or how I build patience
Today had me doing the oddest little dance, the Naz.api dataset news broke just after I saw the equally concerning Apple WebKit patch news. I hustled to notify my little collection of rakes that it was that time again, throwing hope to the wind that some of them would look up from whatever obsession was currently dominating their psyche and either run the updates and check https://haveibeenpwned.com/ or more likely file it in their afterthisdeadlineIpromise bin. I know there are a few adherents that dutifully fight every instinct and update when I tell them to, but most folks are too overwhelmed to risk it.
The stick - a notification pops up letting you know your machine is going to reboot, offering you a temporary stay of execution if you'll only click it. This is the root canal of notification popups. I'll leave the explanation of the UX disaster this is for people who don't think white text on a black background is the pinnacle of design, it is sufficient to say this interaction is at the heart of why people 1) don't read notifications and 2) hate them.
The carrot - a moment spent pretending users are interested, that they might be as curious about a patch as they are about the latest rage including headline caustically etching away their empathy. Pull them toward asking questions about it, use that access to the main Slack channel to your (and their!) advantage! It often feels useless, but then there are days like today.
I've got a lot of seat time pretending I am not going to be shocked by users. The advent of zoom has made the old mute button games much much more risky. I'll take a brief exposure to being baffled if it means someone might fix a gap in their security.
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