Hi Angela, I also had a tough time with the game. The whole interface of the game could be more user intuitive. The buttons are not where they are supposed to be. I think it is an exciting point that you bring up about click baits because, along with click baits, some ads seem to appear at the right time and don’t seem to want to close. It looks like they are playing to the fact that users will take longer to find the close button if they hide it or if it is under the “sponsor” font. As a user, I can’t help but feel sometimes insulted because I think I am pretty tech-savvy, and I can’t close a pop-up.
Looking further into click baits, Yang suggests the strategy is called “forward reference,” which means it has just enough information to pique the readers’ interest to click on the headline (2011). The intention is for that website to collect better statistics, which helps generate advertisement income (Pengnate et al., 2021). As a consumer, I don’t want to waste time reading or interacting with websites that don’t provide me with the information I seek. I’m sure others would feel frustrated when they click on a link, hoping that they would find out more from the headline, but as a result, the content is irrelevant compared to the headline. I find it interesting that Woolgar suggests the game was trying to configure the user (1990), but users have come a long way that it is hard to configure users to a new way of using technology. Yet, we still fall for click baits from time to time. Is there a better way of doing advertisements that won’t frustrate users? There must be a way of doing advertisements that allow users to click on links naturally.
Reference:
Pengnate, S. F., Chen, J., & Young, A. (2021). Effects of Clickbait Headlines on User Responses: An Empirical Investigation. Journal of International Technology and Information Management, 30(3), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.58729/1941-6679.1440
Woolgar, S. (1990). Configuring the User: The Case of Usability Trials. The Sociological Review, 38(1_suppl), 58–99. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954x.1990.tb03349.x
Yang, Y. (2011). A cognitive interpretation of discourse deixis. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 1(2), 128-135.
