Dark Patterns – User Interfaces Designed to Trick People [video] • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by nitrogen » Tue, Dec 06, 2016, 11:22 PM UTC

gnicholas wrote: post #125

Animats wrote: post #32

After the first time this appeared on HN, I quit LinkedIn and deleted my profile. They still sent me "xxx wants to connect with you". I'm really getting tired of turning down Amazon Prime on Amazon. I use Amazon less because of this. There are about three extra pages of Amazon Prime ads to click through for every purchase.

Somewhat related—Amazon Prime Video now shows ads at the beginning of videos. This wasn't part of the deal when we signed up, and it's pretty deceptive to just start doing this to customers. I didn't see it in the agreement (actually went back and looked for something that would cover ads), and it's not clear what limits, if any, they think there are. That is, could they just decide to show as many ads as Hulu and sa…

Video services need to be disrupted in a way that sticks (not like Amazon adding ads after selling everyone on an ad-free service). The only service I use with any regularity now is Netflix since it has no ads, but even they sometimes have problems with finding the show you actually want to watch.

I was on vacation recently and the room had DirecTV. I tried searching for a program and all the search results were for channels not subscribed. Several of the channels in the guide list were presented as if subscribed, but then when a show would start, would prompt to charge $6 to continue watching and the show would stop after a few minutes. Finally, I found a channel that was subscribed and not PPV, and when an ad came on 30 seconds later, I tried to turn off the DirecTV box.

Here's the DirecTV dark pattern: there was a "Please Wait..." message on the screen while the ad played instead of just turning off the output! How can anybody actually be making money from TV ads when they are so obnoxious?

I'm pretty sick of corporations double-dipping in every industry. Video services charge you for watching, and then sell you to advertisers. Supermarkets charge you for products, and then sell you to manufacturers. ISPs charge you for bandwidth, and then try force video services to pay as well. Where's the exit to this hall of mirrors?

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

#142

Post by eric_h » Tue, Dec 06, 2016, 11:25 PM UTC

exolymph wrote: post #57

BatFastard wrote: post #8

Spirit airlines is a user of dark patterns. But its almost like a game on their site trying to avoid all of the up-sells! I may stay away from LA Fitness just because of this article.

Spirit Airlines is an interesting case, though, because like someone else said, they're very up-front about this. Is it still a dark pattern if the company admits it and essentially warns the user?

The unmissable warnings don't really happen until you get to the terminal though. Admittedly, I have not used spirit for some time. But the signs that say "we don't really want you to have to pay $100 for the carryon you forgot to pay for on the website, but you didn't pay for it, so tough shit" don't seem terribly genuine.

I will never fly spirit again, though. They just straight up cancelled a flight of mine an hour and a half before the flight for literally no reason, I got no notification via email/text or phone until I went to the airport to check my baggage (another thing I hate doing, but I was traveling for a pool tournament and you can't carry pool cues on a plane...). I had to book a last minute flight with another airline and my total airfare ended up being almost double what I paid for spirit.

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

#143

Post by soared » Tue, Dec 06, 2016, 11:30 PM UTC

st3v3r wrote: post #116

soared wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do it in a way that earns them more money. Sounds difficult but that is what adsense did. If legit ux practices earn more, companies will use them. Potential scenario: someone makes a browser plugin that blocks dark patterns as if they were ads, so companies who use them don't see any traction with them. Or 50 years out when everyone is computer literate, users are aware of dark patterns and punish companies who use…

AdSense also had the massive data Google had on users to entice advertisers with. What would entice Google this time?

Conversion rate optimization tools and data. Businesses turn to dark patterns to increase the conversion rate, and there isn't a ubiquitous tool for them to use. In theory google could provide a lot better funnel analytics and offer suggestions/options to improve that aren't dark patterns.

Its a stretch, but hey..

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

#144

Post by eric_h » Tue, Dec 06, 2016, 11:30 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #35

johansch wrote: post #26

My pet peeve: If you add a credit card to the Uber app there is no way to remove it without replacing it with another valid payment method. If you google solutions to this you get third party recommendations to plead with their customer service to have it removed. Seriously? This customer-hostile approach really needs to be killed.

Use 1111 2222 3333 4444, the credit card test number. This is valid at the check digit level, but known to all banks as a test number to be rejected.

I suspect there are many interfaces that would reject this number, as it's not a visa, master card or amex (which start with a 4, 5 and 3 respectively).

5105105105105100 and 4111111111111111 might be better alternatives (other test numbers that also pass the luhn check).

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

#145

Post by nommm-nommm » Tue, Dec 06, 2016, 11:41 PM UTC

luckyt wrote: post #135

chrisdone wrote: post #67

Buying tickets with RyanAir is stressful due to these kind of practices. They're less aggressive than in the past, when I wouldn't even continue because I just had zero trust in the company, but they're still sly. A sneaky one I saw recently is something like: [ ] Subscribe to newsletter about our services by unchecking this box. (It doesn't matter whether the box is initially checked or not, the user will be tricked…

Why bother with a checkbox at all at this point? Can't they send everyone the newsletter and not bother with a checkbox?

Probably their way of getting around government regulations.

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

#146

Post by nommm-nommm » Tue, Dec 06, 2016, 11:47 PM UTC

alphapapa wrote: post #72

soared wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree and that goal sounds similar to the goal of Kill Analytics [1]. "The industry" doesn't even exist as an entity. Gov regulation seems like the only viable way to fix it. But on the other hand, Google AdSense has done a lot to improve advertising online. Popups and bad ads used to be waaay worse than they are now (not that they are okay now). So maybe we do just need a few big players to step up and change thin…

> Gov regulation seems like the only viable way to fix it. So we can have more "This website uses cookies, okay?!?!?" banners popping up all over the place? No thanks. Besides, do you really want a bureaucrat telling you how to design your web site, with penalties enforceable by law?

>Besides, do you really want a bureaucrat telling you how to design your web site, with penalties enforceable by law?

"Bureaucrats" already tell you how to design your website. There is already laws against some forms of deceitful advertising, unfair trade practices, and information sharing and the like. For example, let's say I was working to design an airline ticket booking site...

https://www.transportation.gov/policy/aviation-policy/airlin...

>For both domestic and international markets, carriers must provide disclosure of the full price to be paid, including government taxes/fees as well as carrier surcharges, in their advertising, on their websites and on the passenger’s e-ticket confirmation. In addition, carriers must disclose all fees for optional services through a prominent link on their homepage, and must include information on e-ticket confirmations about the free baggage allowance and applicable fees for the first and second checked bag and carry-on.

How about those hotel "resort fees?" Currently they FTC says they are OK as long as they are disclosed before booking. So a hotel can advertise $20/night but when you go to book say "lol btw there's also a $30 resort fee." This of course makes comparison shopping impossible and exists for no other reason to deceive you. Rumor has it the FTC is going to backtrack on the policy and disallow separate resort fees.

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

#147

Post by oferzelig » Tue, Dec 06, 2016, 11:54 PM UTC

I'm not sure why this appears here on HN and received so many votes.

Despite being a good site, it has been last updated in 2013: http://darkpatterns.org/whats-new/

I sent them 2 dark patterns in the past which they didn't put; in an email I received long time after inquiring about it one of the developers said they're under the pump and will get to it sometime. And they don't.

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

#148

Post by taneq » Tue, Dec 06, 2016, 11:59 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #133

taneq wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Wait, Gmail is using location?! When Google released the new permission system in Android, they blew their one chance to actually make permissions meaningful. The fact that "portscan my network" is one of the Other permissions is testament to how unconcerned with user security and privacy they seem to be as an organization (despite, no doubt, some individual developers who care). I'm pretty close to deciding that my…

Wait sorry - it was camera and microphone that it nags me about. I'll update the other post.

But still, I can't see why Gmail should need access to those devices, and far less why it should harass me so aggressively about it when it works fine without them.

Just conjecture, but I feel like there was a sea-change at Google regarding attitudes towards users' privacy, about the time that adblock became widespread and competition started heating up between them and Facebook for ad revenue. They're behaving far less ethically than they did even five years ago.

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

#149

Post by eropple » Wed, Dec 07, 2016, 12:01 AM UTC

pipermerriam wrote: post #94

tyleraldrich wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, blockchain-based applications might have that ability... but what incentive do companies like LinkedIn have for doing this? What incentive does any company that uses these dark patterns constantly have to use a blockchain-based application? Especially because most of the time, the users data is the profit machine, so companies certainly want to own the data that backs the application.

> but what incentive do companies like LinkedIn have for doing this? They don't have any incentive and I suspect they will hold onto that data until it's "pried from their cold dead hands". I think that companies like LinkedIn and other massive data silos are going to atrophy and die as users migrate to new platforms that treat them better and give them more control over their data and experience. I'd like to point o…

I think at this point we've amply demonstrated that the overwhelming majority of people--and I think that's probably a critical mass of people, from a social sense--don't really care about their data and only minimally care about experience.

What do you view is the meaningful reason for users to switch to these other platforms with some kind of better underlying data model? In addition, what's the meaningful reason for a company to adopt such a better underlying data model instead of keeping a data silo and just making better features on top of such a silo?

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

#150

Post by jedmeyers » Wed, Dec 07, 2016, 12:07 AM UTC

BatFastard wrote: post #8

Spirit airlines is a user of dark patterns. But its almost like a game on their site trying to avoid all of the up-sells! I may stay away from LA Fitness just because of this article.

My recent experience with LA Fitness, or City Sports, as they call them here in the SF Bay Area, have been similar to what the video describes. However, it was not as painful as I'd imagined it will be. I went to my account page and clicked on the Cancellation Form link (not necessary but recommended). After several screens I got a cancellation form for my account which I printed and mailed using USPS Certified Mail. After two business days I got an email stating that my account will be closed and when my access privileges will end.