Yikes!

​The other day, I was browsing the news when the "COVID alert" app popped up a notification ​about exposure. What? Shit! Where​ did I...​? The notification disappeared when touched​, so I opened the app, looking for details. It showed the 👍 icon next to the message "​No exposure detected". Another paragraph, which I hadn't seen before, read: "If you got a notification that popped up and went away, it's ok. The app now shows notifications when checking for exposure."

No, it's NOT okay! And I'm not mad that this User eXperience is Canadian taxpayers' money spent for a crappy app. A brief search shows that the "NHS Covid-19" in England and Wales does the same. They also "fixed" it with a follow up message telling people to ignore ​the notification. So, it's not us, it's them, the underlying tracking technology. I'd like to understand who in the world could design such a UX?​! ​​Alerts are to be acknowledged, not ignored, otherwise it defeats the purpose.

I'm not mad that Gboard changed the keyboard layout on Chrome only​, ​replacing ​​comma with slash. I'm mad that someone, somewhere decided to change the UX without any attempt to inform the users. I ​had to learn of the change by searching the web after a few ​uneasy ​moments ​wondering​ if ​I'm not losing my mind.​ Was the comma really there? ​What about the swipe right, which was to answer a call and now ​is changed to swipe​ bottom to​ top. Why did it change out of blue? What else could be with the next update?!

I'm not mad that the Chrome ​omnibox suddenly interrupts my typing, performs a search, then changes ​the omnibox ​to a search result and moves the focus, preventing me from finishing the typing. I suppose this is a bug. But I'm mad at how all this search BS is app-ifying the web before they figured out how the user "metabolizes" the digital content. No, I didn't volunteer for beta testing.

I do understand that I'm not the end user/customer of the vast majority of services available online. But I'm the data-entry-use-case for the ​Big ​Data business. Am I not? I expect some consideration for this use case​. Like any other interaction with this world, I use my intuition​ when using the UI​​ and ​if my experience is confusing, then the results are going to be arbitrary​,​ rather than logical.

I'm mad that I cannot successfully complete my task of providing useful data to advertisement companies 🤣. They take garbage in and throw garbage out. The outcome of browsing the web this morning is ads for socks for men! No, thanks, they don't fit! Oh, I forgot the Foreverspin toy, which popped up on the Worldometer site. Not buying, either!