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A call to minimize distraction and respect users’ attention (2013)

minimizedistraction.com

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Re: A call to minimize distraction and respect users’ attention (2013)

#51

Post by AlbertCory »

It's funny how almost all the comments are about technical aspects of the presentation or how he said it, and not what he said.

He's right, FWIW. How many times have I had to yell "Hel-LO!" at some bozo staring at his phone & not watching where he's walking?

However, how would you regulate this? If you created a metric of "attention-sucking" and set a legal limit on it, the web giants would immediately game it.

Re: A call to minimize distraction and respect users’ attention (2013)

#53

Post by david_allison »

ssivark wrote: post #16
cmehdy wrote: post #2

For other readers: this seems to be an internal google presentation made public to tell engineers to respect users' attention. I guess as a user of the website it didn't respect my attention enough to make me want to click through the whole thing. I dropped out after twenty or so clicks, having read less and less stuff after a few slides.

And it broke the back button! There seems to be no way to go back a slide if you forwarded by tapping accidentally!!!

The left arrow key does this

Re: A call to minimize distraction and respect users’ attention (2013)

#55

Post by iseethroughbs »

AlbertCory wrote: post #51

It's funny how almost all the comments are about technical aspects of the presentation or how he said it, and not what he said. He's right, FWIW. How many times have I had to yell "Hel-LO!" at some bozo staring at his phone & not watching where he's walking? However, how would you regulate this? If you created a metric of "attention-sucking" and set a legal limit on it, the web giants would immediately game it.

It's easy to be right. But to be right is not the same as being useful.

Re: A call to minimize distraction and respect users’ attention (2013)

#58

Post by anonydsfsfs »

epivosism wrote: post #11
cmehdy wrote: post #2

For other readers: this seems to be an internal google presentation made public to tell engineers to respect users' attention. I guess as a user of the website it didn't respect my attention enough to make me want to click through the whole thing. I dropped out after twenty or so clicks, having read less and less stuff after a few slides.

The enforced ~500ms loading time between slides is a killer. Why not preload and display them immediately?

There isn't a fixed 500ms loading time. It advances slides by changing the background image of the central "pic" element. This is the JS to advance the slide:

   function increment(){
    if(imgNum
The reason you see a flicker is because it takes time to load the next image, and until it loads you're going to see the black background. As you mentioned, the preloading images would solve this.

Re: A call to minimize distraction and respect users’ attention (2013)

#59

Post by Swizec »

aresant wrote: post #25

This presentation is wonderful for its PR value "people here care" but naïve bordering on malicious in its approach and understanding of Google's business. 11 years ago PG called the iPad the "hip flask" of the internet (1) and it's 10x worse today than it was then. The incentives of every major ad-supported tech platform are the same - maximize engagement to maximize profit. Every dollar of profit, every promotion,…

At the dawn of my career I made myself two commitments:

1. Only projects/companies you enjoy

2. Only projects/companies where users are the customers

So far so good. It’s amazing the cool stuff you can build when engagement-at-all-cost is the opposite of your goal. When the goal is “Provide so much value users are beyond delighted to pay”.

Feels nice to be aligned

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