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I think of the underlying problem as "the metadata delusion." We programmers look at difficulties users have dealing with large volumes of data and think, aha!
by smacktoward 8y ago
I think of the underlying problem as "the metadata delusion."
We programmers look at difficulties users have dealing with large volumes of data and think, aha! I can solve this by giving them ways to add metadata to those data, so it can be more easily browsed/filtered/faceted/whatever. (We think that because programmers have an analytical cast of mind, which we then extrapolate from -- this would be useful for me, we figure, therefore it would be useful for anyone.) So we build these elaborate systems for storing and managing metadata, and then build elaborate UIs to expose those systems to the user.
Our system goes out to the users, and as long as those users are people like us -- analytical types -- it works OK. But then it goes out beyond that to a general audience, and suddenly we discover a new problem: namely that most users don't want to add metadata and simply will not do it, even if by doing so they could realize huge productivity gains. It doesn't matter how useful the metadata would be to them, to them adding metadata is work, and worse, it's nerd work of a kind they feel fundamentally uncomfortable with and unequipped to deal with. So they just don't do it. And they won't do it, no matter how hard you try to sell them on it.
That was the problem with "circles" in G+: not that it was a bad idea to let people split up their feeds, but that having multiple feeds required them to add metadata (creating circles, naming them, adding people to them, periodically removing people from them, etc.), and people just didn't want to do that. So they didn't.
It's not impossible to build systems that categorize data to make it more comprehensible, but if you want them to work, they have to do so in some way that doesn't put the burden on the user to keep everything correctly tagged/categorized/faceted/whatever. Because they just will not do that, no matter how many carrots you dangle.
- sethhochberg 8y agoIt seems to be working for Instragram, but they implemented the simplest possible thing for stories - you can have your "everyone" group, or your "close friends" group. No custom labels, no additional groups, just those two and thats it. I see quite a few friends who never even participated on G+ or similar making use of it.
- smacktoward 8y agoYeah, that's a good example: if you must have the user add metadata, keep it as simple as you possibly can. "You have exactly two buckets, everything goes in one or in the other" is about as simple a metadata system as you can get.
- eitland 8y agoI really don't like to think that users are too stupid for good solutions. I think it is a way to avoid admitting that we fail at ux innso many ways and in even more spectacular ways when we try to be smart and remove options.
- smacktoward 8y agoMy point wasn't that general users are stupid -- far from it! It's that they think about these things differently than programmers do, and so when we build solutions that are optimized for the way we think, we do them a disservice. In other words, dividing the world into "smart people" (e.g. us) and "dumb people" (e.g. everybody who isn't us) isn't productive. Realizing that there are people out there who think about these things differently than we do, and taking the time to learn how they think and build solutions that respect that, can be.
- eitland 8y ago> My point wasn't that general users are stupid -- far from it! Thanks for clarifying. I guess we more or less agree somehow then.
- mjevans 8y agoThank you; this explains why Google's photo thing keeps trying to create albums for me. They're already attempting to optimize out the broken part of the working system. End users that just literally can't or can't be bothered.
- finchisko 8y agotalking from my heart. exactly this. all those g+ done right, are actually very geeky and IMO it actually scared people off using g+.
- Paianni 8y agoIs that not something many people do all the time with hashtags? Those are a form of metadata...