Irenes (many)the longer you spend using software that does not make deliberate efforts to run your inner peace through a wood chipper in order to monetize it
the more jarring it is using something that does
when commercial OSes insist on putting the weather on the lock screen whether we ask for it or not, that is the company advertising its own services to us, that is the company clamoring for our attention and telling us we need to be thinking about the weather rather than just quietly existing
people who are used to putting up with that one don't even recognize it as an intrusion, and when we call it an "advertisement" without explanation, people are confused. that's fair enough, but from outside, from a baseline position of not giving up any of our internal calm and quiet to external corporate demands for it, it stands out, it's obvious
we do suspect that our actions on this topic come off as extreme, but, like
we do not use things that have ads in them. it is not worth it to us. it's just completely not worth it, there is no way that it is ever going to be an experience we're glad to have had. we're glad that it's not a big deal to other people, but we have the self respect and self awareness that it is a big deal to us
similarly, we are also highly skeptical of using things that change their layout completely every six months because somebody needed to justify their promotion so they did a redesign. that is not respectful of our time, and it is not worth it. none of the things that programs like that can do for us, are worth devoting part of our brain to understanding how they work only to have the rug pulled out from us just when we're starting to get it.
we prefer software that stays where we put it, that only changes when we ask it to change. we also prefer software that doesn't demand attention, that waits until we choose to pay attention to it and then only tells us the answers to the things we asked rather than trying to tell us lots of other stuff for its own ends.
again, we're sure this comes off as extreme to someone. we can't help that, but we're not doing it for anyone else's sake, we're doing it for our own. we're quite serious about the "inner peace" framing.
Mauser II@ireneista
Aside from "monetizing" or "redesigning for redesign's sake":
If the main thought of a software was "how can we make things great for the user", it wouldn't stand permanently in the way of what the user tries to do at the moment.
One of the biggest symptoms for "not caring about the user in the slightest" for me is message boxes.
They are always in the way, they don't belong in a UI and they are just a cheap escape hatch for the lazy developer.
Other obvious lack of respect: Little "hey, look at those new features" boxes, highlights, guides or whatever.
It's great if a company or developer has some new ideas for functionalities etc. They can tell the user all about it in the release notes. It does not belong in the UI itself.
✧✦Catherine✦✧@wakame @ireneista i actually like these things (and hate reading release notes)
@whitequark @wakame needs do differ...