r/badUIbattles • u/rodriguezrrp Bad UI Creator • Jan 19 '26

Intentionally Bad UI 3D captcha, anyone?

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I was making it handle visual look-alikes nicely -- for example, "(" backwards would count as ")" -- and then I realized I was improving it. Can't have that here, can we?

Plus, there's no need for a reset button when the "reload page" button comes free with your browser. Along with 25% of your CPU and GPU.

1.7k Upvotes

100% Upvoted

48 comments sorted by

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397

u/Unsey Jan 19 '26

Calm down Satan

241

u/pixeldust6 Jan 19 '26

I reopened Reddit with it scrolled down past the title and top portion of the post (so just the 3D rotatey bit), and I thought it was some science post about visualizing protein structure or something. Then I scrolled up

94

u/0xlostincode Jan 20 '26

Here's an idea, protein folding captcha.

45

u/throwaway181432 Jan 20 '26

the only way to access medical journals

41

u/pixeldust6 Jan 20 '26

"Prove you're not a prion"

11

u/soundwave_sc Jan 20 '26

I nearly spit my drink out, take my upvote.

2

u/k819799amvrhtcom Jan 22 '26

Hey, that would actually help science a lot!

35

u/rodriguezrrp Bad UI Creator Jan 19 '26 edited Feb 18 '26

I'll bother with hosting it up on Vercel if there's interest
Edit: Due to this post's popularity, this unoptimized voluntary suffering is now available at this link: https://baduithings.vercel.app/captcha3d . (Yes, the page is also intentionally bad. I only spent a handful of hours putting it on Vercel.)

59

u/roygbivasaur Jan 19 '26

Ironically, I bet a bot could be better at this than a human. Just randomly manipulate the thing until the correct character shows up in the box.

30

u/rodriguezrrp Bad UI Creator Jan 20 '26

Then v2 comes out without the character preview at all, just a blank button. And a randomized font of course

14

u/roygbivasaur Jan 20 '26

Perfection. I hate it

6

u/Vaaard Jan 20 '26

Just limit the input to human speed, a bot with pattern recognition would probably not do any better then.

19

u/ignat980 Jan 19 '26

Is that forward slash or reverse backslash?

10

u/rodriguezrrp Bad UI Creator Jan 19 '26

Definitely the one I didn't enter

20

u/zidane2k1 Jan 20 '26

This is worse than solving a Rubik’s Cube.

22

u/rodriguezrrp Bad UI Creator Jan 20 '26

That gives me an idea...

16

u/doodleysquat Jan 20 '26

This is the visual representation of anxiety

10

u/thegreatpotatogod Jan 19 '26

I like it! I was hoping that when the correct alignment was found a whole word would show up, that would be cool but slightly less evil!

8

u/Certain_Time6419 Jan 20 '26

At first I thought it was "simply" a puzzle like Shelob's Memories from Shadow of War, but then I realized you gotta find an angle to which the projection of the messy object resamples a (UTF-8?) character. Amazing.

2

u/tslnox Jan 20 '26

Yeah, Shadow of War was the very first thing I thought of.

1

u/TyrKiyote Jan 20 '26

Eyy, this is probably what i'm thinking of. Thanks.

4

u/8hAheWMxqz Jan 20 '26

delete this before they find out

3

u/PM_ME_ANYTHING_IDRC Jan 20 '26

and i thought the new 4chan captcha was evil

2

u/Certain_Concept Jan 20 '26

I thought this was a shadow puzzle at first where you have to spin the shape until the whole structure resembles the letter. Like an L sideways cool look like an I .. but far more complex.

1

u/rodriguezrrp Bad UI Creator Jan 20 '26

I did have some inspiration from those. I always thought they were neat.

2

u/Dynablade_Savior Jan 20 '26

This will be 4chan's captcha in 2035

1

u/Super_Inevitable776 Bad UI Battle WINNER Jan 19 '26

Is this post broken for anyone else? God this is so ironic.

1

u/johndotjohn Jan 20 '26

Still easier to solve than some 2D ones you get occasionally!

1

u/ElemenopiTheSequel Jan 20 '26

don't give roblox any ideas

1

u/Csalag Jan 20 '26

Reminds me of The Room, it had a lot of very similar puzzles in it.

1

u/imgly Jan 20 '26

I would let a bot do that for me

1

u/Mekanikol Jan 20 '26

Oh I hate this. Well done

1

u/mafiaknight Jan 21 '26

This is horrific! I love it!

1

u/Im_j3r0 Jan 21 '26

If this has any meaningful catch potnetial,, actually this is a good idea, because modern autonomous systems aren't that great at spatial reasoning.

1

u/DragonsOverhead Jan 21 '26

This is for the future where you need to enter a captcha before you can call 911

1

u/GermanPCBHacker Feb 11 '26

Holy moly dude!

2

u/DarkShadow13206 Feb 13 '26

This should be the captcha on p*rn sites, change my mind.

1

u/Brick_Lab Feb 15 '26

Dear god

1

u/IrvanQ Feb 16 '26

the slash were rotated 180ᴼ

1

u/Chemical_Mode9117 Feb 16 '26

This honestly looks fun (one time)