Goblin's Law of Whimsy
blog.goblinapp.com
blog.goblinapp.com
All clear.
Everything’s sorted!
Let’s start something new.
You’re all read.
Here’s a pony.
There! Caught up.
Set your mind to something new.
All done.
The future is yours.
Done and done.
All done.
The world is your oyster.
Salesforce is not a small company, and not one known for whimsy.
There's lots of little details about Discord that make this work, too, from the layperson-readable changelogs written with an informal, friendly tone, to the Discord YouTube channel, which from what I can tell is basically just Discord paying some young people to do whatever they want to transparently market the product to Gen Z in a genuine, non-patronizing way.
I'm of the opinion that Discord has a much better user experience than Slack, and the only reasons I don't campaign to switch my lab over to it are:
a.) Slack has entrenchment/status-quo advantage, and
b.) Slack says it's "for professionals" while Discord targets "normal people", and heaven forbid we not use the product with "professional" stamped on it in our highly "professional" workspace!
TL;DR: I wish Discord would launch a marketing campaign targeted at middle managers saying "professionals use Discord too", I'm pretty sick of Slack at this point.
You could argue that group conversations are best suited for new channels, but I've personally had a lot of value from quick group chats in my experience.
[1] https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/223657667-Grou...
* https://slack.com/help/articles/115000769927-Use-threads-to-...
We use them now and then on the gang group chat, but they don't feel as comfortable as Slack threads. I'm not sure why.
It's a bit weird that you name threads, rather than just replying to a root comment.
Discord also now has a thing called "forums", which is basically a highly mutated channel that works like a bulletin board. People make posts rather than comments, and there is a reply chain off each post. The structure is fundamentally the same as comments and threads, but it's laid out very differently.
We'll have to see how it lasts.
I use Slack, but that's because everyone else uses it.
I'm not especially happy with it. It's pretty buggy.
> For me, the whimsy trend all began with Flow Club. Their tagline is "Feel good getting work done" – that is so against modern hustle culture and American workplace vibes that it's almost jolting.
To me this sounds more like a coping mechanism as are all the other productivity err.. “enhancements” mentioned. If only we made work more jazz hands it’d be better rather than improving the material conditions it’s conducted under.
Similar to gamification it’s taking the wrong lessons.
> When you refresh the page, your Hype Goblin has a new message for you.
I want off.
The "irreverent" attitude is a hallmark of (US) west-coast (dare I say, Silicon Valley) post-hippie culture, which rose in reaction to the more straight-laced East Coast work culture.
The pendulum swings.
(But I guess there's literally only two cities in the world.)
In German, *Dienst ist Dienst, Schnaps ist Schnaps". Work is work, play is play. I get uncomfortable when the line gets blurred because it's rarely in favour of play.
No, this is perfectly resonant with modern American workplace vibes. Being against modern American workplace vibes would be Slack Off And Steal Office Supplies Club.
For example, on this page, the links, the first quote and the image captions don't respect the minimum contrast rules for accessibility. Lots of images don't have an alternative text. Image captions are right-aligned, which could be a style thing, but looks weird. On the good side of things, the performance is good, 95 according to Lighthouse.
The article seems to agree with me, as Henry, the vacuum, is better on a technical level than the vacuum it replaced. When people are using a website, they are trying to do something. I get frustrated by tools that get in my way.
I also think that different people have different degrees of tolerance/liking of whimsical. Flow Club or the Hype Goblin don't resonate with me at all, they alienate me.
My personal preference is simple and clean-looking design, like for example https://www.gov.uk/. It's not cold, but it also doesn't try to pretend that it's a good friend when we don't even know each other.
One company that, to me, does it well, is Beeminder. I think the way I would put it is that through all their documentation, branding and interactions, I feel like they have a genuine intent of building a win/win relationship with me. Nobody is trying to abuse the situation for their own gain, there are clear rules that we both respect, they get some value thanks to me, and I get some value thanks to them. It feels like being in the prisoner's dilemma with someone and knowing they'll cooperate.
I'm not affiliated with them, just a happy client.
Their content guidelines are publicly available, and well worth a read.
Just look up any health condition, and see how the straightforward design and plain language content make you feel.
It's a huge source of inspiration for my own website about German bureaucracy.
Perhaps it's because a lot of the whimsy feels insincere, or comes at the wrong moment. Perhaps it's because I value self-effacing tools. Either way, I'm okay with boring pages.
After the Slack devs finish making their product as performant as a 90's chat app, then they can start adding in silly things. Until then, the "whimsy" just makes me more frustrated at their trash product.
> we tend to read cuteness as evidence of “restricted agency” rather than as evidence of concealed and significant power.
> the childlikeness makes sense when you consider that Yelp depends on us to write reviews, and therefore must, like a fun mom, make chores feel fun too.