Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People • Hacker News Board

Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People

#51

Post by eevee » Fri, Aug 30, 2013, 6:55 PM UTC

ArtDev wrote: post #50

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.

Oh, I don't doubt that it's sometimes—or even often—deliberate. But if a UI is implemented badly, no one complains (because no one ever does), and the number of purchases/signups/whatever goes up, why would anyone bother trying to "fix" it?

Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People

#52

Post by ArtDev » Fri, Aug 30, 2013, 6:56 PM UTC

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.

I really like the redesign.

darkpatterns.org is a great resource for people in organizations needing a reference about what NOT to do.

I would be great to expand it to include dark patterns in software such as the Ask toolbar trick in the Java Oracle installer.

Wish I had the time to contribute to the project!

Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People

#53

Post by ArtDev » Fri, Aug 30, 2013, 7:08 PM UTC

jka wrote: post #20

Open question: as a startup grows and matures, even if it is originally entirely designed with honest user objectives in mind, where usability and simplicity are paramount, at some point there will be calls to increase revenues - either in response to declining growth, market saturation, or simply to maintain existing growth. Is there any way to structure the incentives of a business to prevent this from happening as…

Dark patterns are a short-term tradeoff. Ultimately, though your customers will resent you.

Its easy for stakeholders to say "So what? We loose a few customers!"

However, your company really might be loosing a potential investor, a potential business partner, a potential star hire or a potential product champion.

Ambitious companies don't use dark patterns but dying companies do.

Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People

#54

Post by dclowd9901 » Fri, Aug 30, 2013, 7:14 PM UTC

And yet, AirBnb was tricking people into using their service by proxying machine generated emails through fake female personalities to bootstrap their service.

I think the real trick is to dark pattern in a way that isn't offensive/egregiously negative to the customer.

Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People

#55

Post by ArtDev » Fri, Aug 30, 2013, 7:15 PM UTC

eevee wrote: post #51

ArtDev wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh, I don't doubt that it's sometimes—or even often—deliberate. But if a UI is implemented badly, no one complains (because no one ever does), and the number of purchases/signups/whatever goes up, why would anyone bother trying to "fix" it?

Customer research brings it up.. if anyone is listening.

Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People

#56

Post by zsstor » Fri, Aug 30, 2013, 7:19 PM UTC

Cable providers have been the worst with this in my experience. No matter what you do it takes an ungodly amount of time to cancel service.

There was a great Behavioral Economics course on Coursera taught by Dan Ariely that touched on methods like these, as well as subtler ones. I think the slide on Organ Donation was from him. https://class.coursera.org/behavioralecon-001/class

Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People

#57

Post by mbesto » Fri, Aug 30, 2013, 7:21 PM UTC

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…

GoDaddy and VistaPrint also come to mind.

Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People

#58

Post by ArtDev » Fri, Aug 30, 2013, 7:21 PM UTC

bartkappenburg wrote: post #37

I guess we need to make an distinction between short and long term conversion optimization. How does a new and unexperienced customer at Ryanair feel when he sees the final amount he has to pay? It's obviously a good first conversion, but does it pay off a the second and third etc conversion for ryanair? Does he recommend the service? He has other choices and the one that tricked him doesn't feel that good anymore...…

This is a problem with metrics in general.

Short-term metrics are easy but long-term metrics are hard because of complexity.

Also, quantifying human emotion (UX) is also hard.

It seems like great companies have to rely on ethics, company culture and vision to make due in the absence of long-term metrics.

Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People

#59

Post by reddit_clone » Fri, Aug 30, 2013, 7:30 PM UTC

Recently I find it annoying that the button I don't want to click is all bright, blue and defaulted and the button I eventually want to click looks gray as if it is actually disabled.

Even google does this.

Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People

#60

Post by PeterisP » Fri, Aug 30, 2013, 7:42 PM UTC

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…

1) Dark patterns do empirically work, that's the whole point.

2) Market won't magically shift - they work based on homo sapiens basic psychology, and that won't change so soon. However, dark patterns can (and are) reduced by making them illegal - effective consumer protection / truthful advertising laws can mitigate them. For example, if 'I agree' opt-out boxes are legally considered invalid, then it makes sense to use opt-in subscriptions; similarly for other [mis]representations.