Comment by Nifty3929 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Nifty3929 | Hacker News Reader

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I think the main problem with pop-ups that makes them a bad place to put important (any?) information is that they interrupt the user's workflow - which is, indeed, kinda the point of the pop-up. But what is a normal human's reaction to this. They are in the middle of trying to do the thing they want to do. To continue with this, they need to get the pop-up out of the way, so they just click the button.

I run into this ALL THE TIME during the normal course of using software. I am trying to do something, then I get a pop-up about something-or-another that the developer clearly thought was important for me to see, but I click past it so I can get back to what I was doing. A lot of times is these "look at this cool new feature" kind of things - ARGH! And the worst part is, I might actually WANT to come back and learn about the new feature, but often I only get that one chance, and I'm too busy on my important task to focus on it right now.

Actually - a specific example of this just case to mind: I want to take a screenshot with Snagit - so I press PrtSn. But now Snagit pops up and asks me if I want to update. Sure, maybe I do - but not now! Now I just want to take my damn screenshot! So I click 'no.' And then I don't see it again until the next time I want to take a screenshot, and also do not want to be interrupted in my 5sec tasks with a 5min update.

Much better is to provide the information in a conspicuous, hard-to-miss area of the UI, but which DOESN'T block my workflow. Like, literally just put the text right on the form/interface in bold, red font. Like for Snagit - don't make it a popup update notification. Just put a bold/red link on the capture window and editor UI that says "Update"

Even claude Code does it.

Be typing a prompt and get 1) Do Action 2) Always Do Action 3) Don't Do Action

But if, like me, one looks at the keyboard while typing, you might not notice and be typing away and it has stolen your focus. Worse it used to default to 1) when you pressed enter and so you might have agreed to anything.

DO NOT STEAL FOCUS.

Oh man! Focus stealing is the worst! Bitwarden used to do this while I was typing my master password, stealing focus in the middle of what I'm typing to ask if I want to interrupt what I'm trying to accomplish to get their next minor upgrade. Which, of course typing my password very quickly I often hit enter at that moment, forcing me down an upgrade path. Beside the point of having my typing part of my password into a context it wasn't meant for. I think they've fixed it though.

Why would you mindlessly type away when you already know ahead of time, that they might be doing something tricky?

because the previous 30 times it didn't do it

Then it clearly it is an issue of overconfidence.

Since you can’t reliably catch 100% of tricks 100% of the time, continuing to do so is effectively guaranteering yourself to be tripped up in that 1 out of 100 times.

I remember a time when I thought we were past the Windows 98/XP popup malware era. Now every single website and application loves to shove popups in my face whenever I'm trying to accomplish a quick task. I don't think I have ever read anything other than the buttons to figure out which ones not to press.

Engagement metrics will be the death of us.

It occurs to me that maybe user behavior metrics are to blame, because our default response to these stupid intrusions (click any button to make it go away) appears as "engagement" to the devs/markting people: "oh look, people are clicking our popup buttons!" so then they are encouraged to add more of them. "Look how much engagement we're driving!"

The problem is that they actually work. I've been involved in having to implement these nightmares and it turns out that normal people do actually interact with them and it does result in increased revenue.

I am currently waiting for an oven technician to show up to help fix an oven that refuses to operate until I complete a certain cleaning cycle. But the cleaning cycle is blocked on a pop up that cannot be dismissed. I think it’s trying to helpfully give me instructions, but I don’t need the instructions — I already followed them and now it should be the oven’s turn.

2025 is a weird nightmare. Imagine reading your comment in 1990.

Logs, or a message queue, where messages can be filtered / sorted for priority.

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