Comments on: Can Interfaces be Evil?

By: Recent URLs tagged When - Urlrecorder

Recent URLs tagged When - Urlrecorder — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 15:31:35 +0000

[...] Recent public urls tagged “when” → Can Interfaces be Evil? [...]

By: Phillip B

Phillip B — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 10:06:12 +0000

How about Insidious Interfaces? http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/insidious Nicely alliterative.

By: Kris Colvin

Kris Colvin — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 16:08:40 +0000

Wow, I have to say, I totally admire your willingness to write an entire thoughtful post when you realize you may have reacted rashly to the user experience you were subjected to. I have the same issues sometimes – being a user interface designer and marketing person, things sometimes rub me the wrong way and I write similar posts on my blog. I think you’ve hit on an interaction that can be done better, and kudos to you for stating your truth, at the time, and now.

By: michelangelo

michelangelo — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:45:39 +0000

Yesterday I wrote an unthoughtful post [...]

Josh, I believe the word is “thoughtless”

By: Max Design - standards based web design, development and training » Some links for light reading (23/7/08)

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:39:11 +0000

[...] Can Interfaces be Evil? [...]

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 08:41:03 +0000

I think I might have an example of genuinely evil deception by design in food labelling. At least, it seems to be an attempt to make sure that people keep buying stuff that's probably bad for them while the manufacturers present a "caring" image.

By: Martin Polley

Martin Polley — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 04:34:05 +0000

@Mark_M I think you’re asking a useful question (“Is deception always evil?”).

I think the answer is no. The example that springs to mind is progress meters. These are not always truthful, but they are by-and-large helpful.

Anyone have other examples of non-evil deception?

By: Justin Baum

Justin Baum — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:48:34 +0000

Josh, I had a very similar experience with a startup called Feedly. It is a textbook example of what your are talking about here.

Basically I went from publicly irate to helping them design a solution to their problem on getSatisfaction.

It can all be found here….

http://getsatisfaction.com/feedly/topics/feedly_destroyed_my_google_reader_feeds_tags

By: links for 2008-07-18 |

links for 2008-07-18 | — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:39:59 +0000

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By: Brian Christiansen

Brian Christiansen — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:03:00 +0000

I assumed that the interface was designed intentionally

Did it fall out of the sky?

I wouldn’t be so quick to back off on this one, Josh. Yes, the slideshare folks are great. But that doesn’t mean they can’t make dumb mistakes. They need to be called on it when they do. The Facebook people are good people, too. In the process of pushing the boundaries of social interaction on the web, they also make some dumb things.

“Evil” is one thing, but I wouldn’t holster those six-shooters just yet. The email you got was “spammy” to say the least. Poorly designed for sure.

By: Emmy

Emmy — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 04:57:27 +0000

Josh, you make a great point. It’s been said that to the user, the UI is the computer. A user’s perception is completely dependent on the visual design and interaction. When poor planning is executed, the user experience suffers and perceived product reliability diminishes.

By: Kingsley Joseph

Kingsley Joseph — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:15:19 +0000

Stealth design. Wait, that sounds too cool.

By: Josh

Josh — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:56:03 +0000

@Tom Thanks for the pointer to the Loopt blog. I’ve updated the post accordingly.

By: Tom W.

Tom W. — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:17:28 +0000

Bad design? Maybe. Ability to fix it fast? Admirable. http://www.looptblog.com/

By: Amr

Amr — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:35:09 +0000

“I assumed that the interface was designed intentionally, and that the designers had made an explicit decision to put only one link there with the hope that people would be more likely to click on it.”

Design is intentional. Here is a cut & paste from the dictionary:

“purpose, planning, or intention that exists or is thought to exist behind an action, fact, or material object : the appearance of design in the universe.”

“In this case, the feature is a *very* minor one, an invitation to join a group.”

That does not look like a minor feature to me. An invitation to join a group on social webapp is minor?

I agreed with your original post. I thought evil was a harsh word to use. Your main point, nonetheless, remains true. It was bad design no matter how you look at it.