Member-only story
The UX of Porn Tube Sites Are Designed for the Ultimate Money Shot
How porn sites pioneered ecommerce platforms and got their hands all over our hard data
By Madeleine Morley
This article is excerpted from the fifth issue of Eye on Design magazine. Pick up a copy of Eye on Design’s “Distraction” issue for a deeper dive into how the influx of notifications, screens, and unread emails are shaping the way we think.
I’m looking at porn with a woman I met on the internet.
To the left of our Skype video chat, a checkerboard of video stills merge into one single disingenuous orgasm. Bodies grind and groan in their windows, holding positions with dexterous ease. As we scroll and browse the various clips, animated porno Gifs bounce irritatingly in the margins of the screen, trying to catch our gaze.
“Pornhub wants us to come here, open up a video, open up another, and lose our afternoon Vegas-style,” says Missy Kelley, the woman I’ve just met. Kelley is a UX and AI product design director who I connected with via email. She’s recently updated the Make Love Not Porn website, the “social sex” video-sharing platform spearheaded by Cindy Gallop and brought into public consciousness after her 2009 TED Talk went viral. I figure Kelley has something to…
