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Eloston / disable-html5-autoplay

[CURRENTLY UNMAINTAINED] An extension for Chromium-based browsers that disables autoplay of HTML5 audio and video
GNU General Public License v3.0
241 stars 46 forks source link

SEVERE: Users of this extension are not reading the multiple notices. #199

Open Eloston opened 6 years ago

Eloston commented 6 years ago

I have a notice at the top of the README, which is visible on the project's home page. I also put a notice in the Chrome Webstore description. And there's even instructions in the new issue description to read the latest news (saying the same thing as the notice).

Despite all of this, it seems the message isn't getting across to all users, and I honestly have no clue why. Does anyone have any suggestions?

EDIT: typo

mc510 commented 6 years ago

I am one who missed all of those notices ... sorry, must be frustrating! All I can suggest is to see if you can make the notices more prominent.

Maybe edit the github project description to read "AN UNMAINTAINED extension for Chromium-based browsers that disables autoplay of HTML5 audio and video"?

Can you similarly change the name in the Chrome Web Store? Lots of places on the web still recommend it, linking directly to the Chrome extension where it shows up with 800+ positive reviews, so users may miss the text notice (either I did, or I installed before you stopped maintaining it).

Eloston commented 6 years ago

I am one who missed all of those notices ... sorry, must be frustrating!

I was a bit frustrated when I created this issue, but it's still my responsibility even if I'm not knowledgeable in behavioral sciences and user interface design. After all, you're only one of many that missed the notice.

I have no clue how users view any of these pages I've published, which is why I created this issue.

Maybe edit the github project description to read "AN UNMAINTAINED extension for Chromium-based browsers that disables autoplay of HTML5 audio and video"?

You mean right under the the tabs at the top (not the one in the README)? Not a bad idea.

Can you similarly change the name in the Chrome Web Store? Lots of places on the web still recommend it, linking directly to the Chrome extension where it shows up with 800+ positive reviews, so users may miss the text notice

Alright

I installed before you stopped maintaining it

The current code's essentially 1.5 years old, but I didn't add notices until a little bit later. A few notices (namely the one in the Chrome Web Store) were added in earlier this year.

lamont-granquist commented 6 years ago

You've buried the instructions on how to disable autoplay in chrome several clicks deep inside of a github issue.

What you need to do is delete most of the content in the README.md and put this content directly into the README.md:

https://github.com/Eloston/disable-html5-autoplay/issues/175#issuecomment-310805588

(Do not put a link to those instructions, but put that content directly in the README -- assume that your users do not click any links because at every step you lose more users who don't clearly see the link. Right now you have to go from the chrome store, to the README, to your explanation, to the github issue, then scroll down and read it.... and 99% of your users have given up at that point, so they just yell about sites being broken in issues hoping that someone will rescue them from autoplay...)

lamont-granquist commented 6 years ago

Also it looks like that workaround still fails on most of the most toxic autoplay news sites out there...

lamont-granquist commented 6 years ago

Looks like you should point people at this extension instead

lamont-granquist commented 6 years ago

submitted PR #202 which should help.

somewhere i thought there was a new feature of github where you could mark a repo as read-only or archived which should probably be done here to prevent new issues and PRs being cut.

Eloston commented 6 years ago

@lamont-granquist Thanks for your ideas and pull request, but I just pushed out a new screenshot to the Chrome Web Store that has a notice in it.

I don't want to remove the content in the README mainly for nostalgia and the unreasonable hope that someone would be interested in the info, but also because these users may be oblivious to the README to begin with. From my experience, it's not immediately obvious to some users that there's a README with useful info if you scroll past the file list.

My hope is that the new screenshot will grab enough users' attention so they won't be trying to report bugs anymore. If it doesn't work, I will consider renaming the extension first; if that doesn't work, then I will consider more drastic measures.