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I'm not sure it's deliberately disingenuous (though it's certainly disingenuous). I think this is a side effect of putting a bunch of REALLY smart hackers in c

I'm not sure it's deliberately disingenuous (though it's certainly disingenuous). I think this is a side effect of putting a bunch of REALLY smart hackers in charge of the UX at Facebook. It's lost it's simplicity in favor of power. People keep asking for power/control, and Facebook adds it. Rinse/repeat and we have more knobs and levers than most users can really grok without a pretty big investment in time.

kareemm 16y ago
> People keep asking for power/control Who does? Most users I know of any system (hackers included) prefer simplicity.
- webwright 16y ago
  Really? Have you ever fielded support requests for a startup? You'll be BURIED in feature requests and you'll master the art of saying "probably not" without pissing off users. And you'll probably say "yes" way more often than you should. Of course users WANT simplicity-- they also want their software to do everything that want it to do. This is how bloated software gets built. Do you have an alternate explanation as to why smart product designers would make privacy controls complex/powerful rather than simple/less-customizable? Do you really think they are TRYING to confuse people?
  - kareemm 16y ago
    > Do you have an alternate explanation as to why smart product designers would make privacy controls complex/powerful rather than simple/less-customizable? Do you really think they are TRYING to confuse people? Sure. I think it's in Facebook's best interest to make their users' data as public as possible. It would run counter to FB's interests if they had privacy settings that were as simple as: - "Hide all my stuff" - "Show my stuff to friends only" - "Show my stuff to friends of friends" - "Show my stuff to the whole wide world" I've yet to hear a good explanation as to why the default FB privacy option has become more and more open, while they added more granular privacy controls. Which likely means there isn't one that benefits users as much as it does Facebook. > Do you really think they are TRYING to confuse people? No. But I do think that responsible product design is about making difficult decisions for the benefit of one's users. And Facebook is shirking that responsibility by putting its own needs ahead of its users... while putting the onus on users to restore their privacy settings to what they were when they signed up by using confusing tools.

kareemm 16y ago

> People keep asking for power/control Who does? Most users I know of any system (hackers included) prefer simplicity.

webwright 16y ago
Really? Have you ever fielded support requests for a startup? You'll be BURIED in feature requests and you'll master the art of saying "probably not" without pissing off users. And you'll probably say "yes" way more often than you should. Of course users WANT simplicity-- they also want their software to do everything that want it to do. This is how bloated software gets built. Do you have an alternate explanation as to why smart product designers would make privacy controls complex/powerful rather than simple/less-customizable? Do you really think they are TRYING to confuse people?
- kareemm 16y ago
  > Do you have an alternate explanation as to why smart product designers would make privacy controls complex/powerful rather than simple/less-customizable? Do you really think they are TRYING to confuse people? Sure. I think it's in Facebook's best interest to make their users' data as public as possible. It would run counter to FB's interests if they had privacy settings that were as simple as: - "Hide all my stuff" - "Show my stuff to friends only" - "Show my stuff to friends of friends" - "Show my stuff to the whole wide world" I've yet to hear a good explanation as to why the default FB privacy option has become more and more open, while they added more granular privacy controls. Which likely means there isn't one that benefits users as much as it does Facebook. > Do you really think they are TRYING to confuse people? No. But I do think that responsible product design is about making difficult decisions for the benefit of one's users. And Facebook is shirking that responsibility by putting its own needs ahead of its users... while putting the onus on users to restore their privacy settings to what they were when they signed up by using confusing tools.