I don’t want to be friends with computers; I don’t want it to tell me jokes

Humor in UX — UX designers spend their lives trying to convince everyone that you need to develop empathy with your users. You have to factor in the “human” part of the interactions.

Even a drab work like simply filling a login form can be made interesting. UX folks want you to engage the user. Humor is a simple tool through which you can make anything interesting, engaging and “human”.

But !!!

I don’t want to be friends with computers. You can keep your silly jokes to yourself. I open an application to perform a set of work. I certainly do not want my banking application to send a “joke” notification like “Haha your account has zero balance. Gotcha !! Was just kidding !!!”

Well there is a fine line between being an absolute jerk and make your user do this to you

Instead you can try some subtle humor to engage your audience (without risking being mauled by a giant panda)

1. We all have been proving ourselves to the computer that we are not a robot lately (I mean I need to prove myself to something that we human created that I am not a robot. Oh the humanity !)

Reinvent this captcha with something witty. Throwing an example here:

But wait choose your question wisely. You might get mauled by panda if you make fun of panda.

2. When you fall down you laugh on yourself (everybody else is already laughing so better join them)

How would you like to get an error like this while doing some important transaction :

This bring fear to heart of the bravest!!

Instead take a cue from applications like below and gracefully accept that something went wrong and provide an alternative to resume the work

3. Remember the Microsoft word paperclip “clippy” we all wanted to murder. Try something like that but which makes you feel less murdery.

The problem with clippy was that it was trying to be too helpful. Yes there is a thing called “too helpful”

Try giving your user a freedom and authority of the kind of help they need and do not beat on the head with some information, instead allow them to ask for the help like a friendly little chatbot from React Simple Chatbot

4. Give brownies to user when they are able to do some task. We all want those golden foil stars. Don’t we ?

At least acknowledge that the task has been successfully completed or provide predictability by showing what all need to be done to complete the task

Be careful about the messages you display to user. BTW anybody remember when Windows XP thought this UX is a good idea? (No one remembers ? Damn am I that old :|)

5. Engage Karen with some activity before she calls for your manager.

Sometimes lags are real and your user end might end up in situation like this

Be proactive and let the user know what is happening before the panda come looking for you.

Keep fishing while we do our thing !

So here I summon all my fellow nerds to not to be afraid of tickling that funny bone of your non-nerd users and let them feel that the person sitting behind the computer is also human.

Good UX is not an afterthought, it is not an optional consideration either. With this I end my ranting.

Signing off.

Reluctant Designer.