I don’t use FB myself anymore but my wife still does and this morning she showed me some posts by a friend of ours. He’s... troubled anyway, but recently he seems to have become addicted to self-harming and posting the photos on FB for the reactions and comments. Congratulations, FB scientists, this is your contribution to the world.
Scientists who make apps addictive
21–30 of 49 posts
Re: Scientists who make apps addictive
#22The development of online software over the last 10-15 years is a case study in feedback loops. It really has flipped the paradigm. For lotus notes, success is when a user makes the software do what she wants, like sending an email. In the modern equivalent, the software (designer) succeeds, when the user does what the software wants, like sending an email.
Well, people pay for Lotus Notes so a user-centrix UX helps customer retention and reduces the burden on customer support.
The modern crop of "addictive" apps are usually free so having "time spent" as a KPI helps bring in ad revenue, which is good for business.
Re: Scientists who make apps addictive
#23I think the general danger with computers is falling into a trap of repetitive behavior. In the age of letters you'd check your letter box maybe once a day. Now everywhere we have systems of immediate responses. It creates these loops of repetition where the constant stream of new data drives the user to be constantly aware of the possibility to respond and consume. What if letters could arrive at your home invisibly…
That's the first thing I do when I get a new phone: set up mail and usual apps, disable notifications for most, notify every 4 hours for mail & others, though I usually leave instant messaging run regularly. Also my phone is most of the time in do not disturb, only calls go through. At the beginning I kept checking, but eventually the need dies off, at least in my case. Anything actually important will be a call.
Never really thought about this....but this would really increase my productivity. I get super annoyed when my wife keeps messaging me at work for example, but I also respond all the time.
Disabling notification for few hours at a time is a great idea. I will give it a shot.
Re: Scientists who make apps addictive
#24The development of online software over the last 10-15 years is a case study in feedback loops. It really has flipped the paradigm. For lotus notes, success is when a user makes the software do what she wants, like sending an email. In the modern equivalent, the software (designer) succeeds, when the user does what the software wants, like sending an email.
This is a symptom of detailed metrics. When you're responsible for the "send an email" feature, you want to show you're doing your job. Getting more people to send email is an easy way to show progress without having to understand people's actual experience with the feature.
> Getting more people to send email is an easy way to show progress without having to understand people's actual experience with the feature.
That makes my gut turn a little bit. It is a blind and abusive dynamic and I think it is horribly wrong.
For a while, I've been pondering what ethically designed software looks like from a user's perspective. And, for the modern consumer I don't have any answers.
The obvious bits are "it allows the user to do what they need" (ie, send an email, or draw a picture, communicate with friends, etc), but I don't know how to disconnect the functionality from addictive design elements.
Does that mean a HN style interface, where you can look at what threads you've started, but with no notifications? Or something else?
Re: Scientists who make apps addictive
#25I don’t use FB myself anymore but my wife still does and this morning she showed me some posts by a friend of ours. He’s... troubled anyway, but recently he seems to have become addicted to self-harming and posting the photos on FB for the reactions and comments. Congratulations, FB scientists, this is your contribution to the world.
Their contribution is profiting from his self harm, which is worse in some ways.
Re: Scientists who make apps addictive
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a symptom of detailed metrics. When you're responsible for the "send an email" feature, you want to show you're doing your job. Getting more people to send email is an easy way to show progress without having to understand people's actual experience with the feature.
> Getting more people to send email is an easy way to show progress without having to understand people's actual experience with the feature. That makes my gut turn a little bit. It is a blind and abusive dynamic and I think it is horribly wrong. For a while, I've been pondering what ethically designed software looks like from a user's perspective. And, for the modern consumer I don't have any answers. The obvious bi…
> I don't know how to disconnect the functionality from addictive design elements.
One way to think about it is, does the software help the user achieve their goals without trying to change what their goals are? Even this gets fuzzy when you think about long-term and short-term goals. An exercise app that manipulates me to frustrate my short-term goal of being lazy and help me reach my long-term goal of being fit might be ethically good.
But there are many clear cases where the app's job (just like much of advertising) is not to give me what I want, it's to control what I want and make me want what the app developer wants me to do.
One way I measure this informally is by asking how I feel after I use an app and put it down. While I'm using it, it always feels good because that's how these programs are designed. But many apps leaving me with a linger feeling of regret afterwards, exactly like the feeling I get after binging on junk food or drinking too much the night before.
Those are the apps that are a problem.
Re: Scientists who make apps addictive
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nicely said. This really summarizes how I feel when I use a lot of modern websites. I often feel manipulated. Instead of me driving the interaction the website tries to impose its opinion on what I need or want.
Every UI presents an opinion. In many cases, that opinion is unclear, muddled, or counterintuitive. As developers and designers pay more attention to the UX, that opinion becomes more clear and unilateral. In the end, the decision to like a piece of software or website depends on how well your expectations align with the opinion that the UI expresses. If you feel manipulated, it means that you did not want to do some…
Look at the path “configuration defaults” have taken. Whenever software has settings or can do things multiple ways, there is usually a default out-of-the-box setting.
Long time ago, the default was often whatever was easiest to program or took up the fewest compute resources: the variable is zero initialized by the OS, so therefore the setting will default to off.
Then, the rule became: the default should be the way most users will want to use the software.
Now, it’s: the default should be whatever causes the user to take the action that the developer wants them to take.
We are also seeing software with fewer and fewer settings. Developers are simply taking away the option and forcing users to do it the way the developer wants. This trend is aided and abetted by the current crop of ‘minimalist’ UI designers who insist that settings are bad and nothing should be user configurable.
Re: Scientists who make apps addictive
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the first thing I do when I get a new phone: set up mail and usual apps, disable notifications for most, notify every 4 hours for mail & others, though I usually leave instant messaging run regularly. Also my phone is most of the time in do not disturb, only calls go through. At the beginning I kept checking, but eventually the need dies off, at least in my case. Anything actually important will be a call.
Never really thought about this....but this would really increase my productivity. I get super annoyed when my wife keeps messaging me at work for example, but I also respond all the time. Disabling notification for few hours at a time is a great idea. I will give it a shot.
I do the same thing. Calls go through as normal and messages get checked when I feel like it. There have been a few occasions when I miss out on something or whatever but it's way better my phone dictating when I give it attention rather than the other way around.
Re: Scientists who make apps addictive
#29I think recommender systems are the biggest culprit in this. Most recommender systems are probably trained with a simple objective of maximizing the amount of time the user spends browsing through the list of recommended items.
The whole idea of continuously giving your users content so that they can passively scroll down and be entertained is just like putting users in a box where they can pull a lever to get food. When users are given all these options without having to think and to actively search for them, they just become vegetables.
Re: Scientists who make apps addictive
#30I read the title as "maps" not apps. I'll continue to wonder why I like maps so much...