The Extremely Bad UX of Wikipedia
I never thought about donating to Wikipedia before a couple months ago when they attacked me with an agressive charity pop up from hell. I declined because I felt, well, attacked.
This is basically user experience based on business needs, not user needs. And that is totally wrong and it won’t trigger the best behaviours. They might get tons of money, but I feel like we are manipulated because:
- It is an agressive prompt asking for money for a non-profit business
- It lacks details and transparency in order to explain how this will save them
- It destroys any trust in a single pop up
Today, I will decline again for the same reason. Even though it is for a good cause, harassing me for money won’t trigger my best behaviour. It might work for some people though, but I am pretty sure it irritates most of us.
We don’t trust hasslers.
Furthermore, how can we make sure that if everyone give 3$ to Wikipedia, it will save their ass? With their 32,062,887 users, they are pretty much asking for almost 100 millions dollars. Isn’t that ridiculous when they say “a non-profit” company? Is that really what it takes for them to survive? That looks like profit if Wikipedia don’t tell us how the money will be spent.
Finally, the message talks about trust created by a reliable, neutral, ad-free platform. Well, there are better ways to ask for donation and it begins with trust. Because WE DON’T TRUST hasslers.
