161–170 of 185 posts
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You nailed the primary difference. If I want to just use the tool I can do that; if I need to learn how to use a complex feature, I can consult the help or do a web search for a how to.
That works if you know the feature exists.
I feel the exact same way about tutorials in games that try and be comprehensive and show you everything. Incremental games do an amazing job at this (things like Universal Paperclips, A Dark Room, etc); parts of the game are revealed to you as you need them and it's often a fun surprise. I don't think the same thing is directly applicable to productivity apps, but I wonder if something could be taken from the patter…
It's pretty simple to understand - when a user opens a tool, it's because they want to do the thing that tool does, now. If someone opens my videoconferencing product 98% of the time it's they've got a scheduled call to join within the next 20 seconds . They're not going to be late for their meeting so they can read my release notes. If someone opens my PDF viewer, 99.9% chance they want to view the PDF they just ope…
> It's pretty simple to understand - when a user opens a tool, it's because they want to do the thing that tool does, now. Yes and this also applies to other things like videos. I'd be curious what others think about this: If you see a video on YouTube and choose to click it, you as the viewer already know the title of the video and have seen the thumbnail. Those things together gave you enough detail to be intereste…
Consider looking at how Mr. Beast does it. He explains in detail in https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6623b7720b009050313e701c/...
WRT to me: The first 15-45 seconds of a video need to convince me to keep watching. There's more videos on YouTube that I want to watch than I have time to watch, and that 15 second summary is how I decide to keep watching or move on to something else.
It's pretty simple to understand - when a user opens a tool, it's because they want to do the thing that tool does, now. If someone opens my videoconferencing product 98% of the time it's they've got a scheduled call to join within the next 20 seconds . They're not going to be late for their meeting so they can read my release notes. If someone opens my PDF viewer, 99.9% chance they want to view the PDF they just ope…
Like a lot of times when I am using Lightroom I just shot 3000 photos at a sports game and feel under the gun to select a few out and develop them or I am using Acrobat to handle some stressful paperwork which is late. I close 100s if not 1000s of modal dialogs that never should have been opened every day and just don't need another one.
It's bad from the viewpoint of Adobe because I wind up dismissing these messages out of hand.
Adobe wants me to see the value I am getting from my Creative Cloud subscription, like I am likely to keep paying for it if I enjoy more features in more of the products. Like lately I discovered Adobe Fonts is great: like I find looking for free fonts is the most depressing thing in web development and graphic design, I can spend hours looking at fonts and making comps and thinking "I can't stand that 'k'". Adobe Fonts on the other hand has quality fonts that are well organized and often I can put in 15 minutes and walk out with something that works so well with my brand that if I want to set stuff in that font with Pillow of course I am going to plunk down $90 and buy it -- I don't feel bad at all that the fonts are tied to Adobe tools and my CC subscription.
In terms of execution you just expect something like this to be crap. The integration of Adobe Fonts into Photoshop is broken: it can lock Photoshop hard and force you to kill the process. On the other hand it works great with Illustrator. Marketing-driven development always seems to have a lack of empathy and attention to quality that in the end is self-defeating.
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Lately I've gotten hooked on the mobile games Arknights which has extensive lore, too many game modes to count and very complex mechanics and hundreds of characters who have unique abilities (e.g. even the "trash" 3-star characters usually have something special about them and are designed to make teams that punch above their weight)
Arknights gamifies learning the game and engaging with the mechanics by offering daily, weekly, and campaign rewards for taking actions, completing levels, developing characters, etc. This is part of a number of mechanisms that gradually get you up to speed on the game mechanics, reveal the world, etc. These kind of mechanisms, used gently, could work for applications software.
But I think timing is everything. One of the most annoying people in downtown Ithaca is a panhandler who comes up from behind and starts demanding money or the bandanna off your head, he doesn't bother to make eye contact, he doesn't look to see if you're receptive or for a moment when you might be open, he just makes demands and gets angry when you deny or ignore him. I give money to panhandlers quite often if they engage me person-to-person and are agreeable but this guy is like so much application software today.
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>> But they are so common, i don't know who designs them and makes me feel like 5yo. Often these are the product managers building follow-on features that don't get the usage they want. Users aren't using them, but monthly usage is the currency of so much PM work that they have to try to draw attention to it.
It's a race to the bottom, for any tool out there the negative reviews boil down to complexity. If not: no instruction. Some people don't know how to operate a TV remote controller, unless it has 1 or 2 buttons. It's protection against the frustration that a few experience: ultimately unable to use a thing or jam it. At the expense of the majority bugged by mild distraction.
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I got around this by not using cookies.
doesn't this affect auth on, like, every website you visit? (genuinely curious)
Cookies that are strictly necessary for the functionality (auth, user preferences, shopping cart, etc...) of the site don't need user consent.
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Are you in Europe? It's so prevalent here that would usually mean not using the web at all...? I've also noticed blocking consent/informational banners of sorts when connected to a US VPN becoming more popular
It's worth noting that the "obvious dismiss button" that OP allows for is a legal requirement. By law rejecting cookies has to be just as easy as accepting them Of course in reality enforcement of this is non-existent. Just yesterday I had an especially egregious popup where dismissing it required about 7 button presses (selecting "other options", then manually toggling on 5 categories of use before I was allowed to…
> Of course in reality enforcement of this is non-existent
Indeed that was of course worth noting
It's pretty simple to understand - when a user opens a tool, it's because they want to do the thing that tool does, now. If someone opens my videoconferencing product 98% of the time it's they've got a scheduled call to join within the next 20 seconds . They're not going to be late for their meeting so they can read my release notes. If someone opens my PDF viewer, 99.9% chance they want to view the PDF they just ope…
> It's pretty simple to understand - when a user opens a tool, it's because they want to do the thing that tool does, now. Yes and this also applies to other things like videos. I'd be curious what others think about this: If you see a video on YouTube and choose to click it, you as the viewer already know the title of the video and have seen the thumbnail. Those things together gave you enough detail to be intereste…
Ah, the Wadsworth Constant: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-wadsworth-constant
It's pretty simple to understand - when a user opens a tool, it's because they want to do the thing that tool does, now. If someone opens my videoconferencing product 98% of the time it's they've got a scheduled call to join within the next 20 seconds . They're not going to be late for their meeting so they can read my release notes. If someone opens my PDF viewer, 99.9% chance they want to view the PDF they just ope…
> It's pretty simple to understand - when a user opens a tool, it's because they want to do the thing that tool does, now. Yes and this also applies to other things like videos. I'd be curious what others think about this: If you see a video on YouTube and choose to click it, you as the viewer already know the title of the video and have seen the thumbnail. Those things together gave you enough detail to be intereste…
For the individual, consider the extension SponsorBlock. Despite the name, it can be hsed to block more than sponsored segments (and blocking sponsored segments is a configurable option if you like them for some reason. There are several "filler" categories you can choose from and it'll auto skip the exact e.g. intro length rather than needing to guess 100% of the time