I sent an email the other day to a colleague and was slightly surprised to get a spam filter email as response. But I quickly rationalised this as a sensible and reasonable thing…I get a lot of spam…I’m not surprised…Maybe something I might end up having to do with an online account. Then I looked at the email and started boiling …

It read (or I interpreted) “You are a suspect…you are not allowed”. Had I really blown something up? I didn’t think so. I thought, I’m sure my colleague can’t know of this …so I clicked on, into more villainy and deceit… the next screen was worse…

So … if my colleague deigns to allow me in … now I’m getting more and more agitated. And the horrible thing is that the effect of this is reflecting on my colleague, not the awful reverse emotional design of this screen. It says “…if so-and-so chooses to allow email from your address”. This screen purports to speak for my colleague. It makes me think these are his words, not the words of this awful site.

The final screen just rubs it in, repeats the ‘choosing’ insult, then asks me if I want more information about spam blocker. Do I hell!

Interestingly, its perfectly usable. Didn’t stop me, and I found all the buttons. But it was definately NOT a good experience. In fact, this is the worst emotional design I have seen, obviously built from ignorance. And there is no need. The design should be focussed on providing a good experience for those like me legitimately trying to be in touch. It should support my rationalisations of security and safety and communicate apology and friendliness. The spammers dont care what you say, but your colleagues do, so don’t alienate them with design like this.

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