Thread · 3 tweets · 15 Feb 2018

This email notification from @facebook is a perfect example of what happens when you fail to understand engagement and focus on measurable but useless KPIs. It is refined, detailed, iterated — designed. Yet it has everything except the actual content.

In other words, this is the social equivalent of brochure websites back in the 2000s that used target=_blank on every single external link. It’s a cheap, cheap trick to «keep you on the site». People *notice* this. It’s a dark pattern, it’s manipulative, it’s design trash.

Short term you might get higher numbers; but the long-term effect is a distinct feeling that you suck. You really just suck. Facebook has now switched to sending me one new friend suggestion every day. Desperate much over there?