Task 10: Attention Economy

I have taken the graphic user interface of websites for granted for my entire existence. I have never been so frustrated and on the verge of quitting with an online website in my entire history of using the worldwide web. Initially I fell for the large green No, then the terms and conditions I usually never read and I didn’t this time therefore it took me a good three minutes to slowly scroll to the bottom. I then clicked reset and had to do it again but this time I saw the ALT symbol and everything went smoother. 

Constantly throughout the activity I was bombarded with what was coined by Harry Brignull (2010) as evil web design. Even the alt symbol the terms and conditions mentioned to NOT press it even though it instantly took you to the bottom to agree. The boxes to be checked often used double negatives that were counter intuitive and even the help box would insert words to interrupt your question. I was stuck for nearly a minute the first time the timer popped up at the 1 minute mark and the design by the web designer to make the close sign hidden  using the copyright meant I couldn’t progress. Nothing about the User Inyerface website is made to assist the user but rather apt to its name it is very much ‘in your face’ trying to create problems. 

Through the nine minutes I spent trying to complete a simple four part ‘account creation’ on User Inyerface I was driven to a negative emotion simply through poor or perhaps intended GUI. Yet the applications and websites we use often have seamless GUI’s and make using them an enjoyable and at times addictive process. Yet building on Harris’ (2017) TED talk on how programmers can create timelines to best keep their users on their websites longer. It shows how easy it is for users to go down the rabbit hole and into echo chambers since they were just one click away from a similar thought. Now what if the programmers made a certain timeline difficult to access in a GUI format? Unfortunately most educational programs and applications for learning are less funded than these large tech companies therefore although their applications are educational their GUI’s are simple or clunky. Most evident are the PHeT simulations which are excellent for labs but due to their GUI they make students think they are working on 20 year old simulations even though many of them may have just been created this past year. 

For every evil web designer we will need a good web designer to help support these educational programs, frustration drives away students from learning and lowering these barriers will lead to more equitable success. 

References:

Brignull, H. (2011). Dark patterns: Deception vs. honesty in UI design.  A List Apart, 338.

Harris, T. (2017). How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day [Video]. TED.