Comment by jbarciauskas
7 years ago
Our brains are funny things and there are lots of ways to hack them to make the world a more enjoyable place.
A related idea: https://signalvnoise.com/posts/1244-defining-the-problem-of-...
I would put these solutions into the same category: accommodating the way the brain works to create an overall more pleasant experience.
You may choose to call it deception, but you probably don't want to live in the world where no one does anything along these lines.
> overall more pleasant experience
It is far more pleasing to understand what is going on and be able to measure its progress then to be shown a series of arbitrary shapes and symbols that happen to push one's happy buttons.
Stop pandering to your users' mercurial, unpredictable, and manipulable feelings, and start using your software to teach their brains how it all works.
Plus, then I don't finish the interaction with, "well, what else have they deceived me on?"
Maybe for you but i dont think that is true for a majority of the population.