I was creating a presentation in Miro just now and I got greeted with two popups that look like this, nagging me at the bottom corner of my screen.

Ugh…

What’s with UX people nowadays? Do they not know that this…

…reminds me of this?

It’s been a couple of decades since Office ‘97 so I’m quite convinced that we have new UX designers and product teams that are unaware of Clippit and its infamy to annoy people.

At least Clippit has the option to shut the fuck up, and I’m glad it does. But even on the one interaction that it does this to you, a LOT of people know Clippit for its reputation for being annoying.

I can say the same for this guy right here, in Notion.

What bothers me more is that people are gaslighting to make this a norm and as if it’s okay.

It’s NOT. My feedback right here is that you guys do NOT give me options to make these STFU and instead use it as a means to constantly remind users that they need to use features.

But that’s the thing, we don’t need it. YOU want us to.

Back in the day, we simply called these things “Tip of the Day” and yes, they DID pop up when you started the software, but just like Clippit, they RESPECTED user choice.

Classic Visual Studio. I didn’t even know it used to be called MS Developer Studio. See the “Show tips at startup” there? They got it right even in 1997.

Somehow, modern UX designers and their product leads and obviously their KPIs all nudge to the direction that this is nothing to worry about when I’m pretty damn sure most users who don’t use this are actually just silently ignoring these features and just living the rest of their lives in mild frustration that they didn’t know they could’ve lived without it.

It’s even more annoying when it’s a paid feature I specifically decided NOT to subscribe to and yet it’s here to annoy you that you need to pay for a feature otherwise it gives you these annoying reminders while you use the software.

This is the third time I’ve closed this piece of crap, and I’ve seen more similar reminders for Notion Calendar and Mail. Hell, I already use Notion Calendar, so why?

This one right here is where it really grinds my gears, because they think it’s OK for common toolbars to have a fourth of it being dedicated to uselessness.

I really liked Notion AI before. But I decided not to use it anymore since it’s not really worth it but now they’re basically saying that I have to live life with these annoyances that add nothing to the user.

Seriously, these companies should learn to respect user choice. I hate that everything has to be a push towards using new features when people don’t want to, or to pay for stuff.