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> Is there anyway to do this properly? The way to do it properly is to hire experienced, competent UX designers and human computer interaction specialists, who
by johnday 8y ago
> Is there anyway to do this properly?
The way to do it properly is to hire experienced, competent UX designers and human computer interaction specialists, who understand the problem space and how to keep people engaged without addictive malpractice / dark patterns. Metrics are useful but they are what they claim to be - measurements - and nothing more.
You wouldn't choose which house to buy based on how large it was measured to be, but you would expect a surveyor to make those measurements.
Speaking as a web and video game designer, I can't wait until I can hire someone to think about these things for me.
- TaylorAlexander 8y agoThis makes sense. It’s like how clickbait headlines would, if they previously didn’t exist, improve click rates. But long term if your platform was all click bait it would fatigue the users. Or at least, one might think so...
- alan_wade 8y agoClickbait + low quality content is what fatigues users. Personally I don't mind clickbait if after doing whatever it takes to grab my attention, the creator delivers on an actually solid high quality educational/entertaining content.
- WA 8y agoThis concept is called: overpromise and underdeliver. The content should at least match the promise of the headline, or even overdeliver. Then readers are happy.
- mikestew 8y agoPersonally I don't mind clickbait if after doing whatever it takes to grab my attention, the creator delivers on an actually solid high quality Captain Pedantic, reporting for duty, and that’s not actually clickbait. If the masterful baiter of clicks actually delivers, then it wasn’t bait. I mean, what’s to complain about? Turns out there is a way to target stubborn belly fat, five minutes a day, who knew?
- pfschell 8y agoDesigners don't cause terrible designs like this. MBAs and marketing droids do.
- newppc 8y agoPretty sure Facebook is not a company that is taken over by MBAs and marketers that are making this happen. Rather it's an engineering-first organization, run by an engineer. Probably a mix of everyone's fault.
- dbt00 8y agoHow is an MBA or marketer evil in a way that Zuck isn’t?
- abakker 8y agoThat’s a bit reductive. You may be right, but it would be less facile to say that poor designs can be made by anybody, but that a mismatch between design and business objectives led to bad results. Not all business people are morons, and not all designers are good at design.
- ikfmpwdsoz 8y agoIf the business objectives lead to a design so bad that it hurts the business, surely the people who came up with these objectives didn't do a very good job?
- kokokokoko 8y agoPeople are not hired for roles when a company can afford to. People are hired for roles when company cannot afford not to.
- chaosite 8y agoThat's an ideal. Most companies like to grow, and growth usually means hiring.
- johnday 8y agoAt the moment, I can't afford to and I can't afford not to. So I'm just muddling through on my own.
- kamaal 8y ago>>People are hired for roles when company cannot afford not to. Only if people have a stake in the decline of a company, and have something to lose. Other wise in these days of executive networks, and people getting in their golf and dinner buddies- Execs mostly care about nothing at all. The only people to lose anything are a few low level employees and may be shareholders. Shareholders mostly don't care either. People who hold large block of shares, are generally diversified. And since nothing fails at all at once- They are covered too. So nobody loses any thing much basically.
- chongli 8y agohow to keep people engaged Once this becomes the goal, the game is already up. It doesn't matter whether you use A/B testing, focus groups, or brilliant designers who operate on intuition. By targeting engagement, you're treating your users as a means to an end and falling afoul of the categorical imperative [1]. You're focused not on meeting their needs as users but your own needs as an engagement-driven platform. The answer to this puzzle is to take engagement right off the table. An ethical business model is one in which you treat your customers as fully autonomous agents. As soon as you look past people's autonomy and see them as creatures of habit with psychological traits that can be gamed, you stray from the ethical path and find yourself searching for other rationalizations. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative
- vladbarash 8y agoWhich metrics would one track to remain on the ethical path, if any?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- tivert 8y agoProbably lots of things that require direct user feedback, like output from focus groups such as customer attitudes towards your product or customer impressions of utility and value.
- chongli 8y agoI would say: talk to your customers, find out what their needs are and try to make your product better at fulfilling them. Focusing on metrics is going back in the direction of treating your customers as means to an end: like grain to be harvested or sheep to be shorn. Instead try to think of your customers the way an old barber would think of his clients: as friends with individual needs who trust your experience in a particular problem domain. Of course, this approach is extremely unlikely to lead to a billion+$ exit. But if your goal is to become a billionaire and you want to be as stridently ethical as possible, I don't know how to help you (and would invite you to further examine your priorities).