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You hit the nail on the head. It's getting very annoying to read posts by people who get up on their high horse and proclaim "this is terrible design and I'm sh

You hit the nail on the head. It's getting very annoying to read posts by people who get up on their high horse and proclaim "this is terrible design and I'm shaming companies who do this"... except that's not the case. It's just a mildly annoying thing for them but as far as the sites are concerned this is great design. Rather than go around saying "I proclaim this wrong" we should start saying "I don't like this" because in the end that's really what most people are saying and they come off like dicks when it turns out there's a pretty good reason for the "wrong" thing to be such.

pifflesnort 14y ago
It's good design to provide a worse experience to your customers? This is why I've always enjoyed Apple products. They don't perform these kind of ridiculous mental gymnastics to justify doing a worse job for their customers.
- timr 14y ago
  "It's good design to provide a worse experience to your customers?" Define "worse". People will complain about doing all sorts of things that are better for their long-term interests. If you're building a product that provides greater value to users with greater user engagement, then it's in everyone's best interest to promote user engagement, even if that means upsetting the people who would rather gain the benefits of your product without actually using it. You can't make all of the people happy all of the time.
  - pifflesnort 14y ago
    > Define "worse". People will complain about doing all sorts of things that are better for their long-term interests. It's telling that you're comfortable deciding on your user's behalf what is better for their long-term interests, in a way that just so happens to benefit your perceived interests. > If you're building a product that provides greater value to users with greater user engagement, then it's in everyone's best interest to promote user engagement, even if that means upsetting the people who would rather gain the benefits of your product without actually using it. You can't make all of the people happy all of the time. If you're building a product that provides greater value with greater engagement, then it's in everyone's best interest to drive engagement by giving users value that makes them want to be engaged, rather than playing tricks like annoying them with e-mails that contain no content.
    - stanleydrew 14y ago
      This is quite ironic, since I'm pretty sure Apple is the king of deciding what's in their users' long-term interests in a way that's actually better for their interests. Some examples: removal of the floppy drive from the iMac, removal of the optical drive from the Air, removal of "Save As" from MacOS, removal of Google Maps data from the native iOS maps app, "you're holding it wrong" response to the iPhone's antenna issue. Just because you agree with these decisions or the mental gymnastics required to justify them, doesn't mean they can be ignored.
      - pifflesnort 14y ago
        Do you actually believe Apple made those choices to benefit themselves at the cost of their users?
- cookiecaper 14y ago
  There're plenty of self-interested design decisions in Apple products. Don't be naive.
  - pifflesnort 14y ago
    Clearly I hit a nerve by praising Apple. You can argue that they're doing things contrary to what some user's might want, but I have a hard time seeing where they're doing it for self-interested reasons. As far as I can tell, the people on the ground there genuinely believe what they're doing is what's best for their users. That's quite a bit different from knowingly sacrificing user experience for something you know isn't best for your users. It's a shame that the leading comment on hacker news is that smarmy and user-detrimental business behavior is a good thing. Then again, the audience is as much "startup hustlers" as it is hackers, if not more so.
    - potatolicious 14y ago
      The reality isn't quite so simple. Take the email case for example - while it's mildly annoying to the user to have to click on the link to read the message, it may be proven by data that by doing so they're improving their experience with the product in the long run. Take a dating site as an example - you click on the link to read the message, which causes you to browse more profiles, which causes you to message a few more users - improving your chances of success overall and creating more interactions for other users. For a service whose goal is to get as many people interacting with potential partners as possible, the slight bit of anti-user design serves a greater purpose and improves the end experience not only for you but for the userbase as a whole.
      - pifflesnort 14y ago
        > Take a dating site as an example - you click on the link to read the message, which causes you to browse more profiles, which causes you to message a few more users - improving your chances of success overall and creating more interactions for other users. So you don't think users are capable of making that decision on their own? There's no other way to provide a fair exchange of value so that users want to visit the site, other than holding their message(s) hostage?
- trotsky 14y ago
  That sounds like a rather credulous statement in the face of regularly imposing restrictions in the ios ecosystem that punish or restrict users to damage a competitor. It's difficult to believe the ebook war was pro-customer for example. They clearly usually make decisions in good faith, and generally fuck with the user less often than the competition. Unless it's a core strategic goal in which case they're arguably the worst.
devcpp 14y ago
Dark patterns suck. I'll shame companies that do this, regardless of how efficient it is. We should be focusing on selling products, not manipulating clients into buying them. A business that needs this kind of practices is a sloppy one that will collapse before it gets big. It's a waste of time and money on both sides.

pifflesnort 14y ago

It's good design to provide a worse experience to your customers? This is why I've always enjoyed Apple products. They don't perform these kind of ridiculous mental gymnastics to justify doing a worse job for their customers.

timr 14y ago
"It's good design to provide a worse experience to your customers?" Define "worse". People will complain about doing all sorts of things that are better for their long-term interests. If you're building a product that provides greater value to users with greater user engagement, then it's in everyone's best interest to promote user engagement, even if that means upsetting the people who would rather gain the benefits of your product without actually using it. You can't make all of the people happy all of the time.
- pifflesnort 14y ago
  > Define "worse". People will complain about doing all sorts of things that are better for their long-term interests. It's telling that you're comfortable deciding on your user's behalf what is better for their long-term interests, in a way that just so happens to benefit your perceived interests. > If you're building a product that provides greater value to users with greater user engagement, then it's in everyone's best interest to promote user engagement, even if that means upsetting the people who would rather gain the benefits of your product without actually using it. You can't make all of the people happy all of the time. If you're building a product that provides greater value with greater engagement, then it's in everyone's best interest to drive engagement by giving users value that makes them want to be engaged, rather than playing tricks like annoying them with e-mails that contain no content.
  - stanleydrew 14y ago
    This is quite ironic, since I'm pretty sure Apple is the king of deciding what's in their users' long-term interests in a way that's actually better for their interests. Some examples: removal of the floppy drive from the iMac, removal of the optical drive from the Air, removal of "Save As" from MacOS, removal of Google Maps data from the native iOS maps app, "you're holding it wrong" response to the iPhone's antenna issue. Just because you agree with these decisions or the mental gymnastics required to justify them, doesn't mean they can be ignored.
    - pifflesnort 14y ago
      Do you actually believe Apple made those choices to benefit themselves at the cost of their users?
cookiecaper 14y ago
There're plenty of self-interested design decisions in Apple products. Don't be naive.
- pifflesnort 14y ago
  Clearly I hit a nerve by praising Apple. You can argue that they're doing things contrary to what some user's might want, but I have a hard time seeing where they're doing it for self-interested reasons. As far as I can tell, the people on the ground there genuinely believe what they're doing is what's best for their users. That's quite a bit different from knowingly sacrificing user experience for something you know isn't best for your users. It's a shame that the leading comment on hacker news is that smarmy and user-detrimental business behavior is a good thing. Then again, the audience is as much "startup hustlers" as it is hackers, if not more so.
  - potatolicious 14y ago
    The reality isn't quite so simple. Take the email case for example - while it's mildly annoying to the user to have to click on the link to read the message, it may be proven by data that by doing so they're improving their experience with the product in the long run. Take a dating site as an example - you click on the link to read the message, which causes you to browse more profiles, which causes you to message a few more users - improving your chances of success overall and creating more interactions for other users. For a service whose goal is to get as many people interacting with potential partners as possible, the slight bit of anti-user design serves a greater purpose and improves the end experience not only for you but for the userbase as a whole.
    - pifflesnort 14y ago
      > Take a dating site as an example - you click on the link to read the message, which causes you to browse more profiles, which causes you to message a few more users - improving your chances of success overall and creating more interactions for other users. So you don't think users are capable of making that decision on their own? There's no other way to provide a fair exchange of value so that users want to visit the site, other than holding their message(s) hostage?
trotsky 14y ago
That sounds like a rather credulous statement in the face of regularly imposing restrictions in the ios ecosystem that punish or restrict users to damage a competitor. It's difficult to believe the ebook war was pro-customer for example. They clearly usually make decisions in good faith, and generally fuck with the user less often than the competition. Unless it's a core strategic goal in which case they're arguably the worst.

devcpp 14y ago

Dark patterns suck. I'll shame companies that do this, regardless of how efficient it is. We should be focusing on selling products, not manipulating clients into buying them. A business that needs this kind of practices is a sloppy one that will collapse before it gets big. It's a waste of time and money on both sides.