4 ms·

I make Dev Tips: https://umaar.com/dev-tips/ https://umaar.com/dev-tips/ a place to share little tips primarily with DevTools. Currently at 200+ tips. Few othe

by umaar 7y ago

I make Dev Tips: https://umaar.com/dev-tips/ https://umaar.com/dev-tips/ a place to share little tips primarily with DevTools. Currently at 200+ tips. Few other random things I've written: * The Benefits of Speaking at Tech Conferences: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/the-benefits-of-speaking-at-tech-conferences-c36348c50ac1/ https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/the-benefits-of-speaking-a... * Data Visualisation with 1 Billion Shazam Music Recognitions: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/data-visualisation-with-1-billion-shazam-music-recognitions-90728df3a8c9/ https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/data-visualisation-with-1-... * Open Source: Learning new code techniques and concepts: https://umaar.com/dev-tips/200-learning-from-open-source/ https://umaar.com/dev-tips/200-learning-from-open-source/ * Programmatically creating images with the CSS Paint API: https://www.sitepen.com/blog/programmatically-create-images-with-the-css-paint-api/ https://www.sitepen.com/blog/programmatically-create-images-...

ninkendo 7y ago
I checked out your first link (on an iPhone) and all I saw was a mailing list signup form taking up the whole screen. I always wanted to ask people who do things like this on their websites: Why? Why if I’ve never even seen your site, do you think that the first thing I want to do is divulge my email address to you and receive spam? I don’t know even one thing about your site yet. Haven’t read word #1 from headline #1 of article #1 yet, but you seem to think my real goal is to get email from you. I mean, do you get actual people who do that? Not bots that submit random emails to random fields, but real people who sign up for mailing lists without having read a single article? At least it’s not a dialog that renders on a delay after I’ve been reading something for 5 seconds, I guess. You’re honest enough to show me the signup link right off the bat so I know to close the tab, so thanks for that. (Sorry if I seem overly angry about this... I actually kinda am, because I remember a time when this wasn’t nearly ubiquitous on every damned weblog. My policy is to always close the tab when I get an email signup form, and so far I’m sticking to that.)
- pmichaud 7y ago
  The basic reason this is incredibly tempting to do is that it works. Not just a little, but it works radically better than the alternative or politely or subtly asking or providing the option tastefully at the bottom of the article or whatever. I don' really have a good model of why, but empirically it does. And it's not what you'd think either: it's just be spam or bot or something. It's real people who actually do it, and do it a huge percentage of the time, and who collectively make a categorical difference to your viewership. It's weird, honestly. I wish I understood better why it was such a strong effect.
  - ninkendo 7y ago
    Thanks for answering. Follow-up questions if you don’t mind: - How do you know it’s not just bots filling in email addresses? - Do you get analytics showing how many people leave the page when they get the signup dialog?
    - pmichaud 7y ago
      To be clear, my information is out of date because I don't do this kind of work anymore, but my understanding is that it's largely the same now. 1. I know because I sold to my list, and the people who signed up from intrusive signup popups were just as likely to buy my products as anyone else, and their virality was the ~same as other sources (ie. the rate at which they shared my stuff). I guess it's possible that an army of bots was sharing my posts and buying my products, but..? 2. Yes, bounce rate is a basic thing almost everyone monitors, and yes, intrusive popups increase bounce rate. But less than you might imagine, and not nearly enough to turn the tide of increased signups. Like I said, I find it counter intuitive myself, and have no real explanation, just made up stories about it. All I know is that what I consider to be intrusive signup processes have had a life altering effect on my bank account.
  - indigochill 7y ago
    Because when someone is asked to do something, generally their first reaction is to do it because that's how they've been conditioned. Especially if they don't really understand that saying no is a totally valid response. You see this exploited constantly by GDPR popups designed to default to giving the site everything and requiring the user to put an ounce of thought into opting out.
- umaar 7y ago
  Sorry you feel that way. I'm an independent creator and agree there's lots of room for improvement on everything I build, sometimes I do the thing that works/is quickest to do, move on, and then revisit when I have time - the design of the site, web optimisation techniques, a11y best practices, offline support, less gimmicky call-to-actions, marking deprecated features are examples of things I defo want to prioritise and get done - but I agree with you, I don't want to annoy anyone so I should focus what you mentioned first. Btw using mobile emulation I tried iPhone 5/SE/6/7/8/X, and on none of those did the signup form take up the whole screen. Maybe it's because the emulation doesn't have browser frames? Either way will eventually shrink that down so it doesn't occupy so much screen real estate. > Why if I’ve never even seen your site, do you think that the first thing I want to do is divulge my email address to you and receive spam? Don't know why you think my emails are spam! I think there are nicer way to convey your message, but appreciate you are sharing your thoughts. I myself often use uBlock origin to select + remove sticky headers/sidebars/ads which often detract from the main reading experience.
  - dhagz 7y ago
    > I myself often use uBlock origin to select + remove sticky headers/sidebars/ads which often detract from the main reading experience. So then the question arises: why do you have a popup on your site that does exactly that?
    - umaar 7y ago
      To answer your q (btw it's not a popup), I tried to explain in my comment you're replying to: > sometimes I do the thing that works/is quickest to do, move on, and then revisit when I have time Knowing me, it was probably something where, at the time of building (2015), I saw elsewhere - naively assumed it was a good idea/it works, copied it and moved on. I didn't give it as much thought as I could have. Now it's a case to prioritise that and improve it, along with some other much needed optimisations.
      - pc86 6y ago
        I wouldn't worry about it. It's something almost all blogs do, because it works! HN is the minority in... just about everything, but particularly how they feel about folks promoting their own work. 99.9% of readers just close the popup if they don't want to sign up. You're not driving anyone away who wasn't going to pick some other random thing to get overly angry about anyway.
- thewebcount 7y ago
  FWIW, I turned on Reader mode by default in Safari's prefs in the system settings. It gets around these things by just showing the content of the page without any of the junk.
- pc86 6y ago
  It is by definition not spam if you sign up to receive it. Let's not use the wrong words to discuss thing because we get a bug up our butt about a website popup, of all things. It happens because it works. If bounce rates went up by any statistically significant measure that wasn't more than offset by conversions, sites would stop doing it. There are entire businesses around teaching bloggers how to monetize their blogs, do you think they're not testing the effect this has? > My policy is to always close the tab when I get an email signup form, and so far I’m sticking to that. And it's your loss.

by umaar 7y ago

ninkendo 7y ago

I checked out your first link (on an iPhone) and all I saw was a mailing list signup form taking up the whole screen. I always wanted to ask people who do things like this on their websites: Why? Why if I’ve never even seen your site, do you think that the first thing I want to do is divulge my email address to you and receive spam? I don’t know even one thing about your site yet. Haven’t read word #1 from headline #1 of article #1 yet, but you seem to think my real goal is to get email from you. I mean, do you get actual people who do that? Not bots that submit random emails to random fields, but real people who sign up for mailing lists without having read a single article? At least it’s not a dialog that renders on a delay after I’ve been reading something for 5 seconds, I guess. You’re honest enough to show me the signup link right off the bat so I know to close the tab, so thanks for that. (Sorry if I seem overly angry about this... I actually kinda am, because I remember a time when this wasn’t nearly ubiquitous on every damned weblog. My policy is to always close the tab when I get an email signup form, and so far I’m sticking to that.)

pmichaud 7y ago
The basic reason this is incredibly tempting to do is that it works. Not just a little, but it works radically better than the alternative or politely or subtly asking or providing the option tastefully at the bottom of the article or whatever. I don' really have a good model of why, but empirically it does. And it's not what you'd think either: it's just be spam or bot or something. It's real people who actually do it, and do it a huge percentage of the time, and who collectively make a categorical difference to your viewership. It's weird, honestly. I wish I understood better why it was such a strong effect.
- ninkendo 7y ago
  Thanks for answering. Follow-up questions if you don’t mind: - How do you know it’s not just bots filling in email addresses? - Do you get analytics showing how many people leave the page when they get the signup dialog?
  - pmichaud 7y ago
    To be clear, my information is out of date because I don't do this kind of work anymore, but my understanding is that it's largely the same now. 1. I know because I sold to my list, and the people who signed up from intrusive signup popups were just as likely to buy my products as anyone else, and their virality was the ~same as other sources (ie. the rate at which they shared my stuff). I guess it's possible that an army of bots was sharing my posts and buying my products, but..? 2. Yes, bounce rate is a basic thing almost everyone monitors, and yes, intrusive popups increase bounce rate. But less than you might imagine, and not nearly enough to turn the tide of increased signups. Like I said, I find it counter intuitive myself, and have no real explanation, just made up stories about it. All I know is that what I consider to be intrusive signup processes have had a life altering effect on my bank account.
- indigochill 7y ago
  Because when someone is asked to do something, generally their first reaction is to do it because that's how they've been conditioned. Especially if they don't really understand that saying no is a totally valid response. You see this exploited constantly by GDPR popups designed to default to giving the site everything and requiring the user to put an ounce of thought into opting out.
umaar 7y ago
Sorry you feel that way. I'm an independent creator and agree there's lots of room for improvement on everything I build, sometimes I do the thing that works/is quickest to do, move on, and then revisit when I have time - the design of the site, web optimisation techniques, a11y best practices, offline support, less gimmicky call-to-actions, marking deprecated features are examples of things I defo want to prioritise and get done - but I agree with you, I don't want to annoy anyone so I should focus what you mentioned first. Btw using mobile emulation I tried iPhone 5/SE/6/7/8/X, and on none of those did the signup form take up the whole screen. Maybe it's because the emulation doesn't have browser frames? Either way will eventually shrink that down so it doesn't occupy so much screen real estate. > Why if I’ve never even seen your site, do you think that the first thing I want to do is divulge my email address to you and receive spam? Don't know why you think my emails are spam! I think there are nicer way to convey your message, but appreciate you are sharing your thoughts. I myself often use uBlock origin to select + remove sticky headers/sidebars/ads which often detract from the main reading experience.
- dhagz 7y ago
  > I myself often use uBlock origin to select + remove sticky headers/sidebars/ads which often detract from the main reading experience. So then the question arises: why do you have a popup on your site that does exactly that?
  - umaar 7y ago
    To answer your q (btw it's not a popup), I tried to explain in my comment you're replying to: > sometimes I do the thing that works/is quickest to do, move on, and then revisit when I have time Knowing me, it was probably something where, at the time of building (2015), I saw elsewhere - naively assumed it was a good idea/it works, copied it and moved on. I didn't give it as much thought as I could have. Now it's a case to prioritise that and improve it, along with some other much needed optimisations.
    - pc86 6y ago
      I wouldn't worry about it. It's something almost all blogs do, because it works! HN is the minority in... just about everything, but particularly how they feel about folks promoting their own work. 99.9% of readers just close the popup if they don't want to sign up. You're not driving anyone away who wasn't going to pick some other random thing to get overly angry about anyway.
thewebcount 7y ago
FWIW, I turned on Reader mode by default in Safari's prefs in the system settings. It gets around these things by just showing the content of the page without any of the junk.
pc86 6y ago
It is by definition not spam if you sign up to receive it. Let's not use the wrong words to discuss thing because we get a bug up our butt about a website popup, of all things. It happens because it works. If bounce rates went up by any statistically significant measure that wasn't more than offset by conversions, sites would stop doing it. There are entire businesses around teaching bloggers how to monetize their blogs, do you think they're not testing the effect this has? > My policy is to always close the tab when I get an email signup form, and so far I’m sticking to that. And it's your loss.