Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have yet to work out whether "limited hours for an automated system" is a dark pattern, or sheer stupidity. The most horrifying variant I've seen recently was a government website that kept 9am-5pm hours. No human interaction or real-time events anywhere, but logins were locked after business hours. I'm guessing they didn't want to arrange special downtime periods for changes, and the only alternative they could th…
> ...a government website that kept 9am-5pm hours... Sometimes this is done because the "opening times" are baked into existing process, (or in some cases, legislation), and so the digital replacement for the old meat-and-paper process must be subject to the same seemingly crazy time restrictions. It seems mad, but if you're an underfunded branch of the state, trying to replace a paper-based process with a website, o…
"Makes sense" does not mean "good", but I do understand the madness a little better now...