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> These used to be highlighted in light yellow, clearly marking them as different from organic search results. The specific shade of yellow was indiscernible f
by nothrabannosir 9y ago
> These used to be highlighted in light yellow, clearly marking them as different from organic search results.
The specific shade of yellow was indiscernible from background white on a cheap laptop at almost any angle. I wish I'd taken a photo when I noticed. I knew people who had never even noticed the yellow, at all, let alone understood it was ads.
I know, Never Attribute To Malice and all that, but hot damn, that must have been a massive multi million dollar move of "ignorance".
- jacquesm 9y agoI am more than happy to attribute it to malice because that is exactly what Google did with their competitors when they were just starting out.
- quesera 9y agoGoogle is the company that user-tested 41 shades of blue¹. Malice or not, that yellow was surely intentional, and working as intended. [1] http://stopdesign.com/archive/2009/03/20/goodbye-google.html http://stopdesign.com/archive/2009/03/20/goodbye-google.html
- MereInterest 9y ago> I know, Never Attribute To Malice and all that, but hot damn, that must have been a massive multi million dollar move of "ignorance". I think that this saying gets misapplied quite frequently. If you are talking to someone one on one, then you should assume that they are simply mistaken. Otherwise, you don't stand a chance of convincing them to see things another way. On the other hand, in trying to predict somebody else's actions, assuming malice can give the most accurate prediction. On the part of Google, I don't know whether the nigh-unidentifiable ads are the result of some cackling executive trying to trick people to click on ads, or whether it is the result of overzealous A/B testing that stumbled upon a dark pattern. In the end, it doesn't matter, and either one is a good approximation of what will happen in the future.