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The real problem is industry-wide adoption of metrics-driven design. When I studied cognitive science, the method we employed for HCI was User Centered System

by mrshoe 3y ago

The real problem is industry-wide adoption of metrics-driven design. When I studied cognitive science, the method we employed for HCI was User Centered System Design. Granted, this was a backronym for UCSD, but the point remains — design should be user-centered, not metrics-driven. When I launch Netflix, it is abundantly clear to me that their design is driven by their metrics. What I want to see at the top is my “continue watching” shows — 99% of the time I just want to watch the next episode of a show that I’m already watching. Instead, they show me row upon row of shows that I have never watched. Their metrics prove to them that getting me hooked on new shows will increase my engagement and increase the amount of time I spend in their app. Guess what? As a user, those are not my goals! Their UI is effectively one big advertisement for Netflix itself. Wonderful. Unfortunately, virtually all tech companies have accepted metrics-driven design as conventional wisdom at this point. Run an A/B test and see which button treatment performs better, based on the metrics the company cares about — not what the user cares about. One outlier here is Apple. They do not design based on experiments and metrics. And the Apple TV app does in fact display the shows I am already watching as the top row. Go figure.

egonschiele 3y ago
I agree with everything except the last bit. I have purchases on Apple TV, and I'm not a subscriber, but when I launch the app, all I see is subscriber-only content. Apple Music is similar.
brap 3y ago
You assume that your goals are aligned with the company’s goals. They’re not. There is no “problem”, it’s all working as intended. From the company’s point of view, they actually are doing the right thing. They’re making money (which, I’d argue, is ultimately a good thing for everyone involved). Netflix and Apple are no different, the goal is always $$, Apple just sells different things.
- JohnMakin 3y ago
  No, he's saying the exact opposite - that the company's revenue-driven goals and the user's goals are not in alignment. It is definitely possible for those things to be in alignment, that's how products have worked for the majority of modern human history.
  - mastema 3y ago
    I think the broader point is that the User's goals and Capitalism's goals are not in alignment and the company, who is caught in the middle, has an obvious and legally required option to choose if they are shareholder owned. The user loses this fight every time.
  - ibbih 3y ago
    It's a bit more complex than that right? If no part of the user wanted this, it wouldn't drive up engagement. Clearly it causes me to use the product more. Companies can try to optimize for stuff like "satisfaction after using the product" but it's genuinely much harder -- and not tying work to business outcomes is not scalable.
    - bluGill 3y ago
      Most drug addicts don't want to be addicted, they just want the high. Most video watchers want to continue their current shows, but if you make it easy they will get addicted to shows they didn't know they liked yet. People get on facebook for their friends, and then the infinite scrolling keeps them on long past when they have seen almost everything their friends have done.
JohnMakin 3y ago
This brings to mind my experience as an early facebook adopter (when it was still college email invite-only), to some point a while ago when they went from a chronological timeline/feed to a "curated" one. Users overwhelmingly did not want or like this, because the main use of facebook at that time was to connect and chat with people you knew in real life. However, that does not drive ads as well as what exists currently, so here we go. If users were pickier about what they consume things would probably be better - that's also an issue (and I admit I am part of the problem). I can't even remember the last time I saw a close friend's post on my feed.
- hinkley 3y ago
  Welcome to enshitification.
  - revscat 3y ago
    This seems to be almost synonymous with metrics-driven design.
- lowbloodsugar 3y ago
  >I can't even remember the last time I saw a close friend's post on my feed. It’s probably because they aren’t on Facebook any more.
- bluGill 3y ago
  I have found a hack around facebook that partially works: remove yourself from all groups. So only friends are in your feed. Then every time a friend shares something from one of their group go hit "block all from [group]". Facebook now has less junk to show me as I've blocked most of it, and so I see my friends. I've also set a rule that when I block two groups I'm done for the session. Anytime I share something on Facebook I make sure the privacy settings is "friends of those tags only" - if I'd want more or less than that it is either too private to share at all, or it should be on a better public forum. I hope more of you start doing the same. There is value in a Facebook type private place to communicate with friends and family (this need not be facebook, but that is where my friends are), and everything else clutters it. The more people who follow similar rules to me the more likely Facebook is to notice in their metrics that people only want Facebook for personal friends, hopefully they adjust to enable that better.
nelblu 3y ago
For netflix : I only watch it on my browser (my TV is basically a monitor connected to a PC), and the way I work around is by having a bookmark : https://www.netflix.com/browse/continue-watching https://www.netflix.com/browse/continue-watching Problem solved! (well until netflix starts blocking that too, in that case I might as well delete their membership)
- Hizonner 3y ago
  That kind of criminal behavior on your part is why Netflix wants you to use the app, you lowlife. How dare you?
agumonkey 3y ago
Do these fields care about depth and worth-done efforts from a user ? this decade is about giving everything for free, consumption flow effortlessly, which is obvious a good point to aim, but I remember the things I liked the most are those which made me work a little to make complex things. And I can't find recent advances on this terrain.
pwatsonwailes 3y ago
Apple absolutely does do this. I have first hand knowledge of doing it for them.
- 9dev 3y ago
  Sounds like something you probably should not be talking about on the internet with your real name?
  - pwatsonwailes 3y ago
    I'm allowed to say that much. I know my NDAs very well.
cyanydeez 3y ago
What you describe is the capitalist perpetual September. Long term you is less valuable than short term you.
dgudkov 3y ago
The real problem is big-money-driven design. Big-money stakeholders don't care about non-measurable things like user experience or user well-being. Big money thinks finance, and finance is always metrics, so everything else becomes metrics too. A brilliant essay.
hinkley 3y ago
Worse, they loop through when you scroll horizontally and replace the thumbnails with new icons for the same shows, so you lose track of whether you’ve wrapped around or not. I’ve been waiting for the day when we wake up and realize how cynical and impersonal the world of A/B testing is and consumers insist on better treatment.
gnyman 3y ago
Yes, and not only design, it's metrics-driven everything. And often the metrics can be counter productive in the long term, but by then people have collected their bonuses, promotions or left the company. Here is a example I encountered from few years back where Google Ads was loading slower then the search and ended up replacing the first result just when you were about to click it. https://twitter.com/gnyman/status/1257239940309622784 https://twitter.com/gnyman/status/1257239940309622784 If it was intentional or not I don't know, but I recall that this persisted for many months before being fixed. I think it's obvious (but maybe I'm wrong) that accidentally clicking on ads is not what google wants, long term. As that won't get any real results for the advertiser. Which in turn reduces their interest to spend. But short term I bet Google made a lot of buck on this. Either way, maybe it's unavoidable in a capitalistic world, it's not like non-software companies were driven by a consumer happiness score before either. The reason it feels so bad is just that a lot of us have been here during the growth phase when end-user happiness is a more important metric.
Wowfunhappy 3y ago
> Their metrics prove to them that getting me hooked on new shows will increase my engagement and increase the amount of time I spend in their app. Guess what? As a user, those are not my goals! But here's what I find odd about Netflix. Up until extremely recently—and even now for most customers—Netflix did not and does not display ads. Netflix makes money from subscription fees, which means they get the same amount of money whether you spend zero, 10, 50, or 100 hours per month in their app, as long as you keep paying for your subscription. Netflix has apparently concluded that users who spend more time in their app are more likely to remain subscribed. I wonder why that is, or if Netflix is even correct. I would think that for most users, the quality of their time matters more than the quantity.
- apetresc 3y ago
  Indeed, given the relatively high cost of streaming high-quality video, you'd think Netflix makes substantially more money from the 0-hour viewer compared to the 100-hour viewer.
  - revscat 3y ago
    Unless they’re selling user data.
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    Maybe they prefer dominance over profit. Make less money but maximise revenue. They want you to spend 100 hours a month not 50 even if you pay the same so that you are not spending time at a competitor such as Disney or hanging out with friends at a bar. Eventually they may go like Amazon with infinite upsells and hunt for whales.
    - Wowfunhappy 3y ago
      How could this be good business?
      - quickthrower2 3y ago
iaaan 3y ago
Notably, Plex (a free media server) also displays "continue watching" stuff at the top.
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by mrshoe 3y ago

egonschiele 3y ago

I agree with everything except the last bit. I have purchases on Apple TV, and I'm not a subscriber, but when I launch the app, all I see is subscriber-only content. Apple Music is similar.

brap 3y ago

You assume that your goals are aligned with the company’s goals. They’re not. There is no “problem”, it’s all working as intended. From the company’s point of view, they actually are doing the right thing. They’re making money (which, I’d argue, is ultimately a good thing for everyone involved). Netflix and Apple are no different, the goal is always $$, Apple just sells different things.

JohnMakin 3y ago
No, he's saying the exact opposite - that the company's revenue-driven goals and the user's goals are not in alignment. It is definitely possible for those things to be in alignment, that's how products have worked for the majority of modern human history.
- mastema 3y ago
  I think the broader point is that the User's goals and Capitalism's goals are not in alignment and the company, who is caught in the middle, has an obvious and legally required option to choose if they are shareholder owned. The user loses this fight every time.
- ibbih 3y ago
  It's a bit more complex than that right? If no part of the user wanted this, it wouldn't drive up engagement. Clearly it causes me to use the product more. Companies can try to optimize for stuff like "satisfaction after using the product" but it's genuinely much harder -- and not tying work to business outcomes is not scalable.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    Most drug addicts don't want to be addicted, they just want the high. Most video watchers want to continue their current shows, but if you make it easy they will get addicted to shows they didn't know they liked yet. People get on facebook for their friends, and then the infinite scrolling keeps them on long past when they have seen almost everything their friends have done.

JohnMakin 3y ago

This brings to mind my experience as an early facebook adopter (when it was still college email invite-only), to some point a while ago when they went from a chronological timeline/feed to a "curated" one. Users overwhelmingly did not want or like this, because the main use of facebook at that time was to connect and chat with people you knew in real life. However, that does not drive ads as well as what exists currently, so here we go. If users were pickier about what they consume things would probably be better - that's also an issue (and I admit I am part of the problem). I can't even remember the last time I saw a close friend's post on my feed.

hinkley 3y ago
Welcome to enshitification.
- revscat 3y ago
  This seems to be almost synonymous with metrics-driven design.
lowbloodsugar 3y ago
>I can't even remember the last time I saw a close friend's post on my feed. It’s probably because they aren’t on Facebook any more.
bluGill 3y ago
I have found a hack around facebook that partially works: remove yourself from all groups. So only friends are in your feed. Then every time a friend shares something from one of their group go hit "block all from [group]". Facebook now has less junk to show me as I've blocked most of it, and so I see my friends. I've also set a rule that when I block two groups I'm done for the session. Anytime I share something on Facebook I make sure the privacy settings is "friends of those tags only" - if I'd want more or less than that it is either too private to share at all, or it should be on a better public forum. I hope more of you start doing the same. There is value in a Facebook type private place to communicate with friends and family (this need not be facebook, but that is where my friends are), and everything else clutters it. The more people who follow similar rules to me the more likely Facebook is to notice in their metrics that people only want Facebook for personal friends, hopefully they adjust to enable that better.

nelblu 3y ago

For netflix : I only watch it on my browser (my TV is basically a monitor connected to a PC), and the way I work around is by having a bookmark : https://www.netflix.com/browse/continue-watching https://www.netflix.com/browse/continue-watching Problem solved! (well until netflix starts blocking that too, in that case I might as well delete their membership)

Hizonner 3y ago
That kind of criminal behavior on your part is why Netflix wants you to use the app, you lowlife. How dare you?

agumonkey 3y ago

Do these fields care about depth and worth-done efforts from a user ? this decade is about giving everything for free, consumption flow effortlessly, which is obvious a good point to aim, but I remember the things I liked the most are those which made me work a little to make complex things. And I can't find recent advances on this terrain.

pwatsonwailes 3y ago

Apple absolutely does do this. I have first hand knowledge of doing it for them.

9dev 3y ago
Sounds like something you probably should not be talking about on the internet with your real name?
- pwatsonwailes 3y ago
  I'm allowed to say that much. I know my NDAs very well.

cyanydeez 3y ago

What you describe is the capitalist perpetual September. Long term you is less valuable than short term you.

dgudkov 3y ago

The real problem is big-money-driven design. Big-money stakeholders don't care about non-measurable things like user experience or user well-being. Big money thinks finance, and finance is always metrics, so everything else becomes metrics too. A brilliant essay.

hinkley 3y ago

Worse, they loop through when you scroll horizontally and replace the thumbnails with new icons for the same shows, so you lose track of whether you’ve wrapped around or not. I’ve been waiting for the day when we wake up and realize how cynical and impersonal the world of A/B testing is and consumers insist on better treatment.

gnyman 3y ago

Yes, and not only design, it's metrics-driven everything. And often the metrics can be counter productive in the long term, but by then people have collected their bonuses, promotions or left the company. Here is a example I encountered from few years back where Google Ads was loading slower then the search and ended up replacing the first result just when you were about to click it. https://twitter.com/gnyman/status/1257239940309622784 https://twitter.com/gnyman/status/1257239940309622784 If it was intentional or not I don't know, but I recall that this persisted for many months before being fixed. I think it's obvious (but maybe I'm wrong) that accidentally clicking on ads is not what google wants, long term. As that won't get any real results for the advertiser. Which in turn reduces their interest to spend. But short term I bet Google made a lot of buck on this. Either way, maybe it's unavoidable in a capitalistic world, it's not like non-software companies were driven by a consumer happiness score before either. The reason it feels so bad is just that a lot of us have been here during the growth phase when end-user happiness is a more important metric.

Wowfunhappy 3y ago

> Their metrics prove to them that getting me hooked on new shows will increase my engagement and increase the amount of time I spend in their app. Guess what? As a user, those are not my goals! But here's what I find odd about Netflix. Up until extremely recently—and even now for most customers—Netflix did not and does not display ads. Netflix makes money from subscription fees, which means they get the same amount of money whether you spend zero, 10, 50, or 100 hours per month in their app, as long as you keep paying for your subscription. Netflix has apparently concluded that users who spend more time in their app are more likely to remain subscribed. I wonder why that is, or if Netflix is even correct. I would think that for most users, the quality of their time matters more than the quantity.

apetresc 3y ago
Indeed, given the relatively high cost of streaming high-quality video, you'd think Netflix makes substantially more money from the 0-hour viewer compared to the 100-hour viewer.
- revscat 3y ago
  Unless they’re selling user data.
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  Maybe they prefer dominance over profit. Make less money but maximise revenue. They want you to spend 100 hours a month not 50 even if you pay the same so that you are not spending time at a competitor such as Disney or hanging out with friends at a bar. Eventually they may go like Amazon with infinite upsells and hunt for whales.
  - Wowfunhappy 3y ago
    How could this be good business?
    - quickthrower2 3y ago

iaaan 3y ago

Notably, Plex (a free media server) also displays "continue watching" stuff at the top.

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