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Dark Patterns – User Interfaces Designed to Trick People [video]

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Re: Dark Patterns – User Interfaces Designed to Trick People [video]

#101

Post by hota_mazi »

jkaptur wrote: post #37
mvid wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tinder is the worst I have seen, they require you to pick between 1-5 stars to get the dialog to go away at all. Guess who always gets one star.

Wait, if they're requiring you to pick 1-5 stars to get the dialog to go away, it must be a custom dialog built by them, right? I bet they take your one star and just hide the dialog, but take people who rate it as 5 stars to the "real" app store rating page.

On Android, apps can't self rate like that, all they can do is take you to the store page and let you rate their app. The app can't know what rating you gave.

Does iOS let apps self rate like that? This seems inconceivable to me.

Bottom line: when an app keeps pestering you to rate it, say "Yes fine I'll rate you", they take you to the app store and there, you do nothing (or one-star them). The app should register that you rated them and stop pestering you with that dialog.

Re: Dark Patterns – User Interfaces Designed to Trick People [video]

#102

Post by Hydraulix989 »

cs702 wrote: post #15

Great video and great website. My only nitpick: the author wants the industry to agree on a "code of ethics." Unfortunately, such exhortations strike me as naive. They are unlikely to work, because the truly bad actors will continue to use dark patterns regardless, putting pressure on all other actors to follow suit. The key challenge is not in getting the good actors to do the right thing, but in preventing the bad…

It's a tough situation.

If I'm a developer (say, a junior engineer with my first real entry-level software engineering job out of college), my direct manager (who generally supervises and stringently handholds) basically tells me exactly which features need to be implemented (and often, even how).

I don't have much of a say in which patterns (dark or light) get implemented, and I probably won't have the gull to "stand up" and "rock the boat" as a 22 year old fresh out of school.

It's even worse if I'm married with kids... How do I explain to my wife and children why I lost my job for refusing to implement the product guys' ill-conceived version of "Roach Motel" in the frontend?

This is why I sympathize with the VW lowly engineer "fall guy" whose head met the chopping block for the entire pervasive executive diesel cheat scandal.

Re: Dark Patterns – User Interfaces Designed to Trick People [video]

#103

Post by abawany »

Loic wrote: post #61
prdonahue wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I hate this more than I can express in a public forum. Google is notorious for it, especially when they try to get you to use the YouTube app rather than the web interface. It's not "maybe later" I want—it's "never ask me again".

Google Maps on Android is massively using dark patterns. If you are on the go and open the app, it requests to enable the location service to continue. The choices are: "Enable location service" or "Cancel". It is phrased in a way that it will not run the app if you tap on "Cancel" but it works perfectly if you select "Cancel". The worse, if you agree, it enables the location service for everything all the time where…

Thank you. This has been going on for a while (as I recall, a Maps update last year first committed this crime - wish I had an apk backup of the prior version).

I now use HERE WeGo or OsmAnd (on non-GAPPS devices, from f-droid). While the experience is not nearly as cool, I love the fact that I am not participating in uncontrolled monitoring and unexpected battery drainage.

Re: Dark Patterns – User Interfaces Designed to Trick People [video]

#104

Post by xigency »

artursapek wrote: post #91
cm2187 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And even Apple is doing it. You you want to update your iphone now or tonight?

Software updates are the rare case where I can forgive it. It's annoying to have clients actively resisting updates, especially security updates.

Hm, iOS 10 seemed more like a feature release than a security one. I've finally stopped getting update notifications after I rolled back my phone.

Update: Still getting nuisance notifications.

Re: Dark Patterns – User Interfaces Designed to Trick People [video]

#105

Post by taneq »

Loic wrote: post #61
prdonahue wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I hate this more than I can express in a public forum. Google is notorious for it, especially when they try to get you to use the YouTube app rather than the web interface. It's not "maybe later" I want—it's "never ask me again".

Google Maps on Android is massively using dark patterns. If you are on the go and open the app, it requests to enable the location service to continue. The choices are: "Enable location service" or "Cancel". It is phrased in a way that it will not run the app if you tap on "Cancel" but it works perfectly if you select "Cancel". The worse, if you agree, it enables the location service for everything all the time where…

I've turned off Google Play Services' permission to access location services, camera and microphone. Google Maps now basically doesn't work (it runs at ~10fps and the search box is non-interactive). Gmail scolds me every 10 second while composing emails that "this app won't work properly unless you give Google Play Services access to your camera and microphone" (but works fine otherwise.)

Their piping of apps' access to things like location through Google Play Services to force you to give them access makes a mockery of the permissions system. I really don't like the way they've been doing things the past few years.

Edit: Gmail complains about lack of access to camera and microphone, not location services. Fixed.

Re: Dark Patterns – User Interfaces Designed to Trick People [video]

#106

Post by jcomis »

How about this one in the new uber app: If you disable location services (which recently switched to either "always" or "never", no longer offering "only when open") you can't use your history or saved favorite places to set a location, you have to manually type it out. Couldn't believe they would be so shady just to get location services activated.

Re: Dark Patterns – User Interfaces Designed to Trick People [video]

#107

Post by mrgreenfur »

dawnerd wrote: post #44
mrgreenfur wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fun part of spirit is that it doesn't end on the site, you have to dodge the dark patterns on the flight too!

At least they're pretty honest with it. Every time I walk by their counter at the airport I laugh at the sign because it's like, no frills but you'll pay for everything! In a way I kind of like that model - just not on an airplane.

I kind of disagree, I want it to be that way in theory, but in reality it is rather predatory. A no frills flight for low budget where you pay for everything (and debatably more than an equal seat on another airline) and then they pressure-cook the passengers for a high interest credit card. Their pitch went on forever, way way longer than the usual "signup and get extra miles".

I watched a bunch of folks sign up on the flight and it made me feel really badly; the same way that check-cashing places scam their, mostly not-affulent, customers. These folks are even more vulnerable to these kinds of dark-patterns.

Re: Dark Patterns – User Interfaces Designed to Trick People [video]

#108

Post by st3v3r »

hota_mazi wrote: post #101
jkaptur wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, if they're requiring you to pick 1-5 stars to get the dialog to go away, it must be a custom dialog built by them, right? I bet they take your one star and just hide the dialog, but take people who rate it as 5 stars to the "real" app store rating page.

On Android, apps can't self rate like that, all they can do is take you to the store page and let you rate their app. The app can't know what rating you gave. Does iOS let apps self rate like that? This seems inconceivable to me. Bottom line: when an app keeps pestering you to rate it, say "Yes fine I'll rate you", they take you to the app store and there, you do nothing (or one-star them). The app should register th…

I don't think either platform lets that happen. Still, if you know your user is going to rate anything less than 5 stars, why would you still take them to the store to rate? And the amount of people who lie on those dialogs is quite small.

Re: Dark Patterns – User Interfaces Designed to Trick People [video]

#109

Post by techsupporter »

duiker101 wrote: post #36
monix wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other big players like Microsoft are doing it too. And that dialog can be worse: Do you like our app? It's also freaking annoying because it interrupts your workflow, the thing for which you ended up installing that stupid app in the first place. It's basically disrespectful of their users' time and needs.

I feel you... I do it in my app and I hate doing it, but it's a necessary evil. Way too many people see the comments/ratings as either a support board or a way of punishing bad apps but very rarely they give a good or even just decent review, without being asked.

> I feel you... I do it in my app and I hate doing it, but it's a necessary evil.

This is what makes the IT part of my heart die a little inside even more: when even the "good folks" in this industry feel like they have to do obnoxious things just to get ahead or keep up.

Folks, this is why the bigger arguments about competition or arbitration and so on always come back to the same point ("there's no meaningful choice"): Eventually, everyone winds up doing the same thing because it's the only way to simply not lose ground to the others who are doing the obnoxious-overall-but-good-for-just-me-in-the-short-term tricks. If I uninstalled every app that demanded this...well, I'd have very few apps. And that's even worse because it's just obnoxious enough to help the individual app developer but not so obnoxious as to spur people onto meaningful action, yet the annoyance is still present...always grating on nerves...disrupting just a little bit of productivity or happiness...needlessly.

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