DEV Community

Cover image for You MUST stop doing this now, really!
Keff
Keff

Posted on

You MUST stop doing this now, really!

What? Using titles like the one above!

It might only be me, but I hate these types of titles.

I think it would be much better if you focused the title on why you should do a thing, rather than just telling me I should. You should not just assume I don't know the thing, give me some value. Just because you, a random person on the internet, say so, I won't be doing it (not even reading the post, you see).

The content of the post may be good, and maybe you MUST do the thing, but there are better ways of presenting it and probably perform better (note that this is just my opinion).

For example instead of:
You MUST do this <thing>!

You could rephrase it as:
If you do <thing>, you will increase performance by 25%

Or instead of:
If you are a manager you MUST do this!

You could rephrase it as:
As a manager I implemented <thing> and made our team 2x faster

See the difference?

  • The first ones are just plain clickbait, making me feel like I'm missing out on something and making me feel somewhat attacked by not doing the thing.
  • The second ones offer more value (I know why I should do the thing) and invites me to learn a bit more

Rant over, quite a quick one. But one that bothers me quite a bit, do you feel the same way?

Latest comments (3)

Collapse
 
rnkrnk profile image
RN

Totally agree with you. Hate clickbait like these

Collapse
 
iizmotabar profile image
Motabar Javaid

I totally second you, Keff! Titles like these do get the audience's attention but supresses their thought process in one way or the other and that's in my opinion is bad for them. One should not be controlling the thought process of their audience.

Collapse
 
miketalbot profile image
Mike Talbot ⭐