Hot answers tagged social-media
16
To me, this is all about alternatives, providing the "value menu" of things most people would want to say in a tiny comment, in one click.
Provided you have made the alternatives, e.g. "click the +1/awesome/like button!" discoverable and easy, I favor a blocking message like:
We prefer that comments be longer than 15 characters so they add ...
15
I'd say this isn't a dark pattern at all. The simplest definition of a Dark Pattern is design meant to trick people. Now, there can be good tricks too, so Dark Patterns are really about deceiving users into doing something that benefits your business goals but not them.
There's no trickery here. They clearly present what they want you to do (Tweet), how to ...
13
Breadcrumbs Rock!
And I think you have a personal bias against them rather then making a clear observation about their use.
I notice none of the big players (StackExchange, Facebook, Google, YouTube) use breadcrumbs.
StackExchange uses tags. Those are like breadcrumbs, but it's an associated way rather then structural.
Facebook uses AJAX inplace ...
11
Yes, it's a dark pattern, because the website advertises it as free:
But when you follow the link, then you find out it's not quite free - they want you to advertise their product.
So it's a bait-and-switch. It advertises as if it is freeware, makes you psychologically commit by clicking onto "The Bricks" for more info. And then you find out that it's ...
11
I do not think this is a secret design. Actually, this is a principle that may be inherited from newspapers or magazines:
It would be impossible to read articles if they had not that three or four columns layout, just because your eyes would lose on which line you are reading and which is the next to read. This minimizes eyebal movements while reading.
...
8
Well...is it a problem? I forget where I heard this, but there's a story about how everyone assumes those "no dogs" signs are just put up in stores just because they've always been there, it's convention. But really, those signs get put up because someone brought a dog, and it caused problems. To avoid further problems, they banned dogs. Now, maybe they ...
8
Have you considered offering a recommended limit? For instance, if a comment is less than say, 15 characters, upon submitting the comment the user is presented with an alert suggesting that they elaborate on their comment. This will make the user consider the value of their comment, and will hopefully trigger the action of adding more substance.
Always give ...
7
Though I cant speak from any existing research which FB or Google plus must have done with the logic of not enforcing that users have to upload facial pictures, I believe there are three primary reasons :
Users might not be comfortable with posting their picture for personal or privacy concerns and would prefer to use a neutral picture such as a ...
7
As with any legal contract, both sides, including the user, must agree (“assent”) to the terms and conditions offered with the online service in order to create a legally enforceable “agreement.” In addition, a user can demonstrate agreement in a variety of ways, either by words or by deeds, depending on the circumstances. Online, however, the line ...
6
Science: I've read a study last year, saying that the younger generation is unable to differentiate between communication channels: they do remember what did they send to who, but they just can't remember how did they send it.
A quick informal survey on 25-35 year old power users (geeks, hipsters, you know, what friends shall a developer have?) confirmed ...
6
Adding horizontal scrolling to FB is probably not the best idea. But, like most things design, it depends.
In general, horizontal scrolling is:
Bad for Mouse Users
For mouse users, horizontal scrolling can be a jarring & frustrating UX. While nearly all mice have scroll wheels, many don't "lean" left/right, & for the ones that do, being precise ...
6
The problem with customized buttons is that they risk not being recognized if they break key styles and metaphors. In particular, buttons that are not rectangular and do not provide hover states could be perceived as non-interactive.
Otherwise, custom buttons are a good way to give an interface strong branding and a sense of polish. Unstyled (or rather, ...
6
Stylize buttons
Advantages:
Buttons are more consistant with other parts of your design (provided your ui has style)
The overall look and feel is improved (provided your buttons don't look stupid)
Buttons can have more meaning (express different contexts)
Users are very accustomed to styled buttons, as most of the major websites use them : google, ...
6
The best practice here is to display the social media icons in a neutral color, usually grey. This approach is both widely practiced and accepted.
It's worth noting that most of the major social media brands have usage guidelines that explicitly prohibit the above. For example, Facebook's Brand permission center lists the specific brand assets that are ...
5
I would not say it's a dark pattern. Isn't it their's to decide what they would like in return for their offering?
If you think it's bad, why dont you tweet your anger and give them the bad publicity they 'ask' for?
Or, if you really rather not have anyone read about your interest in the resource (which this entry here seems to contradict), you can still ...
5
When the user comes to the Home page, the user does not expect to see the form top left because it's not the most important thing on the website, from the users perspective. uxmovement has a good article about this.
5
A button should look like a button, but beyond that the important thing is that the style the buttons (and all the elements really) fit in with the style of the page/site as a whole. This is the area of visual design or graphic design and involves color theory, typography, principles of contrast, repetition, etc.
Craigslist.org is very utilitarian and ...
5
I think it depends on how you have organized your site's data structure. If your site presents information that is hierarchical in nature then breadcrumbs can help navigate 'up' a level to similar data from a leaf node.
of course, it's possible to organize some data into a hierarchical manner even if it isn't necessary.
Nowadays though, sites are trying ...
4
The technology is there.
I wouldn't be surprised if it continues to evolve in some way. They certainly recgnise the presence of a face and have been able to suggest an identity with some accuracy - providing you can see enough of the face. The technology is impressive in its ability though. Both companies have acquired facial recognition companies in the ...
4
In my experience breadcrumbs are useful on sites that have some depth in the page hierarchy. The trail shows where the user is in the site hierarchy. Not only that, it also reveals nearby possibly-related content. Third, it's good for search engines so they understand where in the site they are, and can show context of search results.
Use of a breadcrumb ...
4
If you need it to start, you need it ALL the time -- none of this "upon launch" nonsense. Not everyone will find your site at the same time, and what's a good intro before will be a good intro later.
The real question you should ask is "Do I need [X] to explain the service?" If so, you're going to need it all along, and it's just a matter of whether or not ...
4
If you're talking about a big pop up as soon as a user loads your site, I would completely advise against it.
Unexpected pop ups associate themselves to bad advertisement practices and would most likely frustrate users.
I would much rather see a well presented header with a "learn about us" button or an introductory video.
4
This is entirely dependent on your target audience.
For example: A career oriented website may only need linkedin or dribbble.
Different social media platforms caters to different types of audiences. It's never a good idea to slap as many social media networks for the sake of it just being there.
You should also keep in mind that in most cases less is ...
4
Yes, you should still provide social sharing options
Here are some of the reason why:
When using a share button on a site, you may not be sharing the same URL that the site appears to have.
For example, if I select 'share' on this page, the URL that I get to share is: http://ux.stackexchange.com/q/38299/4595 (which includes my userID of 4595). But if I ...
3
Usability and getting involved in social media isn't just about 'where to place links'. You need to understand the following:
1. what users want when they come to your site
2. attributes of successful social organisations
Users aren't likely to visit your social media pages because it doesn't tie in with any of the tasks they want to complete at your web ...
3
Well, it's the context that made you feel it's a dark pattern, what i would do, allow everyone to download everything, and ask nicely, "Would you please donate a tweet so more and more people could benefit"?
Now if you allow me to download freely and show me this message afterwords, chances are 70-80% higher that i would tweet and still be happy, it makes ...
3
It depends on your target user's context and past experience. Based on my experience in making icons gray when the rest of a site/app has colour, users relate to the colour gray as being disabled or non-clickable.
A simple and interactive way to improve this is by leveraging your header area more interactively. When the user hovers over the header ...
3
I'll assume your talking about a situation where the number of comments is shown but the comments themselves are hidden (and clicking on the number of comments expands to view the entire thread)
People like to join into an active conversation, if they see an item with 10+ comments (for example) then they are probably going to assume the original post (or ...
3
From an user experience point of view, its hard to determine the impact that a large twitter feed has on your event site since you dont want to it be so obtrusive that it distracts users from the actual focus of the site (which might be registering for the event or informing users about the event.)
However from a conversion process, a constant hashtag feed ...
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