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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)

#271

Post by alisonkisk »

spoonjim wrote: post #185
sillysaurusx wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Criminalization of dark patterns? It’s not impossible to imagine — intentionally tricking a user is sometimes called fraud — but I’m not sure we’ve thought through the implications of criminalizing website design. The biggest companies are the ones least affected by regulation, because they can invest resources into complying. Small startups sometimes can’t. A teenager in their bedroom usually can’t. And that’s no sm…

Most regulators do not charge teenagers in their bedrooms except for the most egregious criminal acts. If you are a teenager operating a website from your bedroom, you functionally do not need to worry about ADA, GDPR, etc.

That's only true until a prosecutor needs to make a political campaign.

ADA is enforced (abusively) by private claims, not regulators, at least in CA.

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

#272

Post by Bjartr »

cratermoon wrote: post #73
Bjartr wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Make junk mail and spam e-mail illegal to start with. CAN-SPAM[0] does exactly that for US businesses. Any email from a US business that is for advertisement or otherwise promotional (as distinct from transactional[1]) then it: * Must not have false or misleading from/to/reply-to * Must not have a deceptive subject * Must be labeled an ad * Must include a valid physical postal address * Must have a clear and conspi…

I remember when the CAN-SPAM act was in Congress. All of us who were following the issue looked at it and said, "this just legitimizes spam, puts a nice picket fence around it, and make sure that any company that wants to spam you knows exactly where the boundaries are so they can do so with impunity". As we expected, it didn't reduce spam at all, but now we have and industry and entire companies dedicated to mass un…

I rarely get any mail from legitimate companies that I'm not genuinely interested in, because if I ever end up on their list because I signed up or bought something, I just click the unsubscribe link in the email, and then I stop getting them.

If you get a bunch of mail you don't want, but don't click unaubscribe, you shouldn't be surprised when they keep aending you mail.

There are few exceptions where a legit business will continue to mail you after unsubscribing.

All that said, it did take a few months of diligently clicking unsubscribe on every promotional email I got to actually clean up my inbox, but since then it's been very smooth sailing.

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

#273

Post by Bjartr »

lamontcg wrote: post #131
Bjartr wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Make junk mail and spam e-mail illegal to start with. CAN-SPAM[0] does exactly that for US businesses. Any email from a US business that is for advertisement or otherwise promotional (as distinct from transactional[1]) then it: * Must not have false or misleading from/to/reply-to * Must not have a deceptive subject * Must be labeled an ad * Must include a valid physical postal address * Must have a clear and conspi…

> CAN-SPAM[0] does exactly that for US businesses. No, I said make it illegal, and I meant exactly that.

CAN-SPAM is a law. If you violate it, you are penalized by the legal code. That's fulfills my definition of "illegal", but clearly not yours. Mind sharing your definition so we're on the same page?

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

#274

Post by lamontcg »

Bjartr wrote: post #273
lamontcg wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CAN-SPAM[0] does exactly that for US businesses. No, I said make it illegal, and I meant exactly that.

CAN-SPAM is a law. If you violate it, you are penalized by the legal code. That's fulfills my definition of "illegal", but clearly not yours. Mind sharing your definition so we're on the same page?

Don't send any marketing e-mail to anyone. Everyone is opted-out immediately and permanently. End the right that businesses think they have to endlessly distract people.

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

#275

Post by dredmorbius »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #238
gfxgirl wrote: post #235

The distraction of notifications, or "sign up for our email news letter" distractions I'm certainly against. But, the fact of having my time wasted (getting a notification I don't care about) has highlighted other things that waste my time such as Movies that start with 1-3 minutes of company logos. An animation of "A Scott Free Production", followed by an animated logo of "Bad Robot", followed by yet another animate…

I think those things nowadays serve the role of easing you into the film, allow everyone to settle down, finish what they're doing, etc - a lot of films start with something important right away. And it's better than it used to be, older films used to have a long reel of credits before the film started. Anyway, services like Netflix should be able to add a skip button for those.

If you want real old school, films began with shorts and newsreels.

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

#276

Post by drc500free »

alisonkisk wrote: post #269
squiggleblaz wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Criminalization of dark patterns? Criminalisation is actually better than regulation. Regulation is about what you do. Criminalisation takes into account what you did and what you intended to do. One year ago, you followed every website design of the time, and made the "Please respect my privacy" button look like a the text in some terms and conditions, but the "Please sell all my data in a way that will increase m…

I don't believe the distinction you make between criminal and regulatory actually exists.

I believe they are confusing intent to perform an act with intent to break a law. In most cases, ignorance of the law is not a criminal defense.

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

#277

Post by ChrisArchitect »

dang wrote: post #140
ChrisArchitect wrote: post #109

(2013)? come on plenty of discussion more recently than that about the topic: The growing body of evidence that digital distraction is damaging our minds https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16098847 We live in an age of distractions, dealing with constant mental stimulus https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26207184 My year with a distraction-free iPhone https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8251334 The Death of Soci…

What's wrong with 2013? Historical material is welcome here, and I assume one interesting point about the OP is how relatively early it was.

not the particular year but rather the age; that there's been much development and thought on the topic since then, that particular presentation slide deck referenced multiple times since then as work that inspired things that came etc. Don't want to keep reverting to having the discussions all over again about topics that have been expanded on and discussed in threads afterwards

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

#278

Post by Bjartr »

lamontcg wrote: post #274
Bjartr wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CAN-SPAM is a law. If you violate it, you are penalized by the legal code. That's fulfills my definition of "illegal", but clearly not yours. Mind sharing your definition so we're on the same page?

Don't send any marketing e-mail to anyone. Everyone is opted-out immediately and permanently. End the right that businesses think they have to endlessly distract people.

Would you still allow people to decide that they do want to get such email, or should people not be allowed to make that decision?

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

#279

Post by mountainb »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #249
fmajid wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amen. For more on that, see Edward Tufte's "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint". It's no wonder Jeff Bezos insists on his subordinates bringing 2-3 page length essays, not slides, to decision meetings. https://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/teaching/courses/pi/2016_2017/phil/... https://mondaynote.com/bezos-a-ceo-who-can-write-2f368ee3659...

Regarding the first link, which (perhaps ironically) I've only skim-read: much of it seems to be attacking bad slideshows, rather than inherent problems with the format. A slideshow isn't meant to be read in the absence of a speaker giving a presentation. It exists to support the speaker in their presentation. If the intent is to offer a resource which can act as a substitute for attending a presentation, a slideshow…

Education, for around two thousand years, used to focus around training rhetorical excellence in all students. Relatively recently, it's become more affordable and practical than ever before to supplement rhetoric with written text.

Bullet points and visual aids are crutches that detract from the quality of a speech. However, our culture has this habit of sending adults completely unprepared into high pressure environments armed with what would have been seen as baby level waste-of-time education by any generation before the boomers.

PPTs are water wings for adults who would otherwise drown from the rational terror that they have about public speaking in a professional context. The problem is less related to the format and more related to the notion that it is kind to throw people into the deep end without training them how to swim. It's not a coincidence that most people are terrified of public speaking: it's hard, it's high stakes, and it requires a lot of practice to become comfortable with.

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

#280

Post by matheusmoreira »

dalmo3 wrote: post #265
matheusmoreira wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The same with both movie trailers and game trailers. I go to see the game trailer and there's 30 seconds to 2 minutes of logos. > They aren't respecting my time. Imagine going to a movie theather, paying to watch a film, only to be subjected to over 15 minutes of trailers for other movies and advertising for local businesses before what I want to watch finally starts. I don't go there anymore.

We pay to watch ads for 15 min and we can't leave, yet somehow YouTube's 5 seconds ads are unacceptable.

Both are unacceptable.
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