Building a roach motel product is simpler than listening to a community and building value over time. <br><br>If you have a roach motel product, you don't worry about the trapped roaches. You worry about getting roaches in.<br><br>Hence, the focus on features for first-time users. (4/9)

CJ

@chostett

Currently looking over monthly expenses and thinking about how companies prefer designing for first-time users over long-term retention.

And how to some "long-term retention" = "The cost to leaving is painful, so I guess I'll pay." (1/9)

8/5/2020, 10:53:50 AM

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CJ

@chostett

If you were in a long-term relationship and asked your partner how they felt about you, and they said, "I stay with you because it's too painful to leave," do you know what that makes you?

A bad partner at best, abusive at worst. (2/9)

8/5/2020, 10:53:50 AM

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CJ

@chostett

So many companies do this. The words used in meetings are "embedded ecosystem" or "seamless integration into daily life," which may seem like a good thing, but the dark side is the product can turn into a roach motel. (3/9)

https://darkpatterns.org/types-of-dark-pattern/roach-motel

8/5/2020, 10:53:51 AM

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CJ

@chostett

Building a roach motel product is simpler than listening to a community and building value over time.

If you have a roach motel product, you don't worry about the trapped roaches. You worry about getting roaches in.

Hence, the focus on features for first-time users. (4/9)

8/5/2020, 10:53:51 AM

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CJ

@chostett

Designing for pre-existing customers takes time, effort and consideration. It requires the designer to understand the product's history and value over time.

I've been guilty of jumping into a product focused on first-timers when I should have focused on pre-existing folks. (5/9)

8/5/2020, 10:53:51 AM

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CJ

@chostett

Why? One is lack of willingness to dig into a complex and headache-inducing system of interrelated customer/dev/marketing tensions.

The other is time. Many of my past projects were only a few months or a year. Nowhere near enough time to get the context I needed to design. (6/9)

8/5/2020, 10:53:51 AM

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CJ

@chostett

As a design community I'd like for us to consider our own hand in the creation of this phenomena.

Consider what not deeply understanding a system or not deferring to experts has done long-term to ourselves. It's not an easy mirror to hold up, but necessary. (7/9)

8/5/2020, 10:53:52 AM

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CJ

@chostett

Are we being good long-term partners and stewards of sustainability?

Or are we facilitating roach motel creation? (8/9)

8/5/2020, 10:53:52 AM

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CJ

@chostett

As I'm looking over my monthly expenses and cutting costs, I see subscriptions I've ignored because they were too painful to leave. It was easy to do when I had the means.

And during this crisis I'm sure people are asking themselves the same thing. (9/9)

8/5/2020, 10:53:52 AM

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