Users Are Actual People, Apps Should Not Try To Be

People on-site don’t seek pseudo friendships, so we keep the electronic communications direct

Conversational tones in software annoy me, even while I understand the motivation comes from a good place. I prefer ascertaining the info presented and choices in front of me as quickly as they can possibly be described, without inflation from false expressions of synthetic chumminess. I get even more irritated by large-language-models geared to engage with a normal person’s bluster and inconsistency, for communication with an actual person who probably prefers efficient message receipt over organic-seeming conversation.

We of course realize that technology is conceived, designed, scripted, deployed and sold for purposes of making money. It’s sort of insulting to try implying magnanimity from the code or its authors, and it heightens the  insult when interfaces force users to return the phoniness. If I’m presented a yes-or-no question, I prefer declining with just just that famous pair of letters in the link or button. Besides quadrupling the on-screen character count, extending it to “no, thanks” conveys to some database grateful sentiments I’m not experiencing and which it can't meaningfully appreciate anyhow.

The admissions above may work against my points by, more than anything else, just establishing that I’m prone to some eccentric fixations. You may have read that thinking “yeah, kind of? it’s just some polite writing incorporated into computer programming – are you OK?” versus receiving with assertive agreement that, “SaaS product management is manipulative tyranny!" (which is not what I’m contending – it’s your hypothetical thought). But even less alarmist people should agree that when harried (like facing the deadlines for a scattered team’s on-location project), it’s desirable for software to present objective and brief language, and that conversational tone packed into interfaces, is, come on, admit it: bloated, insincere, manipulative and infuriating!

There.App isn’t here to be your pal, shaman, party-planner, crisis-counselor or fix-it finagler. If you’ve got such people, you’ll all be best off with them being team-members in your There.App projects, so they can most effectively play those roles. Our role we see more as being the fabric for supporting those personal interactions and engagement in the real-world settings where you all find yourself during these projects. If someone wants to include AI-sourced information, language, arrangements or characters, they can go for it as those capabilities are plenty accessible and there are multiple ways to integrate good results into There.App use including BOARD, CHAT, FILES, MEDIA and WEB modules supporting versatile pages within projects that can integrate with practically anything on-line. The priority we bring is presenting the information, outreach and options most relevant in the moment for efficient execution, including our language being clear, concise and considerate, but not personal. Nothing personal.

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