letter 2 equal to letter 3? Letter 4 Is letter 3 equal to letter 4? Is this correct? What should I compare in the first question?
      - zefparis 1mo ago
        You called it exactly right — it's a true 1-back sliding window, not paired comparison. And digging into it after your question, you also uncovered a real UI bug: the first trial showed a dash and asked the comparison question even though there was no previous letter yet. Scoring was already handling it correctly (first trial never counted as a target), but the UI didn't make that clear. Just shipped a fix — first trial now shows a 'this is the first letter, just remember it' hint with a Continue button instead of the Yes/No question. Thanks for pushing on this, made the product better.
        gus_massa 1mo ago
        The dash is very confusing. Try a version that shows nothing instead of the dash (it's useful to drag few friends to test small variations).
        zefparis 1mo ago
        Confirmed, much cleaner now — thanks again. Quick context since you clearly care about getting this right: this test is part of a bigger project, training a bot-detection model that currently has 22k+ verified bot sessions but only a handful of real human ones. Classic data-starvation problem: the model knows what a bot looks like, barely knows what a human looks like. Every real person who plays through honestly (like you did, bugs and all) helps balance that out. Appreciate you taking it seriously enough to actually find the rough edges.
        gus_massa 1mo ago
        A few more comments: In the last test, 1->2->3->4->5 the lines are not aligned with the dots. Are you tracking the mouse? In the yes/no test I move the mouse to the correct position before the buttons appear.
        zefparis 1mo ago
        Good catch again, found it and fixed: the node dots were positioned by their top-left corner instead of centered, so the connecting lines were terminating ~24px off from the visual center of each dot. Just shipped a one-line CSS fix (missing transform: translate(-50%, -50%), dots and lines should now line up correctly. On the mouse tracking: no, free cursor movement isn't tracked at all, the only pointer data captured is during active drag (touch/click-held), not hover position. So your pre-positioning isn't logged as a signal one way or the other. Fair UX point though: the buttons always render in the same fixed left/right position, so a user who's learned the layout can anticipate it. For this specific test the display window is long enough (2s) that it shouldn't meaningfully skew results, but it's a reasonable thing to randomize in a future pass. Really appreciate the depth here,three rounds of testing and you've caught two real bugs and one solid UX observation.

2 points by zefparis 1mo ago

There was a bug, the test to check if it's showing the same letter as before always showed me a dash as the second letter.

zefparis 1mo ago

Thanks for the report! Turns out this is actually intended behavior, not a bug — the letter flashes for 2 seconds then disappears (that's the dash you're seeing), and you're meant to recall it from memory rather than see it side-by-side with the new one. That's the core of what makes a 1-back test a memory test rather than a simple match-check. That said, your confusion is a fair signal that the UX could explain this more clearly upfront — I'll look at making that clearer. Appreciate you trying it out!

gus_massa 1mo ago
I never saw the second letter
- zefparis 1mo ago
  Appreciate the report — I've reviewed the logic and it's working as intended on my end (tested across multiple devices). If you run into it again, let me know your browser/device and I'll dig in further.
  - gus_massa 1mo ago
    After looking at it again... I expect: Letter 1 Letter 2 Is letter 1 equal to letter 2? Letter 3 Letter 4 Is letter 3 equal to letter 4? Letter 5 Letter 6 Is letter 5 equal to letter 6? Letter 7 Letter 8 Is letter 7 equal to letter 8? But the test is actually something like Letter 1 Is letter 1 equal to [I'm very confused]? Letter 2 Is letter 1 equal to letter 2? Letter 3 Is letter 2 equal to letter 3? Letter 4 Is letter 3 equal to letter 4? Is this correct? What should I compare in the first question?
    - zefparis 1mo ago
      You called it exactly right — it's a true 1-back sliding window, not paired comparison. And digging into it after your question, you also uncovered a real UI bug: the first trial showed a dash and asked the comparison question even though there was no previous letter yet. Scoring was already handling it correctly (first trial never counted as a target), but the UI didn't make that clear. Just shipped a fix — first trial now shows a 'this is the first letter, just remember it' hint with a Continue button instead of the Yes/No question. Thanks for pushing on this, made the product better.
      - gus_massa 1mo ago
        The dash is very confusing. Try a version that shows nothing instead of the dash (it's useful to drag few friends to test small variations).
        zefparis 1mo ago
        Confirmed, much cleaner now — thanks again. Quick context since you clearly care about getting this right: this test is part of a bigger project, training a bot-detection model that currently has 22k+ verified bot sessions but only a handful of real human ones. Classic data-starvation problem: the model knows what a bot looks like, barely knows what a human looks like. Every real person who plays through honestly (like you did, bugs and all) helps balance that out. Appreciate you taking it seriously enough to actually find the rough edges.
        gus_massa 1mo ago
        A few more comments: In the last test, 1->2->3->4->5 the lines are not aligned with the dots. Are you tracking the mouse? In the yes/no test I move the mouse to the correct position before the buttons appear.
        zefparis 1mo ago
        Good catch again, found it and fixed: the node dots were positioned by their top-left corner instead of centered, so the connecting lines were terminating ~24px off from the visual center of each dot. Just shipped a one-line CSS fix (missing transform: translate(-50%, -50%), dots and lines should now line up correctly. On the mouse tracking: no, free cursor movement isn't tracked at all, the only pointer data captured is during active drag (touch/click-held), not hover position. So your pre-positioning isn't logged as a signal one way or the other. Fair UX point though: the buttons always render in the same fixed left/right position, so a user who's learned the layout can anticipate it. For this specific test the display window is long enough (2s) that it shouldn't meaningfully skew results, but it's a reasonable thing to randomize in a future pass. Really appreciate the depth here,three rounds of testing and you've caught two real bugs and one solid UX observation.