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Ask HN: HTTP request headers to facilitate better UX on web sites?

5 pointsby mactavish88over 3 years ago
Are there any, or can we maybe come up with (i.e. suggestions please if it seems like a good idea), HTTP headers that browsers can send to sites that automatically instruct them in terms of:<p>1. The kinds of cookies I&#x27;m willing to accept (e.g. strictly necessary). For example, `X-Prefer-Cookies: strictly-necessary` or `X-Prefer-Cookies: all`.<p>2. The fact that I don&#x27;t, and probably never will, care about your newsletter. (If your content really interests me, I&#x27;ll find a way through your UI to subscribe.) For example: `X-Offer-Newsletter: no`, or `X-Offer-Newsletter: yes`.<p>If you wanted to facilitate more general UX preference indications from the client side, you could potentially come up with a scheme like `X-UX-Preferences: strictly-necessary-cookies; no-newsletters`.<p>This way I can set these preferences once in my browser and be done with your annoying cookie selection and newsletter popups (if your site honours those headers, of course).<p>I think that, if most websites honoured those headers, it might just fix 80% of what I personally feel is wrong with the modern web. (The other 20% I think involves completely eradicating online advertising-driven business models from the face of the planet, which I think is quite a bit harder to achieve than this.)<p>EDIT: grammar

2 comments

bruce511over 3 years ago
I feel you are looking at this from the wrong perspective.<p>You are looking at this from the perspective of the user (not customer). Since you are not paying for any of this content you are not the customer.<p>It is trivial for sites to improve the UX (emphasis on U) but the site is optimising for CX (customer experience). Given that C pays the bills, not U, C wins.<p>Sites don&#x27;t need headers to do the things you want. They don&#x27;t do those things because they feel they improve _your_ life. They do them because ultimately they need things like advertising to pay the bills.
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high_byteover 3 years ago
technically that could be a straightforward solution. the issue is... that the issue isn&#x27;t technical. GDPR started this clusterfuck, who knows if it&#x27;ll take some 20 years until decision makers get together and address this.