4 ms·

Goblin's Law of Whimsy

34 points by herbertl 4y ago

dwohnitmok 4y ago
It's tricky. Too much of this and it comes off as inauthentic and a company "trying too hard." Anecdotally I feel like this is a complaint that comes up from time to time on HN, but I can't find any examples at the moment. This is especially the case if all companies in the industry start doing this. See for example how many company products now have emojis splashed everywhere.
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  Slack does it, when you clear out your unreads. All clear. Everything’s sorted! Let’s start something new. You’re all read. Here’s a pony. There! Caught up. Set your mind to something new. All done. The future is yours. Done and done. All done. The world is your oyster. etc. Salesforce is not a small company, and not one known for whimsy.
  - mkaic 4y ago
    I think this is actually a fascinating difference between the cultures surrounding Slack and Discord. Both use this language—in fact, Discord uses it much more liberally, sprinkling all sorts of silly things around the UI—but because Discord is meant to be casual, it doesn't come across as cringey like it does in Slack. There's lots of little details about Discord that make this work, too, from the layperson-readable changelogs written with an informal, friendly tone, to the Discord YouTube channel, which from what I can tell is basically just Discord paying some young people to do whatever they want to transparently market the product to Gen Z in a genuine, non-patronizing way. I'm of the opinion that Discord has a much better user experience than Slack, and the only reasons I don't campaign to switch my lab over to it are: a.) Slack has entrenchment/status-quo advantage, and b.) Slack says it's "for professionals" while Discord targets "normal people", and heaven forbid we not use the product with "professional" stamped on it in our highly "professional" workspace! TL;DR: I wish Discord would launch a marketing campaign targeted at middle managers saying "professionals use Discord too", I'm pretty sick of Slack at this point.
    - insightcheck 4y ago
      Slack also lets users easily make a group chat. In my experience, backed up by [1], Discord requires you to "Friend" members of the group chat before it lets you create the chat (requiring the user to send out a friend request, then wait for an acceptance, before starting the chat). You could argue that group conversations are best suited for new channels, but I've personally had a lot of value from quick group chats in my experience. [1] https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/223657667-Group-Chat-and-Calls https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/223657667-Grou...
      - dmonitor 4y ago
        Discord also has threads, which are incredibly useful. Basically a short-lived subchannel that people can join. They fill a similar role to group chats.
        tehnub 4y ago
        Discord doesn't have threads* though, does it? To me that's one of the most important features of Slack. I've tried following discussions in Discord, and it's infuriating; there doesn't seem to be a way to look at a message's replies — you can only follow threads "backwards". * https://slack.com/help/articles/115000769927-Use-threads-to-organize-discussions- https://slack.com/help/articles/115000769927-Use-threads-to-...
        twic 4y ago
        Discord has a feature called threads, but it works differently to any other feature called threads anywhere else. You can pick an existing comment, create a thread starting at that comment, give that thread a name, and it works like a mini-channel - people can post comments in the thread, and they appear there, and not in the channel (there is no option to also post a message to the channel). Threads appear in the sidebar under their parent channels, and there's some UI to show that a comment has a thread hanging off it. After some period of inactivity, threads are archived, and no longer appear, but you can find them somehow. We use them now and then on the gang group chat, but they don't feel as comfortable as Slack threads. I'm not sure why. It's a bit weird that you name threads, rather than just replying to a root comment. Discord also now has a thing called "forums", which is basically a highly mutated channel that works like a bulletin board. People make posts rather than comments, and there is a reply chain off each post. The structure is fundamentally the same as comments and threads, but it's laid out very differently.
  - LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
    Slack is an acquisition, right? Did the whimsy come before or after?
    - ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
      Before. We'll have to see how it lasts. I use Slack, but that's because everyone else uses it. I'm not especially happy with it. It's pretty buggy. https://twitter.com/iamdevloper/status/926458505355235328 https://twitter.com/iamdevloper/status/926458505355235328
  - dwohnitmok 4y ago
    I'm not sure if you were trying to provide an example, but if you were, I was trying to find an example where someone complains about the whimsy in a product, but it looks like you kind of elicited one in a reply to your comment, so ha yeah I guess that counts.
nicbou 4y ago
I'm fine with boring-looking internet. Usually, websites are means to an end. The content or the functionality is what matters. I end up reading a lot of websites with Pocket or Firefox's reader mode. Perhaps it's because a lot of the whimsy feels insincere, or comes at the wrong moment. Perhaps it's because I value self-effacing tools. Either way, I'm okay with boring pages.
- throw10920 4y ago
  You got it, boring internet is good. Branding, goofiness distract from the substance. If I go to Slack I want to get work done, and I'd rather that the devs focus their efforts on improving performance and not adding more tiny distractions to my day. If I want fun, I'll go to Reddit, which does "fun" way better than Slack ever will. After the Slack devs finish making their product as performant as a 90's chat app, then they can start adding in silly things. Until then, the "whimsy" just makes me more frustrated at their trash product.
meheleventyone 4y ago
This kinda feels like there needs to be some self-reflection. From the article: > For me, the whimsy trend all began with Flow Club. Their tagline is "Feel good getting work done" – that is so against modern hustle culture and American workplace vibes that it's almost jolting. To me this sounds more like a coping mechanism as are all the other productivity err.. “enhancements” mentioned. If only we made work more jazz hands it’d be better rather than improving the material conditions it’s conducted under. Similar to gamification it’s taking the wrong lessons.
- morelisp 4y ago
  "Feel good getting work done" is the overwhelmingly dominant modern hustle culture vibe. But why self-reflect when your flow group will applaud instead? > When you refresh the page, your Hype Goblin has a new message for you. I want off.
  - xracy 4y ago
    We at Strex Corp believe that you should be at your most productive, and smiling helps that. Please smile while you work. And come on down to the company picnic so we can be more productive.
    - klondike_klive 4y ago
      Here's the nap room - don't be seen using it.
    - AceJohnny2 4y ago
      Would you rather the opposite? The "irreverent" attitude is a hallmark of (US) west-coast (dare I say, Silicon Valley) post-hippie culture, which rose in reaction to the more straight-laced East Coast work culture. The pendulum swings.
      - morelisp 4y ago
        Just hear me out: flexible, relaxed office standards but also no mandatory fun. (But I guess there's literally only two cities in the world.)
wwilim 4y ago
I just did a powerpoint about how we should avoid integration hell in a project by releasing early. The timeline only had "now", "God only knows when" and "much earlier than God only knows when". There was an architecture diagram with devil emojis bouncing on each arrow. I also had two consecutive slides which were fullscreen memes of Beelzeboss going on and on how every service Jack Black makes needs CI/CD, a dashboard, Correlation IDs, auth, and it all takes time
Zababa 4y ago
One thing that I don't really like is when people take care of the whimsical before taking care of the basics, good design, good UX, properly-tested software, good docs and good support. For example, on this page, the links, the first quote and the image captions don't respect the minimum contrast rules for accessibility. Lots of images don't have an alternative text. Image captions are right-aligned, which could be a style thing, but looks weird. On the good side of things, the performance is good, 95 according to Lighthouse. The article seems to agree with me, as Henry, the vacuum, is better on a technical level than the vacuum it replaced. When people are using a website, they are trying to do something. I get frustrated by tools that get in my way. I also think that different people have different degrees of tolerance/liking of whimsical. Flow Club or the Hype Goblin don't resonate with me at all, they alienate me. My personal preference is simple and clean-looking design, like for example https://www.gov.uk/ https://www.gov.uk/. It's not cold, but it also doesn't try to pretend that it's a good friend when we don't even know each other. One company that, to me, does it well, is Beeminder. I think the way I would put it is that through all their documentation, branding and interactions, I feel like they have a genuine intent of building a win/win relationship with me. Nobody is trying to abuse the situation for their own gain, there are clear rules that we both respect, they get some value thanks to me, and I get some value thanks to them. It feels like being in the prisoner's dilemma with someone and knowing they'll cooperate. I'm not affiliated with them, just a happy client.
- nicbou 4y ago
  Gov.uk and Nhs.uk are excellent examples. Their plain design is the result of a lot of user research, while their target demographic is the entire population of a country. Their content guidelines are publicly available, and well worth a read. Just look up any health condition, and see how the straightforward design and plain language content make you feel. It's a huge source of inspiration for my own website about German bureaucracy.
rexpop 4y ago
A principled objection to the infantilization of users might start with 2016's "Babysitters Club"[0]: > we tend to read cuteness as evidence of “restricted agency” rather than as evidence of concealed and significant power. > the childlikeness makes sense when you consider that Yelp depends on us to write reviews, and therefore must, like a fun mom, make chores feel fun too. 0. https://reallifemag.com/the-babysitters-club/ https://reallifemag.com/the-babysitters-club/

34 points by herbertl 4y ago

It's tricky. Too much of this and it comes off as inauthentic and a company "trying too hard." Anecdotally I feel like this is a complaint that comes up from time to time on HN, but I can't find any examples at the moment. This is especially the case if all companies in the industry start doing this. See for example how many company products now have emojis splashed everywhere.

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
Slack does it, when you clear out your unreads. All clear. Everything’s sorted! Let’s start something new. You’re all read. Here’s a pony. There! Caught up. Set your mind to something new. All done. The future is yours. Done and done. All done. The world is your oyster. etc. Salesforce is not a small company, and not one known for whimsy.
- mkaic 4y ago
  I think this is actually a fascinating difference between the cultures surrounding Slack and Discord. Both use this language—in fact, Discord uses it much more liberally, sprinkling all sorts of silly things around the UI—but because Discord is meant to be casual, it doesn't come across as cringey like it does in Slack. There's lots of little details about Discord that make this work, too, from the layperson-readable changelogs written with an informal, friendly tone, to the Discord YouTube channel, which from what I can tell is basically just Discord paying some young people to do whatever they want to transparently market the product to Gen Z in a genuine, non-patronizing way. I'm of the opinion that Discord has a much better user experience than Slack, and the only reasons I don't campaign to switch my lab over to it are: a.) Slack has entrenchment/status-quo advantage, and b.) Slack says it's "for professionals" while Discord targets "normal people", and heaven forbid we not use the product with "professional" stamped on it in our highly "professional" workspace! TL;DR: I wish Discord would launch a marketing campaign targeted at middle managers saying "professionals use Discord too", I'm pretty sick of Slack at this point.
  - insightcheck 4y ago
    Slack also lets users easily make a group chat. In my experience, backed up by [1], Discord requires you to "Friend" members of the group chat before it lets you create the chat (requiring the user to send out a friend request, then wait for an acceptance, before starting the chat). You could argue that group conversations are best suited for new channels, but I've personally had a lot of value from quick group chats in my experience. [1] https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/223657667-Group-Chat-and-Calls https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/223657667-Grou...
    - dmonitor 4y ago
      Discord also has threads, which are incredibly useful. Basically a short-lived subchannel that people can join. They fill a similar role to group chats.
      - tehnub 4y ago
        Discord doesn't have threads* though, does it? To me that's one of the most important features of Slack. I've tried following discussions in Discord, and it's infuriating; there doesn't seem to be a way to look at a message's replies — you can only follow threads "backwards". * https://slack.com/help/articles/115000769927-Use-threads-to-organize-discussions- https://slack.com/help/articles/115000769927-Use-threads-to-...
        twic 4y ago
        Discord has a feature called threads, but it works differently to any other feature called threads anywhere else. You can pick an existing comment, create a thread starting at that comment, give that thread a name, and it works like a mini-channel - people can post comments in the thread, and they appear there, and not in the channel (there is no option to also post a message to the channel). Threads appear in the sidebar under their parent channels, and there's some UI to show that a comment has a thread hanging off it. After some period of inactivity, threads are archived, and no longer appear, but you can find them somehow. We use them now and then on the gang group chat, but they don't feel as comfortable as Slack threads. I'm not sure why. It's a bit weird that you name threads, rather than just replying to a root comment. Discord also now has a thing called "forums", which is basically a highly mutated channel that works like a bulletin board. People make posts rather than comments, and there is a reply chain off each post. The structure is fundamentally the same as comments and threads, but it's laid out very differently.
- LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
  Slack is an acquisition, right? Did the whimsy come before or after?
  - ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
    Before. We'll have to see how it lasts. I use Slack, but that's because everyone else uses it. I'm not especially happy with it. It's pretty buggy. https://twitter.com/iamdevloper/status/926458505355235328 https://twitter.com/iamdevloper/status/926458505355235328
- dwohnitmok 4y ago
  I'm not sure if you were trying to provide an example, but if you were, I was trying to find an example where someone complains about the whimsy in a product, but it looks like you kind of elicited one in a reply to your comment, so ha yeah I guess that counts.

nicbou 4y ago

I'm fine with boring-looking internet. Usually, websites are means to an end. The content or the functionality is what matters. I end up reading a lot of websites with Pocket or Firefox's reader mode. Perhaps it's because a lot of the whimsy feels insincere, or comes at the wrong moment. Perhaps it's because I value self-effacing tools. Either way, I'm okay with boring pages.

throw10920 4y ago
You got it, boring internet is good. Branding, goofiness distract from the substance. If I go to Slack I want to get work done, and I'd rather that the devs focus their efforts on improving performance and not adding more tiny distractions to my day. If I want fun, I'll go to Reddit, which does "fun" way better than Slack ever will. After the Slack devs finish making their product as performant as a 90's chat app, then they can start adding in silly things. Until then, the "whimsy" just makes me more frustrated at their trash product.

meheleventyone 4y ago

This kinda feels like there needs to be some self-reflection. From the article: > For me, the whimsy trend all began with Flow Club. Their tagline is "Feel good getting work done" – that is so against modern hustle culture and American workplace vibes that it's almost jolting. To me this sounds more like a coping mechanism as are all the other productivity err.. “enhancements” mentioned. If only we made work more jazz hands it’d be better rather than improving the material conditions it’s conducted under. Similar to gamification it’s taking the wrong lessons.

morelisp 4y ago
"Feel good getting work done" is the overwhelmingly dominant modern hustle culture vibe. But why self-reflect when your flow group will applaud instead? > When you refresh the page, your Hype Goblin has a new message for you. I want off.
- xracy 4y ago
  We at Strex Corp believe that you should be at your most productive, and smiling helps that. Please smile while you work. And come on down to the company picnic so we can be more productive.
  - klondike_klive 4y ago
    Here's the nap room - don't be seen using it.
  - AceJohnny2 4y ago
    Would you rather the opposite? The "irreverent" attitude is a hallmark of (US) west-coast (dare I say, Silicon Valley) post-hippie culture, which rose in reaction to the more straight-laced East Coast work culture. The pendulum swings.
    - morelisp 4y ago
      Just hear me out: flexible, relaxed office standards but also no mandatory fun. (But I guess there's literally only two cities in the world.)

wwilim 4y ago

I just did a powerpoint about how we should avoid integration hell in a project by releasing early. The timeline only had "now", "God only knows when" and "much earlier than God only knows when". There was an architecture diagram with devil emojis bouncing on each arrow. I also had two consecutive slides which were fullscreen memes of Beelzeboss going on and on how every service Jack Black makes needs CI/CD, a dashboard, Correlation IDs, auth, and it all takes time

Zababa 4y ago

One thing that I don't really like is when people take care of the whimsical before taking care of the basics, good design, good UX, properly-tested software, good docs and good support. For example, on this page, the links, the first quote and the image captions don't respect the minimum contrast rules for accessibility. Lots of images don't have an alternative text. Image captions are right-aligned, which could be a style thing, but looks weird. On the good side of things, the performance is good, 95 according to Lighthouse. The article seems to agree with me, as Henry, the vacuum, is better on a technical level than the vacuum it replaced. When people are using a website, they are trying to do something. I get frustrated by tools that get in my way. I also think that different people have different degrees of tolerance/liking of whimsical. Flow Club or the Hype Goblin don't resonate with me at all, they alienate me. My personal preference is simple and clean-looking design, like for example https://www.gov.uk/ https://www.gov.uk/. It's not cold, but it also doesn't try to pretend that it's a good friend when we don't even know each other. One company that, to me, does it well, is Beeminder. I think the way I would put it is that through all their documentation, branding and interactions, I feel like they have a genuine intent of building a win/win relationship with me. Nobody is trying to abuse the situation for their own gain, there are clear rules that we both respect, they get some value thanks to me, and I get some value thanks to them. It feels like being in the prisoner's dilemma with someone and knowing they'll cooperate. I'm not affiliated with them, just a happy client.

nicbou 4y ago
Gov.uk and Nhs.uk are excellent examples. Their plain design is the result of a lot of user research, while their target demographic is the entire population of a country. Their content guidelines are publicly available, and well worth a read. Just look up any health condition, and see how the straightforward design and plain language content make you feel. It's a huge source of inspiration for my own website about German bureaucracy.

rexpop 4y ago

A principled objection to the infantilization of users might start with 2016's "Babysitters Club"[0]: > we tend to read cuteness as evidence of “restricted agency” rather than as evidence of concealed and significant power. > the childlikeness makes sense when you consider that Yelp depends on us to write reviews, and therefore must, like a fun mom, make chores feel fun too. 0. https://reallifemag.com/the-babysitters-club/ https://reallifemag.com/the-babysitters-club/