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Hey Yahoo, You’re Optimizing the Wrong Thing

hilarymason.com

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Re: Hey Yahoo, You’re Optimizing the Wrong Thing

#41

Post by verisimilidude »

talmand wrote: post #21
smacktoward wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shakiness affects many of us as we get older, but it is hard to design a website around this constraint. Is it? Large link targets surrounded by empty negative space seem like an easy way to solve this problem. The issue is only an issue because Yahoo puts the links in tinytext and crowds the ad link right up next to the "Inbox" link, so a twitch can send the cursor scooting past the link you want to click on to the…

In the example provided the ad link has a decent amount of white space between it and the inbox link. There's even an intended barrier between the two in the form of a horizontal rule, granted one pixel. What more do you want? Are we to ascertain the shakiness level of the user to determine the proper amount of white space? A CSS media query maybe? @media min-shakiness: 0.5 and max-shakiness: 1 But then, I'm just bei…

Granted, life puts limitations on us as we get older but I don't understand how one can predict behaviors of people who do not fully read what they are clicking on.

See, you've misunderstood the root of the problem. This person knew exactly where he wanted to click, he aimed for those targets, and his physical limitations caused him to miss those targets. User intent is not the problem.

The problem here is the penalty for missing: he gets shuttled to an off-site advertisement that doesn't have anything to do the task at hand. If he misses and just goes to Drafts instead of Inbox, that's a much easier mistake for the user to understand and correct; the intended target link is still prominent on the unintended page, it's easy to connect cause with effect ("Stupid shaky hand, oops!"), and it's easy to try again. Unfortunately, in this case, that advertisement's placement makes it a very expensive miss for the user. Before the user even knows what has happened, he's on another site entirely. And that ad is placed between what are arguably the two most important links in the interface: Inbox and Compose.

In the example provided the ad link has a decent amount of white space between it and the inbox link. There's even an intended barrier between the two in the form of a horizontal rule, granted one pixel. What more do you want?

He probably missed the targets because they're skinny and/or long and require a good deal of "vertical accuracy", which can easily devolve into "vertical inaccuracy". The targets should be given some additional vertical size. This is anecdotal based upon experiences with my own shaky hand, so YMMV.

Re: Hey Yahoo, You’re Optimizing the Wrong Thing

#42

Post by eli »

ceslami wrote: post #5

This piece confused me for several reasons. First, if anything, this seems like an accessibility problem that would be hard to solve. Shakiness affects many of us as we get older, but it is hard to design a website around this constraint. Second, there is an implication that this ad placement is somehow "surely wrong," and a step further, is likely only successful due to pseudo-fraudulent interactions. I want to rebu…

I bought a mouse a decade ago for my grandma that was specifically for people with movement disorders. It's got nice ergonomics and a little microprocessor that runs some sort of smoothing algorithm to cancel out unintended jerky movements. Worked pretty well.

Re: Hey Yahoo, You’re Optimizing the Wrong Thing

#43

Post by gknoy »

recoiledsnake wrote: post #16
webwright wrote: post #8

Things get tense when ad-supported companies have to make money. When I ask my mom or dad to click the first Google search result, they click on an ad. When I ask them if they realized that it was an ad, the response is "no". A good portion of the ad business is confused clicks/taps (it's worse on mobile).

Google and other ads are specifically designed to look like search results and exploit the fact that older people cannot see contrast of the background as well as younger people. The contrast on the background is much lower than the federal 508 standard for contrast and I think has changed to over the years to a lighter shade as Google "optimizes" it. http://i.imgur.com/Wmdd0.png One is an ad and one is a search resu…

I bet it's related to the angle of people's screens: my laptop's screen is not directly pointing at me, and the samples in your screenshot are nearly indistinguishable from one another -- but is very visible when I move it to my primary screen which is at a different viewing angle. I first noticed the issue when I was looking at a graph with a watermark, and the watermark was more visible than the graph (until I looked at it on my second screen), so I'm sure it's relatively common.

On a CRT this isn't a problem, but I imagine that many people have their LCDs at an angle which isn't perfect for viewing such contrast differences ... and if a user (like my parents) are not as accustomed to playing "spot (and ignore) the ad" based on content as we are, then they might completely miss the visual cues as well.

Re: Hey Yahoo, You’re Optimizing the Wrong Thing

#44

Post by batista »

mattj wrote: post #36
cbsmith wrote: post #35

It's unfortunate that the person who wrote this article didn't consult with someone more informed about the online advertising world. As someone who has been in the belly of the beast, I'm going to try to summarize the various ways that this article is getting it wrong. * Most Yahoo Mail ads generate revenue based on impressions, not clicks. So Yahoo isn't directly making more money by grabbing these "random" clicks.…

I think there's a very non-trivial chance the person who wrote this article knows much more about advertising than you think: http://www.hilarymason.com/about/

Really? Because nothing in that bio points to that. Actually the whole thing is unbelievably vague and opaque.

And these kind of cutesy oneliner descriptions of one's skills make me cringe: "Simply: I make beautiful things with data".

OK, she works as a "chief scientist" (that's not even a job, for us, old time folks, but anyway) at bitly (a URL shortening service, i.e as far away from a real business as you can get, that aspires to be a "bookmarking service" also.

Re: Hey Yahoo, You’re Optimizing the Wrong Thing

#45

Post by hmason »

ColinWright wrote: post #40
mattj wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a very non-trivial chance the person who wrote this article knows much more about advertising than you think: http://www.hilarymason.com/about/

To be fair, it's not clear that Hilary Mason is specifically knowledgeable about on-line advertising. She is undoubtedly very knowledgeable about computer science, big data, and a number of fields in general, but it's possible her major interaction with the specifics of on-line advertising are as an advertisee, either directly or by proxy.

To be clear, I'm not knowledgeable about online advertising. I do understand that the incentives of the advertisers and the users are often opposed, but I was highlighting this as an example of poor product design likely due to optimizing click-throughs, not product experience. :)

Re: Hey Yahoo, You’re Optimizing the Wrong Thing

#46

Post by recoiledsnake »

gknoy wrote: post #43
recoiledsnake wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google and other ads are specifically designed to look like search results and exploit the fact that older people cannot see contrast of the background as well as younger people. The contrast on the background is much lower than the federal 508 standard for contrast and I think has changed to over the years to a lighter shade as Google "optimizes" it. http://i.imgur.com/Wmdd0.png One is an ad and one is a search resu…

I bet it's related to the angle of people's screens: my laptop's screen is not directly pointing at me, and the samples in your screenshot are nearly indistinguishable from one another -- but is very visible when I move it to my primary screen which is at a different viewing angle. I first noticed the issue when I was looking at a graph with a watermark, and the watermark was more visible than the graph (until I look…

Also, age is big differentiator for seeing contrast.

Getting people to click on the ad instead of the search result makes Google about $20 per click because of the keyword, so no wonder it's designed to be almost invisible.

Re: Hey Yahoo, You’re Optimizing the Wrong Thing

#47

Post by mattmaroon »

debacle wrote: post #17
mattmaroon wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ads like this are typically bid on on a CPC basis. Shaky grandpas who click ads on accident and don't convert drive down the cost of the clicks. If you assume shaky grandpas account for 50% of the clicks, and 0 convert, then they'll make the CPC worth half what it would have been without shaky grandpas. As a result advertisers will bid half as much and pay half as much as CPCs. Just like click fraud, unless it's an o…

But then you get into the business conundrums - would you rather sell 10k impressions at .40 cpc or 20k impressions at .20 cpc?

Well, from yahoo's perspective it's 10k clicks at 40 cents cpc vs 20k clicks at 20 cents on the same number of impressions. From the advertiser's it's which do you buy, and the latter is almost certainly preferable since some number of shaky grandpas will convert.

I think shaky grandpa should be the internet standard term for worthless clicks.

Re: Hey Yahoo, You’re Optimizing the Wrong Thing

#48

Post by [deleted] »

batista wrote: post #44
mattj wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a very non-trivial chance the person who wrote this article knows much more about advertising than you think: http://www.hilarymason.com/about/

Really? Because nothing in that bio points to that. Actually the whole thing is unbelievably vague and opaque. And these kind of cutesy oneliner descriptions of one's skills make me cringe: "Simply: I make beautiful things with data". OK, she works as a "chief scientist" (that's not even a job, for us, old time folks, but anyway) at bitly (a URL shortening service, i.e as far away from a real business as you can get,…

[deleted]

Re: Hey Yahoo, You’re Optimizing the Wrong Thing

#49

Post by vadman »

mistercow wrote: post #26
dkarl wrote: post #15

Sounds like her grandfather needs a nice heavy mouse. She could disassemble a modern mouse and add lead weights to the inside until the weight and balance were right.

Or just, you know, turn off tap-to-click.

Touchpads are IMO less ergonomic and less intuitive than mice, sounds like her grandfather could use an extra bit of both.

Re: Hey Yahoo, You’re Optimizing the Wrong Thing

#50

Post by chimeracoder »

batista wrote: post #44
mattj wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a very non-trivial chance the person who wrote this article knows much more about advertising than you think: http://www.hilarymason.com/about/

Really? Because nothing in that bio points to that. Actually the whole thing is unbelievably vague and opaque. And these kind of cutesy oneliner descriptions of one's skills make me cringe: "Simply: I make beautiful things with data". OK, she works as a "chief scientist" (that's not even a job, for us, old time folks, but anyway) at bitly (a URL shortening service, i.e as far away from a real business as you can get,…

> a URL shortening service, i.e as far away from a real business as you can get,

Please define 'real business'. What does a company need to have to be a 'real' business? Users? Revenue? Profits? A product that at least some people are willing to pay money for?

I agree that bit.ly is a very simple concept, but I take issue with the disdain in your post - even URL shortening stops being straightforward once you expand from n = 1 to n = 10,000,000. And bit.ly does a lot more than 'just' that.

This reminds me of McCain's 'real America'. You may not like {NoVa, these kinds of startups} and you may think that they don't capture the 'true' spirit of {Virginia, business}, but at the end of the day, their {votes, dollars} count just as much as 'real' {America, business}.

You may not think Hilary's qualified to talk about the details of Yahoo's particular advertising model, but don't extend that into what's bordering on an ad-hominem attack against a very legitimate startup, as well as a key figure at said startup.

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