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Consent Prompt Fatigue and overload is a serious problem. To perform the most basic task across my iPhone + watch I need to suffer half a dozen consent & pin p

by tonymet 8mo ago

Consent Prompt Fatigue and overload is a serious problem. To perform the most basic task across my iPhone + watch I need to suffer half a dozen consent & pin prompts. Often at the most sensitive and difficult times: it's raining, I have gloves, I'm juggling a power tool or something dangerous. My devices continue pin prompt me every 30 seconds like I'm holding the Nuclear football. We used to respect that credential/consent prompt fatigue resulted in worse security, then the lawyers got their way, engineers / product managers conceded, and now users are punished with useless prompting every 10 seconds. The only way forward will be for some a-hole product managers to push back on this nonsense.

pavel_lishin 8mo ago
> Consent Prompt Fatigue and overload is a serious problem. My favorite part is that sometimes, a security prompt will pop up and hijack focus - and if you happen to be typing something, hitting the space bar will click on something, and if you happen to notice that, you'll at least know that something is now broken and you gotta figure out where to fix it. Happened to me last night as I was setting up a new macbook, and I managed to deny myself access to edit my own crontab.
- tonymet 8mo ago
  exactly. These are supposed to be tools and behave predictably. It's maddening when focus is stolen and interrupted by an unexpected prompt. Often for something I already consented to. [edited]
pantulis 8mo ago
Back in the day, in Operating System Design class I dared to suggest the teacher that for some obscure inode related problem the system should ask the user what to do. His answer was "We are designing an operating system, not a messaging solution". This was circa 30 years ago of course, and the essence and complexity of what an OS is today is different, but the idea still resonates in my head every time macOS deploys one of these prompts at me.
- tonymet 8mo ago
  Somewhere in early MacOS design guidelines I remember it saying that settings/prompts were a design failure that put a burden on users. Something really has been lost on the design team. I know the landscape is different – more liability , regulation etc. But Lawyers will always overreach on compliance and notice. Even to the point of making the app useless. They are expecting the product team to be forceful. A positive example is that I noticed most EVs have a lot of consent prompts and warnings (e.g. a warning to look at the backup camera, and a consent prompt to comply to never using the nav/infotainment while driving) – but Tesla’s do not. I imagine Elon being very demanding that the experience take precedence.

by tonymet 8mo ago

pavel_lishin 8mo ago

> Consent Prompt Fatigue and overload is a serious problem. My favorite part is that sometimes, a security prompt will pop up and hijack focus - and if you happen to be typing something, hitting the space bar will click on something, and if you happen to notice that, you'll at least know that something is now broken and you gotta figure out where to fix it. Happened to me last night as I was setting up a new macbook, and I managed to deny myself access to edit my own crontab.

tonymet 8mo ago
exactly. These are supposed to be tools and behave predictably. It's maddening when focus is stolen and interrupted by an unexpected prompt. Often for something I already consented to. [edited]

pantulis 8mo ago

Back in the day, in Operating System Design class I dared to suggest the teacher that for some obscure inode related problem the system should ask the user what to do. His answer was "We are designing an operating system, not a messaging solution". This was circa 30 years ago of course, and the essence and complexity of what an OS is today is different, but the idea still resonates in my head every time macOS deploys one of these prompts at me.

tonymet 8mo ago
Somewhere in early MacOS design guidelines I remember it saying that settings/prompts were a design failure that put a burden on users. Something really has been lost on the design team. I know the landscape is different – more liability , regulation etc. But Lawyers will always overreach on compliance and notice. Even to the point of making the app useless. They are expecting the product team to be forceful. A positive example is that I noticed most EVs have a lot of consent prompts and warnings (e.g. a warning to look at the backup camera, and a consent prompt to comply to never using the nav/infotainment while driving) – but Tesla’s do not. I imagine Elon being very demanding that the experience take precedence.