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It's the difference between seeing something that annoys you and moving on and having something that someone else stuck into your reminder list that you can't d

It's the difference between seeing something that annoys you and moving on and having something that someone else stuck into your reminder list that you can't delete. No one is complaining about Google's fathers day doodle, people are complaining that Google put in reminders they don't want into a space they view as theirs and there's no way to get rid of them. I'm glad you presumably had a good relationship with your father when he was alive. It might be worth remembering that this type of thing can be really rather painful and/or awkward for people who had fathers that weren't very nice people, were never around and they can't contact or came from a family with two mothers. No one's saying people shouldn't talk about Father's day, but hijacking your user's reminder lists and sticking in stuff they can't get rid of because you think it's cool is just not a very nice thing to do.

kajecounterhack 15y ago
> Google put in reminders (...) there's no way to get rid of them. Not making a point but one way to not see the doodles is to use a custom background. It makes the Google logo plain.
baddox 15y ago
The issue you describe is legitimate: having an unsolicited reminder that can't be deleted is a bad choice, period. The parts about being offended because of a lousy or recently late father are unnecessary and unhelpful appeals to emotion.
- branden 15y ago
  Those are completely valid appeals to emotion, because it is the emotional context of the reminder that makes it significant. If you don't understand why someone might feel bad after seeing that show up in their todo list, then you don't understand the problem. That said, as someone with pretty unhappy history with his father, I think what Google did here is fine. But really, not every emotional appeal is a fallacy.
  - baddox 15y ago
    When there is a perfectly good objective argument to be made (in this case, that undeletable reminders is a bad user experience), I do think an appeal to emotion is ineffective if not fallacious. In this case, the particular emotional appeal seems either insincere or unreasonable. Are people who have bad or deceased fathers offended by the very notion of Father's Day and the marketing around it? I doubt it, but even if they are, I think it would be entirely unreasonable, and rare enough for Google to risk or ignore. Remember, anyone can choose at any time to be offended by anything, whether or not other people would consider them reasonable. People can also feign being offended to attempt to bring attention and credibility to an otherwise legitimate argument. Anyone who publishes any text on the Internet is liable to have someone claim the text to be offensive. I don't think any reasonable person would see this reminder and think that Google was mockingly telling them to call their abusive or dead father.
    - djcapelis 15y ago
      That's the difference between posting something in a space people view as public and a space people view as their own personal area. People have much more of a right to be offended about the later. You're offering your users a space to call their own, anything you put in there that offends any of them is an intrusion and leads the user to realize that the control of that space is entirely up to you and not them. When you've offered that space to them and they find out your offer is not what they thought it is, it is understandable they get annoyed. The reason it's important to talk about the emotions is that the emotional calculations change when the space or message is a personal one as opposed to a public one. It's the difference between someone coming up to you on the bus and asking you if you've called your father and a poster on the side of the bus asking if you've called your father. When you put your message in someone's personal space, you don't get to just say "eh, it's probably only a small fraction" because you're specifically communicating with specific people. It is important to understand the emotional components of software.
      - baddox 15y ago
        I don't buy that Gmail is or is supposed to be a personal area. There are prominent ads, and Google frequently sends out messages to everyone's Gmail about new Labs features and such. Sure, your Gmail is more personal than, say, the cnn.com homepage, but it's still pretty clear that mass messages aren't off the table.
- djcapelis 15y ago
  Empathy is cool now, didn't you get the memo? It allows you to design better products. If you don't understand your users, your company is screwed. I think discussion of the emotion of the situation is entirely appropriate.
caf 15y ago
This is on the money. It's a psychology-of-UI issue - where the Google front page feels like a public space, the logged-in side of Gmail feels more like a private area. This means that while a holiday Google Doodle sails by just fine, a reminder in Gmail feels very invasive. Those answering "just get over it" are clearly not interested in building applications that people enjoy using.
- dstein64 15y ago
  > where the Google front page feels like a public space, the logged-in side of Gmail feels more like a private area. This means that while a holiday Google Doodle sails by just fine, a reminder in Gmail feels very invasive. One reason for drawing the distinction between what feels like a public versus private space is based on the private information that is contained within gmail, versus the non-private information on the frontpage. An additional reason that gmail may feel like a different area than the frontpage is that Google doesn't often make modifications like today's (I don't use the chat functionality often so I am not sure if they have done other modifications similar to the call reminder today). Users who were offended by today's reminder but not by today's frontpage doodle might have found the doodle offensive if Google had never modified the frontpage logo, or modified it less frequently than they currently do.

kajecounterhack 15y ago

> Google put in reminders (...) there's no way to get rid of them. Not making a point but one way to not see the doodles is to use a custom background. It makes the Google logo plain.

baddox 15y ago

The issue you describe is legitimate: having an unsolicited reminder that can't be deleted is a bad choice, period. The parts about being offended because of a lousy or recently late father are unnecessary and unhelpful appeals to emotion.

branden 15y ago
Those are completely valid appeals to emotion, because it is the emotional context of the reminder that makes it significant. If you don't understand why someone might feel bad after seeing that show up in their todo list, then you don't understand the problem. That said, as someone with pretty unhappy history with his father, I think what Google did here is fine. But really, not every emotional appeal is a fallacy.
- baddox 15y ago
  When there is a perfectly good objective argument to be made (in this case, that undeletable reminders is a bad user experience), I do think an appeal to emotion is ineffective if not fallacious. In this case, the particular emotional appeal seems either insincere or unreasonable. Are people who have bad or deceased fathers offended by the very notion of Father's Day and the marketing around it? I doubt it, but even if they are, I think it would be entirely unreasonable, and rare enough for Google to risk or ignore. Remember, anyone can choose at any time to be offended by anything, whether or not other people would consider them reasonable. People can also feign being offended to attempt to bring attention and credibility to an otherwise legitimate argument. Anyone who publishes any text on the Internet is liable to have someone claim the text to be offensive. I don't think any reasonable person would see this reminder and think that Google was mockingly telling them to call their abusive or dead father.
  - djcapelis 15y ago
    That's the difference between posting something in a space people view as public and a space people view as their own personal area. People have much more of a right to be offended about the later. You're offering your users a space to call their own, anything you put in there that offends any of them is an intrusion and leads the user to realize that the control of that space is entirely up to you and not them. When you've offered that space to them and they find out your offer is not what they thought it is, it is understandable they get annoyed. The reason it's important to talk about the emotions is that the emotional calculations change when the space or message is a personal one as opposed to a public one. It's the difference between someone coming up to you on the bus and asking you if you've called your father and a poster on the side of the bus asking if you've called your father. When you put your message in someone's personal space, you don't get to just say "eh, it's probably only a small fraction" because you're specifically communicating with specific people. It is important to understand the emotional components of software.
    - baddox 15y ago
      I don't buy that Gmail is or is supposed to be a personal area. There are prominent ads, and Google frequently sends out messages to everyone's Gmail about new Labs features and such. Sure, your Gmail is more personal than, say, the cnn.com homepage, but it's still pretty clear that mass messages aren't off the table.
djcapelis 15y ago
Empathy is cool now, didn't you get the memo? It allows you to design better products. If you don't understand your users, your company is screwed. I think discussion of the emotion of the situation is entirely appropriate.

caf 15y ago

This is on the money. It's a psychology-of-UI issue - where the Google front page feels like a public space, the logged-in side of Gmail feels more like a private area. This means that while a holiday Google Doodle sails by just fine, a reminder in Gmail feels very invasive. Those answering "just get over it" are clearly not interested in building applications that people enjoy using.

dstein64 15y ago
> where the Google front page feels like a public space, the logged-in side of Gmail feels more like a private area. This means that while a holiday Google Doodle sails by just fine, a reminder in Gmail feels very invasive. One reason for drawing the distinction between what feels like a public versus private space is based on the private information that is contained within gmail, versus the non-private information on the frontpage. An additional reason that gmail may feel like a different area than the frontpage is that Google doesn't often make modifications like today's (I don't use the chat functionality often so I am not sure if they have done other modifications similar to the call reminder today). Users who were offended by today's reminder but not by today's frontpage doodle might have found the doodle offensive if Google had never modified the frontpage logo, or modified it less frequently than they currently do.