4 ms·

I think people really underappreciate the usefulness of behavior analytics tools. Remove your nostalgia of the old internet, and it was ridiculously unusable.

I think people really underappreciate the usefulness of behavior analytics tools. Remove your nostalgia of the old internet, and it was ridiculously unusable. Things like low contrast texts, really bad button placement, confusing layouts, etc. Even if you don't personally use something like Hotjar or Crazyegg, we've spent the last several decades learning best practices specifically through these types of tools. Bootstrap or even Tailwind would not exist today without the lessons learned through constant experimentation. While it's easy enough to steal from prior work, if you make some sort of novel tool or interface and you do not do regular user testing it's going to be a really bad experience. I'm not saying a more privacy-conscience web can't exist here, but you would either be left with a very hard to use internet, or one that was dominated by a few big players who had the advantage of focus group testing.

blowski 4y ago
I suspect we could have learned that low contrast text was bad without tools that track every single interaction. I might even say we haven't learned that lesson, despite the prevalence of such tools.
chaps 4y ago
And maybe we also underappreciate apocalyptic nuclear war for the eradication of human hunger. Just because something works to solve a problem, doesn't mean it should be used.
- legitster 4y ago
  > Just because something works to solve a problem, doesn't mean it should be used. Sure. I can agree on principle. But I want to call out anyone willing to throw a stone on this but then have ever complained about bad UX.
teawrecks 4y ago
I believe myself to be a pretty security conscious person, and I hate webdev as much as the next system programmer, but even I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with what papa johns is doing here. I chose to use their website. Any interaction with the site should be assumed to be input that they are allowed to take and use how they want. If I don't want these inputs to be sent, it's my responsibility to configure my browser to 1) tell me it's happening, 2) block the site from seeing those inputs or 3) just shut everything like that off (disable js). Browsers sandbox websites for a reason, whatever I put into the sandbox is my own responsibility, and whatever happens in that sandbox is allowed.
bombcar 4y ago
Low contrast text seems to be a thing of the modern internet, because it "looks better" as long as you are not trying to, you know, read it.
prewett 4y ago
There used to be this concept call a "usability study", where you got five or ten people who'd never used your product in a room and watched them use your product. It didn't give the benefits of a panopticon, but it solved the problem without requiring a keystroke logger.

blowski 4y ago

I suspect we could have learned that low contrast text was bad without tools that track every single interaction. I might even say we haven't learned that lesson, despite the prevalence of such tools.

chaps 4y ago

And maybe we also underappreciate apocalyptic nuclear war for the eradication of human hunger. Just because something works to solve a problem, doesn't mean it should be used.

legitster 4y ago
> Just because something works to solve a problem, doesn't mean it should be used. Sure. I can agree on principle. But I want to call out anyone willing to throw a stone on this but then have ever complained about bad UX.

teawrecks 4y ago

I believe myself to be a pretty security conscious person, and I hate webdev as much as the next system programmer, but even I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with what papa johns is doing here. I chose to use their website. Any interaction with the site should be assumed to be input that they are allowed to take and use how they want. If I don't want these inputs to be sent, it's my responsibility to configure my browser to 1) tell me it's happening, 2) block the site from seeing those inputs or 3) just shut everything like that off (disable js). Browsers sandbox websites for a reason, whatever I put into the sandbox is my own responsibility, and whatever happens in that sandbox is allowed.

bombcar 4y ago

Low contrast text seems to be a thing of the modern internet, because it "looks better" as long as you are not trying to, you know, read it.

prewett 4y ago

There used to be this concept call a "usability study", where you got five or ten people who'd never used your product in a room and watched them use your product. It didn't give the benefits of a panopticon, but it solved the problem without requiring a keystroke logger.