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Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People

darkpatterns.org

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Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People

#41

Post by X-Istence »

harrybr wrote: post #2

Hi, I'm the guy who started darkpatterns.org. It's nice to see it popping up on HN every now and then. We're actually looking for contributors to help edit and update the content. If anyone is interested, drop us a line (contact details on the site). It's intended to be a community project and we'd love to see a lot more faces and names on the about page.

It's funny, as I was going through the site I found the following issue:

On http://darkpatterns.org/library/faraway_bill/

Next is listed first, followed by Previous.

On the "previous page": http://darkpatterns.org/library/disguised_ads/

It is listed as such Previous followed by Next. So when I got to the Disguied Ads page, I clicked the last link on the page expecting it to take me to the next page, instead it took me back to the previous page!

Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People

#42

Post by jleader »

dragonwriter wrote: post #35
darushimo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're right here, but the qualifier "all things being equal" can't be taken lightly. Rarely if never are "all things equal." I also don't think a shift in the market context is necessary. We already have a market place where people who feel tricked or duped will have a lower opinion of the company doing the duping. dark patterns have a bad edge to them too--very few of them, when noticed by the user, leave t…

> I also don't think a shift in the market context is necessary. If the dark patterns empirically work, then a market context shift is necessary. > We already have a market place where people who feel tricked or duped will have a lower opinion of the company doing the duping. dark patterns have a bad edge to them too--very few of them, when noticed by the user, leave the user actually feeling good about how they were…

Sometimes the "bad edge" effect is cumulative over time. This can lead to a new entrant to the market suddenly gaining a lot of market share, because so many people have gotten fed up with the dominant player. So maybe the dark patterns work well, until suddenly they nose-dive, because everyone's switched to the less annoying alternative.

A/B testing only tells you what works today, not what's going to keep your customers satisfied in the long run.

Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People

#43

Post by Zelphyr »

abalone wrote: post #38

The worst mainstream example of this I know of is PayPal. Their entire business is predicated on steering you away from using your credit or debit card (better for you) to a direct bank withdrawal (better for them). Bank withdrawals carry a risk of overdraft fees, have fewer consumer protections, and lack the rewards programs and other benefits of cards. But they cost less for PayPal. Merchants don't pay any less tho…

I can confirm PayPal are douchebags in this regard. So much so that I couldn't donate to Lavabit because of it.

Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People

#44

Post by T-hawk »

toupeira wrote: post #40
abalone wrote: post #38

The worst mainstream example of this I know of is PayPal. Their entire business is predicated on steering you away from using your credit or debit card (better for you) to a direct bank withdrawal (better for them). Bank withdrawals carry a risk of overdraft fees, have fewer consumer protections, and lack the rewards programs and other benefits of cards. But they cost less for PayPal. Merchants don't pay any less tho…

I only have my credit card associated with my PayPal account, so I don't even get the option to use a bank withdrawal.

+1. That's the only way to use PayPal as a consumer. If you're just a buyer and not a seller, there's no advantage to you to tell them about your bank account. They make some noise about a sending limit until you verify with a bank account, but I've never had any transactions run into that.

I had my bank account connected to PayPal once, but deleted the association a few years ago. Somewhat surprisingly in the modern world of phantom deletion, there's never been any sign of it reappearing or Paypal trying to use or access it for anything. Each Paypal purchase uses only my credit card with no accidental way to do anything else.

Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People

#45

Post by r00fus »

T-hawk wrote: post #44
toupeira wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only have my credit card associated with my PayPal account, so I don't even get the option to use a bank withdrawal.

+1. That's the only way to use PayPal as a consumer. If you're just a buyer and not a seller, there's no advantage to you to tell them about your bank account. They make some noise about a sending limit until you verify with a bank account, but I've never had any transactions run into that. I had my bank account connected to PayPal once, but deleted the association a few years ago. Somewhat surprisingly in the modern…

Consequently PayPal make no shortage of effort to get you to add your bank account.

I'm surprised they don't allow people to transfer money to you (and then force you to connect your bank account to get the money).

Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People

#46

Post by JohnTHaller »

victoriap wrote: post #15
BonoboBoner wrote: post #13

Thanks to the author for including RyanAir's awful booking reservation website. This piece of garbage is filled with traps and puzzles in order to sneak additional costs onto you. God I hate this carrier a well as the world's "cheaper is better" attitude.

How does it compare to Godaddy checkout?

Bulk Register (eNom) puts bogus products in your cart when you purchase a domain like 'free' trials of cloud storage or automatic mobile website generation EVERY single time you buy or renew a domain name. If you miss the fact that they snuck it in there, they start billing you after a month. Just a crappy way to do business.

Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People

#47

Post by eevee »

Many of these could just as easily be the result of really bad UI design, especially when there are "technical constraints"—the RyanAir example in particular reeks of an opt-out being jammed haphazardly into an existing form to avoid adding another control.

Hanlon's Razor, yadda yadda. These patterns aren't any better if they're accidents, of course, but there'd at least be a chance that the offending company would fix them.

Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People

#49

Post by eevee »

abalone wrote: post #38

The worst mainstream example of this I know of is PayPal. Their entire business is predicated on steering you away from using your credit or debit card (better for you) to a direct bank withdrawal (better for them). Bank withdrawals carry a risk of overdraft fees, have fewer consumer protections, and lack the rewards programs and other benefits of cards. But they cost less for PayPal. Merchants don't pay any less tho…

I'm no fan of PayPal, but I interpret this as a reflection of the state of the banking industry rather than scummy behavior on PayPal's part. Cards skim a ton off the top and are generally designed to gouge the merchant (i.e. PayPal) so customers remain blissfully unaware and keep using them; banks aren't making much effort to compete with direct transfers, probably because they get kickbacks from debit card use.

Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People

#50

Post by ArtDev »

eevee wrote: post #47

Many of these could just as easily be the result of really bad UI design, especially when there are "technical constraints"—the RyanAir example in particular reeks of an opt-out being jammed haphazardly into an existing form to avoid adding another control. Hanlon's Razor, yadda yadda. These patterns aren't any better if they're accidents, of course, but there'd at least be a chance that the offending company would f…

I used to work for a magazine who had specialists come in who recommended this kind of crap.

This is not simply bad design.. these things are very deliberate and usually controversial within these companies that implement these tactics.

Its a pretty standard story where Marketing is pushing for short term gains while IT/Web is thinking about the big picture.

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