#a better phrasing could also be: are they beautiful or ugly by today's standards?

[therevengeoffrankenstein]

i really don't think it's helpful to discuss historical figures as being 'actually' ugly or 'actually' beautiful or not.

better phrasing: were they perceived as being ugly or beautiful by others during their time? why? why not? how did this affect them? what does this say about the beauty standards of the context they lived within (time, place, status, etc.)? what might their view of their own beauty or lack thereof say about themself?

[nikkisnonsense-blog1]

To Myself... Three Months Ago

Dear Nikki,

Hey girl, I come to you not bearing the greatest of news. These next few months are going to be some of the hardest of your life so far. I really hate to be the one to tell you this but I feel like we’re close enough that we can be honest with each other. Well I’m not gonna waste anymore time because there’s a lot I need to get you up to speed on. Let’s make this a list of 8 things for organization sake.

      1. The musical you’ve been directing for the past few months will not be happening

You and your friend/ music director, Joe have been wearing out the phrase “I can’t believe the show is happening!” for the past few months. Sadly, that’s not the case. Sure, sometimes you wanted to rip your hair out due to frustration or cried in your car because you didn’t think you were doing a good enough job. But underneath it all, I know you had put more work into this show than you have for anything else in your life. You knew the possibility of the show being canceled was there but it was only something that you joked about in rehearsal with your cast. It could never become a reality. The day you find out, you won’t cry much. Which is weird. If anything you don’t feel much at all. The next day your cast will do an amazing concert style performance of the show instead which people will rave to you about and it genuinely makes you feel good for a moment. But it isn’t until after that’s over that it actually begins to set in. When everyone else starts to move on You’ll stare at the box of props that sits in your kitchen for months and feel a weird form of uneasiness. You were told by everyone that any frustration you feel would be worth it when the curtain opens. But what do you do when the curtain never opens? You’re forced to sit with the disappointment and sadness of an unfinished project. You think about all of the fun things you would have gotten to do with your cast and crew and how proud of yourself you would have been after the shows. That’s when you cry.

      2. The second half of your last college semester will be taken away

Besides the Musical, you will also be missing out on plenty of other events at school.  Your spring concert, trip to NYC, your roommate’s senior art show, your girlfriend’s comedy show, any theatre in the area, drunken nights with your friends, and most importantly, Graduation. Ah yes, the very thing that your entire life has been waiting on. At least that’s how it feels. You remember when you were little and traveled to upstate New York and Boston for your cousins’ graduations and how big of a deal they were. Or watching your parents tear up at your sister’s graduation. Not having been the best student in school, you were shocked you even made it this far. A day that was going to be a monumental experience for you and so many others has just been pushed to a further date. Like a dentist appointment. That day hurts the most. When I tell my parents how upset I am, they assure me “You’ll still have a graduation!” but you know it won’t be the same. You get mad at the world because of it and feel like stomping your feet on the ground and yelling “It’s not fair!” like a child. But you know that wouldn’t do any good.

       3. You’re going to gain weight

As someone who has had body images their whole life, I know this sounds like an absolute nightmare. And it kind of is. It’s kind of inevitable wen you can’t leave your house anymore, you rely on Door Dash a little too much, The gym is closed, and you really have no motivation to do anything. Stretch marks will appear in new places, shirts that once fit perfectly will be snug, and certain clothes you used to feels sexy in, just make you feel like a fool. It’s so important to remind yourself that your body is changing because your lifestyle is changing. It’s going to drive you wild for a while but I promise you it is not the end of the world. Also your girlfriend assures you she still finds you beautiful in any state. 

       4.  You move back in with your parents

You’re fortunate enough to have the last 2 months in your apartment to quarantine with your roommates and your girlfriend which is like a weird stretch of time where there are no rules and you feel like a Sim without a task. Then before you know it, your lease is up and your parents come up and help move you out of your apartment. Now I know you’re thinking that sounds like a nightmare but living with Mom and Dad is not as awful as you imagined. They treat you like an adult, give you your space, and dad only makes you watch one video he finds online a day as opposed to his usual 5. Theres also a bulk size container of cheese sticks from Costco so you decide this place isn’t too bad. Moving home is surprisingly the best you’ve felt all year. Your mental health is getting better which is a god sent considering how miserable you’ve been. So there is a silver lining

     5. Finding work is IMPOSSIBLE

You’ll find yourself comparing yourself to when your sister finished college and found work and an apartment almost immediately. Even though she’s in a different field and graduated 3 years ago when the world was a much different place, you still compare yourself. Indeed and Ziprecruiter become your best friends but they clearly don’t like you back very much because your responses are limited. The closest you get to a job is an insurance agency that would offer you $65,000- $85,000 a year. Maybe it’s just the Jew in you, but those numbers got you very excited, so you apply. They decide they’re interested in you and schedule you for a virtual interview. You’ve also read the job description 100 times and still have no god damn idea what you would be doing. During the Interview, the man asks you if you have any doubts and you say “maybe a few due to my lack of experience” but in your head you’re thinking “What the fuck am I doing. I have a degree in Theatre and I’m trying to get a job selling insurance. Would this job even make me the tiniest bit happy besides the paycheck?” The man tells you that he would like to offer you the job to which you graciously say thank you.  As soon as you hang up the zoom call, you immediately burst into tears. Frustrated and sad that the only job you have gotten close to is one you don’t even want. The jobs you do want, in the arts and media, are not hiring right now and if they are it’s for people with 5+ years of experience. You’ve applied to over 50 jobs at this point and the only ones that have gotten back to you sound dreadful. You learn that no paycheck is worth a lifetime of sadness. You email the man back saying thank you, but you cannot accept the job.

    6. The world is full of awful people

This may seem like an exaggeration at first especially because I- uh I mean you, are generally a pretty optimistic person. You may have severe depression, but you still usually see the glass half full. But even the blindest of optimists can’t deny the world looks pretty shit right now. Besides the pandemic, Black people are being murdered left and right by police for no reason. Something that certainly isn’t a new phenomenon but has now been amplified to new heights and has brought out the rage in people. You do what you can to help in these times. Protesting, donating, sharing online, signing petitions but it never feels like enough. You will continue to raise your voice about Black Lives Mattering and hope for change. Acknowledging your white privilege and trying to listen to the voices of others. As much as you personally try to help out, you end up seeing the ugly that comes out as well. Especially in your 92.9% white small town. 

    7. Pride will be different this year

The yearly celebration of going to Pride in Philadelphia with rainbow shadow on your eyes, glitter in your hair, and a water bottle full of vodka and gatorade have now been replace with anger and a yearning for justice. The LGBT community would be nothing without Black activists backing it. The Stonewall Riots were led by a Black Trans Woman. So you do your part to amplify black voices as a part of pride. Because right now is not the time to take shots and dance to Whitney Houston.

    8. You’re not the only one feeling this way

Even though life is a bit of a shit show right now, it’s so important to remind yourself that you are not the only one experiencing these things. None of your friends know what the hell they’re doing either.  Everyone is just scared shitless of the state of the world and is trying their best. Please take some of the pressure off yourself. You are only a person and it’s unrealistic to put these standards on yourself. The world today is a completely different world than it was 3 months ago. As for the months to come, I have absolutely no idea what to expect. You’d have to ask 6 months from now Nikki but I haven’t met her yet. The world will not be the same as it was before but I promise you, there is a new normal somewhere beyond the horizon. 

Take care of yourself,

Present Day Nikki

Ps. You are going to adopt a baby tortoise named Harley and he will be the light of your life. He will make life just a bit more bearable.

Pss. 

Here are links to help the Black Lives Matter movement

[sarahburness]

You Don’t Suck at Life: How to Stop Believing Your Inner Bully

“You’re too fat to wear that tight shirt to the gym.”

“You’re not smart enough to take the lead on that project at work.”

“You’re definitely going to screw up the vacation plans.”

“You’re not good enough, cool enough, likable enough.” 

“You suck.”

If we talked like this to anyone, it would be considered bullying.

And yet we talk to ourselves like this all the time.

We talk to ourselves in a way we would never talk to people we care about. We take these words to heart and believe them as truth.

We turn these words into our core belief system, holding ourselves back from growth, fulfillment, and happiness.

We set high expectations for ourselves, and if we don’t meet them it comes out in unfair, untrue, and flat-out mean judgments.

We say “treat others the way you’d like to be treated” but don’t follow that advice when it comes to how we treat ourselves.

I certainly didn’t.

I was a Grade A self-bully for years.

Every day when I left work, I’d hear this voice in my head telling me, “They’re going to figure out you’re a fraud and don’t know what you’re doing. Anyone can do this job better than you. They’re going to fire you. You’re an embarrassment.”

I never had many friends, but when the few I had would invite me out somewhere, I’d think, “They just pity me. They’re only inviting me because they feel obligated. I’m not as pretty as they are and don’t fit in. I never know the right thing to say. I’m going to screw this up.”

I always imagined how disappointed my parents would be in me if they saw how messy my house was, or what they’d think of me leaving a well-paying job to start my own business, or if they knew that I lost that stock certificate and now had to pay a stupid amount of money to get it replaced. I’d think, “They’ll judge me and think that I’ve failed them, and that I’m not as good as they expected me to be.”

I told myself how unlikeable I was, and that’s why I didn’t have more friends.

I told myself how I’d never be successful because I never had any good ideas.

I told myself how ugly I was. How boring I was. How awkward I was.

I was constantly putting myself down, partly because I was a perfectionist, and partly because I worried way too much about what other people thought of me and never felt I was good enough to meet their standards.

But that was the old me.

I’ve come a long way since then. I slip up on occasion, but I’m much better equipped now to course correct using the steps below.

Changing my relationship with my inner bully took me a few years of studying, training, and practicing.

If you’ve been bullying yourself for years, it will likely take you time to change your habit, as well. But these six key strategies will make a lot easier to be kind to yourself.

Step 1: Say hello.

When we hear that self-bully talk, we tend to instantly believe it without recognizing what’s going on or questioning it. We see it as truth. We fully experience it.

The first step to quieting your inner bully is to say hello. That is, mindfully recognize that this is self-bully talk happening. Maybe even personify it by giving it a name or even a gender.

I like to minimize my inner bully by giving her a silly name: Cupcake.

When I hear inner talk like “Ugh, you suck at this,” I notice this and say, “Oh, hi Cupcake. Welcome to the party.”

This allows me to step back from the voice. Just like I do when I’m watching a scary movie and I don’t want to get too scared. I step back and recognize that these are actors on a screen, they are reading scripts, there are cameras and lights pointing at them.

I go from being fully absorbed in the movie, like I’m in it, to noticing that I’m watching a movie. It’s a subtle but profound shift.

From this place, we can create space, which enables us to make change in the next step.

Step 2: Change how you experience your bully.

We experience thoughts as pictures, sounds, or feelings. Most people experience their inner bully thoughts as sound, like hearing a voice telling them “you suck.”

Here’s a fun trick to change how you experience your inner bully. Change the sound of the “voice.”

When I hear that voice telling me that I suck, I say, “Hi Cupcake, what do you have to say again?”

Then I repeat her words in a funny cartoon voice. Now she sounds like Mickey Mouse and I can’t even take her seriously.

If you’re a visual type and “you suck” comes to you in a picture—perhaps one of you at a time in your life when you felt like you failed—you can try a different tactic (or both even).

Since I named her ���Cupcake,” I can also picture her as such.

Now I see a cupcake with a Mickey Mouse voice telling me “you suck.” Which, of course, is adorable and hilarious.

This helps me step further out of that negative mind frame so I can take the next step. 

Step 3: Find the positive intent.

Everything we do has a positive intent. Even when we’re being mean to ourselves.

When I was telling myself that I was no good at my job, my bully was really trying to push me to do better so I wouldn’t get fired, and trying to protect me from being caught off-guard if that happened. She was also trying to tell me where I still had and opportunity to grow and learn.

When I find myself procrastinating on a project because my bully is telling me that I’m not going to do a good job anyway, I know she’s just trying to protect me from failure.

She didn’t choose the most helpful method, but she meant well.

I can now say, “Thanks, Cupcake. I can take it from here.”

And then I move onto the next step.

Step 4: Choose a neutral or positive thought instead.

Sometimes it can feel like a big leap to go from a negative to a positive. Going from “I’m a failure” to “I’m a success” might feel false to you considering the circumstances.

In this case, try a neutral thought instead. See how it feels to go from “I’m a failure” to “I’m not a failure at everything.”

In my case, at work I would often think “I can’t do this.” (This was usually when someone asked me to analyze some data, which wasn’t my strong suit.)

To get myself out of self-bully mode, I would slightly alter the statement “I can’t do this” by adding “yet.”

“I can’t do this… yet.”

Sometimes I could even replace it with “I can do this,” just to try it out and see how it felt. More often than not, it actually felt true. I just hadn’t thought of that idea yet.

And over time I did get better at analyzing data.

The point is, you can choose what thoughts to think.

Step 5: Give yourself permission to be imperfect.

(Note, this step is only applicable if you identify as a human.)

Our inner bullies come out of the woodwork when we do something that we consider “imperfect.”

We don’t look perfect. We didn’t execute something perfectly. We didn’t make the perfect choice.

The phrase “I’m only human” is another way of saying, by nature, I will make mistakes. Mistakes are allowed. Not only allowed but expected.

Write yourself a permission slip to be imperfect. Just see how it feels.

“I, Sandy, give myself permission to write a blog post about self-bullying and not write it perfectly.”

That felt pretty good.

Step 6: Know that you are not alone and can ask for help if you need it.

Over time, negative self-talk becomes a habit, and as we’ve all experienced, habits are hard to form or break.

If you’re having trouble breaking your self-bullying habit, even using these steps, you don’t have to go it alone, and you shouldn’t be afraid or ashamed to ask for help.

Working with a supportive therapist or coach, or even just confiding in a friend, can make a huge difference. An unbiased outsider is able to hear our thoughts, what we’re saying and not saying, and reflect those back to us when we don’t notice them.

They provide us with support and accountability to keep us on track toward our goals and cheer us on along the way. They ask us tough questions, that we wouldn’t think to ask ourselves.

They also help remind us that we’re not alone in feeling how we feel. That it’s not only common, but people can see improvement, which is incredibly reassuring. Odds are, everyone you’ve ever met has struggled with this too, and still does on occasion.

Personally, I reached out for help much later in my own journey because I was embarrassed. My inner bully told me that if I went to someone for help, it meant I was weak. And that they would tell me there’s nothing wrong with me and to suck it up (our inner bullies tend to lie to us).

I don’t have regrets in my life. Every experience has made me who I am today, and I love who I am. I’m sure the tougher path I took made me stronger along the way.

But I also think I would have reached freedom from my inner-bully more quickly had I put my ego aside and opened up to someone sooner.

Know that you are not alone. Everyone feels or has felt the way you do, and like you, they struggle with this at times and see progress at others. So try to be good to yourself—and aim for progress, not perfection.

Much love and light on your journey, my friend.

About Sandy Woznicki

Sandy is a stress and anxiety coach and mindfulness meditation teacher helping women who deep down don't feel good enough and are overrun by stress or fear. Her coaching and free resources like the Stress Detox Course help women to live more fully and freely. She’s happily married to her goofy husband and loves connecting with nature in beautiful Maine.

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The post You Don’t Suck at Life: How to Stop Believing Your Inner Bully appeared first on Tiny Buddha.

from Tiny Buddha https://tinybuddha.com/blog/you-dont-suck-at-life-how-to-stop-believing-your-inner-bully/

[ashaartseminar]

A lot about Colorism

(SORRY this is long because I am very passionate about colorism)

I loved the 20x20 presentation on Firelei Baez’s work. It was electrifying and inspiring. I loved her piece “Can I Pass.” All too often the conversation of colorism stops at the idea of whitewashing. And while whitewashing IS part of colorism, it is not the whole story. Nor does conversation about whitewashing ever include the effects on the people who never see themselves represented. Baez’s piece succeeded in that it highlighted that colorism is more than whitewashing. It highlighted the deep-rooted, long-lasting toxic effects on POC and how those effects manifest internally.

Although colorism affects many groups of people, I am going to discuss it from a Black American experience because, I cannot comment on any other experience, such as Asian, Indian, or Caribbean.

Two years ago, at track practice, the senior girls were talking about prom. The girls on the team were primarily black. They made light-hearted jokes about “having to cover up soon to not get dark before prom” and “not tryna look like a shadow.” A few days later, they arrived at practice in sweaters and long pants. It was 90 degrees outside, and our practices were three hours long. They piled on sunscreen and wore hoods. They ran under ledges and into buildings to avoid the sun. No one asked any questions. No one said anything. Everyone knew why. Everyone was ok with it.

I talked to one of my friends (for the sake of this blog post I will name her Cindy) who had often gotten into arguments with her mother about her skin, body, and hair. Cindy’s mother gave her a “cleanser” to help with her acne. After using it for a while, she realized it was a skin lightening product. Cindy and her mother often get into arguments about her hair. Cindy likes to wear her hair in its natural 4C afro. Her mother wants her to get a blonde weave.

Baez’s piece was revolutionary in how it looked at colorism as more than just skin color. Her exemption of facial features highlighted the effect hair could have on not only being “white passing” but also on how we think about color and race. In some silhouettes her hair was straighter in others it was curlier. It questioned our obsession with straight hair equating to beauty and curly/kinky hair equaling unkempt. Everyone with curly hair (regardless of race) is familiar with the question, “What does your hair look like straight” or “How long is your hair actually?” Beauty supply stores shelves lined with boxes of perms, relaxers, and keratin treatments feature images of young children with bone-straight hair. Teaching them that the straightness of their hair should determine their self-worth and that they should go to any lengths (toxic chemicals) to achieve it.

On the internet, there’s a surge of positivity about dark skin women. Hashtags, threads, and appreciation posts litter twitter and Instagram. However, are these positivity posts genuine? Moreover, do they actually promote healthy conversation about color? These posts and threads do feature dark skin women, but the women have long straight wigs, Eurocentric features, and (for lack of a better phrase) “slim thicc” bodies. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this. However, these posts only feature women who look like this. They become less of an appreciation and more of a fetishization. Instead of encouraging black women to embrace and love themselves, they are projecting a new, and arguably more damaging, ideal for black women to strive towards. They do not say “your dark skin is beautiful.” They say, “This is the only way for your blackness to be considered valid.” Tangential to this is the idea that natural hair has to be waist length 3B texture with edges laid to be accepted.

The idea of what blackness is “good” is one that has occurred longer than just online hashtags. #Team light skin vs. #Team dark skin is the modern day translation of “house negro” “field negro” and the one drop rule, blue vein societies, and paper bag test. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Kenneth and Mamie Clark developed research about self-identification in young children. They conducted a series of studies that became known as The Doll Tests. They found that Black children often preferred to play with White dolls over Black ones. When asked to fill in a human figure with the color of their skin, they often chose a lighter shade than was accurate. Why? Because, the children gave the color "White" attributes such as good and pretty, but "Black" was seen as bad and ugly.

Even though The Doll Tests were conducted decades ago, the cognitive dissidence continues today, but is often ignored and suppressed with “it is just a preference.” At one of our final track meets, all the throwers were sitting in a circle playing a game (lol no one wanted to play, but I made them). The rules were simple. Whisper a question to your neighbor. They answer aloud. Flip a slide in the air. If it lands up, you say the question, and if not, you move on. The catch was that the answer had to be someone in the circle. (super dumb, but we were bored) I sat towards the side of the circle where the boys were clustered. There was one boy that all the girls thought was attractive. For every question, the girls said his name. However, when it was his turn, one of his friends said: “Haha, he only likes white girls.” It was a comment meant for only the other guys to hear, who laughed and jeered with him. All the boys on the team were black, and all the girls on the team were POC except for two. One of the white girls wasn’t playing. I don’t remember if the question had been said or not because I stopped listening after the answer. The boy struggled and named the two white girls. After an uprising from the other players that he wasn’t following the rules, he reluctantly named the white girl that was playing and the lightest, non-white girl in the circle.

That is why the argument, “Its just a preference” is so problematic because it erases and demeans the emotional trauma it educes not only on anyone that doesn’t “pass” the paper bag test but also the internalized racism of its perpetrators.

Pop culture is a prime example of our complacency with colorism. It is most notable in music. Childish Gambino has a song titled, “Redbone.” “Redbone” is slang for a light skin woman.  A$AP Rocky’s lyric “With a light mix, or a light switch, white chick. Dark skin complexion and she righteous” more blatantly states his disdain for dark skin woman but, he is a dark skin man. However, this is not limited to music. Dark skin girls are never the casual love interest in teen movies, they are never the most popular singers, and they are never protagonists in movies that aren’t about being black.

I believe in order to start fixing the problem of colorism, we must promote media that portrays POC positively and fairly. Media that writes them into stories about things other than history and "the struggles of life." Media that casts POC not just to fill a diversity quota or pander to raging masses. Shows like Daria, Little Bill*, and The Cosby Show* depict black people and families positively and without whitewashing. We need to stop supporting artists and shows that degrade and outcast people that don't fit a Eurocentric standard of beauty. And finally, we need to uplift, promote, and create products that celebrate POC.

*Bill Cosby is ABSURDLY and entirely problematic but the show portrayed a black family that doesn't reflect many of the negative stereotypes that are typically seen in depictions of black families.

(sorry this was so long omg)

[josephkchoi]

6 Really Bad Website Popup Examples

If you want to craft a delightful marketing experience and you’re using popups, you need to make sure you hold them to the same high standards as the content they are covering up. You can learn a lot by looking at bad website popup examples.

Once you understand what not to do, you’ll default to starting your own popup designs from a better baseline.

What does a bad popup design actually look like?

Well, it depends on your judging criteria, and for the popup examples below, I was considering these seven things, among others:

Clarity: Is it easy to figure out the offer really quickly?

Relevance: Is it related to the content of the current page?

Manipulation: Does it use psychological trickery in the copy?

Design: Is it butt ugly?

Control: Is it clear what all options will do?

Escape: Can you get rid of it easily?

Value: Is the reward worth more than the perceived (or actual) effort?

The following popup examples, each make a number of critical errors in their design decisions. Take a look, and share your own worst popup design examples in the comments!

#1 – Weather Channel Rudeness

What’s so bad about it?

Okay, I get it Weather.com, ads are one of, or your only, revenue stream. There are plenty of sites who ask you to turn off an ad blocker to read the full article. I don’t have a problem with it, and the main paragraph of text here is okay.

What I *do* have a problem with is the copy on the CTA. “Turn off your ad blocker”.

Really? You can’t even say please? That’s just obnoxious.

Fun fact, the Canadian version of the site doesn’t have this popup. Go figure. ;) (I had to VPN to get the U.S. version.)

Submitted by Ramona from Impact)

#2 – Mashable Shmashable

What’s so bad about it?

If you peer into the background behind the popup, you’ll see a news story headline that begins with “Nightmare Alert”. I think that’s a pretty accurate description of what’s happening here.

Design: Bad. The first thing I saw looks like a big mistake. The Green line with the button hanging off the bottom looks like the designer fell asleep with their head on the mouse.

Clarity: Bad. And what on earth does the headline mean? click.click.click. Upon deeper exploration, it’s the name of the newsletter, but that’s not apparent at all on first load.

Clarity: worse. Then we get the classic “Clear vs. Clever” headline treatment. Why are you talking about the pronunciation of the word “Gif”? Tell me what this is, and why I should care to give you my email.

Design: Bad. Also, that background is gnarly.

#3 – KAM Motorsports Revolution!

What’s so bad about it?

It’s motorsports. It’s not a revolution. Unless they’re talking about wheels going round in circles.

Clarity: Bad. The headline doesn’t say what it is, or what I’ll get by subscribing. I have to read the fine print to figure that out.

Copy: Bad. Just reading the phrase “abuse your email” is a big turn off. Just like the word spam, I wasn’t thinking that you were going to abuse me, but now it’s on my mind.

Relevance: Bad. Newsletter subscription popups are great, they have a strong sense of utility and can give people exactly what they want. But I don’t like them as entry popups. They’re much better when they use an exit trigger, or a scroll trigger. Using a “Scroll Up” trigger is smart because it means they’ve read some of your content, and they are scrolling back up vs. leaving directly, which is another micro-signal that they are interested.

#4 – Utterly Confused

(Source unknown – I found it on confirmshaming.tumblr.com)

What’s so bad about it?

I have no earthly clue what’s going on here.

Clarity: Bad. I had to re-read it five times before I figured out what was going on.

Control: Bad. After reading it, I didn’t know whether I would be agreeing with what they’re going to give me, or with the statement. It’s like an affirmation or something. But I have no way of knowing what will happen if I click either button. My best guess after spending this much time writing about it is that it’s a poll. But a really meaningless one if it is. Click here to find out how many people agreed with “doing better”…

It ends with “Do Better”. I agree. They need to do a lot better.

#5 – Purple Nurple

What’s so bad about it?

Manipulation: Bad. Our first “Confirm Shaming” example. Otherwise known as “Good Cop / Bad Cop”. Forcing people to click a button that says “Detest” on it is so incongruent with the concept of a mattress company that I think they’re just being cheap. There’s no need to speak to people that way.

I found a second popup example by Purple (below), and have to give them credit. The copy on this one is significantly more persuasive. Get this. If you look at the section I circled (in purple), it says that if you subscribe, they’ll keep you up to date with SHIPPING TIMES!!! Seriously? If you’re going to email me and say “Hey Oli, great news! We can ship you a mattress in 2 weeks!”, I’ll go to Leesa, or Endy, or one of a million other Casper copycats.

#6 – Hello BC

What’s so bad about it?

Context: This is an entry popup, and I have never been to this site before.

Relevance: Bad. The site is Hellobc.com, the title says “Supernatural British Columbia”, and the content on the page is about skydiving. So what list is this for? And nobody wants to be on a “list”, stop saying “list”. It’s like saying email blast. Blast your list. If you read the first sentence it gets even more confusing, as you’ll be receiving updates from Destination BC. That’s 4 different concepts at play here.

Design: Bad. It’s legitimately butt ugly. I mean, come on. This is for Beautiful Supernatural British Columbia ffs. It’s stunning here. Show some scenery to entice me in.

Value: Bad. Seeing that form when I arrive on the page is like a giant eff you. Why do they think it’s okay to ask for that much info, with that much text, before I’ve even seen any content?

Control: Bad. And there’s not any error handling. However, the submit button remains inactive until you magically click the right amount of options to trigger it’s hungry hungry hippo mouth to open.

Train. Wreck.

Well, that’s all for today, folks. You might be wondering why there were so few popup examples in this post. Honestly, when the team was rallying to find me a bunch of examples, we all struggled to find many truly awful ones. We also struggled to find many really awesome ones.

This is where YOU come in!

Send me your terrible and awesome popup examples!

If you have any wonderfully brutal, or brutally wonderful examples of website popup design, I’d really appreciate a URL in the comments. If you could share the trigger details too that would be rad (e.g. exit, entrance, scroll, delay etc.).

Tomorrow’s Post is about Awesome Popup Examples! YAY.

So get your butt back here same time tomorrow, where I’ll be sharing my brand new Popup Delight Equation that you can use to grade your own popup designs.

Cheers, Oli

p.s. Don’t forget to subscribe to the weekly updates.

6 Really Bad Website Popup Examples published first on https://nickpontemrktg.wordpress.com/

[itsjessicaisreal]

5 Really Bad Website Popup Examples

If you want to craft a delightful marketing experience and you’re using popups, you need to make sure you hold them to the same high standards as the content they are covering up. You can learn a lot by looking at bad website popup examples.

Once you understand what not to do, you’ll default to starting your own popup designs from a better baseline.

What does a bad popup design actually look like?

Well, it depends on your judging criteria, and for the popup examples below, I was considering these seven things, among others:

Clarity: Is it easy to figure out the offer really quickly?

Relevance: Is it related to the content of the current page?

Manipulation: Does it use psychological trickery in the copy?

Design: Is it butt ugly?

Control: Is it clear what all options will do?

Escape: Can you get rid of it easily?

Value: Is the reward worth more than the perceived (or actual) effort?

The following popup examples, each make a number of critical errors in their design decisions. Take a look, and share your own worst popup design examples in the comments!

#1 – Mashable Shmashable

What’s so bad about it?

If you peer into the background behind the popup, you’ll see a news story headline that begins with “Nightmare Alert”. I think that’s a pretty accurate description of what’s happening here.

Design: Bad. The first thing I saw looks like a big mistake. The Green line with the button hanging off the bottom looks like the designer fell asleep with their head on the mouse.

Clarity: Bad. And what on earth does the headline mean? click.click.click. Upon deeper exploration, it’s the name of the newsletter, but that’s not apparent at all on first load.

Clarity: worse. Then we get the classic “Clear vs. Clever” headline treatment. Why are you talking about the pronunciation of the word “Gif”? Tell me what this is, and why I should care to give you my email.

Design: Bad. Also, that background is gnarly.

#2 – KAM Motorsports Revolution!

What’s so bad about it?

It’s motorsports. It’s not a revolution. Unless they’re talking about wheels going round in circles.

Clarity: Bad. The headline doesn’t say what it is, or what I’ll get by subscribing. I have to read the fine print to figure that out.

Copy: Bad. Just reading the phrase “abuse your email” is a big turn off. Just like the word spam, I wasn’t thinking that you were going to abuse me, but now it’s on my mind.

Relevance: Bad. Newsletter subscription popups are great, they have a strong sense of utility and can give people exactly what they want. But I don’t like them as entry popups. They’re much better when they use an exit trigger, or a scroll trigger. Using a “Scroll Up” trigger is smart because it means they’ve read some of your content, and they are scrolling back up vs. leaving directly, which is another micro-signal that they are interested.

#3 – Utterly Confused

(Source unknown – I found it on confirmshaming.tumblr.com)

What’s so bad about it?

I have no earthly clue what’s going on here.

Clarity: Bad. I had to re-read it five times before I figured out what was going on.

Control: Bad. After reading it, I didn’t know whether I would be agreeing with what they’re going to give me, or with the statement. It’s like an affirmation or something. But I have no way of knowing what will happen if I click either button. My best guess after spending this much time writing about it is that it’s a poll. But a really meaningless one if it is. Click here to find out how many people agreed with “doing better”…

It ends with “Do Better”. I agree. They need to do a lot better.

#4 – Purple Nurple

What’s so bad about it?

Manipulation: Bad. Our first “Confirm Shaming” example. Otherwise known as “Good Cop / Bad Cop”. Forcing people to click a button that says “Detest” on it is so incongruent with the concept of a mattress company that I think they’re just being cheap. There’s no need to speak to people that way.

I found a second popup example by Purple (below), and have to give them credit. The copy on this one is significantly more persuasive. Get this. If you look at the section I circled (in purple), it says that if you subscribe, they’ll keep you up to date with SHIPPING TIMES!!! Seriously? If you’re going to email me and say “Hey Oli, great news! We can ship you a mattress in 2 weeks!”, I’ll go to Leesa, or Endy, or one of a million other Casper copycats.

#5 – Hello BC

What’s so bad about it?

Context: This is an entry popup, and I have never been to this site before.

Relevance: Bad. The site is Hellobc.com, the title says “Supernatural British Columbia”, and the content on the page is about skydiving. So what list is this for? And nobody wants to be on a “list”, stop saying “list”. It’s like saying email blast. Blast your list. If you read the first sentence it gets even more confusing, as you’ll be receiving updates from Destination BC. That’s 4 different concepts at play here.

Design: Bad. It’s legitimately butt ugly. I mean, come on. This is for Beautiful Supernatural British Columbia ffs. It’s stunning here. Show some scenery to entice me in.

Value: Bad. Seeing that form when I arrive on the page is like a giant eff you. Why do they think it’s okay to ask for that much info, with that much text, before I’ve even seen any content?

Control: Bad. And there’s not any error handling. However, the submit button remains inactive until you magically click the right amount of options to trigger it’s hungry hungry hippo mouth to open.

Train. Wreck.

Well, that’s all for today, folks. You might be wondering why there were so few popup examples in this post. Honestly, when the team was rallying to find me a bunch of examples, we all struggled to find many truly awful ones. We also struggled to find many really awesome ones.

This is where YOU come in!

Send me your terrible and awesome popup examples!

If you have any wonderfully brutal, or brutally wonderful examples of website popup design, I’d really appreciate a URL in the comments. If you could share the trigger details too that would be rad (e.g. exit, entrance, scroll, delay etc.).

Tomorrow’s Post is about Awesome Popup Examples! YAY.

So get your butt back here same time tomorrow, where I’ll be sharing my brand new Popup Delight Equation that you can use to grade your own popup designs.

Cheers, Oli

p.s. Don’t forget to subscribe to the weekly updates.

from Marketing http://unbounce.com/product-marketing/terrible-website-popup-examples/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[kennethmontiveros]

5 Really Bad Website Popup Examples

If you want to craft a delightful marketing experience and you’re using popups, you need to make sure you hold them to the same high standards as the content they are covering up. You can learn a lot by looking at bad website popup examples.

Once you understand what not to do, you’ll default to starting your own popup designs from a better baseline.

What does a bad popup design actually look like?

Well, it depends on your judging criteria, and for the popup examples below, I was considering these seven things, among others:

Clarity: Is it easy to figure out the offer really quickly?

Relevance: Is it related to the content of the current page?

Manipulation: Does it use psychological trickery in the copy?

Design: Is it butt ugly?

Control: Is it clear what all options will do?

Escape: Can you get rid of it easily?

Value: Is the reward worth more than the perceived (or actual) effort?

The following popup examples, each make a number of critical errors in their design decisions. Take a look, and share your own worst popup design examples in the comments!

#1 – Mashable Shmashable

What’s so bad about it?

If you peer into the background behind the popup, you’ll see a news story headline that begins with “Nightmare Alert”. I think that’s a pretty accurate description of what’s happening here.

Design: Bad. The first thing I saw looks like a big mistake. The Green line with the button hanging off the bottom looks like the designer fell asleep with their head on the mouse.

Clarity: Bad. And what on earth does the headline mean? click.click.click. Upon deeper exploration, it’s the name of the newsletter, but that’s not apparent at all on first load.

Clarity: worse. Then we get the classic “Clear vs. Clever” headline treatment. Why are you talking about the pronunciation of the word “Gif”? Tell me what this is, and why I should care to give you my email.

Design: Bad. Also, that background is gnarly.

#2 – KAM Motorsports Revolution!

What’s so bad about it?

It’s motorsports. It’s not a revolution. Unless they’re talking about wheels going round in circles.

Clarity: Bad. The headline doesn’t say what it is, or what I’ll get by subscribing. I have to read the fine print to figure that out.

Copy: Bad. Just reading the phrase “abuse your email” is a big turn off. Just like the word spam, I wasn’t thinking that you were going to abuse me, but now it’s on my mind.

Relevance: Bad. Newsletter subscription popups are great, they have a strong sense of utility and can give people exactly what they want. But I don’t like them as entry popups. They’re much better when they use an exit trigger, or a scroll trigger. Using a “Scroll Up” trigger is smart because it means they’ve read some of your content, and they are scrolling back up vs. leaving directly, which is another micro-signal that they are interested.

#3 – Utterly Confused

(Source unknown – I found it on confirmshaming.tumblr.com)

What’s so bad about it?

I have no earthly clue what’s going on here.

Clarity: Bad. I had to re-read it five times before I figured out what was going on.

Control: Bad. After reading it, I didn’t know whether I would be agreeing with what they’re going to give me, or with the statement. It’s like an affirmation or something. But I have no way of knowing what will happen if I click either button. My best guess after spending this much time writing about it is that it’s a poll. But a really meaningless one if it is. Click here to find out how many people agreed with “doing better”…

It ends with “Do Better”. I agree. They need to do a lot better.

#4 – Purple Nurple

What’s so bad about it?

Manipulation: Bad. Our first “Confirm Shaming” example. Otherwise known as “Good Cop / Bad Cop”. Forcing people to click a button that says “Detest” on it is so incongruent with the concept of a mattress company that I think they’re just being cheap. There’s no need to speak to people that way.

I found a second popup example by Purple (below), and have to give them credit. The copy on this one is significantly more persuasive. Get this. If you look at the section I circled (in purple), it says that if you subscribe, they’ll keep you up to date with SHIPPING TIMES!!! Seriously? If you’re going to email me and say “Hey Oli, great news! We can ship you a mattress in 2 weeks!”, I’ll go to Leesa, or Endy, or one of a million other Casper copycats.

#5 – Hello BC

What’s so bad about it?

Context: This is an entry popup, and I have never been to this site before.

Relevance: Bad. The site is Hellobc.com, the title says “Supernatural British Columbia”, and the content on the page is about skydiving. So what list is this for? And nobody wants to be on a “list”, stop saying “list”. It’s like saying email blast. Blast your list. If you read the first sentence it gets even more confusing, as you’ll be receiving updates from Destination BC. That’s 4 different concepts at play here.

Design: Bad. It’s legitimately butt ugly. I mean, come on. This is for Beautiful Supernatural British Columbia ffs. It’s stunning here. Show some scenery to entice me in.

Value: Bad. Seeing that form when I arrive on the page is like a giant eff you. Why do they think it’s okay to ask for that much info, with that much text, before I’ve even seen any content?

Control: Bad. And there’s not any error handling. However, the submit button remains inactive until you magically click the right amount of options to trigger it’s hungry hungry hippo mouth to open.

Train. Wreck.

Well, that’s all for today, folks. You might be wondering why there were so few popup examples in this post. Honestly, when the team was rallying to find me a bunch of examples, we all struggled to find many truly awful ones. We also struggled to find many really awesome ones.

This is where YOU come in!

Send me your terrible and awesome popup examples!

If you have any wonderfully brutal, or brutally wonderful examples of website popup design, I’d really appreciate a URL in the comments. If you could share the trigger details too that would be rad (e.g. exit, entrance, scroll, delay etc.).

Tomorrow’s Post is about Awesome Popup Examples! YAY.

So get your butt back here same time tomorrow, where I’ll be sharing my brand new Popup Delight Equation that you can use to grade your own popup designs.

Cheers, Oli

p.s. Don’t forget to subscribe to the weekly updates.

5 Really Bad Website Popup Examples published first on http://nickpontemktg.blogspot.com/

[maxslogic25]

5 Really Bad Website Popup Examples

If you want to craft a delightful marketing experience and you’re using popups, you need to make sure you hold them to the same high standards as the content they are covering up. You can learn a lot by looking at bad website popup examples.

Once you understand what not to do, you’ll default to starting your own popup designs from a better baseline.

What does a bad popup design actually look like?

Well, it depends on your judging criteria, and for the popup examples below, I was considering these seven things, among others:

Clarity: Is it easy to figure out the offer really quickly?

Relevance: Is it related to the content of the current page?

Manipulation: Does it use psychological trickery in the copy?

Design: Is it butt ugly?

Control: Is it clear what all options will do?

Escape: Can you get rid of it easily?

Value: Is the reward worth more than the perceived (or actual) effort?

The following popup examples, each make a number of critical errors in their design decisions. Take a look, and share your own worst popup design examples in the comments!

#1 – Mashable Shmashable

What’s so bad about it?

If you peer into the background behind the popup, you’ll see a news story headline that begins with “Nightmare Alert”. I think that’s a pretty accurate description of what’s happening here.

Design: Bad. The first thing I saw looks like a big mistake. The Green line with the button hanging off the bottom looks like the designer fell asleep with their head on the mouse.

Clarity: Bad. And what on earth does the headline mean? click.click.click. Upon deeper exploration, it’s the name of the newsletter, but that’s not apparent at all on first load.

Clarity: worse. Then we get the classic “Clear vs. Clever” headline treatment. Why are you talking about the pronunciation of the word “Gif”? Tell me what this is, and why I should care to give you my email.

Design: Bad. Also, that background is gnarly.

#2 – KAM Motorsports Revolution!

What’s so bad about it?

It’s motorsports. It’s not a revolution. Unless they’re talking about wheels going round in circles.

Clarity: Bad. The headline doesn’t say what it is, or what I’ll get by subscribing. I have to read the fine print to figure that out.

Copy: Bad. Just reading the phrase “abuse your email” is a big turn off. Just like the word spam, I wasn’t thinking that you were going to abuse me, but now it’s on my mind.

Relevance: Bad. Newsletter subscription popups are great, they have a strong sense of utility and can give people exactly what they want. But I don’t like them as entry popups. They’re much better when they use an exit trigger, or a scroll trigger. Using a “Scroll Up” trigger is smart because it means they’ve read some of your content, and they are scrolling back up vs. leaving directly, which is another micro-signal that they are interested.

#3 – Utterly Confused

(Source unknown – I found it on confirmshaming.tumblr.com)

What’s so bad about it?

I have no earthly clue what’s going on here.

Clarity: Bad. I had to re-read it five times before I figured out what was going on.

Control: Bad. After reading it, I didn’t know whether I would be agreeing with what they’re going to give me, or with the statement. It’s like an affirmation or something. But I have no way of knowing what will happen if I click either button. My best guess after spending this much time writing about it is that it’s a poll. But a really meaningless one if it is. Click here to find out how many people agreed with “doing better”…

It ends with “Do Better”. I agree. They need to do a lot better.

#4 – Purple Nurple

What’s so bad about it?

Manipulation: Bad. Our first “Confirm Shaming” example. Otherwise known as “Good Cop / Bad Cop”. Forcing people to click a button that says “Detest” on it is so incongruent with the concept of a mattress company that I think they’re just being cheap. There’s no need to speak to people that way.

I found a second popup example by Purple (below), and have to give them credit. The copy on this one is significantly more persuasive. Get this. If you look at the section I circled (in purple), it says that if you subscribe, they’ll keep you up to date with SHIPPING TIMES!!! Seriously? If you’re going to email me and say “Hey Oli, great news! We can ship you a mattress in 2 weeks!”, I’ll go to Leesa, or Endy, or one of a million other Casper copycats.

#5 – Hello BC

What’s so bad about it?

Context: This is an entry popup, and I have never been to this site before.

Relevance: Bad. The site is Hellobc.com, the title says “Supernatural British Columbia”, and the content on the page is about skydiving. So what list is this for? And nobody wants to be on a “list”, stop saying “list”. It’s like saying email blast. Blast your list. If you read the first sentence it gets even more confusing, as you’ll be receiving updates from Destination BC. That’s 4 different concepts at play here.

Design: Bad. It’s legitimately butt ugly. I mean, come on. This is for Beautiful Supernatural British Columbia ffs. It’s stunning here. Show some scenery to entice me in.

Value: Bad. Seeing that form when I arrive on the page is like a giant eff you. Why do they think it’s okay to ask for that much info, with that much text, before I’ve even seen any content?

Control: Bad. And there’s not any error handling. However, the submit button remains inactive until you magically click the right amount of options to trigger it’s hungry hungry hippo mouth to open.

Train. Wreck.

Well, that’s all for today, folks. You might be wondering why there were so few popup examples in this post. Honestly, when the team was rallying to find me a bunch of examples, we all struggled to find many truly awful ones. We also struggled to find many really awesome ones.

This is where YOU come in!

Send me your terrible and awesome popup examples!

If you have any wonderfully brutal, or brutally wonderful examples of website popup design, I’d really appreciate a URL in the comments. If you could share the trigger details too that would be rad (e.g. exit, entrance, scroll, delay etc.).

Tomorrow’s Post is about Awesome Popup Examples! YAY.

So get your butt back here same time tomorrow, where I’ll be sharing my brand new Popup Delight Equation that you can use to grade your own popup designs.

Cheers, Oli

p.s. Don’t forget to subscribe to the weekly updates.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 http://unbounce.com/product-marketing/terrible-website-popup-examples/

[roypstickney]

5 Really Bad Website Popup Examples

If you want to craft a delightful marketing experience and you’re using popups, you need to make sure you hold them to the same high standards as the content they are covering up. You can learn a lot by looking at bad website popup examples.

Once you understand what not to do, you’ll default to starting your own popup designs from a better baseline.

What does a bad popup design actually look like?

Well, it depends on your judging criteria, and for the examples below, I was considering these seven things, among others:

Clarity: Is it easy to figure out the offer really quickly?

Relevance: Is it related to the content of the current page?

Manipulation: Does it use psychological trickery in the copy?

Design: Is it butt ugly?

Control: Is it clear what all options will do?

Escape: Can you get rid of it easily?

Value: Is the reward worth more than the perceived (or actual) effort?

The following popup examples, each make a number of critical errors in their design decisions. Take a look, and share your own worst popup design examples in the comments!

#1 – Mashable Shmashable

What’s so bad about it?

If you peer into the background behind the popup, you’ll see a news story headline that begins with “Nightmare Alert”. I think that’s a pretty accurate description of what’s happening here.

Design: Bad. The first thing I saw looks like a big mistake. The Green line with the button hanging off the bottom looks like the designer fell asleep with their head on the mouse.

Clarity: Bad. And what on earth does the headline mean? click.click.click. Upon deeper exploration, it’s the name of the newsletter, but that’s not apparent at all on first load.

Clarity: worse. Then we get the classic “Clear vs. Clever” headline treatment. Why are you talking about the pronunciation of the word “Gif”? Tell me what this is, and why I should care to give you my email.

Design: Bad. Also, that background is gnarly.

#2 – KAM Motorsports Revolution!

What’s so bad about it?

It’s motorsports. It’s not a revolution. Unless they’re talking about wheels going round in circles.

Clarity: Bad. The headline doesn’t say what it is, or what I’ll get by subscribing. I have to read the fine print to figure that out.

Copy: Bad. Just reading the phrase “abuse your email” is a big turn off. Just like the word spam, I wasn’t thinking that you were going to abuse me, but now it’s on my mind.

Relevance: Bad. Newsletter subscription popups are great, they have a strong sense of utility and can give people exactly what they want. But I don’t like them as entry popups. They’re much better when they use an exit trigger, or a scroll trigger. Using a “Scroll Up” trigger is smart because it means they’ve read some of your content, and they are scrolling back up vs. leaving directly, which is another micro-signal that they are interested.

#3 – Utterly Confused

(Source unknown – I found it on confirmshaming.tumblr.com)

What’s so bad about it?

I have no earthly clue what’s going on here.

Clarity: Bad. I had to re-read it five times before I figured out what was going on.

Control: Bad. After reading it, I didn’t know whether I would be agreeing with what they’re going to give me, or with the statement. It’s like an affirmation or something. But I have no way of knowing what will happen if I click either button. My best guess after spending this much time writing about it is that it’s a poll. But a really meaningless one if it is. Click here to find out how many people agreed with “doing better”…

It ends with “Do Better”. I agree. They need to do a lot better.

#4 – Purple Nurple

What’s so bad about it?

Manipulation: Bad. Our first “Confirm Shaming” example. Otherwise known as “Good Cop / Bad Cop”. Forcing people to click a button that says “Detest” on it is so incongruent with the concept of a mattress company that I think they’re just being cheap. There’s no need to speak to people that way.

I found a second popup example by Purple (below), and have to give them credit. The copy on this one is significantly more persuasive. Get this. If you look at the section I circled (in purple), it says that if you subscribe, they’ll keep you up to date with SHIPPING TIMES!!! Seriously? If you’re going to email me and say “Hey Oli, great news! We can ship you a mattress in 2 weeks!”, I’ll go to Leesa, or Endy, or one of a million other Casper copycats.

#5 – Hello BC

What’s so bad about it?

Context: This is an entry popup, and I have never been to this site before.

Relevance: Bad. The site is Hellobc.com, the title says “Supernatural British Columbia”, and the content on the page is about skydiving. So what list is this for? And nobody wants to be on a “list”, stop saying “list”. It’s like saying email blast. Blast your list. If you read the first sentence it gets even more confusing, as you’ll be receiving updates from Destination BC. That’s 4 different concepts at play here.

Design: Bad. It’s legitimately butt ugly. I mean, come on. This is for Beautiful Supernatural British Columbia ffs. It’s stunning here. Show some scenery to entice me in.

Value: Bad. Seeing that form when I arrive on the page is like a giant eff you. Why do they think it’s okay to ask for that much info, with that much text, before I’ve even seen any content?

Control: Bad. And there’s not any error handling. However, the submit button remains inactive until you magically click the right amount of options to trigger it’s hungry hungry hippo mouth to open.

Train. Wreck.

Well, that’s all for today, folks. You might be wondering why there were so few popup examples in this post. Honestly, when the team was rallying to find me a bunch of examples, we all struggled to find many truly awful ones. We also struggled to find many really awesome ones.

This is where YOU come in!

Send me your terrible and awesome popup examples!

If you have any wonderfully brutal, or brutally wonderful examples of website popup design, I’d really appreciate a URL in the comments. If you could share the trigger details too that would be rad (e.g. exit, entrance, scroll, delay etc.).

Tomorrow’s Post is about Awesome Popup Examples! YAY.

So get your butt back here same time tomorrow, where I’ll be sharing my brand new Popup Delight Equation that you can use to grade your own popup designs.

Cheers, Oli

p.s. Don’t forget to subscribe to the weekly updates.

[juliehbutler]

Disliking Your Body Doesn’t Have to be ‘Part of Being a Woman’

I hope you don’t have the slightest clue what I’m talking about here. In fact, I’d rather you think I’m a bit wonky. But, sadly, many will understand all too well the story below.

“No, seriously. What would you change?”

She didn’t believe me when I said I wouldn’t change or “fix” any part of my body. “Years ago, I could have rattled off a list of things I hated about my body and would change in an instant if given the opportunity, without hesitating. But not now. I refuse to take part in something that would serve no purpose other than making me feel terrible about myself.”

We live in a culture that encourages women to always be on some “self-improvement” journey with our bodies. We should never be satisfied. If we lost a lot of weight and improved our health, we couldn’t stop there. No, we’d have to find the next thing to “fix.” Maybe you can style your hair different, or perhaps you can work on decreasing the appearance of your cellulite or, hey, you know your butt could be perkier. And as we get older, we need to fight the aging process relentlessly.

We must refuse to succumb to the fate and misfortune of wrinkles, crow’s-feet, gray hair, and gravity, that cruel bitch.

From a young girl well into adulthood, many women are never satisfied with their bodies. They fight their genetics; they fight the scale; they fight changes that occur with pregnancy and age; they fight the image in the mirror. There’s always something to improve and a better standard to achieve, and many know what it’s like to seek a diet, supplement, creams, wraps, the latest you’ll-feel-like-you’re-going-to-die workout program and other products hoping “this one” will finally be the salvation they crave (and are promised).

I worked with a woman in her late 60s and during the initial consultation she revealed her decades of experience with disordered eating habits and negative self-image. Since she was a young girl, she said, she experimented with diets and did everything possible to “look like women are supposed to look.” (Keep in mind the way women “should look” has morphed over the decades; the standards can change on a whim. And that’s how things like back dimples become a must-have feature.)

“So, did it ever work?” I asked curiously. She couldn’t recall a time she didn’t hate her body. Even the brief periods she attained her “goal weight” she wasn’t happy because that milestone wasn’t enough; she just found something else that needed to be fixed or improved. In fact, when I asked her, she struggled to identify one thing she did like about her body, in the past or at that moment.

This wonderful woman had spent over 50 years of her life hating her body; constantly chasing an image dangled in front of her – in magazines, on TV, and now littering social media – as the standard she should try to achieve. She was, understandably, frustrated and exhausted.

And, in her words, this was “just part of being a woman.”

But … should it be? Is this entire “dislike your body and try to fix its flaws at all costs” really a mandatory experience for young girls and women? Because you’re a woman are you predestined to a life of endless dieting, exercising as atonement for your overindulging sins, and trying to chase an image/weight/shape expecting it to lead to happiness?

Let’s return for a moment to the conversation. The woman I was speaking with was befuddled as to how I couldn’t (wouldn’t) list physical traits I’d prefer to be different, i.e., better. “Every woman hates something about herself,” she retorted.

I know what she means, because I have been there. There was a time I loathed my body and zoned in on the many flaws I disdained when glaring at my reflection in the mirror. Words like “hideous,” “failure,” “gross,” and “flawed” poured from my lips when describing what I saw. I tried diets, drank diet teas (huge mistake if you had to leave the house shortly after — that’s a mistake you only make once), took fat burning supplements, and punished myself with workouts all in the name of fixing my body.

Throughout that process I developed disordered eating habits, and later started binge eating. The weight I gained from the binge episodes made me hate my body even more.

It was a grim paradox: the more I hated my body and wanted to change it, the further from an “ideal image” I got.

Vigorously I tried to “hate my way” back to skinny. All damn day thoughts about food would consume me; I’d obsess over what I could and couldn’t eat (depending on what diet I was following at the time). Fatigue from brutal workouts, driven by punishment because I binged or in preparation of an upcoming binge, was a badge of honor. If I could successfully go a day strictly limiting my caloric intake, I was proud.

The harder I worked out and the more I restricted my food consumption was something I valued. (“I’m utterly exhausted, and I managed to eat fewer than 1100 calories today. I did great!”)

Deprivation; restriction; exhaustion — these were my markers of success.

Trying to find ways to eat less and burn more calories, all propelled by the desire to morph my body into a form I would, hopefully, no longer abhor. Sadly, the reality of this story can be echoed by many women. (This is the part where I hope you don’t know what I’m talking about and you can’t relate.)

You Don’t Have to Dislike Your Body

We must stop the “I dislike this part of my body” conversations. We must look deeper into this issue of why we feel obligated to label parts of our bodies in negative ways and consequently feel disgust, or determine our value and mood for the day by the number on the bathroom scale.

Why do we feel like we must struggle and strain to reach certain “standards”?

One answer is quite simple: usually the sources telling us about the latest flaw we need to fix or the new “it” body part to flaunt is trying to sell us something. Insecurities are poked and picked at until they can no longer be ignored (or new ones are created) and they will gladly sell us the solution.

“Oh, you need to lose weight and of course you want to do it as quickly as possible. You’re in luck because I have all these shakes and supplements you can buy that will help!”

“You’ve got cellulite and wrinkles and age spots and your boobs aren’t quite perky enough. Buy these things and you’ll be beautiful and more valuable.”

“It’s simple and easy and won’t take any effort at all! Just wrap this around your waist and watch yourself magically shrink.”

Furthermore, through magazine covers, fitness videos, celebrities, and social media we are shown what a woman “should look like” or what fitness “looks like.” (A lot of “fitness” nowadays resembles porn more than health, but, that’s a different conversation.) These sources are used as a measuring stick to determine how we view and value our bodies.

If you too look more like these women you’ll be happier, is what’s promised or, simply, if you don’t look like this, something is wrong with you. (I.e., “this body shape/size” is superior; all others by default are inferior.)

This is why I despise phrases that start out, “Real women …*” because if a real woman displays traits A and B, that means any woman who doesn’t is, by default, inferior. Same thing with “X is the new Y” mantras. If “X” is now desirable but you happen to be “Y” well, that apparently sucks for you because “X” is what’s in high demand.

This is one of the many ugly sides of health and fitness.

(*Admittedly I’ve spouted some of these statements in the past, until I realized my grave mistake. Regardless, there are exceptions to rules. Mine, in this case: Real women do what makes them the best versions of themselves, and encourage other women to do the same.)

What’s the solution to not disliking your body and rejecting it as a mandatory experience because you’re a woman?

I have a few ideas. Let’s begin by choosing for ourselves what matters.

Begin by asking: what matters to me?

Is it really getting as close to a size zero or minimal body fat as possible? Is it really the mandatory process and lifestyle required to reach ultra-low levels of body fat?

Maybe what you really want is to feel confident. Maybe you want more energy. Maybe you want to do things that make you feel good instead of running you into the ground. Maybe you want to be able to go through a day of work and spend time playing with your kids without becoming exhausted. Maybe there’s an activity you’ve always wanted to try but weren’t confident in your physical abilities to attempt it. Maybe you just want a health and fitness regimen that makes your life better and easier, instead of dominating it.

Hell, maybe you just want workouts you actually look forward to performing instead of the current ones that leave you utterly exhausted.

Answering the “what matters to me?” question should be simple; for many it’s not because they’ve never considered it a question worth asking.

But this question matters, and it deserves a thoughtful response.

This is why I love strength training: it allows you to discover the marvelous things your body can do; shatter self-imposed limitations; boost confidence; become the strongest version of yourself; it also improves body composition and provides additional myriad benefits.

It allows you to transition your focus from how your body looks to what it can do. (Strength training will change your body’s composition and appearance, but if you’ve spent extended periods of time hating your body, do yourself a favor and dedicate time to focusing exclusively on what it can do, and then do more.)

We passively surrender to the ideology of society and what other people (be it the media, magazines, fitness professionals, marketers) say is best. In this, we lose ourselves. We’re allowing someone else to decide what’s best for us. We don’t have, or aren’t aware of, something guiding us from within, so we line up in formation and follow the pack attempting to march closer to the “ideal” body.

But we need to stop. We need to assess what we want and what we value and what feels good to us — and the answers may not be the same for everyone. Disliking or downright hating your body doesn’t feel good, and it doesn’t help you become the best version of yourself. Hating your body doesn’t not have to be part of being a woman. If it currently is, it’s time to change.

Begin by taking time to discover what matters to you. Reject the mentality that a life of rigid dieting, trying to “fix flaws,” and exercising solely for a calorie burn is a mandatory part of being a woman. And if you need a good place to start this process: begin strength training. Follow a simple plan that focuses on a few movements you can master, and make getting stronger your only goal.

Disliking your body isn’t a mandatory experience of being a woman. You have the power to forge a different path. Now is a good time to start.

Like what you read? Never miss a thing. Join the newsletter below. (You’ll get the Beautiful Badass Mini-Course as a gift.)

The post Disliking Your Body Doesn’t Have to be ‘Part of Being a Woman’ appeared first on Nia Shanks.

from Healthy Living http://www.niashanks.com/disliking-body-part-of-being-woman/

[sarahzlukeuk]

Disliking Your Body Doesn’t Have to be ‘Part of Being a Woman’

I hope you don’t have the slightest clue what I’m talking about here. In fact, I’d rather you think I’m a bit wonky. But, sadly, many will understand all too well the story below.

“No, seriously. What would you change?”

She didn’t believe me when I said I wouldn’t change or “fix” any part of my body. “Years ago, I could have rattled off a list of things I hated about my body and would change in an instant if given the opportunity, without hesitating. But not now. I refuse to take part in something that would serve no purpose other than making me feel terrible about myself.”

We live in a culture that encourages women to always be on some “self-improvement” journey with our bodies. We should never be satisfied. If we lost a lot of weight and improved our health, we couldn’t stop there. No, we’d have to find the next thing to “fix.” Maybe you can style your hair different, or perhaps you can work on decreasing the appearance of your cellulite or, hey, you know your butt could be perkier. And as we get older, we need to fight the aging process relentlessly.

We must refuse to succumb to the fate and misfortune of wrinkles, crow’s-feet, gray hair, and gravity, that cruel bitch.

From a young girl well into adulthood, many women are never satisfied with their bodies. They fight their genetics; they fight the scale; they fight changes that occur with pregnancy and age; they fight the image in the mirror. There’s always something to improve and a better standard to achieve, and many know what it’s like to seek a diet, supplement, creams, wraps, the latest you’ll-feel-like-you’re-going-to-die workout program and other products hoping “this one” will finally be the salvation they crave (and are promised).

I worked with a woman in her late 60s and during the initial consultation she revealed her decades of experience with disordered eating habits and negative self-image. Since she was a young girl, she said, she experimented with diets and did everything possible to “look like women are supposed to look.” (Keep in mind the way women “should look” has morphed over the decades; the standards can change on a whim. And that’s how things like back dimples become a must-have feature.)

“So, did it ever work?” I asked curiously. She couldn’t recall a time she didn’t hate her body. Even the brief periods she attained her “goal weight” she wasn’t happy because that milestone wasn’t enough; she just found something else that needed to be fixed or improved. In fact, when I asked her, she struggled to identify one thing she did like about her body, in the past or at that moment.

This wonderful woman had spent over 50 years of her life hating her body; constantly chasing an image dangled in front of her – in magazines, on TV, and now littering social media – as the standard she should try to achieve. She was, understandably, frustrated and exhausted.

And, in her words, this was “just part of being a woman.”

But … should it be? Is this entire “dislike your body and try to fix its flaws at all costs” really a mandatory experience for young girls and women? Because you’re a woman are you predestined to a life of endless dieting, exercising as atonement for your overindulging sins, and trying to chase an image/weight/shape expecting it to lead to happiness?

Let’s return for a moment to the conversation. The woman I was speaking with was befuddled as to how I couldn’t (wouldn’t) list physical traits I’d prefer to be different, i.e., better. “Every woman hates something about herself,” she retorted.

I know what she means, because I have been there. There was a time I loathed my body and zoned in on the many flaws I disdained when glaring at my reflection in the mirror. Words like “hideous,” “failure,” “gross,” and “flawed” poured from my lips when describing what I saw. I tried diets, drank diet teas (huge mistake if you had to leave the house shortly after — that’s a mistake you only make once), took fat burning supplements, and punished myself with workouts all in the name of fixing my body.

Throughout that process I developed disordered eating habits, and later started binge eating. The weight I gained from the binge episodes made me hate my body even more.

It was a grim paradox: the more I hated my body and wanted to change it, the further from an “ideal image” I got.

Vigorously I tried to “hate my way” back to skinny. All damn day thoughts about food would consume me; I’d obsess over what I could and couldn’t eat (depending on what diet I was following at the time). Fatigue from brutal workouts, driven by punishment because I binged or in preparation of an upcoming binge, was a badge of honor. If I could successfully go a day strictly limiting my caloric intake, I was proud.

The harder I worked out and the more I restricted my food consumption was something I valued. (“I’m utterly exhausted, and I managed to eat fewer than 1100 calories today. I did great!”)

Deprivation; restriction; exhaustion — these were my markers of success.

Trying to find ways to eat less and burn more calories, all propelled by the desire to morph my body into a form I would, hopefully, no longer abhor. Sadly, the reality of this story can be echoed by many women. (This is the part where I hope you don’t know what I’m talking about and you can’t relate.)

You Don’t Have to Dislike Your Body

We must stop the “I dislike this part of my body” conversations. We must look deeper into this issue of why we feel obligated to label parts of our bodies in negative ways and consequently feel disgust, or determine our value and mood for the day by the number on the bathroom scale.

Why do we feel like we must struggle and strain to reach certain “standards”?

One answer is quite simple: usually the sources telling us about the latest flaw we need to fix or the new “it” body part to flaunt is trying to sell us something. Insecurities are poked and picked at until they can no longer be ignored (or new ones are created) and they will gladly sell us the solution.

“Oh, you need to lose weight and of course you want to do it as quickly as possible. You’re in luck because I have all these shakes and supplements you can buy that will help!”

“You’ve got cellulite and wrinkles and age spots and your boobs aren’t quite perky enough. Buy these things and you’ll be beautiful and more valuable.”

“It’s simple and easy and won’t take any effort at all! Just wrap this around your waist and watch yourself magically shrink.”

Furthermore, through magazine covers, fitness videos, celebrities, and social media we are shown what a woman “should look like” or what fitness “looks like.” (A lot of “fitness” nowadays resembles porn more than health, but, that’s a different conversation.) These sources are used as a measuring stick to determine how we view and value our bodies.

If you too look more like these women you’ll be happier, is what’s promised or, simply, if you don’t look like this, something is wrong with you. (I.e., “this body shape/size” is superior; all others by default are inferior.)

This is why I despise phrases that start out, “Real women …*” because if a real woman displays traits A and B, that means any woman who doesn’t is, by default, inferior. Same thing with “X is the new Y” mantras. If “X” is now desirable but you happen to be “Y” well, that apparently sucks for you because “X” is what’s in high demand.

This is one of the many ugly sides of health and fitness.

(*Admittedly I’ve spouted some of these statements in the past, until I realized my grave mistake. Regardless, there are exceptions to rules. Mine, in this case: Real women do what makes them the best versions of themselves, and encourage other women to do the same.)

What’s the solution to not disliking your body and rejecting it as a mandatory experience because you’re a woman?

I have a few ideas. Let’s begin by choosing for ourselves what matters.

Begin by asking: what matters to me?

Is it really getting as close to a size zero or minimal body fat as possible? Is it really the mandatory process and lifestyle required to reach ultra-low levels of body fat?

Maybe what you really want is to feel confident. Maybe you want more energy. Maybe you want to do things that make you feel good instead of running you into the ground. Maybe you want to be able to go through a day of work and spend time playing with your kids without becoming exhausted. Maybe there’s an activity you’ve always wanted to try but weren’t confident in your physical abilities to attempt it. Maybe you just want a health and fitness regimen that makes your life better and easier, instead of dominating it.

Hell, maybe you just want workouts you actually look forward to performing instead of the current ones that leave you utterly exhausted.

Answering the “what matters to me?” question should be simple; for many it’s not because they’ve never considered it a question worth asking.

But this question matters, and it deserves a thoughtful response.

This is why I love strength training: it allows you to discover the marvelous things your body can do; shatter self-imposed limitations; boost confidence; become the strongest version of yourself; it also improves body composition and provides additional myriad benefits.

It allows you to transition your focus from how your body looks to what it can do. (Strength training will change your body’s composition and appearance, but if you’ve spent extended periods of time hating your body, do yourself a favor and dedicate time to focusing exclusively on what it can do, and then do more.)

We passively surrender to the ideology of society and what other people (be it the media, magazines, fitness professionals, marketers) say is best. In this, we lose ourselves. We’re allowing someone else to decide what’s best for us. We don’t have, or aren’t aware of, something guiding us from within, so we line up in formation and follow the pack attempting to march closer to the “ideal” body.

But we need to stop. We need to assess what we want and what we value and what feels good to us — and the answers may not be the same for everyone. Disliking or downright hating your body doesn’t feel good, and it doesn’t help you become the best version of yourself. Hating your body doesn’t not have to be part of being a woman. If it currently is, it’s time to change.

Begin by taking time to discover what matters to you. Reject the mentality that a life of rigid dieting, trying to “fix flaws,” and exercising solely for a calorie burn is a mandatory part of being a woman. And if you need a good place to start this process: begin strength training. Follow a simple plan that focuses on a few movements you can master, and make getting stronger your only goal.

Disliking your body isn’t a mandatory experience of being a woman. You have the power to forge a different path. Now is a good time to start.

Like what you read? Never miss a thing. Join the newsletter below. (You’ll get the Beautiful Badass Mini-Course as a gift.)

The post Disliking Your Body Doesn’t Have to be ‘Part of Being a Woman’ appeared first on Nia Shanks.

from Sarah Luke Fitness Updates http://www.niashanks.com/disliking-body-part-of-being-woman/

[justsavingmmusicplaylist-blog]

self help tips

this is a list of things I did to help myself

1. meditate regularly: meditation is helpful because it grounds you and is centered around your breathing. as breathing is essential for life, this will make everything easier. it also helps you be ware of your body and mind.

2. drink tea and / or take a bath: the heat will make you mind relax and loosen muscles that might be tense. it also gives you time to treat your body, which is very important.

3. listen to calm music: I really recommend listening to classical music or at least music without lyrics. lyrics may keep you distracted and as you want to relax and maybe think deeply, lyrics may disturb you. another factor is that we are constantly surrounded by voices and words so taking time not listening to what people are saying is very healthy for your mind.

4. write down every little feeling and not welcome thought; try to find out, why you feel or think that way. this kind of thinking takes a lot of training and knowing yourself so don't be discouraged if you can’t pinpoint the cause at the first try. instead, write down that you don't know why you’re feeling that way, too, and try the next time. this kind of mindful awareness is really helpful, especially if they are worries or thoughts you know are wrong and useless. if you know why you feel / think that way, you can change it.

5. tell someone about your problems / worries / situation. this is the standard thing everyone tells you but it is really helpful because you get an outside point of view and maybe even a solution you couldn't think of before. I didn't really trust my family enough to tell them and was ashamed (although I know I shouldn't) to tell my friends. so, if you are in a similar situation, there are free websites like 7 Cups where you can talk anonymously to people who went through some training to talk about people’s problems. I did it and I can only recommend it!

6. if it gets worse and worse and things really get out of hand, you should seek a professional. no matter how many self help tips you find on the internet, a counsellor is still the best method to help you.

7. be selfish! in times like these, it’s very important to do as much as possible for yourself, so don’t be afraid to say ‘no’ to going out or doing an errand you don't feel like doing. you also shouldn't be guilty about being selfish, because what you need comes before anyone else’s demand, and you shouldn't overwhelm yourself if you’re not mentally stable.

8. don't isolate yourself from the world! it’s good to have some alone-time, but if you spend too much time being alone with your thoughts your situation could worsen. go out with your friends once in a while, even if you don't feel like going. I promise it will do some good. being with friends has a positive influence on you and keeps you distracted from your thoughts you don't want to have. you can also enjoy yourself and temporarily push your thoughts away. that really helps.

9. go out regularly, even if it’s alone. you can just walk around in the city or in a park and enjoy little things by finding beauty in mundane things like ducks swimming around, children on a playground, a dog... try to let them cheer you up. I can promise you that walks in parks help a lot, because nature heals. it really does.

10. do sports! I personally hate sports and am very bad at anything sport related, but when I felt stuffy or frustrated or like the walls of my room were closing in on me, I used to go running. it clears your mind by taking it off thinking repetitively and focusing just on running etc. it also frees dopamine, a hormone for positive feelings. running / doing sports outside is even better as you breathe in fresh air.

11. wirte little positive reminders where you can see them! little things like phrases that motivate you or that you always wanted somebody to tell you but never did. I used to write little post its like “smile!” “Don't give up!” “you can do it!” and stick them on the wall above my desk, around my mirror etc. whenever I would pass them, I would do what it said or just breathe deeply and try to take my reminder seriously. if you feel like it, you can even draw a little something to make it more vivid.

12. treat yourself with things you love! I ate lots of chocolate (even though it’s not healthy) and easily gave in to desires I would normally suppress. in that case, mind goes over body. of course that doesn't mean you shouldn't take care of your body, in the contrary, you should take even more care of your body than usually. treating yourself with face masks, scrubs, baths etc. will calm you down and be aware of your body. and who doesn't love a full body treat?

13. drink a lot of water and eat lots of fruit and vegetables. water will keep headaches away and will keep you hydrated and often wake you up or motivate you. fruit and vegetables have lots of vitamins and minerals you need even more in times like these. generally, make sure you eat at least three meals a day with at least one warm meal. it will give your body the strength it lacks and keep it going. also, food doesn't just go to the stomach, but to the heart as well ;)

14. sleep a lot! I’m sure your body will do this by itself - as it knows what it needs - so don’t force yourself to stay awake if your body tells you to rest. seep at least 8h a day. this might sound like a lot, but your body really needs it because it is mentally tired (I’m sure you feel this, too). being in this state constantly is physically and mentally really exhausting, so give your body and mind time to rest and process everything.

15. sweettalk yourself! I know how hard it is to find motivation in the morning to get up for school / work, let alone tackle a whole day without having a mental breakdown. so remind yourself to take it slowly and do one thing at a time. an example for what I did is telling myself things like this: “you are going to go to school motivated, talk to friends and classmates, listen to and engage the best you can in class discussions, focus on what the teacher says.” of course I didn't always succeed in doing these things - in fact, most of the time I didn't. but just telling myself these thinking of the times I didn't do it gave that little spark of motivation and ambition to do better this time. this varies from person to person and I can’t guarantee you it will work for you, but it won’t hurt to try.

16. the moment you notice yourself having negative thoughts, correct yourself and turn it into positive / neutral thoughts. for example: “I look really fat today, i feel so ugly.” change that to “no, that’s not right. my tummy sticks out because I just ate lunch, but that’s normal and not bad. if it continues to bother me, I will cover it up by wearing a hoodie.” if it doesn't work, write your negative / unwelcome thoughts down to get them out of your head or distract yourself with other activities.

17. even if you don’t believe it, keep telling yourself little reminders to boost your confidence, as the first step to achieving confidence is to fake it. it also boosts up your self esteem if you tell yourself things like “I am strong and I look amazing today and I can definitely tackle this day.” even if you don't feel like tackling the day, just telling yourself is may be enough motivation to get up and start doing small tasks.

18. whenever you look at yourself in the mirror, smile or laugh at your reflection, no matter how forced it is. seeing yourself smile is nice and the best part about it is that when you look away, you’ll feel so dumb and childish that you’ll start laughing or smiling for real. it really works and cheers you up, even if only a little bit! because I used to forget about that, I made an alarm and named it ‘smile’, and every time it rang I would go to stand in front of my mirror for a few seconds and then continue doing what I was doing before.

19. this is really hard to explain, but try to find little things that symbolize or mean something to you, something that gives you strength and hope and motivation. for example, when I felt bad I used to look at the clear blue sky or the sunset and look at the shapes of the clouds. I immediately felt protected and safe as well as calm and grounded and sometimes even happy. the sun and sky have a lot of meaning for me. for you it might be that one souvenir you bought or your stuffed animal or the concert tickets you already bought and can’t wait to go to... it’s best to have it always with you so you can look at it wherever you are. (I hope you get what I mean, this one’s kinda hard to explain.)

20. do a lot of research about your situation and symptoms and really anything you don't understand about yourself. of course, the internet doesn’t know everything as it is not a human and can’t specialize it for your specific situation, but giving names to your symptoms and feelings / actions helps you clarify things and understand yourself better, therefore learning to cope with it or change it. it makes you feel reassured that you’re not the only one feeling that way and that it is ‘normal’ in your circumstances.

all these things helped me get through it without telling my family about it or going to a counselor, but I can’t guarantee you it’ll work for you as well and I advise you to go to a professional before it gets worse, as ashamed you might feel. I really regret not going to a counselor although I can say that I’m okay now. please don’t be ashamed of your feelings! we are all humans and a lot of people feel like you and go through the same things, so please know that you’re not alone. I personally find it really brave and courageous to ask for help. it’s a sign of loving yourself and being strong, and I really admire people for that.

[itsjessicaisreal]

5 Really Bad Website Popup Examples

If you want to craft a delightful marketing experience and you’re using popups, you need to make sure you hold them to the same high standards as the content they are covering up. You can learn a lot by looking at bad website popup examples.

Once you understand what not to do, you’ll default to starting your own popup designs from a better baseline.

What does a bad popup design actually look like?

Well, it depends on your judging criteria, and for the examples below, I was considering these seven things, among others:

Clarity: Is it easy to figure out the offer really quickly?

Relevance: Is it related to the content of the current page?

Manipulation: Does it use psychological trickery in the copy?

Design: Is it butt ugly?

Control: Is it clear what all options will do?

Escape: Can you get rid of it easily?

Value: Is the reward worth more than the perceived (or actual) effort?

The following popup examples, each make a number of critical errors in their design decisions. Take a look, and share your own worst popup design examples in the comments!

#1 – Mashable Shmashable

What’s so bad about it?

If you peer into the background behind the popup, you’ll see a news story headline that begins with “Nightmare Alert”. I think that’s a pretty accurate description of what’s happening here.

Design: Bad. The first thing I saw looks like a big mistake. The Green line with the button hanging off the bottom looks like the designer fell asleep with their head on the mouse.

Clarity: Bad. And what on earth does the headline mean? click.click.click. Upon deeper exploration, it’s the name of the newsletter, but that’s not apparent at all on first load.

Clarity: worse. Then we get the classic “Clear vs. Clever” headline treatment. Why are you talking about the pronunciation of the word “Gif”? Tell me what this is, and why I should care to give you my email.

Design: Bad. Also, that background is gnarly.

#2 – KAM Motorsports Revolution!

What’s so bad about it?

It’s motorsports. It’s not a revolution. Unless they’re talking about wheels going round in circles.

Clarity: Bad. The headline doesn’t say what it is, or what I’ll get by subscribing. I have to read the fine print to figure that out.

Copy: Bad. Just reading the phrase “abuse your email” is a big turn off. Just like the word spam, I wasn’t thinking that you were going to abuse me, but now it’s on my mind.

Relevance: Bad. Newsletter subscription popups are great, they have a strong sense of utility and can give people exactly what they want. But I don’t like them as entry popups. They’re much better when they use an exit trigger, or a scroll trigger. Using a “Scroll Up” trigger is smart because it means they’ve read some of your content, and they are scrolling back up vs. leaving directly, which is another micro-signal that they are interested.

#3 – Utterly Confused

(Source unknown – I found it on confirmshaming.tumblr.com)

What’s so bad about it?

I have no earthly clue what’s going on here.

Clarity: Bad. I had to re-read it five times before I figured out what was going on.

Control: Bad. After reading it, I didn’t know whether I would be agreeing with what they’re going to give me, or with the statement. It’s like an affirmation or something. But I have no way of knowing what will happen if I click either button. My best guess after spending this much time writing about it is that it’s a poll. But a really meaningless one if it is. Click here to find out how many people agreed with “doing better”…

It ends with “Do Better”. I agree. They need to do a lot better.

#4 – Purple Nurple

What’s so bad about it?

Manipulation: Bad. Our first “Confirm Shaming” example. Otherwise known as “Good Cop / Bad Cop”. Forcing people to click a button that says “Detest” on it is so incongruent with the concept of a mattress company that I think they’re just being cheap. There’s no need to speak to people that way.

I found a second popup example by Purple (below), and have to give them credit. The copy on this one is significantly more persuasive. Get this. If you look at the section I circled (in purple), it says that if you subscribe, they’ll keep you up to date with SHIPPING TIMES!!! Seriously? If you’re going to email me and say “Hey Oli, great news! We can ship you a mattress in 2 weeks!”, I’ll go to Leesa, or Endy, or one of a million other Casper copycats.

#5 – Hello BC

What’s so bad about it?

Context: This is an entry popup, and I have never been to this site before.

Relevance: Bad. The site is Hellobc.com, the title says “Supernatural British Columbia”, and the content on the page is about skydiving. So what list is this for? And nobody wants to be on a “list”, stop saying “list”. It’s like saying email blast. Blast your list. If you read the first sentence it gets even more confusing, as you’ll be receiving updates from Destination BC. That’s 4 different concepts at play here.

Design: Bad. It’s legitimately butt ugly. I mean, come on. This is for Beautiful Supernatural British Columbia ffs. It’s stunning here. Show some scenery to entice me in.

Value: Bad. Seeing that form when I arrive on the page is like a giant eff you. Why do they think it’s okay to ask for that much info, with that much text, before I’ve even seen any content?

Control: Bad. And there’s not any error handling. However, the submit button remains inactive until you magically click the right amount of options to trigger it’s hungry hungry hippo mouth to open.

Train. Wreck.

Well, that’s all for today, folks. You might be wondering why there were so few popup examples in this post. Honestly, when the team was rallying to find me a bunch of examples, we all struggled to find many truly awful ones. We also struggled to find many really awesome ones.

This is where YOU come in!

Send me your terrible and awesome popup examples!

If you have any wonderfully brutal, or brutally wonderful examples of website popup design, I’d really appreciate a URL in the comments. If you could share the trigger details too that would be rad (e.g. exit, entrance, scroll, delay etc.).

Tomorrow’s Post is about Awesome Popup Examples! YAY.

So get your butt back here same time tomorrow, where I’ll be sharing my brand new Popup Delight Equation that you can use to grade your own popup designs.

Cheers, Oli

p.s. Don’t forget to subscribe to the weekly updates.

from Marketing http://unbounce.com/product-marketing/bad-website-popup-examples/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[kennethmontiveros]

5 Really Bad Website Popup Examples

If you want to craft a delightful marketing experience and you’re using popups, you need to make sure you hold them to the same high standards as the content they are covering up. You can learn a lot by looking at bad website popup examples.

Once you understand what not to do, you’ll default to starting your own popup designs from a better baseline.

What does a bad popup design actually look like?

Well, it depends on your judging criteria, and for the examples below, I was considering these seven things, among others:

Clarity: Is it easy to figure out the offer really quickly?

Relevance: Is it related to the content of the current page?

Manipulation: Does it use psychological trickery in the copy?

Design: Is it butt ugly?

Control: Is it clear what all options will do?

Escape: Can you get rid of it easily?

Value: Is the reward worth more than the perceived (or actual) effort?

The following popup examples, each make a number of critical errors in their design decisions. Take a look, and share your own worst popup design examples in the comments!

#1 – Mashable Shmashable

What’s so bad about it?

If you peer into the background behind the popup, you’ll see a news story headline that begins with “Nightmare Alert”. I think that’s a pretty accurate description of what’s happening here.

Design: Bad. The first thing I saw looks like a big mistake. The Green line with the button hanging off the bottom looks like the designer fell asleep with their head on the mouse.

Clarity: Bad. And what on earth does the headline mean? click.click.click. Upon deeper exploration, it’s the name of the newsletter, but that’s not apparent at all on first load.

Clarity: worse. Then we get the classic “Clear vs. Clever” headline treatment. Why are you talking about the pronunciation of the word “Gif”? Tell me what this is, and why I should care to give you my email.

Design: Bad. Also, that background is gnarly.

#2 – KAM Motorsports Revolution!

What’s so bad about it?

It’s motorsports. It’s not a revolution. Unless they’re talking about wheels going round in circles.

Clarity: Bad. The headline doesn’t say what it is, or what I’ll get by subscribing. I have to read the fine print to figure that out.

Copy: Bad. Just reading the phrase “abuse your email” is a big turn off. Just like the word spam, I wasn’t thinking that you were going to abuse me, but now it’s on my mind.

Relevance: Bad. Newsletter subscription popups are great, they have a strong sense of utility and can give people exactly what they want. But I don’t like them as entry popups. They’re much better when they use an exit trigger, or a scroll trigger. Using a “Scroll Up” trigger is smart because it means they’ve read some of your content, and they are scrolling back up vs. leaving directly, which is another micro-signal that they are interested.

#3 – Utterly Confused

(Source unknown – I found it on confirmshaming.tumblr.com)

What’s so bad about it?

I have no earthly clue what’s going on here.

Clarity: Bad. I had to re-read it five times before I figured out what was going on.

Control: Bad. After reading it, I didn’t know whether I would be agreeing with what they’re going to give me, or with the statement. It’s like an affirmation or something. But I have no way of knowing what will happen if I click either button. My best guess after spending this much time writing about it is that it’s a poll. But a really meaningless one if it is. Click here to find out how many people agreed with “doing better”…

It ends with “Do Better”. I agree. They need to do a lot better.

#4 – Purple Nurple

What’s so bad about it?

Manipulation: Bad. Our first “Confirm Shaming” example. Otherwise known as “Good Cop / Bad Cop”. Forcing people to click a button that says “Detest” on it is so incongruent with the concept of a mattress company that I think they’re just being cheap. There’s no need to speak to people that way.

I found a second popup example by Purple (below), and have to give them credit. The copy on this one is significantly more persuasive. Get this. If you look at the section I circled (in purple), it says that if you subscribe, they’ll keep you up to date with SHIPPING TIMES!!! Seriously? If you’re going to email me and say “Hey Oli, great news! We can ship you a mattress in 2 weeks!”, I’ll go to Leesa, or Endy, or one of a million other Casper copycats.

#5 – Hello BC

What’s so bad about it?

Context: This is an entry popup, and I have never been to this site before.

Relevance: Bad. The site is Hellobc.com, the title says “Supernatural British Columbia”, and the content on the page is about skydiving. So what list is this for? And nobody wants to be on a “list”, stop saying “list”. It’s like saying email blast. Blast your list. If you read the first sentence it gets even more confusing, as you’ll be receiving updates from Destination BC. That’s 4 different concepts at play here.

Design: Bad. It’s legitimately butt ugly. I mean, come on. This is for Beautiful Supernatural British Columbia ffs. It’s stunning here. Show some scenery to entice me in.

Value: Bad. Seeing that form when I arrive on the page is like a giant eff you. Why do they think it’s okay to ask for that much info, with that much text, before I’ve even seen any content?

Control: Bad. And there’s not any error handling. However, the submit button remains inactive until you magically click the right amount of options to trigger it’s hungry hungry hippo mouth to open.

Train. Wreck.

Well, that’s all for today, folks. You might be wondering why there were so few popup examples in this post. Honestly, when the team was rallying to find me a bunch of examples, we all struggled to find many truly awful ones. We also struggled to find many really awesome ones.

This is where YOU come in!

Send me your terrible and awesome popup examples!

If you have any wonderfully brutal, or brutally wonderful examples of website popup design, I’d really appreciate a URL in the comments. If you could share the trigger details too that would be rad (e.g. exit, entrance, scroll, delay etc.).

Tomorrow’s Post is about Awesome Popup Examples! YAY.

So get your butt back here same time tomorrow, where I’ll be sharing my brand new Popup Delight Equation that you can use to grade your own popup designs.

Cheers, Oli

p.s. Don’t forget to subscribe to the weekly updates.

5 Really Bad Website Popup Examples published first on http://nickpontemktg.blogspot.com/