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When you compromise UX for a perceived competitive threat.

  • June 8, 2020June 8, 2020
  • by Andy

We can’t know for sure but this is not a user-centric tradeoff.

Amazon order confirmations and shipment notifications no longer include any item details. I could not for the life of me figure out why they would do this. They’re not scored on MAUs, they don’t need me to click through. Then I realized: is it so Google can’t see my order data?

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2020/06/01/unhelpful-amazon-order-confirmation-e-mails

Sad if true but what happens when you drift from your customer.

Jack Dorsey wants to decentralize Twitter

  • December 11, 2019December 12, 2019
  • by Andy

Details are scarce but glad to see Twitter behind this. This concept of a distributed social network has been discussed (and even worked on) in tech circles for a few years and needs to happen. Under this model, you would retain ownership of your data, identity (under a unified, open-sourced model) and how its presented with a common mechanism to connect, share, like, etc.

The tech is here to do it. Someone really needs to take control of the user experience which is critical to get mass adoption. However, Facebook would have little interest in supporting this and getting your average user to see the value and switch is a high bar. This should also require the use of REAL ID which I wrote about recently.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has revealed he wants to create an open standard for decentralized social media. And the goal will be to have Twitter conform to that standard. “Twitter is funding a small independent team of up to five open source architects, engineers, and designers to develop an open and decentralized standard for social media. The goal is for Twitter to ultimately be a client of this standard,” Dorsey tweeted.

https://decrypt.co/14386/jack-dorsey-wants-to-decentralize-twitter

Navy Reverting DDGs Back to Physical Throttles, After Fleet…

  • August 19, 2019
  • by Andy

Apparently, the Navy investigations into recent ship crashes at sea has concluded that touch screen navigation controls on the ships were at least partially to blame for those accidents. Due to this, they are reverting back to analog (physical) controls.

I think this is an interesting study in UX and UI design. First, assuming many controls were converged into a display, its always a challenge to force people to navigate through layers (also is a cognitive load) when they are trying to accomplish something. Second, if that thing they’re trying to do happens to be under pressure in a crisis, their cognitive function is much different than under SoPs. They will use a lower, less conscious, part of the brain to take action. If they are blocked by screens they have to move through this very well could lead to disaster. Give them a big board of knobs and dials for which they build muscle memory.

Tesla Model 3 Dashboard

I’ve experienced this myself. I love my Tesla Model 3 including the controversial “no physical controls everything is on the screen” dashboard. Its perfect under normal conditions. However, whenever there is an urgency, its a burden. When I took the car for its first car wash, the belt started moving the car into the wash and I suddenly had to quickly fold in the mirrors, turn off the auto-wipers and put it in neutral. Even though I had seen all these controls, having them buried 2 and 3 layers down (they certainly aren’t primary controls and thus aren’t one-touch available) made me have to remember and the pressure had me go blank. (We’ll forget the embarrassment when the attendant goaded me saying “don’t worry, we all had new cars at one time”. Thanks buddy).

The Navy will begin reverting destroyers back to a physical throttle and traditional helm control system in the next 18 to 24 months, after the fleet overwhelmingly said they prefer mechanical controls to touchscreen systems in the aftermath of the fatal USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) collision.


The investigation into the collision showed that a touchscreen system that was complex and that sailors had been poorly trained to use contributed to a loss of control of the ship just before it crossed paths with a merchant ship in the Singapore Strait. After the Navy released a Comprehensive Review related to the McCain and the USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62) collisions, Naval Sea Systems Command conducted fleet surveys regarding some of the engineering recommendations, Program Executive Officer for Ships Rear Adm. Bill Galinis said.

https://news.usni.org/2019/08/09/navy-reverting-ddgs-back-to-physical-throttles-after-fleet-rejects-touchscreen-controls

Google Nest removes ability to turn off indicator light…

  • August 18, 2019August 18, 2019
  • by Andy

This is a notable overstep by Google. Independent of how you feel on the issue, they no longer own the devices and should not be able to manipulate user features unless there’s a legal or liability change for THEM. I suspect the latter is at issue here and they’re hiding behind “privacy”.

This is what our new world of connected devices entails. Tesla recently hinted at taking away some autopilot features for those who don’t buy a higher level of software. Its not as clean as before connected devices. However, taking power from owners is not a good step. Hopefully, there is consumer pressure and/or legal action.

Proposed US law would ban infinite scroll, autoplaying video

  • August 18, 2019August 18, 2019
  • by Andy

By banning features (even annoying ones like autoplay) legally we’re crossing into a new era. Remember, regulation is a blunt instrument. How would they even enforce this? INTERNET FORCE!

Nobody likes auto-playing video or sites that keep scrolling away infinitely when you’re just trying to reach the bottom of the page. But you probably don’t hate either “feature” as much as Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who introduced a bill today to ban these and other “exploitative” practices.


While the ban on infinite scroll is the most amusing part, the proposed SMART Act (PDF), a backronym for the Social Media Addiction Reduction Technology Act, seeks to ban online companies from using a wide array of tactics that “exploit human psychology or brain physiology” to reduce user choice.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/07/proposed-us-law-would-ban-infinite-scroll-autoplaying-video/

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