Aug 23, 2017 · 1 min read
Clippy is an interesting one. It had the right idea, it just didn’t get the user experience right (and to be fair, was a little to early to have really had the ability to). It had some basic AI, it was able to tell that you were doing a certain action, it just wasn’t able to determine whether you needed help or not. A lot of people didn’t mind Clippy the first time they saw him (or who can forget the adorable dog or wizard), but when it tried to help you with things you already had done hundreds of times it got very annoying. Proactive help or messaging when done right is like magic, get it wrong and your user will hate you. There is no in between unfortunately. Poor Clippy, he tried so hard :)
