Dead End UX

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Click here for the article
The article focuses on FaceBook's personalization and the idea of 'dead end UX'  The author has turned their FaceBook feed into effectively a news reader by unfollowing all of their friends.  Now they are unable to undo this action, making Facebook unusable.  The follow/unfollow feature of FaceBook is something my family and I have made great use of in the past year, with some unforseen consequences that are similar to those encountered by the author.  Last election season, my mother unfollowed her mother because the daily unintentionally racist posting was becoming too much.  A couple months later my great uncle died and my grandmother posted about about his death, which my mom obviously did not see.  I had to call my mom to tell her so that she in turn could call my grandmother to give her condolences.  If I hadn't done that, my mother would not have known about her uncle's death and would have ended up hurting my grandmother by not reaching out during her grieving process.  

The solution that the author presents for this type of thing is a sort of grand undo button, one that allows you to completely restart FaceBooks learning.  Personally, I made my FaceBook when I was 13 and was much more active than I am now, and my interests have changed dramatically.  Being able to train behaviors out of FaceBook would be highly beneficial.

Discussion Questions:

Why would FaceBook be wary of developing this reset?  It wouldn't change their user base at all, and as far as advertising goes, there wouldn't be a loss, just a shift.  Are there consequences that I'm just not seeing?

Looking at your own FaceBook experiences, what effect would this reset button have?  Do you feel that you would benefit?

How much should we be concerned about Dead End UX?  Where else does it crop up? 


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