When Good UX Goes Bad: 3 Examples From Social Media

As of late, I’ve noticed a few tricky user experience add-ons in social that while seemingly attractive have actually taken away from my experience. While envisioned as features that help users, I wonder if they actually do.

Rant time:

1. “Save link” option on Facebook.
What you think: “I’ll read more.”
Intent: Gets readers to load more pages within Facebook and drive cha-chings for its advertising department.

The only thing that this has done for me is trained me to only read headlines with hopes that I’ll actually read the article and inform myself properly and judge and assess the message in detail — later, in some time vaccum future when I’ll have “more time” to read than now (because, you know, I’m so busy tirelessly scrolling through timeline feeds, wide-eyed and procrastinating from not just reading but from going to sleep at a decent hour).

2. LinkedIn companies are looking for candidates like ME?
What you think: “X company is seeking ME out.”
Intent: Gets you to, yes, load more pages within LinkedIn scouring through job listings in some passive effort to make yourself feel like you’re “doing something about your future”.

Rather than empowering me to reflect on my career as it pertains to my specific needs and skills by inspiring me to observe the job market, these emails leave me feeling like I’m in the wrong job and doing nothing about it. No company is actually seeking me out — and candidates “like me” are busy scrolling through Facebook feeds at work saving stories for reading later, not aimlessly visualizing themselves in a new role because a new company logo looks good next to their LinkedIn profile shot.

3. The eternal Snapchat feed loop.
What you think: “I want to see what Jason is up to. Maybe it will make me laugh.”
Actuality: Inundates you with a snap loop of everyone in your feed causing frustration and high likelihood of closing the app all together.

I loaded one snap from a friend; I didn’t want to see all of them played out like a single ADHD production with no stylistic direction. This is especially annoying when it’s hard to tell when one friend’s snap ends and the next one begins.

Agree? Disagree? (Did I forget to update my Apps? Let me know.)