One more time :
A good interface is like telling a great joke.
If you have to explain it, you are not doing it right at all.
Totally agreed. But only as far Interface itself is concerned, not necessarily the consequence of using the Interface. In other words, I wish software was accompanied with some explanation of the end-to-end workflow that would result when I invoked a certain CTA interface.
Example: My Android smartphone recently asked, “these apps are infrequently used, shall I zip them to save space?” and presented a ZIP button.
In itself, this was self-explanatory. I said, great, go ahead, and tapped the ZIP button. I tacitly assumed that I could always reinstate a zipped app by, ahem, unzipping it, the way we’re used to doing with zipped folders and files.
How wrong I was!
All was well until yesterday. I wanted to use one of those zipped apps. I clicked the Zipped Apps Icon, saw the said app and tapped its grayed out icon. The app got unzipped and showed up with its customary bright icon. But, when I tapped this icon, the app didn’t open. Instead, I saw a fleeting message to the effect, “Install Google Web View from Play Store” or something like that. Before I could read it properly, the message went away.
Now, this is an unpleasant surprise.
Had I known in the beginning that reinstating a zipped app would require me to jump through so many hoops, I probably wouldn’t have tapped the ZIP button in the first place.
I know about Dark Patterns where App Owners intentionally skip explanatory messages, even buttons themselves, for commercial reasons.
But, given the nature of the CTA in my specific example, there’s no case for a Dark Pattern. I suspect it’s just plain-and-simple poor design.