
Making UX Choices Based on What You Hate About the Internet - davidhoos
https://thegood.com/insights/making-ux-choices-based-on-what-you-hate-about-the-internet/
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jbob2000
Ultimately, everyone wants to make user experiences like this. But along the
way, some short-sighted MBA or marketer gets involved, who's job success is
measured by email subscription numbers or another metric, and the whole thing
gets messed up.

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fighting
But how can you show how proactive you have been in your quarterly performance
review without testing out various user funnel strategies, optimizing
conversion rates and paying consultants for A/B tests?

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jonmacdonald
You mention tactics. Instead, focus on metrics trends. Optimizing the customer
experience may include the tactics you've mentioned, but if you walk into a
review and show that your customers are happier (net promoter score, or clips
from user testing, for example), conversion rates are up, and online revenues
are up... that would be pretty darn good evidence of a job well done.

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fighting
In reality, the reviewer is thinking, so what have you done for me lately?

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gradi3nt
So CKs brilliant talent for comedy had not so much to do with his ticket
sales, eh?

That sounds like a sales pitch. Oh wait, scroll to the bottom, this is a sales
pitch. Classic tactic of making the incredible sound easy, just pay a small
fee!

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dkrich
Yeah, and there's this:

 _There is no huge secret to conversion rate optimization, or consumer
experience optimization. It’s quite simple, really: put your consumer’s needs
first and you’ll double your online sales..._

So it's that black and white, is it? You can apply a binary assessment to
something as complex as "putting a consumer's needs first?" Even if you could,
you still have the issue of pricing models, software terms and more to
consider which may be necessary to protect your business and your bottom line,
but do nothing to further the consumer's interests.

Louis CK is selling one product (a highly popular one) on his site at a single
price point. I don't find the fact that he sold out in one day to be mind-
blowing or applicable to most businesses. Ticketmaster sells out shows
everyday and their customer experience is terrible. The underlying product is
what gets the sales, not the website.

The reason sites like Amazon hire MBA's by the hundreds is because those sites
have countless pricing dimensions that have to be analyzed continuously in
order to maximize conversion rates, profit, and inventory. It sounds good at
first pass to think just throwing out all the features on every website that
aren't consumer-centric in order to sell out is a simple workable strategy
because a popular comedian selling an e-product did it, but then after you
think about it for a couple minutes you realize it's pretty useless advice.

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threefour
This agency takes content from Howard Stern about Louis CK's site in order to
promote themselves, and then doesn't link to Louis CK's site so we can see for
ourselves what it's all about.

That's what I hate about the Internet.

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labster
[https://louisck.net/](https://louisck.net/)

Comments that don't bother to Google for missing information in the article:
That's what I hate about the internet. :)

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akubera
The point isn't the commenter /(doesn't know how to|couldn't)/ find the site;
it's the fact that the web was built to link relevant pages together, and this
page (and many) fail to do that, despite it being an article _about_ a
particular website/page.

What if the site was actually louisck-the-new-site.net? Hopefully google has
indexed it, but why should you depend on that?

This behavior increases the difficulty of indexing the web from "count links
to page X" to some a deep learning of all article content - and that deep
learning relies purely on what's already been indexed.

The only external links are to their social media pages, the rest of their
links are to their own articles. Is there a word for websites like that?

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labster
In wiki parlance, we call sets of pages that only link to their own internal
information "walled gardens".

In normal people terms, we call them "bad websites". This page was good at
being an article, but bad at being a website. Which is why I included the link
above, to help humans and algorithms make links to the appropriate
information.

But the benefit of only linking to your internal information is more page
views and therefore ad revenue. At least in the short term, until users find
the good websites. One more way advertising is ruining the world wide web.

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defenestration
A brilliant contradiction I must say.

Starting the article with: 'I made it the easiest thing you could possibly
buy, you don’t have to join anything. All the things I hate about going on the
Internet and trying to watch stuff – I stripped all of that away.'.

And ending with: 'The Stuck Score™ benchmarks your site in seven key problem
areas so that you can immediately improve your website performance. How much
revenue are you leaving on the table? Find out for free.

Get your free Stuck Score™ today. [ Submit your name and email here ]'

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jonmacdonald
I see your point, but like Louis CK, if you see the value in the content
provided, we think you'd be willing to give more information: in Louis CK's
case subscribing to an email when making a purchase, in our case getting a
Stuck Score™ that can provide even more value.

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defenestration
Fair enough and thumbs up for actively replying. In my view you could improve
my customer experience by reducing the feeling of getting into a sales funnel.

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richard_mcp
The article makes it seem like fans bought his ticket because it was easy. I
wonder how many tickets he sold due to his site decisions and how many he sold
due to his popularity.

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roywiggins
The number of people willing to wade through the terrible experience of
ordering tickets online to see their favorite artists does suggest that the
first rule is, be popular.

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jonmacdonald
But the bigger point here is... why make it a terrible experience if you don't
need to? Or purpose at The Good is to remove all the bad experiences from the
web until only the good remain. That's why I shared this inspirational
example.

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Mendenhall
Don't go telling everyone that, I will be out of a job :)

Clients "Did you get a chance to look at our website?"

Me "No, I closed browser as soon as I seen annoying popup because I don't have
time for that"

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exolymph
Good on Louis CK for avoiding dark patterns, but he's a highly differentiated,
beloved artist. The special would have sold spectacularly regardless.

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davidhoos
I don't think it needs to be an either/or. Why not both/and. Aim to have both
a solid user focused experience and to be a highly differentiated, beloved
brand.

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exolymph
Of course it doesn't need to be an either-or thing, but the article posits
that him selling well was connected to his website design, which is basically
speculation.

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dexwiz
I remember buying that special for $5, and it was by far the easiest thing I
have bought on the internet. It probably did help that his name was already a
household brand in the comedy world.

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leeoniya
> It probably did help that his name was already a household brand in the
> comedy world.

This is something that the author somehow overlooks. Louis CK does not need to
"sell" to you, you're basically just buying. There's a lot of sales fluff that
most other websites need to go through because either the product is not
unique (a lot of cheaper/better competition) or the product is not dead
simple.

While the general premise is correct, it will fail to produce such drastic
results for products which actually must compete in the marketplace. There is
no "other" Louis CK, and I think this applies to most artists in general.
These ticketmaster sweeteners/lock-ins are not needed; the venues/performers
likely only use them for convenience and as a promotional and organizational
turn-key solution.

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jonmacdonald
Agreed that I bet that helped get people to his site to purchase the video
download. But I think it is equally important to note that he left the
subscribe box unchecked during this purchase, and he still had enough people
re-check it that he was able to sell out his live shows ONLY through this
email.

That is what I am trying to convey here – that focusing on a great customer
experience can be an aid in driving sales, not a deterrent.

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maneesh
isn't it logical that you would get rid of your super obtrusive scrolling opt-
in box on every page then

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jonmacdonald
I'd argue that we're offering the option to opt-in, not forcing you to.

We're not doing the even more super obtrusive pop-over window, which would be
interrupting your reading.

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tsunamifury
Have a good product people want, the rest is mostly sub-optimization.

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jjn2009
Without using something like an A/B test it would be impossible to determine
what kind of effect this has on conversion rate. I don't doubt removing
friction helps get users to make a purchase but "Hey I just did these few
things and this time we had tickets sell really fast!" is not a correct
approach to optimizing conversion rate, there could have been any number of
factors which were not accounted for here as to why tickets sold so fast.

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potatolicious
I used to be a firm believer in A/B tests, but nowadays I feel that our over-
reliance on it has created this awful internet dystopia.

Don't get me wrong - A/B tests are valuable, but I've worked at many companies
that have relied on them to a fault.

For one thing, there are _very_ important metrics that are hard to measure,
and many are impossible to measure in relation to a specific website change.
User happiness for example is a nearly impossible metric to measure, and
correlating it to specific website experiments is pretty much right out.

Many factors also have time-delayed effects, which is nearly impossible to
correlate back to source causes, and IMO why we see so many companies achieve
short-term conversion gains at enormous expense to brand perception and
customer satisfaction.

In many ways companies that over-focus on A/B testing miss the forest for the
trees - it doesn't necessarily create the best possible product, it often
instead ends up creating the least shitty version of a bad product.

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jonmacdonald
Here here!

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Mendenhall
I pretty much agree as someone who does UX UI and design for some of the
biggest companies around.

I look at something and if it annoys me I know it annoys a lot of people out
there, then I rip it out or figure out a way that is less annoying.

Rule 1-10 don't annoy people with your website Rule 11-100 keep it simple

I don't suggest my personal approach for everyone because there is no
accounting for taste, and I am way more cynical and easily annoyed than most
so that helps me in this field lol

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davidhoos
Right?

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anc84
OP is a spammer just here to boost their website.

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davidhoos
What is OP?

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jmhobbs
Original Poster (you)

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RankingMember
Just went to look at his tour dates and the "buy tickets" links seem to almost
all link to...ticketmaster.com. :(

I clicked on the one for the venue closest to me and Ticketmaster forces me to
choose from of list of scheduled events to see seating for, and Louie's not
even on the list. Classic ticketmaster.

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bborud
Holy shit that article was badly written. I clicked on it to learn and what I
got was a repetitive, confused mess.

