Ads have ruined company priorities

It used to be that we design for the best possible experience. But then “free” came around. Nothing is really free, however – you may not pay for it but you do with your data to improve ad targeting.

As a result, the incentives for the creators of these products is not to create a better experience for you. It’s to keep you glued so they can increase ad revenue.

Naysayers will say that keeping you glued is not a bad thing. You wouldn’t be glued to something you don’t like. That’s true, though it’s true the way folks prefer sugar to vegetables.

Ad-based businesses drive designers down one path and one path only: keep people on the platform and looking at ads. It doesn’t matter if there’s a better experience that requires less (or no) time using your interface.

“When Twitter’s powerful tools allowed an increasing number of third-party services to elegantly extend Twitter’s platform, for example, analysts reacted with concern. Investment arms expressed caution because a quicker route to getting things done allowed 14 percent of Twitter’s user base to avoid strategy ad placement”

Krishna shares a powerful anecdote of a Facebook News Feed redesign which resulted in users being too efficient. The experience was too good! Users were able to get in and out of Facebook quickly. They reverted the design in order to keep folks on Facebook for longer.

“As a Citigroup analyst boasted about Facebook before it went public, “It has a greater potential value than Googl because it was beating the other giant in ‘time spent.’” For many of these companies, it’s not necessarily about fewer or more ads, it’s about interface addiction.”

Krishna is at his best here, laying out his manifesto.

“I believe our job as designers is to give you what you need as quickly and as elegantly as we can. Our job as designers is to take you away from technology. Our job as designers is to make you smile. To make a profit by providing you something that enhances your life in the most seamless and wonderful way possible.

The path of addiction for profit pursued by some of our largest technology companies and encouraged by their investors is not good for us, or the next generation. Some of these services have become more addictive than alcohol or cigarettes, and can make us feel worse about ourselves even when we use them.

It’s time for us to pursue a new course.”

Golden Krishna • Notes on The Best Interface is No Interface