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Comment by davedx | Hacker News Reader

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davedx

Why developers are leaving blogs and websites that throw up popup windows like it's 1997:

Because it's incredibly irritating;

Because it interrupts you when you've just started to read;

Because the popup-tastic 90's are a time nobody wants to relive;

Because (in this case), closing the popup actually seemed to reset the scroll location too;

Because it can totally FU browsing on mobile; (but who cares about mobile anyway? We're supporting people from 1997 maaan!)

Because it's obnoxious.

I decided a few weeks ago that I would no longer read any sites, articles or blogs that do this. I am Jack's bounce rate.

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Begging people to sign up to your email newsletter in the first few seconds on a page is a little reckless too. The only impression of the page isn't from their quality content, but that they want to spam me.

Here here. I also can't wait until more developers realize what a terrible UX fixed position UI pieces that follow you as you scroll are for mobile. They reduce viewing area and resize with pinch-zoom to take up even more space. JIRA and the tweet idea site posted yesterday are two examples that immediately come to mind.

Folks: if you want to have fixed UI elements, that's cool, but then please provide a mobile site version without them.

I close pop-ups by inspecting and removing the element, I have no desire to provide click feedback.

Sounds like you need to use Ghostery to nuke all those analytics scripts automatically.

For Firefox: "Remove it Permanently" (RIP) plug-in.

I also use it to nuke the more aggravating social, pandering, and similar sections of websites.

What irked me a bit was that I had scrolled down to keep reading, but the pop up forced me back to the top.

Yep. To me those kind of techniques are a warning bell telling me : this website is not worth visiting. I left immediately. If it's such a great essay, it will be repeated somehow, so I will not miss it. At the minima the comments here are usually enough if not more interesting.

Some marketing firm did a study on a client's website where they found that popups increased signups by a substantial amount. Unfortunately, that client was an Internet marketing blog primarily visited by aspiring marketers who've been told that popups increase signups by every popular Internet marketing blogger.

The author of the submission probably reads one or more of those blogs. A study outside that toxic echo chamber probably wouldn't get the same good results.

Why bloggers insist on using the awful lightbox/email signup/popup windows: because it converts better.

I concede it could be bad on developer focused sites. But I also have to believe they have tested it, and by their metrics they have more 'success' using popups than not.

(Don't get me wrong; I hate them too.)

From stupid people. I don't want the people who convert after that popup, they are the worst.

Apologies for the delay in responding, it's been a busy week.

I guess it depends on who you're building for. I've built for a non-technical audience, and wouldn't call them stupid just because they convert due a lightbox popup. Many of these folks want the emails I send, but wouldn't be able to find a more subtle signup.

In general, I try to help my users and not call them stupid.

+1 for Fight Club!

>Because (in this case), closing the popup actually seemed to reset the scroll location too

He doesn't stop propagation on the click event, which causes the # to be appended to the url and the scroll to reset to the top of the page. Basic jQuery, that.

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