GoDaddy is the grandpa of auto-optins and upsells, should of been mentioned there.
Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People
61–70 of 95 posts
Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People
#62Thanks 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.
I recently tried to book a Ryanair flight. I cancelled in disgust when I got an "error" message that read something like, "Error: You didn't select a bus sightseeing tour option". Instead I chose to fly with a competitor, operating out of a less convenient airport, but with a less scummy online purchase process. However Ryanair had a 2012 net income of €374 million. That implies their scummy model is successful. This…
i wonder how much of those are due to rebooking fees...
Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People
#63The 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…
> 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).
You're being hyperbolic, or don't know what predicated means. This defaulting to bank transfers is a relatively recent thing in their history; they've been profitable for more than 10 years without that. Their fees are also sufficient to make a profit on credit card transactions, so their business would not fail should everyone opt-out of paying by ACH.
There are reasons for PayPal to want you to use ACH over a credit card beyond simply increasing profits, too. They're just as much victims of credit card fraud as their merchants. It's the card networks' fault that almost anyone in the world can pick up a Visa/MasterCard card, use it to buy something on eBay, then charge back the payment after they get the item. PayPal's the one getting the chargeback, and they're not exempt from the card networks' requirements on maximum chargeback rates. It's an existential threat to their business, always has been.
Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People
#64The 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.
In hindsight though, this was probably a good thing. You would most likely have been on an NSA database if you had donated to Lavabit.
Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People
#65Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People
#66A possible example of this is how the 'Clear Browsing Data' button in chrome for android has been moved to an inconspicious location away from the other settings, if you have an android device i invite you to see how easily you can find it without looking it up.
I fail to see what would be 'dark' in the first place about making it hard to clear local browsing data on a single-user device.
Chrome is a web browser created (largely) by Google. Google makes their money (largely) from web advertising. Web advertising is far more effective if you can use things like cookies to decide what ads to show to people.
So the claim is that Google has an incentive to make it harder to clear local browsing data than if they just considered it from the perspective of what users would want.
Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People
#67There a nice book on "evil design patterns" called Evil by Design [1]. It's interesting knowing how we are manipulated (and how we can manipulate others, not necessarily for bad reasons) through design.
1- http://www.amazon.com/Evil-Design-Interaction-Lead-Temptatio...
Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People
#68Hi, 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.
In your talk, you advocate Codes Of Conduct and the like - has any progress been made in the industry towards these?
Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People
#69I am not sure if it is a dark pattern, but I hate it. Hidden tax/shipping costs. I have to go through the entire check out process, which is usually multiple screens, and requires a credit card to continue to find out how much shipping will be at the final confirmation screen. Is this done on purpose so they think people are already invested in the checkout, so they won't abandon it due to high shipping? Or notice shipping? I don't understand why not just give me an estimate based on fuzzy location before I start the checkout process, so I don't waste my time if the total cost is too high.
Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People
#70Thanks 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.
> God I hate this carrier a well as the world's "cheaper is better" attitude.
RyanAir has enabled people who could not afford to travel in the past to be able to do so (especially in Europe, where many immigrants have family in North Africa/Eastern countries). While I share your contempt for some of RyanAir's practices, I do think that low cost flights are good for society as a whole.