Totally agreed... if only I could get management to listen too. If were it up to me as a dev, there would NEVER be popups/overlays. We spend forever optimizing

Totally agreed... if only I could get management to listen too. If were it up to me as a dev, there would NEVER be popups/overlays. We spend forever optimizing UX before and during site design, only to have some middle manager come in at the last minute and say "We need a newsletter modal signup to drive conversions." They end up chasing signup numbers instead of overall user satisfaction.