[mfuzzey]

"we really need to focus on user-facing touchpoints, because there’s too much sign-up friction. Like, we need to 10x the stickiness of the landing page but also keep it lean,"

Even as a native English speaker I find this type of language hard to understand, fluffy and ambiguous. We would all benefit from using plain language not just non native English speakers

[atoav]

This is The Lingo. It is something people use when they try to say bland obvious stuff while sounding like they are tech wizards that deserve a high wage. I know the pattern, I studied philosophy, where you also have some writers that express simple ideas with complex lingo, while you have others where the lingo is complex, but it is needed, because the thought is also complex. For the uninitiated telling the two apart can be hard.

In this case that just means: our landing page needs to convince more people to sign up without getting too bloated.

This means it implies a linear correlation between amount of content on the page and sign ups. More content, more signups. But not too much, otherwise it is bad again.

In essence it is a bad take on a probably real problem, expressed by a person that needs to hide behind the lingo.

[gavmor]

That's an awfully cynical perspective, but these terms evolved because they're useful. No one is forcing us to speak them (although they are forcing us to hear them.)

I would rather refer to affordances than to "user-facing touchpoints", because that's a more specific abstraction aimed at, specifically, interactive elements whereas "touchpoints" is, to me, vague; does it refer, also, to the merely visual aspects which "touch" our retinas?

"Friction" is a metaphor, and there's nothing wrong with that! I imagine that one monitoring a conversion funnel would naturally ask "what's causing the members of this cohort to drop out of the flow?" Well, it's friction that challenges spatial progress, and spatial metaphors make good use of some underused cognitive hardware.

"Increase stickiness... but also keep it lean", though is, at worst, an oxymoron and, at best, lazy along the lines of "... just make it good and not bad."

[atoav]

My perspective may come across cynical, although I am not a cynic, I just see this as what I observe. I am usually described as a very optimistic and patient person.

My position is the perspective of a former freelancer who had to translate that lingo into actual actionable steps. The perspective of someone who builds a website alone in a day, while building one on a month when guided by committee.

I have nothing against specialized language, if it serves a purpose as I mentioned in my philosophy example. For some concepts the specialized words are the only ones giving you the precise language needed to reference them in a meaningful way. What I dislike is needless specialized language by people whose job is it to let others interpret what they meant. The ambiguity is of course a feature on multiple dime sions, they can decide whether you read the runes correctly after the fact.

[founditerating]

Who the hell talks like this in the first place?

I've worked in Japan for 7 years and majority of the time you will not be working with native English speakers, usually people who speak multiple languages at all times, if you're only language you know is English you are the minority and people will have to work with you to understand.

I couldnt even finish the article after that insane ramble of gibberish I'm genuinely confused who in the hell would ever talk like that.

[birdsongs]

> and majority of the time you will not be working with native English speakers, usually people who speak multiple languages at all times, if you're only language you know is English you are the minority and people will have to work with you to understand.

This is pretty much life anywhere outside of North America and the UK (or colonies). In Norway, I don't think a single coworker of mine is a native English speaker (I am). We get along fine of course, but often I see the resistance they feel when having to switch to English. Second (or third) languages just take more brain power, and have more friction.

I have learned Norwegian, but English is still is required sometimes, as it's the common denominator amongst the mix of Norwegian, Swedish, German, and Spanish people. And that English is usually functional and as clear as can be.

This is the engineering department though. If you go to marketing or strategy it's full of this corpo double-speak.

[Nashooo]

Would you mind sharing some info on how you found a tech job in Norway? I'm from another European country and looking for some first-hand knowledge on working in / moving to Norway.

[birdsongs]

Yeah, absolutely. I came from the US, so it was a bit harder than a Schengen move. Not sure if you qualify for that or need a skills visa like I did.

But essentially I applied, a lot on LinkedIn. This started early 2021. Took about 8 months to secure a role, I was at 5 YoE at the time, embedded systems / embedded Linux engineering, and I would say moderately good at my job, nothing spectacular. No FAANG.

Oslo was quite difficult, I wasn't able to secure a job there. They are also very keen on grades and transcripts, even though it had been a decade since I was in University. I had mediocre grades, which may have hurt.

But I applied all over Norway, and got a robotics job in a small town on the west coast. They sponsored my skills visa, got me here, and after a year I transferred to our Oslo branch. Once you're in the country it's massively easier to move around. Interview was standard and sane, most here have been. Recruiter/manager soft fit check, a few technical rounds, then team and upper management interviews. Be humble but confident in interviews, don't brag excessively, it's very much the opposite of the US in working culture (read about "Janteloven"). Pay was substantially lower but I am so happy with the quality of life here I couldn't care less.

UDI, the immigration department, is steady but slow. Everything just takes time. Lots of info here (follow to the "skilled worker" portal): https://www.udi.no/en/want-to-apply/work-immigration/

I knew no Norwegian when moving. Nearly all tech jobs are English hybrid enough you can get by. But I would highly, highly recommend learning the language. Socially (private life) and professionally it helps so much. And it's a bit rare to really learn it, so people are often impressed or happy you do speak it. It's difficult though for a few reasons, dialect variety, English fluency among Norwegians, etc. I would say it took me all of 4 years to get to the point I could converse mostly fine at speed with someone speaking in a native dialect. Reading is much easier, that came after a year or two.

This was kind of an info dump, let me know if you have any specific questions!

Tl;dr: use LinkedIn, apply, apply, apply, don't get disheartened / give up, and give it time.

[Klonoar]

There are definitely companies in Japan that have people who will talk like this.

Hell, I’ve advised some of them.

[iso1631]

> Who the hell talks like this in the first place?

People trying to hide their own lack of knowledge and ability

[numpad0]

> Who the hell talks like this in the first place?

guys that aren't sure if the yellow isn't too much

[numpad0]

(facepalm I meant the neo)

[SpicyLemonZest]

None of the terms here are fluffy or ambiguous. They're about specific details or strategic categories that you (perhaps justifiably) don't find important. The original post's suggested rewording is reasonable, but it doesn't include all the information: the recipient won't know that the sender wants further improvement even though the latest build may be better than what's live, or that developers should avoid trading off scalability in the process.

[financltravsty]

This makes sense?

User-facing touch points: everything a user can interact with

Sign-up friction: self explanatory

Stickiness: less bounce rate

Lean: don't overload with touch points/bloat

[throwaway173738]

You’re actually using jargon to explain jargon here. Try explaining all of this from the user’s perspective.

[satvikpendem]

Terms of art exist, and none of these are unknown terms to people in the field. Jargon is specifically used to communicate certain ideas without defining each and every single term. If you were in an aerospace field and people started talking about various types of engines and propellers, you'd be expected to know what it means, but for some reason people think computing and UX is somehow different, as if a lay person should perfectly understand it without learning any new terms.

[financltravsty]

Which terms/explanations are confusing?

[iso1631]

Sign-up friction, bounce rate, touch points, bloat

[financltravsty]

Sign-up friction: how much effort it takes to sign up; many times because it's hard to find the sign up page or the page itself has too many steps

Bounce rate: a bounce is someone visiting your site and not signing up. A bounce rate is the amount of people that do this compared to sign ups

Touchpoints: things a user interacts with, like a landing page, a nav bar with a sign up button, the sign up page itself, forms on that page, etc.

Bloat: too much "stuff" that is unnecessary towards some end goal like too much copywriting on the landing page, or too complex of a sign up flow, etc.

This isn't snark, but this is all industry standard terminology.

[throwaway173738]

Industry standard terminology is definitionally jargon. Like if you look in a dictionary you’ll find that as one of the definitions.