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Open question: as a startup grows and matures, even if it is originally entirely designed with honest user objectives in mind, where usability and simplicity ar

by jka 13y ago

Open question: as a startup grows and matures, even if it is originally entirely designed with honest user objectives in mind, where usability and simplicity are paramount, at some point there will be calls to increase revenues - either in response to declining growth, market saturation, or simply to maintain existing growth. Is there any way to structure the incentives of a business to prevent this from happening as a business grows? Intuitively there is an argument that maintaining simplicity will improve word-of-mouth and conversion rates, but in reality it (unfortunately, perhaps) absolutely is the case that revenue can be massively increased by introducing all kinds of additional advertising, up/cross-sells, and ultimately, dark patterns.

Chris_Newton 13y ago
Intuitively there is an argument that maintaining simplicity will improve word-of-mouth and conversion rates, but in reality it (unfortunately, perhaps) absolutely is the case that revenue can be massively increased by introducing all kinds of additional advertising, up/cross-sells, and ultimately, dark patterns. I wonder how true that really is. We’ve recently been looking into advertising options for a new service, and to say that the experience we’ve had trying to arrange Facebook and Google ads has been terrible would be very kind to Facebook and Google. I reckon Facebook have lost half the money we’d have spent with them just through UI failures, up to and including literally not being able to place ads sometimes because their pages simply didn’t work. Google have to date lost 100% of the money we were considering giving to them because we couldn’t figure out what we were getting for our money within a reasonable period of time and whether it was likely to have a reasonable RoI compared to our other options. As a small business, of course we have only so much financial budget to spend across all advertising channels, but we have even less time for busy founders to figure out where to spend it. A simple “Pay this, get that” kind of deal is much more attractive than these vague, auction-based on-line advertising systems where half the numbers they report seem wildly inconsistent from one page to the next. I’m not sure whether those schemes are intended to be a dark pattern or whether they just feel like it because of their inherently vague nature and frequently appalling UI, but they seem pretty close to the line to me. Ironically, the unclear deal also makes us hesitant to use these services for our own advertising, for fear of effectively becoming unwelcome advertisers ourselves. I loathe spammers as much as anyone, and on top of that we operate in a relatively small and very social market, so not knowing whether we’re showing marketing material to people who are actually likely to be interested is a big turn-off for us. So I guess as well as being another possible example of a dark pattern, this is also an example of poor UI clearly decreasing revenues rather than increasing them.
ArtDev 13y ago
Dark patterns are a short-term tradeoff. Ultimately, though your customers will resent you. Its easy for stakeholders to say "So what? We loose a few customers!" However, your company really might be loosing a potential investor, a potential business partner, a potential star hire or a potential product champion. Ambitious companies don't use dark patterns but dying companies do.
- jka 13y ago
  I used to believe this - but once you reach a certain scale and number of users, they do not notice small things - especially if they are average everyday people. We are all hyper-sensitive to design, functionality, behaviour because we build and make decisions about technology, but at the end of the day most people have 5-to-15 minutes to use your product during or between other work and conversations. Investors will likely not be carefully analyzing your UI, unless they have a lot of time - most of their decision will be based on conversations with your top-level executive team and the information provided therein. Star hires is a potential one - I can definitely imagine that a lot of very savvy designers and engineers might be put off by manipulative design decisions - but ultimately they may care more about the workplace environment that you claim as a company, the opportunity to be part of a growing business, etc. I'm a touch on the pessimistic side with this one but these are my perceptions, partly based on experience and partly based on observing startup businesses evolve over time.

by jka 13y ago

Chris_Newton 13y ago

Intuitively there is an argument that maintaining simplicity will improve word-of-mouth and conversion rates, but in reality it (unfortunately, perhaps) absolutely is the case that revenue can be massively increased by introducing all kinds of additional advertising, up/cross-sells, and ultimately, dark patterns. I wonder how true that really is. We’ve recently been looking into advertising options for a new service, and to say that the experience we’ve had trying to arrange Facebook and Google ads has been terrible would be very kind to Facebook and Google. I reckon Facebook have lost half the money we’d have spent with them just through UI failures, up to and including literally not being able to place ads sometimes because their pages simply didn’t work. Google have to date lost 100% of the money we were considering giving to them because we couldn’t figure out what we were getting for our money within a reasonable period of time and whether it was likely to have a reasonable RoI compared to our other options. As a small business, of course we have only so much financial budget to spend across all advertising channels, but we have even less time for busy founders to figure out where to spend it. A simple “Pay this, get that” kind of deal is much more attractive than these vague, auction-based on-line advertising systems where half the numbers they report seem wildly inconsistent from one page to the next. I’m not sure whether those schemes are intended to be a dark pattern or whether they just feel like it because of their inherently vague nature and frequently appalling UI, but they seem pretty close to the line to me. Ironically, the unclear deal also makes us hesitant to use these services for our own advertising, for fear of effectively becoming unwelcome advertisers ourselves. I loathe spammers as much as anyone, and on top of that we operate in a relatively small and very social market, so not knowing whether we’re showing marketing material to people who are actually likely to be interested is a big turn-off for us. So I guess as well as being another possible example of a dark pattern, this is also an example of poor UI clearly decreasing revenues rather than increasing them.

ArtDev 13y ago

Dark patterns are a short-term tradeoff. Ultimately, though your customers will resent you. Its easy for stakeholders to say "So what? We loose a few customers!" However, your company really might be loosing a potential investor, a potential business partner, a potential star hire or a potential product champion. Ambitious companies don't use dark patterns but dying companies do.

jka 13y ago
I used to believe this - but once you reach a certain scale and number of users, they do not notice small things - especially if they are average everyday people. We are all hyper-sensitive to design, functionality, behaviour because we build and make decisions about technology, but at the end of the day most people have 5-to-15 minutes to use your product during or between other work and conversations. Investors will likely not be carefully analyzing your UI, unless they have a lot of time - most of their decision will be based on conversations with your top-level executive team and the information provided therein. Star hires is a potential one - I can definitely imagine that a lot of very savvy designers and engineers might be put off by manipulative design decisions - but ultimately they may care more about the workplace environment that you claim as a company, the opportunity to be part of a growing business, etc. I'm a touch on the pessimistic side with this one but these are my perceptions, partly based on experience and partly based on observing startup businesses evolve over time.