6 ms·

Button Pushes You (2022)

131 points by john-doe 3y ago

samplenoise 3y ago
A particularly intriguing (to me) version of this kind of user-centered copy is not uncommon on sites in French and uses first-person verbs: “I accept,” “I start”. As opposed to the infinitive “Comment,” “Sign in,” etc.
- Mordisquitos 3y ago
  That reminds me of a noticeable difference in button UI wording traditions between Spanish and Catalan where the original English uses verbs, for instance Open, Edit, Save and Delete. Specifically, Spanish translations interpret these as representing an impersonal description of the action, and thus the buttons are labelled using the infinitive: Abrir, Editar, Guardar and Borrar. Catalan versions, on the other hand, have interpreted the verbs as instructions aimed at the computer, and translate them in the imperative: Obre, Edita, Desa and Esborra.
noduerme 3y ago
Gosh, yes, I find this style of obtuse labeling of buttons to be really annoying. It's especially prevalent when you're trying to get to API docs on some new framework you're checking out. Like, don't tell me I want to get started. Take me to the docs so I can decide if it's worth my time. On reflection, this progression from function to call to action to obfuscated self-help-ish verbiage seems more like a general trend in marketing at all levels. Obviously, it must work in A/B testing, but I'm not sure it works in the general case. Here in the 2020s I think it serves as a kind of regurgitation of 1960s argle-bargle that's a callback to what's embedded in the brains of the children of boomers who picked up their parents' linguistic preference for out-there-isms to describe sensations of freedom from the old rigid hierarchies of the 1950s. So it's an appeal to nostalgia as much as a form of vaguely insulting corporate-speak.
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  Might be a tangent but trying to do end of tax year stuff when each service hides stuff like invoices behind screens of these kinds of buttons. Godaddy is horrendous: I think I had to click domain.name, manage, taken to a screen upselling me hosting them find some settings, click account, click my domain name again then something else then you get a list of invoices. On the plus side they exist! (as opposed to Amazon third party sellers) and a simple PDF download from there.
  - noduerme 3y ago
    I mean, GoDaddy specifically and smaller hosting providers in general have been a humongous pile of hacks and semi-functional abandoned marketing pushes for 20+ years. They're a master study in surviving by your fingernails, but definitely not in how to build a well-functioning user interface. What's more surprising is how many brand new companies get it totally wrong, when they don't have all that technical debt saddling them and there are plenty of great design examples to choose from.
- atoav 3y ago
  Regarding AB-testing, at which place do you think people enter more doors: In a clear accessible architecture or in an totally obscure maze? More links clicked doesn't mean more people got to where they wanted to go, it could also just mean they had to try every link in order to find the one they looked for. The most important thing to me is a clear structure and a button that takes me ro rhe clear structure. A website should be like a house. Ideally I already see at the entrance how the house is laid out and can decide where to go.
alexalx666 3y ago
I would prefer if references were highlighted using single colour :)
- wardedVibe 3y ago
  It helps if you're on a phone or narrower window, in which case the color is like a separate mark.
JHorse 3y ago
Slightly off topic, but I love the way that blog design uses the right gutter for annotations. Keeps it in context beautifully.
- zem 3y ago
  yes, i'm a big fan of that design too!
- wardedVibe 3y ago
  Best migration of foot notes to the web (though the ones that pop up a banner as a sort of ur tool-tip, or expand into a bubble when clicked on are also decent). Most "footnotes" on webpages are actually end-notes, which is mostly a consequence of the lack of distinct pages. Fitting that a blog seemingly about design gets this right.
- cratermoon 3y ago
  Edward Tufte's sidenotes. https://edwardtufte.github.io/tufte-css/ https://edwardtufte.github.io/tufte-css/ "Sidenotes are like footnotes, except they don’t force the reader to jump their eye to the bottom of the page, but instead display off to the side in the margin."
  - JHorse 3y ago
    Of course it's Tufte. Thanks so much for the link!
- rambambram 3y ago
  On a tangent, if you read the book The 48 laws of Power then you know about all the sidenotes (more like complete side stories) throughout the book. I started reading this book on my smartphone years ago, and it was just an awful reading experience. The real paper book was way more readable, but still very annoying because of the long 'side stories'.
  - fireflash38 3y ago
    Reminds me of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel, tons of footnotes, some of which were their own contained stories. I remember at least one page that was quite literally 3/4ths footnote! Yes, it did occasionally distract from the novel, but I'm the kind of person that doesn't mind reading and re-reading a passage.
jonahx 3y ago
I don't buy the politically laden, existentially fraught spin being sold here.... "Users have to accept the spelled out mantra and change their attitude before accessing the next piece of information." "The user should transform themselves into a “doer,” rather than being considerate, evaluating options" "Before proceeding, users should identify with this new aristocratic class." C'mon. It's just a way to visually emphasize an important next step. Is the text sometimes self-indulgent and annoying? Yeah, it's marketing copy. That's nothing new.
- noduerme 3y ago
  It's infantilizing, though. Compared with marketing copy of old. Much of which can just be laid at the feet of a corporate nanny state that infantilizes everyone. Which is ultimately a political point.
  - paulryanrogers 3y ago
    Can you link to some examples of "marketing copy of old"? I'm curious to know how it differs.
    - noduerme 3y ago
      Oh I mean, everything from the Marlboro man to "Just Do It" to Apple's "Think Different" was basically a corporate hook carefully crafted to be an appeal to individualism - although Apple threaded a needle with respect to exactly whom they chose to glorify as exemplars. The marketing pablum of the past decade that appeals to tribal identity, or a lack of sense of self searching for identity, (socially conscious identity or its opposite number), and which talks down to people, is bad marketing plain and simple. It's also corrosive to a state of affairs in which people learn to take responsibility for their own decisions, as it places the onus or impulse on external structures. I'd much rather hear that I'm a rugged individual for smoking Marlboros than that I'm joining a burgeoning herd by "exploring" some new NodeJS framework. But hey, I was conditioned to reject authority in the age when rejecting authority was genuinely difficult and not a paved road. And my generation's ad agencies had to write campaigns that contended with that, which as deceitful and devious as they were, reflected a reality about our society's impulse to rebuff control which largely no longer exists.
drpixie 3y ago
Ah yes. This is one of the marvels of having browser APIs that want to give you (almost) complete control over the machine, and let you do (almost) anything... Upside: You can do almost anything. Downside: You have to manage (almost) everything yourself. Downside: It lets other people do real dumb/annoying/inconvenient/stupid things, and you get to deal with the result.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  zombo.com
alexhsamuel 3y ago
Sometimes, when faced with button choices "OK" and "Maybe Later", I open devtools and relabel the latter to "Fuck off" before clicking on it. I used to think it futile, but now I understand that this allows me to dismiss the modal without myself being pushed by a button.
- beachy 3y ago
  I find it so offensive being given only two choices - "yes" or "maybe later". I salute your "fuck off" energy.
  - lloeki 3y ago
    Someone should immediately make a cloud to butt like extension out of this.
  - qingcharles 3y ago
    On Temu there is a dialog that asks you "Yes" or "Maybe later." If you click "Maybe later" it pops up again and the only button to dismiss the modal is "Next time".
- fireflash38 3y ago
  Should turn that into a tiny CSS extension that relabels all "maybe later"s into a fuck off.
- _dain_ 3y ago
  https://youtu.be/EiKCK8YNVUk?t=2673 https://youtu.be/EiKCK8YNVUk?t=2673 >I'm sitting here like I'm in an Apple commercial or Square or Swipely or some bullshit tech thing, instead of "OK" I'm clicking "Got it!". Like [obnoxious surfer voice] "Ok, Got it! Got it!". That's how I acknowledge menus in the computer. That's how, when it becomes total Brave New World life, your torturers -- you're gonna have to acknowledge your -- "You've been assigned 10 hours of genital torture." "Ok, Got It!"
keepamovin 3y ago
tricks users into performing work for the system they’re using. Yeah, I mean we have been doing work for these systems. We’re all basically data entry for a giant database that ends up I suppose getting mined for value and maybe producing AI. That was Larry pages Initial goal with Google anyway, his goal was to create an AI not a search engine, and the search engine was simply a means to that, I feel sad for him as seems like openai got there first.
DontchaKnowit 3y ago
I know ux/ui design is super important, but as an outsider, articles like this always seem like insane navel gazing
azubinski 3y ago
Ted Kaczynski would love this headline
layer8 3y ago
The name "Button Pushes You" explains why I hate those.
chrisjj 3y ago
> BPY represents a shift to turning user interfaces into a decision theatre that, by redefining long established elements, tricks users into performing work for the system they’re using. Spot on. A good example is Credit Karma UK's email alerts for credit score rise or fall, offering a button "Find out why". A click doesn't find out why. It lands you on a page of credit record info which might allow you to find out why, with considerable work and upsell-dodging. As here, much BPY is simply false advertising at the UI core.

131 points by john-doe 3y ago

A particularly intriguing (to me) version of this kind of user-centered copy is not uncommon on sites in French and uses first-person verbs: “I accept,” “I start”. As opposed to the infinitive “Comment,” “Sign in,” etc.

Mordisquitos 3y ago
That reminds me of a noticeable difference in button UI wording traditions between Spanish and Catalan where the original English uses verbs, for instance Open, Edit, Save and Delete. Specifically, Spanish translations interpret these as representing an impersonal description of the action, and thus the buttons are labelled using the infinitive: Abrir, Editar, Guardar and Borrar. Catalan versions, on the other hand, have interpreted the verbs as instructions aimed at the computer, and translate them in the imperative: Obre, Edita, Desa and Esborra.

noduerme 3y ago

Gosh, yes, I find this style of obtuse labeling of buttons to be really annoying. It's especially prevalent when you're trying to get to API docs on some new framework you're checking out. Like, don't tell me I want to get started. Take me to the docs so I can decide if it's worth my time. On reflection, this progression from function to call to action to obfuscated self-help-ish verbiage seems more like a general trend in marketing at all levels. Obviously, it must work in A/B testing, but I'm not sure it works in the general case. Here in the 2020s I think it serves as a kind of regurgitation of 1960s argle-bargle that's a callback to what's embedded in the brains of the children of boomers who picked up their parents' linguistic preference for out-there-isms to describe sensations of freedom from the old rigid hierarchies of the 1950s. So it's an appeal to nostalgia as much as a form of vaguely insulting corporate-speak.

quickthrower2 3y ago
Might be a tangent but trying to do end of tax year stuff when each service hides stuff like invoices behind screens of these kinds of buttons. Godaddy is horrendous: I think I had to click domain.name, manage, taken to a screen upselling me hosting them find some settings, click account, click my domain name again then something else then you get a list of invoices. On the plus side they exist! (as opposed to Amazon third party sellers) and a simple PDF download from there.
- noduerme 3y ago
  I mean, GoDaddy specifically and smaller hosting providers in general have been a humongous pile of hacks and semi-functional abandoned marketing pushes for 20+ years. They're a master study in surviving by your fingernails, but definitely not in how to build a well-functioning user interface. What's more surprising is how many brand new companies get it totally wrong, when they don't have all that technical debt saddling them and there are plenty of great design examples to choose from.
atoav 3y ago
Regarding AB-testing, at which place do you think people enter more doors: In a clear accessible architecture or in an totally obscure maze? More links clicked doesn't mean more people got to where they wanted to go, it could also just mean they had to try every link in order to find the one they looked for. The most important thing to me is a clear structure and a button that takes me ro rhe clear structure. A website should be like a house. Ideally I already see at the entrance how the house is laid out and can decide where to go.

alexalx666 3y ago

I would prefer if references were highlighted using single colour :)

wardedVibe 3y ago
It helps if you're on a phone or narrower window, in which case the color is like a separate mark.

JHorse 3y ago

Slightly off topic, but I love the way that blog design uses the right gutter for annotations. Keeps it in context beautifully.

zem 3y ago
yes, i'm a big fan of that design too!
wardedVibe 3y ago
Best migration of foot notes to the web (though the ones that pop up a banner as a sort of ur tool-tip, or expand into a bubble when clicked on are also decent). Most "footnotes" on webpages are actually end-notes, which is mostly a consequence of the lack of distinct pages. Fitting that a blog seemingly about design gets this right.
cratermoon 3y ago
Edward Tufte's sidenotes. https://edwardtufte.github.io/tufte-css/ https://edwardtufte.github.io/tufte-css/ "Sidenotes are like footnotes, except they don’t force the reader to jump their eye to the bottom of the page, but instead display off to the side in the margin."
- JHorse 3y ago
  Of course it's Tufte. Thanks so much for the link!
rambambram 3y ago
On a tangent, if you read the book The 48 laws of Power then you know about all the sidenotes (more like complete side stories) throughout the book. I started reading this book on my smartphone years ago, and it was just an awful reading experience. The real paper book was way more readable, but still very annoying because of the long 'side stories'.
- fireflash38 3y ago
  Reminds me of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel, tons of footnotes, some of which were their own contained stories. I remember at least one page that was quite literally 3/4ths footnote! Yes, it did occasionally distract from the novel, but I'm the kind of person that doesn't mind reading and re-reading a passage.

jonahx 3y ago

I don't buy the politically laden, existentially fraught spin being sold here.... "Users have to accept the spelled out mantra and change their attitude before accessing the next piece of information." "The user should transform themselves into a “doer,” rather than being considerate, evaluating options" "Before proceeding, users should identify with this new aristocratic class." C'mon. It's just a way to visually emphasize an important next step. Is the text sometimes self-indulgent and annoying? Yeah, it's marketing copy. That's nothing new.

noduerme 3y ago
It's infantilizing, though. Compared with marketing copy of old. Much of which can just be laid at the feet of a corporate nanny state that infantilizes everyone. Which is ultimately a political point.
- paulryanrogers 3y ago
  Can you link to some examples of "marketing copy of old"? I'm curious to know how it differs.
  - noduerme 3y ago
    Oh I mean, everything from the Marlboro man to "Just Do It" to Apple's "Think Different" was basically a corporate hook carefully crafted to be an appeal to individualism - although Apple threaded a needle with respect to exactly whom they chose to glorify as exemplars. The marketing pablum of the past decade that appeals to tribal identity, or a lack of sense of self searching for identity, (socially conscious identity or its opposite number), and which talks down to people, is bad marketing plain and simple. It's also corrosive to a state of affairs in which people learn to take responsibility for their own decisions, as it places the onus or impulse on external structures. I'd much rather hear that I'm a rugged individual for smoking Marlboros than that I'm joining a burgeoning herd by "exploring" some new NodeJS framework. But hey, I was conditioned to reject authority in the age when rejecting authority was genuinely difficult and not a paved road. And my generation's ad agencies had to write campaigns that contended with that, which as deceitful and devious as they were, reflected a reality about our society's impulse to rebuff control which largely no longer exists.

drpixie 3y ago

Ah yes. This is one of the marvels of having browser APIs that want to give you (almost) complete control over the machine, and let you do (almost) anything... Upside: You can do almost anything. Downside: You have to manage (almost) everything yourself. Downside: It lets other people do real dumb/annoying/inconvenient/stupid things, and you get to deal with the result.

NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
zombo.com

alexhsamuel 3y ago

Sometimes, when faced with button choices "OK" and "Maybe Later", I open devtools and relabel the latter to "Fuck off" before clicking on it. I used to think it futile, but now I understand that this allows me to dismiss the modal without myself being pushed by a button.

beachy 3y ago
I find it so offensive being given only two choices - "yes" or "maybe later". I salute your "fuck off" energy.
- lloeki 3y ago
  Someone should immediately make a cloud to butt like extension out of this.
- qingcharles 3y ago
  On Temu there is a dialog that asks you "Yes" or "Maybe later." If you click "Maybe later" it pops up again and the only button to dismiss the modal is "Next time".
fireflash38 3y ago
Should turn that into a tiny CSS extension that relabels all "maybe later"s into a fuck off.
_dain_ 3y ago
https://youtu.be/EiKCK8YNVUk?t=2673 https://youtu.be/EiKCK8YNVUk?t=2673 >I'm sitting here like I'm in an Apple commercial or Square or Swipely or some bullshit tech thing, instead of "OK" I'm clicking "Got it!". Like [obnoxious surfer voice] "Ok, Got it! Got it!". That's how I acknowledge menus in the computer. That's how, when it becomes total Brave New World life, your torturers -- you're gonna have to acknowledge your -- "You've been assigned 10 hours of genital torture." "Ok, Got It!"

keepamovin 3y ago

tricks users into performing work for the system they’re using. Yeah, I mean we have been doing work for these systems. We’re all basically data entry for a giant database that ends up I suppose getting mined for value and maybe producing AI. That was Larry pages Initial goal with Google anyway, his goal was to create an AI not a search engine, and the search engine was simply a means to that, I feel sad for him as seems like openai got there first.

DontchaKnowit 3y ago

I know ux/ui design is super important, but as an outsider, articles like this always seem like insane navel gazing

azubinski 3y ago

Ted Kaczynski would love this headline

layer8 3y ago

The name "Button Pushes You" explains why I hate those.

chrisjj 3y ago

> BPY represents a shift to turning user interfaces into a decision theatre that, by redefining long established elements, tricks users into performing work for the system they’re using. Spot on. A good example is Credit Karma UK's email alerts for credit score rise or fall, offering a button "Find out why". A click doesn't find out why. It lands you on a page of credit record info which might allow you to find out why, with considerable work and upsell-dodging. As here, much BPY is simply false advertising at the UI core.