iOS Notification Management and Other Design Sins

Rands is pissed about notifications in iOS:

I realize the suggestion I’m about to make is possibly ridiculous, but how do I turn off all notifications short of turning off the phone? Where is the big huge button that allows me to take control back from the bevy of applications that – yes, with my permission – are spamming me with reminders I don’t actually care about?

This was a pretty interesting article about how easy it is to get flooded with notifications, and then it went all next-level on me. Rands dug into design patterns everywhere that make it easy to opt-in, but difficult to opt-out:

This is by no means the most egregious or evil use of the design pattern. Have you ever tried to cancel a credit card online? Or your cable service? Businesses have little incentive to make it frictionless to allow you to do this because they know if they make it hard or require you to talk to a human that they greatly increase the chance you’ll become frustrated and stop before you finish.

So true.