Anytime I try to look at anything on Yahoo! these days, a small pop-up window appears in front of what I’m trying to look at asking me to do some Yahoo! survey. I don’t want to do a survey, and even if I did, I would refuse to do it if it were advertised using a pop-up window, as I set my browser to block pop-up ads, and yet Yahoo! is doing it anyway despite knowing I do not wish it. And because I won’t do the damn survey, every single blasted page I open that’s affiliated with Yahoo! has this damn pop-up window appear, which can be multiple times per day.
This is insufferable! Not only have they taken away the option to ask the website not to follow us, which I already know they disregarded and followed us anyway because online ads I saw would change based upon things I searched for or looked at, meaning they were clearly following me anyway, or allowing someone else to do it without my knowledge or consent, but now they’re annoying their users with pop-up windows that nag us until we consent to do what they want us to do.
This site is becoming fascist and annoying. If they keep this up, loyal users really might be encouraged to fly the coop and go elsewhere: I hope they’re aware of that. And I also hope they’re aware that a lot of their users are people like me who use it out of habit, and would be happy to continue to do so unless we’re chased away with the type of loathsome tactics they are currently employing.
When are websites going to recognize that harassing and annoying their visitors is not a good strategy for obtaining interest and goodwill? It’s lazy and it’s counter-productive. And it’s obnoxious and detestable. So I hope they will wake the hell up and stop it. Remember: you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. And you lose friends when you nag them to death and try to force them to do things against their will.
What they ought to do, if they want us to do the survey, is advertise it in a banner ad across the top and say they would like our input if we would be interested in having our voices heard: that way it would feel like an invitation and make us feel important, rather than being a bothersome nagging experience that rubs us the wrong way. It’s similar to previews on DVDs/BluRays: some discs lock viewers into watching all of the previews at the beginning, before even allowing us to get to the menu. Well, everyone I know hates that, and imagine if you bought the disc, and you had to watch all of the previews every single time: it would feel like torture! But, on the other hand, if you offer the previews as a special feature, people want to watch them, and it feels like a gift. See the difference? Presentation has everything to do with making something seem desirable, and with the wrong presentation, even something desirable can seem like an imposition, or worse, an affront, or an attack.
What they ought to do, if they want us to do the survey, is advertise it in a banner ad across the top and say they would like our input if we would be interested in having our voices heard: that way it would feel like an invitation and make us feel important, rather than being a bothersome nagging experience that rubs us the wrong way. It’s similar to previews on DVDs/BluRays: some discs lock viewers into watching all of the previews at the beginning, before even allowing us to get to the menu. Well, everyone I know hates that, and imagine if you bought the disc, and you had to watch all of the previews every single time: it would feel like torture! But, on the other hand, if you offer the previews as a special feature, people want to watch them, and it feels like a gift. See the difference? Presentation has everything to do with making something seem desirable, and with the wrong presentation, even something desirable can seem like an imposition, or worse, an affront, or an attack.
