21–30 of 169 posts
I'd just like to point out how absolutely terrible that simulated mouse cursor on that site is. Feels very sluggish and weird. Please don't do this.
It's quite disappointing that it took a Google UX design lead to come up with something like this.
I absolutely despise those pop-up "Can I help you" boxes on product websites (usually Intercom). It completely disrupts my flow as a reader in trying to understand the product. That attention disruption got so bad I blocked Intercom and their ilk via injected CSS rules. I really want to take it a step further and write a plug in to interface a chat bot with the human on the other end and waste their time so sites beg…
I thought like you in the past. I only installed the Crisp chatbox (with no popup) on my SaaS and was very surprised with the results: I got more contact from users through it than through Email or Telegram. I got a lot of feedback and was able to help many potential customers. As developers who never need help, we tend to forget that some people might do, and that a Chatbox that annoys us can help them.
Popups of all kinds, I despise. There should NEVER be any unsolicited modals. That includes chat boxes, "please subscribe to our newsletter", GDPR warnings, and all of them. They all interrupt my attention flow severely. If you're lucky, I will inspect your DOM and will block your modal with injected CSS/JS rules, reload, and keep browsing your site. If you're unlucky, I'll leave and look for other competing sites that are a more pleasant experience. I have clicked out of several sites before that had a stupid "can i help you" Intercom popup. On a few of those occasions I actually replied "no go away" before leaving the site, hoping that they would take the feedback for the future.
I'd just like to point out how absolutely terrible that simulated mouse cursor on that site is. Feels very sluggish and weird. Please don't do this.
Hey, anyone remember Microsoft Clippy? Yeah, that's who I always think of when I see one of those "helpful" pop-up chatbots...
Clippy, the snidely, automated helping paper clip.
I absolutely despise those pop-up "Can I help you" boxes on product websites (usually Intercom). It completely disrupts my flow as a reader in trying to understand the product. That attention disruption got so bad I blocked Intercom and their ilk via injected CSS rules. I really want to take it a step further and write a plug in to interface a chat bot with the human on the other end and waste their time so sites beg…
I thought like you in the past. I only installed the Crisp chatbox (with no popup) on my SaaS and was very surprised with the results: I got more contact from users through it than through Email or Telegram. I got a lot of feedback and was able to help many potential customers. As developers who never need help, we tend to forget that some people might do, and that a Chatbox that annoys us can help them.
Anything that pops up and interrupts me while I'm reading something else is pretty much a deal breaker. Having to stop what I'm doing to hit a little X and get back to it has cost a bunch of companies business from me.
Having said all that, there are a couple of companies that use them in the correct way. The one that springs to mind is xolo.io. Xolo is a one stop shop for my business (expenses, invoicing, tax accounting) and has chat staffed by humans and it's a fantastic way to interact with them (as an existing customer).
I message them, and assuming it's within business hours*, I get a rapid response and answer to my question / solution to my problem.
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I thought like you in the past. I only installed the Crisp chatbox (with no popup) on my SaaS and was very surprised with the results: I got more contact from users through it than through Email or Telegram. I got a lot of feedback and was able to help many potential customers. As developers who never need help, we tend to forget that some people might do, and that a Chatbox that annoys us can help them.
Sure, I love chat support interfaces and use them all the time. If I want support, that is. But not when I hit your site for the first time and just getting acquainted with your product. I just want to see your product materials at my own pace in peace. If you want me to see something different, change those materials to whatever you want your first impression to be. But don't accost me with a "can i help you" before…
Hah. You expect sites to not track you just because you are there for the first time? If that were the case there’d probably be no GDPR.
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It's also very alienating. Why is this even possible?
You can get current cursor position, and you can render things at arbitrary positions on the screen. Making this not possible would probably unnecessarily restrict your ability to build even actually useful things. Although hiding the real mouse cursor probably shouldn't be allowed without a permission dialog imo.
I would have thought it to be OK for a website to pick from a few standard system cursors (pointer, hand, I-bar, move, resize, etc.) but not no cursor.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought like you in the past. I only installed the Crisp chatbox (with no popup) on my SaaS and was very surprised with the results: I got more contact from users through it than through Email or Telegram. I got a lot of feedback and was able to help many potential customers. As developers who never need help, we tend to forget that some people might do, and that a Chatbox that annoys us can help them.
Sure, I love chat support interfaces and use them all the time. If I want support, that is. But not when I hit your site for the first time and just getting acquainted with your product. I just want to see your product materials at my own pace in peace. If you want me to see something different, change those materials to whatever you want your first impression to be. But don't accost me with a "can i help you" before…
I find that stores which do this tend to be more interested in making a sale than ensuring you have something you're happy with and want/need.
What should we expect from sites which behave like this?