Bad design: Unnecessary self-promotion in product reviews

This is probably more a complaint than actual bad design, but it’s my blog, so here it is!

There are a billion or so tech sites out there that review tech products. One such product commonly reviewed are laptops.

Apple just released updated MacBook Pro laptops that “correct” many of the features of the previous model, released in 2016.

Tech sites are reviewing these. And a few choose these reviews to indulge in a little branding:

They put their own website up on a browser running nearly full screen on the laptop’s display. You know, in case you were reading a review on engadget and forgot you were on engadget, or on The Verge and forget you were on The Verge.

The Verge is especially bad at this when reviewing phones or tablets, as they’ll use their own wallpaper for the background, which more often than not, is some hideous-eye-bending vomit of neon color, festooned with their logo.

This is VERY SUBTLE, The Verge:

Really, looking over the first batch of reviews for the new MacBook Pro, it seems The Verge and engadget are the primary culprits here. And I should add a caveat–The Verge piece is only a “first impressions”, not a full review. We’ll see how they handle that shortly.

UPDATE: Here’s a screenshot from The Verge’s full review:

Still, every other review or first look I’ve checked so far does not advertise the site in shots of the laptops themselves. I almost wonder if engagdget and The Verge are mandated to do this. They lean more toward “filthy casual” than sites like TechRadar, so it’s possible.

Anyway, it’s annoying and unnecessary, and I already have enough ads in my life without cute versions of the same being snuck into product reviews or similar articles.