[snlacks]

I agree with the idea that there's too much reliance on in-app education, but this post quickly starts snowballing false metaphors into an extreme of a label is bad design.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the link to the inbox saying "inbox"

Users don't know what all your iconography means.

App design isn't just graphic design or industrial design. It's not airport or device design either.

The app has two purposes, the user wants and what the app provider wants. The problems become more challenging when those two parties desires don't match. Making an app that makes it easy to buy something, take a note, edit an image, or share something with people isn't rocket science with modern OSes and Libraries. These choices are central to discussion because metrics started becoming more important than the core use.

Sometimes this makes business sense, like in a social media app where they want you to stay longer after you share. But this isn't only true because it's a crowded market. Sometimes it doesn't, where a sales app loses sales because they try too hard to move people from what people came to buy to another thing (another product, a membership, a extended warranty, a social media share).

[evrydayhustling]

I agree that the industrial design metaphors are iffy, for a different reason. SaaS and apps are WAY easier to redistribute than physical goods and structures. In-app education works well as a way to confirm problems and iterate on solutions while en route to "fixing the underlying problem".

The choice between lengthy design cycles to fix core problems and quick fixes via in app education is a false dichotomy. Use both!