I don’t want to sign up for your newsletter (2018)
katsnyderux.com
katsnyderux.com
I actually sent a strongly worded email to MIT Tech Review yesterday (there was an article on the front page) because they have 3 separate popups on first-entry to the site. Like, wtf? Have you not heard of timed popups (such as those that trigger past a certain element), or popups that don't make you want to immediately close the site?
It's so pathetic and such a 2005 trend, it's hard to believe people still do it in the most annoying way possible.
Feels like you'd get a lot of dead subscribers and opt outs (and spam reports), not an active community or follower base.
Yeah, your clients expected you to be the expert, and honestly apply that expertise for their interests. In other words, they expect you to validate those numbers; if they wanted somebody they need to second-guess, they would just take opinions for free from a random web forum.
The people high up expected somebody on your department to validate your numbers and invest on the things that most benefited the company. For an in-house team, it's not rare that this expectation is so strong that nobody ever challenges it. So it's also not very rare that one team or another coast on it and don't deliver much value.
Obviously, none of that is ideal. But that doesn't stop it from being common. Anyway, if your department never checked anything, somebody up from you was doing a bad job, because it's literally their job, not really the random VP (but it is the VP's job to discover if the dept was doing their job) and really not of any other department head.
Email pop ups are a very effective short term newsletter growth tool.
(function () {
var i, elements = document.querySelectorAll('body *');
for (i = 0; i < elements.length; i++) {
if (getComputedStyle(elements[i]).position === 'fixed') {
elements[i].parentNode.removeChild(elements[i]);
}
}
})(); document.querySelectorAll('body *').forEach(tag =>
getComputedStyle(tag).position === 'fixed' && tag.remove()
);
- you can use `remove()` directly on the DOM node you want to remove
At least let them having to handle junk data.
Maybe people subscribing to that newsletter are the most interested and you shouldn't bother everyone with it for the sake of few subscriptions.
It's like an often quoted thing; Linus Tech Tips was criticized for having "reaction faces" in their thumbnails, and they said that while they don't like it, they had the numbers to back up that it was effective... to boost numbers and therefore revenue, I guess.
In the case of my current employer, they focus on NPS, Net Promoter Score, a wooly abbreviation [0] indicating how good they are doing based on the question "how likely are you to recommend X to a friend". Number goes down in case of outages, number goes up in case of good service. That's the main thing they focus on, not individual stories, users, whatever, but NPS.
In my personal time, I own an ecommerce company, and there it absolutely makes sense to be purely numbers-focused. The thing that matters is getting someone to buy, and getting an email address is almost universally the second most important thing, because it's the best road to getting someone to buy.
But I guess I am only one and the many likes these faces for some reason.
It is also probably a failure of optimization where one started doing it and made a tiny bit more money than the other. Then the others had to do it to keep up, now all have the sucky faces and they all make the same amount as before while doing something they don't really like.
The things is that your numbers might go up and your audience might grow, but these tactics work because you are appealing to the trend at the time. People see stupid face and click and the trending metric goes up and you get more hits -- same thing with user interactions on comments.
However, two months later when someone is trying to find a video about how to hook up their AMD CPU De-hot-an-izer to a radiator and they see Linus making a Macauly Culkin Home Alone face they pass, and you lose a potential actual long-term subscriber.
Also, people with standards tend to be really happy when those standards are at least partially met, and tell other people about it. On the flip side, people looking for their youtube 'stupid faces video fix' tend to forget what they saw 10 minutes later.
Does it work? In some areas, yeah, I believe it does. But most are cargo-culting a dark pattern that loses them what might otherwise be excellent customers, sold by people trying to justify their marketing position, and companies whose business incentives are perfectly aligned with selling snake oil.
This particular dark pattern is nasty and unfortunately common across more than just newsletter popups. It doesn’t trip me up but I could see how others could fall victim to it.
If opting out is so strongly preferred by users that you have to try to hide the opt-out button for users to do anything else, maybe you shouldn’t be trying to do the thing they’re so adamantly opting out of.
We went into the bar, and before I sat down, I said, "Listen, before I buy you a drink, I want to know one thing: Will you sleep with me tonight?"
"Yes."
What does the data show?
In the interest of time, I needed to communicate a lot with a lot of people to keep people informed, raise awareness, etc before I have time to properly build a new site so I setup a substack blog to do it. You can see it here:
So far, I've used it to...
- Announce the conference reboot
- Poll the community for best dates and structure
- Announce the official date and venue
- Feed all of the social media accounts created for it (with dlvr.it)
- Announce call for Speakers (open til May 25th)
- Announce call for Sponsors
- Additional community information (we're trying to help get local meetups moving again as a side effect)
Early on there's been a ton of information to distribute and feedback to gather, so it's worked well. The substack email list is the primary communication channel and we've got about a 50% open rate with very high engagement from about half the list. I use the scheduling features to make sure I never sent more than one thing per day, on weekdays only.
I'm learning the marketing side of this as I go, so I'm trying to be very wary of things that bother me. On the flip side, the defaults for a tool like dlvr.it will post multiple times a day to social channels which seems very spammy but it also seems to work. I've never been very social media active because I don't like doing that type of thing.
Spreading the word on this stuff is hard though, so I've got to balance my own desire to not bother people with the real need to get the word out around this conference. We did have one fun social media challenge for programmers where people could create variations of a code payload about the conference in their favorite language. I'm looking for fun things like that to engage people when I can.
https://blog.carolina.codes/p/code-header-challenge
The bigger the list gets, the less I feel the need to keep spreading the word because I feel better about being able to reach people with the important things when I need to. Now I'm far enough along that people are starting to spread the word for me and connect me with potential sponsors, so that's helpful.
The subscriber popup modal actually sounds perfect for event coordination sites.
https://youtu.be/uXCipjbcQfM?t=1m29s
The advantage of Gemini and consorts is that simply nobody has tried to commercialize it because they have almost no users (like the early internet).
Really excited to see where Rich goes over the next decade.
The Web needs far more capable built-in UI elements, and to remove most ability to script it. Including a great deal of CSS, which is under-rated as a source of bloat and slowness on the Web I think, in addition to having become a privacy threat.
Never gonna happen, but it's nice to imagine.
Heck, NPM of all things had ads until they sent out a community-wide request to stop that: https://github.com/zloirock/core-js/issues/635
The problem isn't the permissibility of a web browser. It's that we live in a capitalistic world; someone somewhere will always be trying to figure out how to post a bill on a wall that reads "POST NO BILLS".
Considering that the internet is almost unusable without an adblock, this does not surprise me at all.
They're arguably worse because it's a slap in the face while focusing on something.
In the sites I interact with, that is probably the majority of these popups. You find them preferable?
I find them just as annoying and counter-productive as OP is describing.
For one thing, when your heuristics say I'm getting interested, that's when you decide to interrupt my attention? It's like they've intentionally decided to algorithmically make this as annoying as possible, when is the time we can interrupt the reader as annoyingly as we can?
And as you say, even if I've read 35% of an article or something, it may still be the first time I'm interacting with a site, and why do I want to give them my email address?
Also, you misrepresent the assumption. The assumption is that if the user is so annoyed even by just the attempt of conversion that they leave the site, that then you will have a hard time to ever convert them.
That assumption doesn't sound ridiculous at all to me. Also, it doesn't need to be true 100% of the time. Even 50% is probably enough to justify it, because if you don't attempt to convert, you will not convert for sure.
I want to visit websites that are made for human beings, not commodities.
Keep in mind that conversion here means to provide the author of the content, hopefully a human being, with an email, so that they can inform you of interesting new content. I cannot see anything inhumane in this.
1 webpage view is rarely worth a piece of personal information as intimate as an email address, so you could either focus on demanding something less demanding, or making that 1 webpage view into multiple
The alternative is that I have to track you somehow, and determine how often you visited my content. I wouldn't like that. It is more complicated, it is creepier, and I very much doubt that it would convert better.
either way, you're in the minority in feeling that someone viewing <1 piece of your internet content entitles you to personal information about them as intimate as an email address, because it is a ridiculous expectation
since most people would agree it's unreasonable to interrupt someone for such intimate personal information as you're asking, when they've not even seen a single whole piece of content
indeed, this seems like a case where it's actually up to you
The best way to let me know that you have a newsletter is NO POP-UP. A pop-up immediately screams “this website is trying to hijack your attention, get out as fast as possible.” The idea that I should want to stay on such a dystopian website, much less reward it with a newsletter subscription, is just so ludicrous it boggles the mind.
How about NO POP-UPs? Remember when browsers came with built-in pop-up blockers so users didn't have to deal with them at all? Newsletter sign-ups are the same bullshit as 90s style pop-ups, and everyone agreed we should block those then, why are these different?
I don't want timed pop-ups, or pop-ups that are more convenient, I want NO POP-UPs, and as soon as I see one I am closing the tab and writing off the website as not worth my time.
I don't mean to call you out specifically, I don't think you're arguing in favor of pop-ups, but I'm just confused why your initial response was to ask for lesser evil pop-ups, rather than no pop-ups at all.
This is a popup in the visual sense. Although to be fair lots of sites use third-party scripts to handle these email asks, so maybe it's not that different!
But a popup that opens an in-page modal vs a popup that opens a new tab or window are pretty much equivalent from a user experience point of view in my opinion. I don't want either, and neither is less or more evil to me.
> everyone agreed we should block those then
They didn't, though. It's very plausible that everyone in your social circle agreed on that, but there were a lot of people filling those popups out then, and there are a lot of people doing it now.
That is not to say that you're not right - they are annoying, and I'd generally rather be rid of them. The reality is, though, people who immediately close websites upon seeing popups are a small minority, and for many websites the value lost by those people closing the website it meaningfully less than the value gained by some percent of people giving their email.
We have drifted so far away from the light--when the user was 100% in charge of everything the computer was doing.
And I don't ever want my focus dragged away from the window that I'm currently on.
Whatever it is that the app developer thinks IS SO ABSOLUTELY FUCKING IMPORTANT THAT THEY NEED TO STEAL MY ATTENTION AWAY RIGHT THIS GODDAMN SECOND, just isn't actually that important to me.
My relationship with a lot of applications is like a clingy sidepiece that I'm about ready to dump if they get any more annoying.
And it stands to reason. What does a nerd do in his misspent teenage/college years but get a gaming rig and get on Steam for some AAA action. He builds reflexes and the ability to track and demolish targets.
Therefore when he graduates college and becomes a slinger of code, he writes a UI that capitalizes on video game reflexes that everyone must share. The ability to react within 50ms to a dramatic change on screen. The steely nerves to track a moving target with our finger and tap "Undo" before the interstitial vanishes forever and our action is set in stone. Navigating endless chains of hover-menus by threading the needle, because if you go 3mm off track, you'll need to start all over again.
GUIs today actively punish the user for attempting to anticipate and go ahead with actions before the computer is good and ready, but when that computer starts throwing up dialogs, you'd better be able to keep up.
I had 6502 and 286 based machines that had UIs that were able to react instantly and stably to every input I could give. How can response time and latency worsen in the intervening 30 years?
if your yelling is worth a subscribe, people will find a way
focus on making the content that way, rather than feeling entitled to the personal info of everyone who heard your yelling
By chasing them away?
You know what else I've got on the site? One of those annoying little notifications that comes up in the bottom right to say "Someone bought this four hours ago!" I hate those things! I swore I'd never put them on my site!
The problem is, when I swore that, I was making the same mistake that you are here - assuming that I was the target and that everyone is like me. The reality is they are not, and these things work well. They're ubiquitous on ecommerce sites for a reason.
If somebody wants to be part of your email list, most of them will find a place to sign up for it and nobody will see your site as a slimy sales gimmick.
What I've done (and what countless other website owners have done) is operate based on data. I've done a lot of A/B testing of my email capture popup - I've tested content, timing, and whether or not it's there at all. "How many of the 6% fill it out because they think they have to? How many just give you a garbage email address?" Sub 3%. That one's easy to validate, and I've done so.
You're calling it a "slimy sales gimmick" (which I think is somewhat harsher language than necessary), but the reality is most new users who hit my site come in from Facebook ads. I would wager that you and folks of your same mindset about the popup probably see advertising on social media as slimy as well. The people who come to my site clearly don't.
What a lot of HN fails to realize is that the overwhelming majority of the world is not like HN and does not share the beliefs of the typical HN user vis a vis digital advertising, sales tactics, websites, etc.
I actually don't think that's overly harsh.
> the reality is most new users who hit my site come in from Facebook ads.
And, once again, we see the corrosive effects of Facebook actively making things crappier for the non-FB-using world.
> What a lot of HN fails to realize is that the overwhelming majority of the world is not like HN
I suspect that the vast majority of HN is fully aware of this. That doesn't make our complaints any less valid, though. What's alternative? "Shut up and take it"?
I have been very clear in my comments here that these complaints are perfectly valid and reasonably. The alternative is obviously not to "shut up and take it" - it's to do what you're doing and leave sites that do things you don't like. Vote with your digital feet.
My point remains that popups asking people to sign up for an email newsletter exist, and will continue to exist, because a significant enough portion of the population does find them useful (as evidenced by the fact that they give their emails and then later make purchases based on emails they receive), even if folks on HN think that they are slimy or evil or what have you.
What I've done is operate on data. My customers are faceless numbers, not people, and so long as they give me money I don't care about them.
What a lot of HN fails to realize is that the overwhelming majority of the world are suckers who will do whatever advertising convinces them to."
I'm admittedly taking some liberties here, but it grieves me that business is now pretty much "fuck you I've got mine, or I'll do whatever it takes to get it." There must be a better way.
Your average consumer, however, clicks whatever button is blue, enters their email wherever there's an email field, and powers through the ads which are personalised for them. I would not be surprised if the numbers that you described are true, and not just a fluke.
But I chose to build the sort of internet I like. A quiet, straightforward internet that respects consent and privacy. It worked fine for me, so I feel no need to change my ways.
94% of people don't though.
Of that 6% how many actually read the newsletter as opposed to sending it to spam? Is that percentage more valuable to you than keeping people on the site?
That's not the right metric. I care about whether people buy things, and since I can measure that directly, it's better to do so than to measure intermediate metrics like time on page. Revenue is meaningfully better with the popup than without.
> Of that 6% how many actually read the newsletter as opposed to sending it to spam? Is that percentage more valuable to you than keeping people on the site?
Open rates vary from 20-40% depending on the type of email. Yes, it is more valuable.
I'll reiterate something I said in another comment, which is that there are a lot of people who don't think of this kind of thing as an aggravating interruption. Most of my new users come in because they click on Facebook ads, which are anathema to a lot of folks on HN but a normal, reasonable thing to look at and maybe click on to a much broader swathe of the world. I'm optimizing for those people, not HN folks.
Like sliding it down from the title, or a block in the middle of the text?
Haven't tried a block in the middle of the text, but that's because most folks are landing on my product page, and that's had a lot of testing to ensure it's optimized for sales, which are naturally more important than email collection.
Just listen to yourself:
> Is it annoying? Yup. Would it absolutely, unequivocally, be a bad business decision to take it down? Yup.
Translation: given the choice between making the website even remotely pleasant and making more money for yourself, you choose the money every time. Everyone else can suck it.
We are not criticizing your decision because we don't understand your circumstance or context. We are criticizing the decision precisely because we understand it. It's selfish, scummy, and it's the reason the entire web sucks ass now.
Does anyone test their websites anymore? Especially on mobile.
The signup field is a few paragraphs down the article and as you scroll to it, the article dims (but is still readable) and highlights the newsletter section. As you keep scrolling the the dimming fades out and you can read the article again.
This is much less jarring than a pop up and is placed after the reader gets to read at their pace.
Am I seeing double?: https://ibb.co/0y2xLWX
Web layouts have *evolved* in a bizarre way, especially when businesses are paying for results and the user experience comes second. Popups (or whatever the cute new euphemism is) are an easy way to add new garbage to a site while separating the garbage from the content. Cookie banners, logins, paywalls, and more!
Disclaimer: I use them and so do many of my competitors.
"Does a poor job of increasing conversions" is the opinion of someone that has never looked at the data. You can be sure that the people interested in conversions run analytics and A/B testing on everything. If these pop-ups did a poor job and there was a better alternative, you can be sure that everyone would have already migrated to that alternative.
The "rule of seven" can also be used to counter her argument. That is precisely why businesses try to get the email of visitors: to have more interactions. Otherwise, for the vast majority of visitors, the first visit would be the only interaction they will ever have.
"Works against user goals" might be true for short term goals like jumping through the most amount of content. However, users have different goals and short-term ones are often not the best goals. A pop-up might address other long-term goals the visitor cares more about than going to yet another web page.
But more than anything, these pop-ups serve business goals because most of these websites exist only thanks to their revenue. Without them my business would probably not be viable. I assume that many accept the small annoyance of a pop-up as the cost of keeping the websites they like running. And if the pop-up appears when the user is about to close the window, it does not even stop a visitor in his tracks. He can still close the window without any extra click.
I get terribly annoyed by them and always wonder why they don't just add a section to the page where one can easily subscribe, if one seems it to be a worthy thing to do?
Edit: Also, I want to add, that sometimes I leave the page immediately because such a popup pops up. The cookie banners are annoying enough.
I know it’s not a popular opinion on HN, but losing some annoyed users is an acceptable trade off if the net result is an increase in conversions.
The truth is that visitors who are so easily annoyed that a simple pop-up will cause them to leave the site weren’t very interested to begin with. If you gain 10 subscribers for every 1 annoyed visitor, it’s still a big net win.
Most visitors aren’t as sensitive to annoyances as a lot of the people in these comments.
how do you know this? They chase me away even if I was very interested in whatever the page was talking about.
Yes, a simple pop-up only a minor annoyance -- until most sites do it, then it becomes a really huge deal, like a tiny pebble in your shoe on a long walk.
Actively disqualifying people that are not a good fit is a vital part of any business. The people that get easily annoyed are going to be a huge pain at every step, while the real customers buy silently.
Also, when people have a true need, the pop-up is not an annoyance. I do agree that "subscribe to our newsletter" is not a great pitch, but it's a problem of content, not of method. If you get a pop-up on a website offering you a solution of a pressing problem you have, that pop-up is not an annoyance, but an opportunity.
And finally, even if one would be interested in measuring how many of these annoyed visitors there are, that's not really something you can measure. Conversions, instead, are a concrete metric.
I'm curious if you have an example of what this looks like done well. I have never personally seen a pop-up that I viewed as anything other than an annoyance, but I freely admit that I'm not a typical user (to the extent such a person exists). What kinds of great opportunities do typical users find in their pop-ups?
Also, there are better ways to handle that from the user perspective: inject the subscription form as a static element in between two paragraphs so you don't interrupt me mid-sentence. That way I get my opportunity but I also get to finish your article.
Is that not an option?
Granted, the guide needs to deliver some value and not just be a bait and switch. If it doesn't deliver any value, it's pretty much guaranteed you will lose that subscriber.
To give you a real example: I offer a guide about design patterns and most of my subscribers come from that pop-up. And they are developers, showing that while pop-ups are not popular on places like HN, they are definitely not despised by all developers.
I myself sing up when I find something I am interested in. For example, I got a nice free guide about photoshop blend modes which was very useful when I got it.
I'm not annoying: I'm annoyed by these annoying practices.
And sure, you can always rationalize anything, but I still see a difference between a pop-up that offers something the reader might like against a dark pattern that forces or tricks someone to sing up.
I don't agree here, maybe your service or newsletter is absolutely great for me as potential customer, but I close pages with newsletter popups instantly. Not because I'm annoyed, but to make a point. I guess a lot of services might have me lost because of this. You block yourself of getting even data from a user who's just a little privacy concerned.
Why on earth should I want to subscribe to a newsletter from a site I've never visited before, which I'm visiting for the first time in my life because an article from it trended on HN?
I know nothing about the quality of the site, neither about the type of regular content of the site. I don't even know if I'm going to find it useful what I'm about to read.
Imagine entering a store and the first thing they do is ask you if you want to give them your phone number so the can keep you informed.
How can you call this sensitive if you view if from this perspective?
Unfortunately a good part of HN is quite blind when it comes to facts about things that aren't of the liking of the community.
Some people seem to not be able to understand why K8s is widely used and not <whatever>, why the majority uses WhatsApp and not Signal or why the majority uses Twitter and not the <open source alternative of the year>. A not irrelevant amount of HN users will think, and many times literally say, that all these people are stupid and cannot understand how things really work.
In reality, everything happens for reasons. Sure, some people will just blindly follow trends but when you see most of the big websites that have plenty of money to do studies to find out if it works continue to do it, perhaps it means it's working for them? I hate those popups like most end-users but at the end of the day I'd never think most of the website owners who do this are dumb and do it to harm themselves but rather I tend to think they have hard data that shows this actually works pretty well.
I wish the community would realize how arrogant those "I don't have data on this / I don't understand why this is done therefore people who do this are just stupid" positions are.
And this is the problem with modern corporate logos. They think if the A/B numbers are trending up, it must always be a good thing. Nobody does real UX testing like Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, etc used to do. You know where they actually track down a non-technical person, sit them down in front of a computer, open up the website/app, see what the user does, then ask about how the experience was. This is UX testing and will lead to meaningful impacts. A/B tests are inane methodologies that are formatted to confirm whatever preconceived notions upper management wanted to hear anyways.
A more concrete piece of anecdata; my upper management told me they wanted us to boost the priority for sales eligible customers. I asked if this means we would prioritize people not paying for our service (since they're eligible for sales) and de-prioritize our already paying customers (who are not eligible). Upper management basically said, "yup that will happen. But it will increase our conversion rates which is what we care about". News flash, ruining your company's reputation for some shitty KPIs will damage your company in the long term.
Prioritizing shitty A/B tests will eventually ruin your company. It may not be immediate, but the slow and inevitable degradation of a useful product will lead to utter contempt and disdain from your users and they will switch to an alternative that actually prioritizes UX. See: Medium -> Substack, Microsoft -> Apple, and more I can't think of off the top of my head. We forget that the reason the iPhone was so wildly successful was because Steve Jobs was obsessed with creating a meticulously crafted UX. We forget that Nintentdo shenanigans are tolerated only because the games are lovingly crafted and built by people that care about their target audience. We forget that Amazon took off because of Customer Obsession, among other admirable qualities (that unfortunately aren't followed as well anymore). Keep treating your users as dumb cattle and they'll wise up and leave. The users aren't stupid, they're just waiting for a viable alternative so they can finally dump the shitty product built by companies prioritizing all the wrong metrics.
That's a much better way of doing it. If sites did that, I probably wouldn't put them on my "never go back to that site" list.
But most sites don't do it that way.
I think most people here know that. I was surprised by the author's claim that they “do a poor job of increasing conversions”.
The real criticism is not that they don't work. The real criticism is that “conversions” shouldn't be the metric, and a web designer who prioritizes that metric over any semblance of a welcoming or pleasant experience, is scummy and is treating their users as disposable garbage.
It's similar to how we all hate sleazy politicians. We want them to serve us, the people. Instead, they serve their own interests (at best, getting reelected; at worst, helping the massive corporations they invest in). Why do they do it? Because it “works”.
Everybody knows that it “works” according to a metric that is not aligned with the common good. The criticism is that you should prioritize the common good.
The data is biased. The visitors signing up for newsletters are probably way more interested on average.
Also, of there is an A\B test the ones that does not sign up are harder to track.
The sign up could probably just aswell be replaced by a big "click this happy emoji if you like my site"-button and marketers would argue the button increases conversion rates.
The main reason is that it's the only traffic that you own. It's not at the mercy of someone else's algorithm.
There are more answers in the thread I linked.
You are at the mercy of Gmail/Outlook's spam filtering algorithms
On Twitter/Instagram/whatever, you're exposed to the arbitrary censorship choices of the platform AND the risk of being deplatformed for any reason. Once that happens, you don't just lose deliverability, you lose every single relationship you had.
With an email list, at least you retain the list should your deliverability tank. It might take a lot of work to migrate to a new non-deny-listed setup, but at least you have a (hopefully double-)opted-in relationship with each prior reader still.
* I'm not certain because I'm on mobile now and cannot easily check the source.
<p id="viewer-9ptf9" class="mm8Nw _1j-51 WkT0MK _1FoOD _3M0Fe T3Ond1 WkT0MK public-DraftStyleDefault-block-depth0 fixed-tab-size public-DraftStyleDefault-text-ltr">
<span class="_2PHJq public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr">
<span>When a user moves their mouse from the middle of the page toward the navigation bar — presumably to abandon the page — there are technologies which can track this behavior and trigger a “mouse-out” alert. While this UX element (from companies such as Crazy Egg and Rooster) has great potential, I’ve found it far too common that websites use this to overlay huge pop-ups across the entire screen as a last-ditch effort to convert users.</span>
</span>
</p>
what is this garbage, why does a paragraph need its text inside a span inside another span, what generated this trash?
<meta name="generator" content="Wix.com Website Builder"/>
ah, gotcha
Some designers miss on the readability front when it comes to weight (ie: textual color) for body text. Most sibling replies talk about background/foreground contrast but something doesn't need to be stark in that regard to be more easily read (which also affects whether people will continue reading something in the first place).
I brought this up years ago but there's a mid-century type design book that mentions a trend in the late 1800s of typefaces in print that were too thin, leading to complaints about readability. However it was in vogue so it lasted for a time.
Don't touch my browser font, font size (no arbitrary px, use rem/em with main text at least 1rem) and font weight. How hard is this?
color: rgb(41, 26,16) - osx's Digital Color Meter tells me the chip of this is #281A11
fuckin' illegible unless I hit command-+ like 3x, or activate reader mode
It must be urlencoded for bookmarklets to work.
javascript:%20%20WebFontConfig%20%3D%20%7B%0D%0A%20%20%20%20google%3A%20%7B%20families%3A%20%5B%20'Open%2BSans%3A%3Alatin%2Cgreek-ext'%20%5D%20%7D%0D%0A%20%20%7D%3B%0D%0A%20%20(function()%20%7B%0D%0A%20%20%20%20var%20wf%20%3D%20document.createElement('script')%3B%0D%0A%20%20%20%20wf.src%20%3D%20('https%3A'%20%3D%3D%20document.location.protocol%20%3F%20'https'%20%3A%20'http')%20%2B%0D%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20'%3A%2F%2Fajax.googleapis.com%2Fajax%2Flibs%2Fwebfont%2F1%2Fwebfont.js'%3B%0D%0A%20%20%20%20wf.type%20%3D%20'text%2Fjavascript'%3B%0D%0A%20%20%20%20wf.async%20%3D%20'true'%3B%0D%0A%20%20%20%20document.getElementsByTagName(%22head%22)%5B0%5D.appendChild(wf)%3B%20%0D%0A%09var%20newSS%2C%20styles%3D'*%2Chtml%2Cbody%20%7B%20font-family%3A%20Open%20Sans%2C%20Lucida%20Grande%2Csans-serif%20!%20important%3B%7D'%3B%20%0D%0A%09if(document.createStyleSheet)%20%7B%20%0D%0A%09%09document.createStyleSheet(%22javascript%3A'%22%2Bstyles%2B%22'%22)%3B%20%0D%0A%09%7D%20%0D%0A%09else%20%7B%20%0D%0A%09%09newSS%3Ddocument.createElement('link')%3B%20%0D%0A%09%09newSS.rel%3D'stylesheet'%3B%20%0D%0A%09%09newSS.href%3D'data%3Atext%2Fcss%2C'%2Bescape(styles)%3B%20%0D%0A%09%09document.getElementsByTagName(%22head%22)%5B0%5D.appendChild(newSS)%3B%20%0D%0A%09%7D%20%09%0D%0A%20%20%7D)()%3B;
javascript: WebFontConfig = {
google: { families: [ 'Open+Sans::latin,greek-ext' ] }
};
(function() {
var wf = document.createElement('script');
wf.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https' : 'http') +
'://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/webfont/1/webfont.js';
wf.type = 'text/javascript';
wf.async = 'true';
document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(wf);
var newSS, styles='*,html,body { font-family: Open Sans, Lucida Grande,sans-serif ! important;}';
if(document.createStyleSheet) {
document.createStyleSheet("javascript:'"+styles+"'");
}
else {
newSS=document.createElement('link');
newSS.rel='stylesheet';
newSS.href='data:text/css,'+escape(styles);
document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(newSS);
}
})();;*Maybe if I see myself coming back to the site for insightful stuff, then I might consider a newsletter - but even that I'll subscribe to using my RSS reader (NewsBlur).
A newsletter is useless to you, but a lot of people like them. I agree that popups aren't the way to push it, though. A simple newsletter link in the header of the site is more than good enough. I don't care how good the "conversion" rate is, I don't like harassing people who are just visiting my site for the first time.
Same. Mostly because of tracking. According to what's been getting published in various internet marketing sites, one of the primary reasons why newsletters have become so popular for sites to do isn't about the newsletter -- it's about getting the email address (that's also a reason why more and more sites are requiring an account even when it doesn't make technical sense). That's a decent identifier that allows you to be tracked across sites.
Then there are the rare cases where you do subscribe, but every link in the email is a tracking link. Because they need to know when and from where you clicked on that link. SMH.
Brown soap is a strong soap containing lye, more likely sold near the things for cleaning floors and surfaces than your body.
[0] https://andybeaumont.com/post/the-value-of-content/
Edit: It seems the Tumblr is still up, just not with the custom domain - https://tcdr.tumblr.com
And if you actually do click the settings tab on some of them, you will see just how many trackers clickbait sites integrate and that will give you at least a choice to opt out.
The GDPR laws im europe are part of the healing process of the internet, therefore not at all compareable with the "please subscribe to my newsletter" popups.
Lots of content out there. Very little I really have to read.
This seems to really misunderstand things - if the customer has hit your website because they came to one of your SEO-optimized blog articles, there is a very solid chance they're not going to stumble upon your site again. The point of the newsletter conversion is to give you a chance to get those seven interactions.
Unfortunately, most websites require an actual business model to consistently produce content. Business models usually need a form of lead gathering, or audience building. (Which is, frankly, core to most businesses.)
If you don't want to engage with businesses, then there are still endless hobby websites out there that do little other than produce content for free, without any popups, ads, upsells, etc.
If they have a problem with that, it is totally in their legal right to try and do something about it.
Just as it is still totally in my legal right to consume (information) how i see fit. This may or may not involve legal workarounds.
I do not care if their business/earning model is not compatible with my method of consuming (information).
You could probably get much higher conversion and lower unsubscribe rates by only going after readers who stuck around a bit.
So why should I pay to support their unsustainable project?
There's a group of guys near where I live who stand around and hand CDs to tourists, and after a minute of chatting, start asking for "donations". It's the same vibe. Giving something of value to someone then using that to set the expectation that they should give something of value back. If you give something away, in my opinion, the transaction is complete. Trying to use that to get something in return is manipulative.
Links to external news articles are free for anyone to read, and for all account owners (paid or not) to comment on.
Featured articles by LWN's paid contributors are available for paid subscribers to read and comment on immediately, and for everyone else to read and for unpaid account owners to comment on between 7-14 days after first publication.[1] If you want to check out their past article quality, or just read interesting previous articles, you don't even need an account.
No pop-ups. No generic nag screens. If you're not a paid subscriber and you go to view an article you can't view yet, it tells you it's currently for subscribers only and how to get a subscription if you want one, but also tells you the date that the article will become free to read without a subscription.
Yes, I lurked for a few years before I became a paid member. Because I was able to read everything for free, the site built its reputation for me to the point where I was happy to subscribe to get those featured articles just a bit sooner. (And be able to participate in the comments in a timely fashion.)
[0] https://lwn.net/
[1] It's a bit complicated. Featured articles from throughout the week are collected every Thursday into the "Weekly Edition", and the Thursday after that that Weekly edition and all its articles are available for free.
As many people pointed out, if you don't fall into the sales funnel, the business does not care about you anyway.
Still, I wish that browsing the internet didn't feel like being a tourist in a bazaar.
Apparently retailers despise the fact that some customers prefer to buy things anonymously without being spammed or having their privacy invaded. I predict B&M stores will soon begin to block you at the front door until you give them your email address.
Of course, 10 seconds later I got a “welcome to the family!” email.
Should be illegal.
Hum... Isn't that one of the main goals of the GDPR?
When asked why, conversation typically goes like:
Me: "I don't want my phone being sent SMSes or phone calls from your company or anyone they would share my number with."
Them: "Oh, don't worry, that won't happen from us."
Me: "Well it absolutely won't happen if you don't have my number.".
It kind of re-frames their request as if they were offering to do me a favour, which I then politely indicated I don't even need. I've found that it either cuts off most of the counter-arguments that the person asking was about to retort with, or it just throws them off-balance for long enough that the interaction moves on, enough that I don't get a lot of push back after using it.
Like, it’s fine, go ahead, ask me. Make it obtrusive. Hell you can make it blink. But why can’t I look at it and just scroll by it. Just like put it on the fucking page it’s not hard.
Unfortunately I’d never see it because I almost always clicked off the site if reader mode doesn’t work unless it’s something I’m really interested in. Can almost watch the battery drain with all the auto-play videos and animated ads they pack into websites these days.
No thanks
Or admin@, info@, postmaster@, or something like that.
Hopefully it remembers "me" and doesn't bother me again.
The exception is Free Tiers so they can convince they're bosses to use your enterprise tier.
This has happened because Google, Facebook, Youtube and other walled gardens have locked up the online audience. If you clicked on a site, chances are you discovering it via one of the above. And chances are, you'll never see that site again if you close the tab. So that's the 'rule of 7' out the window right there.
If the popup converts even one person, that's better than it not being there at all.
"Yeah, but it's so annoying, I'll never subscribe via these tactics!" Congratulations, you are part of the rare few that know how the sausage is made. You probably also know that these modals aren't there for UX designers to praise or Substack to quake in their boots. They're there to convert.
I love Substack but think this feature is ill-considered. I am sure it converts by the numbers, but I want 100% of my readers to have a pristine experience reading, foremost.
Perhaps we need a browser that uses AI to block all the annoying page elements?
Or we use crowd intelligence to achieve the task. If enough users flag the page elements that popup, and this data is shared, many could profit from a better experience.
Sadly they're not really fashionable there days :(
At least I can subscribe and unsubscribe at my convenience without requiring the sender to take any actions (removing from mailing list).
Yes, RSS should be even better than email for the marketing people.
* obscure everything behind it * distract the viewer * require dismissal to proceed
I think modal popups for any reason is bad. It's always better to use a new page which can be deep linked and avoided if it contains content irrelevant to the viewer's interests.
Most of them is the type: “No, I did not sign up for this”
In UX terms, there may be room for improvement with the wording, like, "Are you sure you want to read this till the end?" ;-)
One of the other group members perked up and expressed great interest in finding out how she could subscribe to said newsletter. It was going to be a challenge, but I wonder if she managed to find out how and do so.
So there are people out there who, moths to a flame, will be magnetically drawn to your newsletter come-ons, and that's exactly why we have a million annoying popups, because it's a numbers game, and even 1% counts in large amounts.
It sucks that it's the case, but the internet is not the same internet of 15-20 years ago. We are in the attention economy now, and since most users expect things to be free, we have to worry about things like tops of funnels, SEO, evergreen content, and virality. The things that people have to say and do to stand above the crowd are ridiculous. And it's not just newsletters, look at the guy who made the AI Drake/Weeknd song, look at Andy Kelly's post^1 Why I'm donating $150/month (10% of my income) to the musl libc project, look at all the current advice for how to become a new published author. How you market plays a huge role in your success, and merit alone won't cut it unless your program or content is just that good.
I write my newsletter because I'm excited to contribute to a space that has provided so much for me, both financially and intellectually. I'm eternally grateful for the opportunities tech has given me and every post I make is sharing that gratitude. But I also want my posts to be heard by more than just myself, so I've got to market it, even if I'm getting no financial gain from the newsletter. The tools and techniques people will choose to employ to get seen and heard vary, and each content creator must decided where they draw the line. Maybe it's my ego that demands I have more than a dozen eyeballs viewing my posts every week, or a corruption in my soul from decades of internet consumption. But I genuinely believe in the content I post, and I want to find the largest community of people who will enjoy it too.
1. https://andrewkelley.me/post/why-donating-to-musl-libc-proje...
it's the pop-up "subscribe me now", along with the cookie prompts really made surfing experience miserable.
just leave a subscription button somewhere on the page, if I like it I can opt in to subscribe, do not push me with your pop-up please.
Is there a plugin of sorts that turns these off?
Also, calling for an extra-light font with pale grey type is super illegible, damn.
Now that the elderly are leaving the internet, the chance of finding somebody who randomly follows instructions will make this malware trend vanish imho
/e:
apparently this is more true for Europe than it is for other locations. I mean come on, its two clicks more which you usually do once for a website. And we also had every news station explain to you why the GDPR is a good thing and a big deal.
Meanwhile intelligence/knowledge will always be a rarer feature in the population. There’s just more to do in a day and no one picks the same hobbies.
According to this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of...) only 63% of us are online. Prepare for a lot more tech illiterates joining over the next two or three generations.
I bet most internet users have never tried VR, crypto currencies or ChatGPT yet. Some new things will come. Some will even stick for the long run. And inertia means illiteracy will rise.
No to mentions as the old people die, new kids are born in countries were internet is not widespread yet.
After all, some parts of the world still don't have electricity.
I’ve tried none of those things and I’ve been on the internet since the last century.
Don’t feel like I’m missing out just like I don’t miss trying to figure out how to do anything useful with gopher over some crazy convoluted connection that required a 20 page pamphlet to set up.
Not everything will work that way. But "I don't currently need" is not always a good / sufficient dismissal of something new.
To the original point - I do not have crypto tiktok discord tor snapchat etc... And may indeed be considered illiterate to some, even though I too have been on them intertubes for 3 decades and make my living in IT:). It was a point of pride for people I knew in 90s and 2000s to not have tried interwebs.
(I've tried chatgpt though and find it massively useful for learning!)
I tried VRML when it first came on. Has state of the art moved on since then?
Even if internet is widespread. Consuming apps does not count as literate.
e.g. hierarchical filesystems are gradually becoming esoteric knowledge for zoomers because of how much phones and always-online apps obscure it from the user.
https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-direc...
... and the other 95% of folks who just grab an off-the-shelf email-list-invite popover widget and slap it on a web site.
HN fulfils this role for now.
This syndication format would need to be really simple though. :)
His big advice was to build content with the intent of getting email addresses. The email address is the gateway to the real sales avenue.
Everyone uses this pattern. You see it everywhere.
You say that but there is some asshole driving around in a Porsche 911 because it works.
Why else would they do it?