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Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

dcurt.is

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Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#101

Post by snowwrestler »

mathattack wrote: post #22
swombat wrote: post #4

Of course, because money is the only criteria that is important to any business. There couldn't possibly be anything else, like a sense of mission or purpose, that could inform decisions.

Once you take outside money, you have to give up the sense of purpose if it conflicts with collecting money. This is more an issue of optimization versus long term vision. Some firms can act like Apple, ignore feedback, and invent the future. That's very rare. The rest must react to feedback.

Facebook was very carefully structured so that investors cannot oust Zuckerberg.

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#102

Post by mcgwiz »

Facebook can afford not to provide an better user experience because it has no competition. Should Google Plus one day threaten Facebook's usage, Facebook may pull this design out of it's archives.

Until then, they will provide the minimal user experience that keeps them on top of the hill with as much ad inventory as possible.

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#103

Post by jfoster »

This is a weakness of ad-supported business models. When users are buying or subscribing to a product, you want them to love it as much as possible so that they will always buy more. Ad-supported models untie the relationship between UX and revenue. In an ad-supported model, you do need users to like the product enough to keep coming back, but small decreases in utility that generate more impressions could be great for revenue.

The people at Facebook are extremely talented. It's a shame they're stuck with this business model. It would be awesome to see how good they could make Facebook if this wasn't tying them down.

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#104

Post by andrewljohnson »

epistasis wrote: post #66
akamaka wrote: post #29

Nice theory, but I think Dustin's conclusions are wrong. I got to use this alternative design on my second Facebook account that I used for app development, while my personal account didn't have it enabled. I really disliked like the new sidebar design. The concept was similar to what GMail has done lately, with text links replaced by only graphical icons. I found it really difficult to remember what each icon linked…

>text links replaced by only graphical icons This is a terribly pernicious trend in all sorts of software, not just GMail. I really hope that the fad dies out soon, because it's preventing me form effectively using software that otherwise may have been great.

But it's a trend that is extremely helpful to non-English speakers.

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#105

Post by babesh »

jfoster wrote: post #103

This is a weakness of ad-supported business models. When users are buying or subscribing to a product, you want them to love it as much as possible so that they will always buy more. Ad-supported models untie the relationship between UX and revenue. In an ad-supported model, you do need users to like the product enough to keep coming back, but small decreases in utility that generate more impressions could be great f…

Isn't that what the Instagram, Whatsapp, and Occulus purchases are for? None of them are yet tied down to an advertising based business model.

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#106

Post by sirkneeland »

Pacabel wrote: post #99
duaneb wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fad You realize that iconography predates all civilization, right?

I think he's talking within the context of software, you know. Even within this context, icons have been used for a long time in things like toolbars. But historically they've been quite descriptive of what they do, and often times have been accompanied by a textual description if there's any uncertainty as to their meaning. Like the earlier commenter wrote, however, we've seen the use of icons really taken to a stup…

IE6 predates all of civilization too.

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#107

Post by gumby »

Geee wrote: post #63
colmvp wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people (including myself) just need the feed. I personally preferred the clean approach because outside of Events, I never need the left navigation. Now it obnoxiously takes up a segment of the page and the main content in the center feels tight especially with the bigger typography.

On the contrary, I don't need the feed at all. I use just the messaging features. I never post on the feed and everything I share is in the private or group messages.

If you don't need the feed you don't even need the web browser since the message system is bog standard jabber.

I do my FB messaging through Messages on my Mac and the FB Messages app on my phone. Works great.

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#108

Post by duaneb »

Pacabel wrote: post #99
duaneb wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fad You realize that iconography predates all civilization, right?

I think he's talking within the context of software, you know. Even within this context, icons have been used for a long time in things like toolbars. But historically they've been quite descriptive of what they do, and often times have been accompanied by a textual description if there's any uncertainty as to their meaning. Like the earlier commenter wrote, however, we've seen the use of icons really taken to a stup…

Of all the things that inhibit our use of programs, icons are surely the least because after you've pressed them a couple thousand times, I hope you still don't forget them. Text takes up a lot of space.

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#109

Post by redorb »

epistasis wrote: post #66
akamaka wrote: post #29

Nice theory, but I think Dustin's conclusions are wrong. I got to use this alternative design on my second Facebook account that I used for app development, while my personal account didn't have it enabled. I really disliked like the new sidebar design. The concept was similar to what GMail has done lately, with text links replaced by only graphical icons. I found it really difficult to remember what each icon linked…

>text links replaced by only graphical icons This is a terribly pernicious trend in all sorts of software, not just GMail. I really hope that the fad dies out soon, because it's preventing me form effectively using software that otherwise may have been great.

Vincent Flanders called this mystery meat navigation [1] and has a whole site about webpages that suck.. (a bit dated)

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_meat_navigation http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/mysterymeatnavigation.html

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#110

Post by exodust »

ignostic wrote: post #81

> "We're blind." ... "Everything must be tested." And your solution is to do LESS TESTING? We don't know what we're doing, so let's cut back on the amount of data we can use to inform our decisions? > "We are slaves to the numbers. We don’t operate around innovation. We only optimize." I don't see why numbers should ever stop you from innovating. The difference between "innovating" and "optimizing" is just a differen…

The point is about design being held back or distorted by numbers - which are often a false prophesy when it comes to UX improvements.

Nobody is suggesting that numbers don't matter, but if you can't decide on a border thickness of 1 or 2 pixels without numbers to tell you which to go with, you've lost your mojo. And that matters in the long term.

When the aim is to increase length of time on the site or in the app, the numbers will "tell you" to make the interface more complicated, to hide the sign-out button (common practice), to hide the exit button (like Dropbox did on the desktop application), to force dependencies between unrelated services (Google does this a lot).

When the aim is to increase clicks on Ads, the numbers will tell you to make ads look like normal posts. The numbers will tell you to autoplay videos on tabloid news article pages. But all these "optimizations" are not unlike speed cameras placed at the bottom of the hill where lots of people can't help bumping over the speed limit for a couple of seconds. Good for revenue, bad vibes in every other way.

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